The Maine Bagel-Off
Taste your way through Maine’s best bagels
Saturday, October 24, 2026 | 10:00 AM-2:00 PM
Maine Tasting Center | Wiscasset, Maine
The Maine Bagel-Off is back!
Join the Maine Grain Alliance and the Maine Tasting Center for an outdoor celebration of bagels, bakers, local grains, and friendly competition. Meet bagel makers from across the state, sample their featured creations, vote for your favorite, and see who takes home the title of one of Maine’s best bagel makers.
Come for the bagels. Stay for live music, demonstrations, local food and beverage vendors, and a full morning and afternoon celebrating Maine’s growing grain and baking community.
General Admission: $25
Children 12 and under: Free
Your Ticket Includes:
- Tasting-size samples from participating Maine bagel makers
- Schmear for sampling
- A Maine Bagel Passport and event guide
- One token to cast your vote for the People’s Choice Award
- Live music
- The chance to meet Maine bakers and learn about their ingredients, techniques, and businesses
Coffee, full-size bagels, additional baked goods, and merchandise may be available for purchase separately.
What is the Maine Bagel-Off?
You’ll find an exciting range of styles and flavors, from beloved classics to sourdough, wood-fired, Maine-inspired, and boldly creative varieties.The Maine Bagel-Off is a farmers’ market-style tasting event featuring more than a dozen invited bagel makers from across Maine.
Each participating bakery will have its own outdoor booth where you can meet the bakers, learn about their process, and sample the bagel they have selected for the competition.
You’ll find a wide range of styles and flavors, from your favorite classics to sourdough, wood-fired, Maine-inspired, and creatively topped varieties.
After tasting your way through the event, cast your vote for the People’s Choice Award. A panel of guest judges will also evaluate the entries and select the winner of the judged Best Bagel Award.
The winners will be announced at approximately 1:30 PM.
Maine Bagel-Off Open Call: Now Accepting Applications!
Calling all Maine bagel bakers! We’re thrilled to open applications for the Maine Bagel-Off, and we want to hear from you. If you run a licensed food business — a bakery, commercial kitchen, food truck, or catering operation — and you’ve got a bagel worth bragging about, this is your chance to show the state what you’ve got. We’re especially excited to hear from bakers who incorporate local Maine ingredients and Maine-grown grains into their recipes. Applying is free and open to any baking business based in Maine. Fill out our short application to tell us about your bakery, your bagel, and what makes it competition-worthy — we can’t wait to see what’s rising in kitchens across Maine!
Meet The Participants: Coming Soon!
More than a dozen invited bakers will participate in this year’s competition.
The event’s outdoor, farmers’ market-style format gives you the opportunity to speak directly with the people behind the bagels.
Ask them about:
- Fermentation and sourdough
- Boiling and baking methods
- New York, Montreal, and regional bagel styles
- Maine-grown grain and stone-ground flour
- Toppings, seasonings, and flavor combinations
- How and where to find their bagels after the event
Participating bakers will be announced very soon as they are confirmed.
Meet Our Bagel Judges
Reva Castillenti
Reva Castillenti is a bakery consultant, educator and award winning baker specializing in artisan bread, bagels. The focus of Reva’s consulting company Small Good Bakery helps bakeries move from pop-ups into their brick and mortar stage. She has unwittingly become a national premiere bagel judge through her work with Bagelfest, US Bread Awards, and last year’s Maine Bagel Bake off.
Ethan Marks
Ethan Marks is a baker, pastry chef, and educator. As part of the team at Apollo Bagels—known for its sourdough bagels—he helped grow the business from a single retail location to six successful stores across New York and New Jersey. Ethan now operates as an independent bagel consultant specializing in production and scaling, and serves as chair of the Bread Bakers Guild’s Programs Committee.
Made possible thanks to support from:
