Nowhere like here for beer

Ebenezer’s is a world-renowned bar, but it looks like any other house in the area. If not for the carved wooden sign hanging from the tree out front, you would think it was just a house. Once you step inside, you can hardly believe you’re deep in the woods of western Maine.

The restaurant seats a few dozen people, and the bar is so tiny it would be crowded with 20. But this is beer heaven. Ebenezer’s has 35 Belgian ales on tap and several hundred varieties in bottles, most of them stored in an astonishing beer cellar.

Belgian glasses - tulips and goblets, each tailored to a specific beer - glisten from racks above the gleaming copper-top bar. Behind the bartender is the huge array of tap handles. Dozens and dozens of bottles sit on shelves in the glass case to the right. The iconic pink elephant that is synonymous with the Delirium Tremens strong pale ale, one of the finest beers in the world, sits on a tap at the front of the bar, there in a class by itself.

People come from all over, even from the West Coast, just to sample the selection here. Devotees have been known to plan vacations around a trip to Ebenezer’s. It is no wonder the place has been named the No. 1 bar, beer restaurant, and beer destination in the world by the likes of Beer Advocate magazine and RateBeer.com. (A sign over the entrance boasts about these superlatives.)

So what is the world’s greatest bar doing in the middle of nowhere? Chris and Jen Lively bought the place precisely because of its location. They were living in Los Angeles - a trained chef, Chris was a food and beverage consultant for a hotel chain - and they decided to get out. They came to Maine, where Jen’s parents lived, to have a go at running a restaurant. In 2001, they stumbled across Ebenezer’s, which was up for sale.