Oregon Classics - Black Butte Porter

History
Deschutes first released Black Butte Porter in 1988, and although it is one of the rare breweries to have actually achieved brand recognition beyond a single product, this tasty porter could be considered the flagship.

Legend already surrounds it. In the late 80s, after identifying Bend, restauranteur Gary Fish decided he would open a brewpub. His search for a brewer led him to John Harris, who had helped the McMenamins begin their journey (and is the father of, I believe, Hammerhead). Fish made an early decision he has stuck with throughout the past 18 years to give his carte blanche in the brewhouse. This might have backfired with a different brewer, but Harris was allowed to craft a batch of beers that have become standards of their styles: Obsidian Stout, Mirror Pond Pale, and Bachelor Bitter.

When Deschutes entered the bottled beer market five years later, a curious phenomenon gripped breweries. While the market was exploding with myriad beers of myriad styles, the best sellers were "crossover" beers that sold well with newbies: Widmer Hefeweizen, Saxer Lemon Lager, Portland Brewing's Honey Ale. For the period of time between Black Butte's entry into the bottle market until about 1998, most breweries invested heavily in light, unagressive beers. But not Deschutes. They boldly continued along with their line of uncompromising ales.

As the market began to shake out, the crossover beers lost market share to the more characterful ales produced by other breweries, and many companies didn't survive. Deschutes, which has never put out a beer that was a PR concoction (you'd be surprised how rare that is), has been the only brewery in the state to see steady growth as the market fluctuated. They did it, in no small measure, because Black Butte is a great beer.

Tasting Notes
Porters came to be in 1722 (or'30--sources vary) when London brewer Ralph Harwood introduced a mixture of three beers common at the time. He called the resulting brew "entire" or "entire butt" (butt being an olden days word for "barrel"). Porters from the nearby produce market are purported to have liked it, hence the name. (Jackson disputes this.) As for names, I wonder if Deschutes' decision to name their porter after Central Oregon's Black Butte wasn't a nod to Harwood's "entire butt." Someday I'll ask someone.

The beer appears black in the glass, with a fluffy tan head. However, if you hold it to a light, you can see that it's a very dark amber--and quite bright, with not a hint of cloudiness. The aroma has parts chocolate and parts London pub--don't ask me what that means, I just know it when I stick my nose in a Fuller's or Young's.

It's not surprising that Black Butte emerged from the "crossover beer" days. It is in many ways the perfect crossover itself. The first note is a chocolatey sweetness, supported by a creamy mouthfeel. It isn't a heavy beer, but substantial enough to sate hearty-beer fans. There's a bit of coffee in the final note which, despite the sweetness, makes for a dry finish.

It is as near a universal beer as I know and I have yet to encounter a beer drinker who doesn't like it. And even a few who "don't like beer" like Black Butte.

Statistics
Malts: Pale, crystal, chocolate
Hops: NA
Alcohol by volume: 5.2%
Original Gravity: 1.056
Bitterness Units: 30
Available: Throughout the Northwest

Rating
A Northwest classic.

Oregon Classics - Terminal Gravity IPA

Everyone is familiar with the story of IPA: during the glory days of the English Empire, casks of beer brewed in Burton--the brewing capital of England and the city that perfected pale ale--were sent across the globe in the holds of ships. The jewel in the English crown was India (which was also the source of many English jewels), and the viceroy needed fresh, tasty beer to cut through the dust of the Gangetic Plain. Thus was brewed a strong pale ale, liberally hopped. The strength kept the beer from wilting under Indra's heat, the hops innoculated it against the Subcontinent's abundant microbes. It became known as India Pale Ale.

You may not be as familiar with America's role in the style's durability. Bridging the gap from the time of the first British IPAs, a brewery founded in Albany, New York by Scottish immigrant Peter Ballantine began production of IPA in 1840. Ballantine's became one of the larger regional breweries by the late 19th Century, and survived prohibition by selling malt syrup to homebrewers. Shockingly, one of the beers it made throughout the 20th Century was an IPA which, in the early 1960s boasted an original gravity of 1.070 and 60 IBUs. Midcentury America was producing IPAs like Burton once did. Over time, the strength grew weaker, as did the company until, amid red ink in 1969, the brewery sold out. Ballantine's still exists, but went the way of Weinhard's. It is now owned by Miller.

All of this preamble is to lay the ground for why Terminal Gravity is an Oregon classic. Many breweries hedge their bets and offer IPAs that won't overwhelm the drinker with alcohol and hops. Some of these, notably BridgePort, are amazing. But they wouldn't survive in an English ship on the journey to Injah. Terminal Gravity would, and I imagine it would arrive tasting mighty good.

Unlike Ballantine, Terminal Gravity has ridden IPA to success, somehow finding distribution throughout Portland (the brewery is located in Enterprise, in the Wallowas in the Northeast corner of the state). Since I took the picture above, the brewery has gone through an expansion and outgrown its brewery/pub bungalow, ensuring the capacity to keep sending its IPA on the somewhat less ardurous journey in a distribution truck down I-84 to the Rose City.

Tasting Notes
Pours a surprisingly dark, deep amber/orange with a nice head that, not suprisingly, doesn't survive the alcohol long. Malt and alcohol dominate the nose, hops singing harmony.

It's easy to brew a big beer adequately, but hard to do it well. Keeping the various elements in balance is the trick, and TG hits it right on the head. It's a burly beer, with a thick mouthfeel and warming alcohol. Hops seem to run along a continuum of flavor that starts with the alcohol and ends with a crisp citrusy note. The aftertaste includes a distinctive quality I searched for a long time to identify. Maybe chicory. It's a beer like a meal--so hearty and rich that it feels like you're drinking something as hearty as soup. It even warms the belly.

Stats
I could find no more information than was available on the bottle: 6.7% abv. You wouldn't question a beer that came halfway around the world, and I guess Terminal Gravity assumes you won't question them, either. Fair enough.

Rating
A Northwest classic.

Oregon Classics - Full Sail Amber

There is now a recognized beer style called "American amber ale." It's a style that didn't exist before about 1985, and one born, I'm sad to report, partly out of ignorance. In England, if you brewed an amber-toned, malty ale with notable but moderate hop character, you'd call it a best bitter or possibly extra special bitter (ESB). But in the US, brewpubs, brewing almost exclusively ales, knew of pale ales, browns, porters, and stouts. Apparently to round out the spectrum, they began filling in the gaps. In between pale and brown were added "amber" and "red."

Of those early breweries, the first to get a product to the supermarket in Oregon was Full Sail, which began bottling beers shortly after its founding in 1987. It was a modest beginning. Their first year, they brewed but 2,000 barrels, and their operation looked more like large scale homebrewing than small-scale commercial brewing. After they brewed a batch, two employees bottled and capped the beer by hand while the receptionist prepared the labels with glue in the office.

The first beer was a golden (a beer whose color landed it on the other side of "pale" in the beer spectrum), and its brewer was Dave Logsdon, who left the brewery the next year to found Wyeast Labs ( a yeast manufacturer critical in the rise of American microbrewing). In came Jamie Emmerson, fresh from Seibel, and the future flagship Full Sail beer, Amber.

Among early beers to find a following, I recall Full Sail being an early alternative to the insanely-popular Widmer Hefeweizen. Although by today's standards it looks a little tame, at the time, it was stronger and hoppier than any beer Oregonians were used to drinking. It was the beer beer geeks drank.

Full Sail is sometimes credited with having founded the style (though I'm sure some breweries dissent), and it's not hard to see why. The style description offered by the American Brewers Association is almost exactly a description of Full Sail, which may verify the claim:

"American amber is noteworthy for its relatively even balance between malt and hop expression.... American amber is also distinguished from its American pale ale parent by its fuller body and mouthfeel. Much of this comes from the liberal use of crystal malt, which not only contributes a pronounced caramelly sweetness, but also the style's signature red color. That same impartiality also applies to hops... [C]itrusy Northwest hops like Cascades are most common."

As beer tastes have moved forward, Full Sail Amber has become the beer geek's session ale. It is an impressive example of rich flavor in a restrained beer, and has justifiably joined the pantheon Northwest classics. (By way of comparison, try one with a bottle with Flat Tire Amber and judge for yourself.)

Tasting Notes
The beer is a fairly dark copper with hints of red and a characteristic creamy head that doesn't dissipate completely even through the last sip. It has a faintly citrus aroma from Cascade hops and an inviting caramel note.

As the Brewers Association suggests, it is a beer in full balance, neither malt or hop character dominating. The quality of the malt is sometimes described as "nutty," but it's grainy to me, a flavor I attribute to the crystal malts. They impart a slightly astringent or tannic quality. The mouthfeel is rich and creamy, and the hops, with their citrus flavor, give the beer a sweetly comforting quality. However, the longer you drink the beer, the more the hops come to the fore, and toward the end you appreciate their stealth.

Not all beers have to be intense to be great. Full Sail Amber is a wonderfully drinkable beer, one that never rings flat, and one you enjoy drinking through an entire session. Few smaller beers have this much going for them, and almost no other American ambers.

Stats
Malts: Pale, crystal, chocolate
Hops: Cacade, Mt. Hood.
Alcohol by volume: 6%
Original Gravity: N/A
Bitterness Units: 42
Available: Throughout the Northwest

Rating
A Northwest classic.