PIB Wrap-up

Ah, PIB, already I miss ye. Can it be that I have to wait 364 days for your bounty to return? Thank heavens we live in Beervana--my pain can be assuaged somewhat in the interim.

A couple of themes emerged from this year's fest. First, the emphasis on local brews. American beers represented the second-largest share of real estate at PIB, causing some in my crowd whinge. Why, after all, should we devote attention to beer we can get year-round when there are so many we can't get? A fair point. But the local beers stood out all the more by being surrounded by world classics. If we fail to recognize some of our best locals as world class, it's perhaps a failure of proximity--you always imagine that the ancient, distant breweries have the secrets of the beeriverse we have decades to master. Seeing our beers there was a reminder that Oregon brewers are among the finest on the planet.

Another theme: hops are hot, yeast is not. The first or second PIB I attended had several funky Belgians--including two or three world-class lambics (Cantillon, I believe). This year, there were no straight lambics and the fruit lambics were all of the large commercial variety--emphasis on sweet. Most of the Belgians tended to emphasize strength over sour--probably a reflection of Portlanders' tastes. On the other hand, there were hops a'poppin. Even in Belgian and German beers.

My notes in a moment, but one more comment. As we walked into the event on Friday, one of my fellow fest-goers looked at me and said, "So, what should I try? I'm following you--you're the beer Sherpa." Very nice (nevermind whether it's true.) You may all now call me the Beer Sherpa.

Okay, the notes (in the order I drank 'em):

Blaugies La Moneuse [saison, Belgium, 8% abv]. Malty; more akin to an abbey than saison. Extremely effervescent--it took the pourer about five minutes to get the head to settle. A bit of grating tinniness that clashes with the nice (if inappropriate) sour note. Rating: average.

L’abbaye de Saint Bon-Chien [abbey ale, Switzerland, 10.5% abv]. Aroma of a Flemish red--sweetly sour. Garnet. Realy layered flavor. Cry and alcoholic, with a spicy note underneath. Slightly thin in body, reminding me of a wine. Vents volatile essence. An authentically original ale. Rating: excellent.

Mahr's Ungespundet [lager, Germany, 4.9% abv]. Looks like a hefeweizen--cloudy golden. Nice, rich beer. Clean, straightforward. Not a lot to say--a good session. Rating: Good.

Caracole Saxo [Belgian Blonde, Belgium, 8% abv]. A wonderfully floral nose--lavender? Strikes me as a saison--very summery, but with the cellary quality I associate with Dupont. Extremely effervescent. Spicy and dry, but with a soft mouthfeel, drawn out by what taste like floral botanicals. The best beer I had a the fest. Rating: a classic.

Full Sail Black Gold Imperial Stout [10.5% abv]. (What I wrote on Sunday was verbatim from my notes.) a beer so tasty it was like a liquid brownie. Alternately, it was compared to an after-dinner coffee drink, spiked with bourbon. Rating: excellent.

Rochefort 10 [strong Trappist ale, Belgium, 11.3% abv]. This beer has a lot of character, but it's so sweet, big, and full of alcohol and candi sugar that it resists me. Time to have some sausage. Subtlety is not this beer's virtue. Rating: incomplete.

[I did, in fact, have a sausage after the Rochefort--a three-quarter pound "big boy" that got me back in the game.]

Hitachino Celebration [eisbock, Japan, 7.6% abv]. Richly peppery. Notable alcohol, but the beer isn't heavy or cloying. (Note in the margins: "Obviously, my adjectives, if not my palate, are failing me.") Rating: good.

Westmalle Tripel [Belgium, 9.5% abv]. Another intense abbey. I note mainly that my palate collapses in the face of this much alcohol and density. This beer bullies me around, taunting me with it's heft. What I devine: the beer shares some of the character of Chimay (the red label?). Some candi sugar fizz on the alcohol. Probably exquisite, but I have a hard time penetrating its depth. Rating: incomplete.

Birrificio Cassissona [Belgian-style specialty ale, Italy, 7% abv]. An effervescent, beguiling ale. The cassis is a minor note, adding some sweetness, but mostly a dark-fruit quality that might otherwise come from malt and yeast. Buckwheat color. The sweet is offset by notes of bitter and tart--those three notes are in perfect harmony. I imagine this would be a delightful complement to hearty foods. Rating: excellent.

Verhaeghe Duchesse de Bourgogne [Flemish red, Belgium, 6.2% abv]. Hits the sweet spot. Classic Flemish red, which I find very hard to describe. Predominant flavor is a balance between sweet and sour, neither overwhelming the beer. Rating: excellent.

St Sylvestre Gavroche [supposedly also a Flemish red, France, 8.5%]. "Gavroche = gagroach." (Sorry, it was getting late in the fest.) Rating: not poisonous.

Walking Man Blootvooetse Bruin [hybrid style, US, 5.3%]. A malty brown ale with a touch of sour. Sally claims to be able to taste the Kombucha, but I think she's faking. Mighty quaffable. Rating: good.

PIB - Video

Here's a minute forty-six of muddy, low-res video, this time on Youtube. Last time, my one-minute clip was high-res, and I got a complaint or two. This time, we have easy-to-play low res. See what you think. (I seem to not be able to embed it in the post, so click on the pic:



Cheers--

International Beerfest First Impressions

This is a preliminary post for anyone who's still planning on heading down to the International Beerfest this afternoon. We have some early must-tries, based on a sampling of about 16 beers. I'll post a fuller round-up later today or tomorrow.

Big Winners
Saxo Blonde (Brasserie La Caracole, Belgium) - has a softly floral nose that suggests actual infusions of flowers--lavender comes to mind, but I can't say. It has a cellary quality, and is effervescent, dry, and spicy in the manner of a saison, yet has that very soft, flowery note.

Black Gold Imperial Stout (Full Sail, Hood River) - a beer so tasty it was like a liquid brownie. Alternately, it was compared to an after-dinner coffee drink, spiked with bourbon.

Duchesse de Bourgogne (Brouwerij Verhaeghe, Belgium) - A classic Flemish red I sampled toward the end of the evening. A perfect mixture of sour, sweet, and dry that got raves from our group. Despite the 3-ticket pricetag, even the cheapskates went in for a pour.

Best to Skip
Oud Beersel Kriek (Brouwerij Oud Beersel, Belgium) - A sugary-sweet confection with almost no sourness or complexity.

Jenlain Biere de Garde (Duyck, France) - Cloyingly sweet. The one real dud I sampled.

More to come--including a video clip of the event.

Preview - Portland International Beerfest

Portland International Beerfest, July 14-16
North Park Blocks
Friday 4-10pm
Saturday Noon-10pm
Sunday Noon-7pm
www.portland-beerfest.com

There isn't a way to do an adequate preview of the Portland International Beerfest short of, I guess, getting Michael Jackson to write it. According the website, there will be 126 beers there, 95 from foreign lands. I'm no novice, but safe to say that I haven't had the chance to try 80% or more of the beers yet. So, disclaimers out of the way, let's get to business.

The 126 beers pouring represent 12 countries, but one stands out: Belgium, with 49 beers. (Germany, at number two, has but twenty.) For beer geeks, this is good news indeed. Belgian brewers are the great innovators in the beer world, and they will try brewing anything. Despite having some of the oldest and most traditional breweries in the world (Orval, a brewery run by Trappist monks, is 900 years old), it also features one of the most vigorous batch of new microbrewers outside of Portland. One theme I noticed this year is how many Belgian breweries are taking their cues from Beervana to brew massive, hoppy beers. So don't be shy--take the opportunity to dive into the wild, weird, wonderful world of Belgian brewing.

In addition to the Belgians, you will also have the opportunity to try some of the rarest beers in the world, as PIB gathers together artisnal beers from some tiny breweries in Europe. (Whether they're good or not is another matter--not every microbrewery is a Hair of the Dog; some are obscure for a reason.)

Having looked pretty carefully through the list of beers, I've compiled a list by type that I think are worth highlighting. You will follow your own muse, but here are a few to keep your eyes on.

Stats: Austria (2), Belgium (49), Czech Republic (2), England (10), France (3), Germany (20), Italy (2), Japan(2), Poland (3), Scotland (1), Switzerland (1), US (31). Total: 126

Extremely Rare

• L’abbaye de Saint Bon-Chien (Switzerland) - Only a thousand bottles of this Swiss abbey ale are making it across the pond in 2006. Before bottling, the beer is aged in wine barrels. [10.5% abv]
  
• La Gnomette (Belgium) - A bit more of this beer is coming to the US--40 kegs--but it's far from an abundance. Brasserie d'Achouffe changes the recipe each year. [9% abv]
  
• Uerige Doppel-Sticke (Germany) - This is a German alt of the kind that inspired the Widmer Brothers when they brewed up their first batch of Ur-Alt. It weighs in at an astonishing 75 BUs--amazing for a German beer. [8.5% abv]
  
• Pierre de Rouge (Oregon) - Brewed by Max Tieger for Tuck's brewery (in Tigard) just before he left to start his own brewery. A Belgian style red which, once its gone, will be gone for good. [7% abv]
  

Rare
Most beery types have sampled Trappist ale from widely-distributed Chimay and Orval. But have you tried the other monks' ales? You'll have a chance with Rochefort's most robust abbey ale, Rochefort 10 [11.3% abv], as well as Westmalle Tripel [9.5% abv], and the newest of the Trappists (founded in '91) Achel Extra [9.5% abv] (all from Belgium). The former two are among the most famous in the world, and I'm embarrassed to say I've never tried them.

As I'm on a saison kick, I would like to direct your attention to two of four offered: Blaugies La Moneuse [8% abv] and Fantome Saison [8% abv] (again both from Belgium). La Moneuse is a maltier, less hoppy saison than Dupont (it's named for a local bandit), while Fantome features a more layered, spiced palate. I recall that it used to be brewed with peppercorns (and may still), one of the most delightful ingredients I've ever encountered.

Also:

• Oud Beersel Kriek (Belgium) - Comes from a brewery that closed to much anguish in 2002, only to be reoponed last year. Krieks are sophisticated fruit lambics with a sour-dry note, more akin to wine than American fruit beers. [6.5% abv]
• Meantime IPA (England) - An IPA from a brewery I've never even heard of. It's in Greenwich, so hence the name. [7.5% abv]
• Black Gold-Bourbon Barrel (Oregon) - A bourbon-aged imperial stout. What more do you need to say? [10.5% abv]
• Caracole Saxo (Belgium) - This is a bit of a wild card, catching my eye as a brewery I've never even heard of. Takes its name from the word "snail" in the local Namurois dialect. [8% abv]

Rare Styles
There are a number of traditional beer styles out there that we don't have much of an opportunity to sample in their native form. This is one of the main reasons I go to PIB--to sample some of the styles I've read so much about.

• Monchshof Schwarzbier (Germany) - A dark lager, something like a porter, but drier and lighter. [4.9% abv]
• Black Boss Baltic Porter (Poland) - Speaking of lagered porters, that's what a Baltic Porter is. I've tried Black Boss, and it's quite nice. [8.1% abv]
• Klaster Dark (Czech Republic) - Another dark lager, but a Bohemian variety. [4% abv]
• Mahr's Ungespundet (Germany) - This is an unfiltered artisnal German beer, harkening back to an earlier, less fussy time in German brewing. [4.9% abv]
• Duchesse de Bourgogne (Belgium) - A Flemish red ale (the classic style of which is produced by Rodenbach). This style is typically nearly as sharp as a lambic, though the quality of the sourness is unique. [6.2% abv]
• Val-Dieu Bruin (Belgium) - Oud bruins (brown) are another regional specialty of Flanders, but these are sweeter and less sour than other Belgians. Liefmans is the classic producer. [8% abv]
• Duyck Jenlain Amber (France) - France's sole native style of beer is the biere de garde, and it is quite hard to find an indiginous example. Duyck is one. [6.5% abv]

Weird
Finally, there are some beers that defy category but look promising. I have the least amount of confidence in these, but I wouldn't be surprised if one of the transcendent beers of the fest is in this batch.

• Blootvoetse Bruin
(Washington) - I wouldn't mention this save that it comes from one of Beervana's finest breweries, Walking Man. Despite the name, which suggests brown, this is a take on a Flanders Red that gets the sourness from--I kid you not--Kombucha tea fungus. [5.3% abv]
• De Proef Flemish Primative
(Belgium) - A Belgian offering with several strains of brettanomyces, the wild yeast strain that give lambics their funk. Several! [9% abv]
• Cassisona (Italy) - What makes this lambic interesting is where it comes from: Italy. There appears to be some kind of microbrewery movement happening down in the Boot. Worth seeing how they're doing. [7% abv]
• Kerkom Bink Bloesem (Belgium) - One of those funky Belgian beers with a lot of weird ingredients, including pear syrup. Who knows. [7.1% abv]
• Melbourn Strawberry (England) - This is a British fruit ale which may or may not be worth trying (I can't tell if it's just a sugary confection or is akin to lambics, as one site implies). [4.1% abv]
• Hitchino Nest Celebration Ale
(Japan) - A Japanese spiced eisbock (a beer made and then frozen, with some of the ice removed to make it more robust). [7.6% abv]

Looking back at the list, I see I've recommended 26 beers from ten countries, which is, I guess, a slight winnowing. That's the nature of this fest--too many beers, too little time. Ah well, there are worse quandries to find yourself in.

Cheers!

Post updated July 14, 2006.

Yeast

To arrive at beer, you need a minimum of four ingredients: malt, water, hops, and yeast. The first three contribute various elements to the finished product, but it's the last one that actually makes things swing. Yeast is a living, single-celled creature (a fungus, actually) that rather miraculously gobbles up the sugar in the malt and excretes alcohol and carbon dioxide.

We tend to focus quite a bit on the kinds of malt and hops that go into a beer (sometimes even the water), but the more you learn about beer, the more you realize what a profound effect yeast has on the final flavor. It is also the one secret ingredient--as a living culture, yeast strains change and evolve and become part of the signature flavor of a brewery. I've had brewers give me a scandalized look for even asking what kind of yeast they use. Yet it is the yeast, as much as anything, that gives a brewery's beer its character.

The fascinating thing is that, as a homebrewer, you can sometimes just appropriate that ingredient whole cloth. Many breweries bottle-condition their beer, relying on the living yeasts in the beer to produce just enough waste for carbonation. After the fermentation process has ended--yeast has turned all the convertable sugars it can into alcohol--breweries dose the beer with just a dash of sugar or malt before they throw it in the bottle, to give the yeast a little more to work with.

It's actually possible to take that small amount of yeast and culture it up to quantities large enough to pitch in homebrews. After wondering for years how well this would work, I've taken the plunge, and have started to work up the yeast from that bottle of Saison Dupont I reviewed a couple days ago. So far, so good. I started out adding about 2 ounces, and yesterday bumped it up to about ten times that amount. One more stage and it should be adequate to pitch in a standard five-gallon batch.

I also picked up a bottle of bottle of Panil, which is actually an Italian version of a Flanders Red (purpoted to be every bit as good as Rodenbach, which I couldn't track down), and Cantillon Organic Lambic for additional culturing. Reviews of those as I need new yeast.

July - Oregon's Beer Month

Twenty years ago (okay, nineteen), the first Oregon Brewers Festival graced Waterfront Park. It was a slightly more meager event, but auspicious--attendance far outpaced organizers' predictions. Now, nearly two decades later, the celebration has expanded. Now there's a brewer's dinner, a blind tasting, a parade, and in the past, even a competing fest across the Willamette for all the small Oregon breweries whose beers were spurned by the OBF*.

And there's even a competing fest--the Portland International Beerfest, which kicks off at 4pm this Friday and runs through Sunday in the North Park Blocks. I'll put up a preview for PIB later this week, but I wanted to make a pitch now so the literally millions of readers of Beervana can plan their weekend accordingly.

You know the OBF. You know the heat, the sweat, the screams. You go partly for the beer, but partly because it has the feel of 20,000-person kegger. To PIB, by comparison, you go exclusively for the beer. Where else can you get a taster of Westmalle Tripel, Fantome Saison, Pinkus Ur-Pils, Monchshof Schwarzbier, and Deschutes Mirror Mirror barleywine all in one place. Nowhere! It's a bit more expensive than the regular fest, but with apologies to our friends from Belmont Station, have you seen what saison is selling for by the bottle? Plus, if you're dying for Oregon beer, Full Sail Old Boardhead and Black Gold--Burbon Barrel, Deschutes 18th Anniversary Pilsner, Rogue UberFest, Pelican Bridal Ale and more will be there (none of which, I'll hazard a guess, will be pouring at OBF).

If I could only make one beer event a year, it'd be this one. Don't miss it.
__________________
*Holler if this is happening and you have details.

Beers of Summer - Saison Dupont

It's not really appropriate to call saison an "endangered species," among Belgian styles as Michael Jackson did in Great Beers of Belgium ten years ago. (Actually, his description is probably largely responsible for engendering the international interest that revived it.) There was a rennaissance in Belgium of traditional styles, and a minor one here with mostly less than traditional styles. The exception is Hennepin from New York's Ommegang, the only American I've tasted that comes close to the Belgian originals.

But among all saisons, the classic example is Dupont. Others exist--from Silly, Pipaix, Lefebvre, and Fantome, but these are harder to get. Saison Dupont is available at many supermarkets (though, as always, you're better off to get it at a retailer that takes care of its beer).

As a style, saisons are a collection of typically artisinal ales, typical of an earlier era when it was difficult to brew in the summer (the yeast gets funky at high temperatures). Thus it was brewed in the spring ("la saison de mars"--the season of march) to be laid down for a few months until summer. They ranged from very low alcohol beers (according to Jackson, "children's strength") to robust versions of 8% or more. Their palate is crisp, mildly tart, and hoppy. For people who enjoy IPAs (ie, almost all denizens of Beervana), I think saisons would be a wonderful beer to try.

Tasting Notes
It pours out a hazy, sunny gold--a chill haze that dissipates as the beer warms--with a very vigorous bead. It is so bright in the glass that it makes me want to go into a purple metaphor about capturing sunlight--but I'll desist. It features one of the richest, fluffiest, almost architectural heads of any beer--a head that stays through the final sip.

When I poke my nose into a beer, I conduct a forensic sweep, beginning with the yeast. I was initially struck by a cellary quality of Saison Dupont; in this case, it's not musty, but more of a mineral quality. As a minor note, there are a bit of hops, but Dupont has an alchemical depth in its aroma that comes from the yeast.

Crispness and a dryness are the hallmarks of the saison style, making it closer to a chardonnay than bock. It has a tartness characteristic of Belgian beers, but in a minor key; it's balanced by a mineral dry (partly, perhaps, from hard water) accentuated by Kent Goldings hops--lots of 'em. (The Belgians make classic regional beers, but they are far from parochial: borrowing a classic English hop to produce this classic Belgian ale is in keeping with Belgian virtuosity, and, I like to think, a tip of the hat to the kinds of beers like IPAs that may have helped inspire Dupont.) This is one of the hoppiest Beligian styles, and to my mind why it is tailor made for the Northwest palate. Finally, sometime after the initial, alcoholic first note and subsequent notes of tart and dry, but before the long, hoppy finish, the malts have their moment, offering a surprising amount of sweet fruit.

I will confess that if I were confined to a desert island with only five beers to drink the rest of my life, Saison Dupont would be one. So for that reason, you'll have to forgive me for the effusive review.

Stats
Malts: Pale malts.
Hops: Kent Goldings (maybe also Styrian and Hallertau)
Alcohol by volume: 6.5%
Original Gravity: 1.054.
Bitterness Units: Unavailable.
Available: Grocery stores with decent beer selections, Belmont Station.

Rating
A classic.

Beers of Summer - Sam Adams Boston Lager

For Independence Day, I can think of no better beer to review than Sam Adams Boston Lager*. What says independence more than a beer with a brewer, patriot on the label?

To begin, let's clarify something: there is no such style as a "Boston lager," This is part of Sam Adams' genius. By minting their own style, Boston Lager has now become its own thing. Perhaps this is how Newcastle Brown started. In any case, I guess you could call it accurate: the beer in question is brewed in Boston (or was, originally) and it's a lager. Perhaps due to its enigmatic designation, it has grown to be one of the best-selling craft beers on the market, and deservedly so.

Tasting Notes
In the glass, Boston Lager looks quite a lot like a scotch. Not so much when you pour it out--then it's a rich amber with a vigorous bead. But if you, as I did, accidentally leave an inch in your glass until the head and fizz have passed and the beer has become still, you could easily mistake it for Cragganmore. (Or is it Oban I'm thinking of? Nevermind.)

The beer is crisp and dry to my palate. The hops--classic German noble varieties--are present but not forward, as in a pilsner. But, neither do they hang back as in a helles. The malting is clean and smooth, with just a hint of biscuit. Throughout a single sip, I find the beer dry--from the first notes, through the clean malt middle, and to the aromatic hoppy finish. It is the rare beer that pleases on a hot summer day as well as a cool autumn day (in fact, I think the style in which it has the most in common is Octoberfest), but Boston Lager does.

I rarely choose to buy a lager when any kind of ale is available, but Sam is an exception.

Statistics
Hops: Mittelfruh and Tettnang.
Malts: Two-row pale and caramel
Alcohol by Volume: 4.9%
Original Gravity: 13 degrees Plato
Bitterness Units: unkown.
Available: Everywhere.

Rating
A classic.
_____________
*Yes, it is true that I write this on the 6th of July, but I intended to write it on the fourth.

The Wisdom of Beer Video

I have begun to experiment with beer videos, an exploration into whether beer can be made interesting enough to merit its capture on film. You may be the judge by viewing the first installment here (or clicking the photo).

A subsidiary exploration involves looking at the two online sites (Youtube, Google) for form and function. Youtube allows you to paste the clip directly into the post; Google apparently not. However, Youtube only allows you to load 100 MB vids, which is bupkis (my 62-second short went 225).

Anyway, your thoughts are appreciated.

Beers of Summer - Eugene City Honey Orange

Before beginning this review, several disclaimers:

1. The actual, full name of this review is Eugene City Brewery Honey Orange Wheat Ale, which for the purposes of titling has been cut down to size.

2. Eugene City is actually Rogue, which bought the brewery in 2004, and was formerly West Brothers, but was not actually formerly the brewery established in 1866, as the label claims.

3. This is not the same beer brewed under previous ownership, which was a wild, thick, cakey ride that actually had orange in it. It was totally unique and unprecedented in the annals of brewing (or anyway, those with which I was acquainted).

4. Honey Orange Wheat Ale is actually a modified Wit.

Tasting Notes
What is the quintessential summer beer? Belgian White Beers have a reasonable claim. Their name derives from the very pale, cloudy color (white is stretching it), but they might more properly be called orange, after the predominant flavor element. Traditionally, whites are made with coriander and orange peels from curacao oranges, as well as unmalted wheat (which contributes the cloudiness). Ironically, the orange flavor comes from the coriander and tart punch of the yeast; in the absence of hop flavor, the orange peels provide some balance.

Rogue's variant is sweet--overly so. Whites balance the innate sweetness of wheat malt and coriander with a tartness derived from the yeast and a bitterness from the orange rind. The balance is key, and Rogue's version doesn't get the bitter or tart right. It's almost like an alcopop, and I imagine few 17-year-old girls would turn one down. The coriander provides most of the character, but unbalanced coriander tends to turn syrupy--anyway it does here.

The style is hard to mess up, and I enjoyed this beer as far as it went, but compared to some of the world standards--Hoegaarden, Celis--Eugene City falls short. I'd love to see Rogue go back to the original.

Stats
Hops: Unknown
Malts: Unknown
Alcohol By Volume: Unknown
Original Gravity: Unknown
BUs: Unknown
Available: The pub is located at 844 Olive Street, in Eugene. Bottles (22 oz.) are available at the Rogue Brewery in Newport. Via Rick: it's also available at the Rogue Public House (formerly Portland Brewing Flanders Brewery) on NW 14th and Flanders in Portland.

Rating
Average.

Post updated July 2, 2006.

Beers of Summer - Full Sail Session

Full Sail's Session Lager is a lesson in a (stubby) bottle. No brewery suffered the downturn in the mid-90s more than Full Sail, which had just expanded to a 250,000-barrel brewery. They expected to grow from the 80,000 barrels they were brewing, but instead shrank 25%. There followed a series of label redesigns (they've had four in all) as the brewery cast about, trying to find its identity.

They ultimately landed on a heavily-researched style that combined various visual cues to clue in their target audience that they were not only good beer, but hipster beer to boot. (John Foyston wrote an unforgettable article about the process, which sadly isn't even cached online anymore.) The last brick in that wall was the Session, a beer designed to reach out and grab young Pabst drinkers by the collar. Foyston wrote an article on the introduction of Session, and that is archived. Here's how he described it:

[Full Sail founders Irene] Firmat and [Jamie] Emmerson figured out what to put in the stubbies when they finally solved the Mystery of the Reluctant Neighbor. He'd drop by their house to pick up his daughter from a play date, they'd offer him a Full Sail beer and he always turned it down. "He's this big guy, an ex-U of O linebacker," Firmat said. "And I always thought, 'Now there's somebody who looks like a beer drinker.'

"He was a little embarrassed, but he finally told us that he didn't like craft beers, that they were too big, too bitter, too heavy," she said. "We realized that there are people who want to drink a Heineken, or a Corona or a Beck's. You're not going to get them to drink an ale, so we decided to make a beer that would appeal to them."

It's a good strategy: instead of bemoaning the fact that imports cut into the market for craft beers, Full Sail created a beer -- and a brand -- for the import lager drinkers. The label bears only the small initials FS with a tiny 47 underneath -- the number of employees in this employee-owned brewery.

Given that Pabst is a purely market-driven phenomenon (don't believe me?--do a blind tasting and see if you can distinguish it from other national macropilsners), packaging a beer to appeal to the highbrow-averse was a stroke of brilliance. Stubbies died out when the last of the regionals were snapped up, and now the only odd-sized bottles are in collections. Session has the distinction of being totally retro and ultramodern simultaneously.

I don't actually know how Session is selling, but whenever I go to the store and watch someone pick up a half rack, it's someone who looks like he was trying to decide between Pabst and Session. And I've seen a lot of those guys.

Tasting Notes
But marketing aside, what's it taste like? Sessions, as you know, are designed to be drunk in a "session" of drinking. It's a category of beer, rather than a style. Sessions should be low in alcohol and not overly aggressive of palate.

FS Session is actually revolutionary in more ways than just the palate. True, it looks like a standard macropilsner when you pour it out (should you ever pour it out, which is unlikely)--pale (not as pale as Bud, but pale) and effervescent. The brewery plays along with the ruse, citing pre-prohibition pilsners as inspiration (in order to recall in the drinkers mind, perhaps, Henry Weinhard's?). But the palate is clearly borrowing a lot more from pale ales than pilsners. The hops ("American") have a note of sweet citrus and imply Cascades. You'll find esters in the palate as well--or psuedo esters, anyway.

In short, it's a tin-can beer for people who like pale ales. I don't know why no one else thought of it first.

Stats
Hops: "American" and "European"
Malts: Unknown (but there is a "touch of wheat")
Alcohol By Volume:5.1%
Original Gravity: Unknown
BUs: Unknown

Rating
As a stand-alone beer, good. Compared to any beer that has ever appeared in a stubby bottle, a classic.

Don't Buy Your Czechvar at Freddy's...

...No matter how alluring it appears on the shelf.

Just about ready to sit down and do a review of Czechvar--at long last--and I discovered I'd gotten a bad bottle. Not skunked, but flatish, gassy, and soapy. I've had many an original Bud (this is the beer Adolphus ripped off for St. Louis' signature beer), and they were lusciously rich, subtle, and smooth. So the official review will have to wait.

Sorry.

New Lucky Lab (NW)

1945 NW Quimby
Monday - Saturday 11:00 a.m. to midnight
Sundays noon - 10:00 p.m.
Minors until 9 p.m.

Beers: Black Lab Stout, Hawthorne's Best Bitter, Dog Day IPA, Stumptown Porter, Reggie's Red, Organic Golden Ale, seasonals and specials.

Portland urban historian Carl Abbott has described the difference between a river city and a coastal city--relevant particularly in comparisons with Portland and other West Coast cities. Coastal cities like Seattle and San Francisco are port towns--they look out toward the world. They are more urbane and sophisticated, more worldly. River cities, by comparison, tend to have a more regional orientation; they're parochial and working-class (Pittsburgh and Cleveland).

Portland, unlike its coastal sister cities, is a river city. It has historically been a working-class town. In WWII, 1000 ships came out of Swan Island. Until recently, the sight of logs coming up the Willamette through town wasn't uncommon. Portland was a nexus for the cattle, produce, and timber the state produced. And, of course, our parochialism--even in this post-industrial age of "creative classes"--is legend.

All of this is relevant to understand what the Lucky Lab is going for. The ur-vibe they created on Hawthorne was old Portland--industrial and working class. (Their follow-up in Multnomah Village was sort of in that vein, but the style went through a west-side spin cycle and looks a wee bit more ... suburban.) They have tried to replicate that almost to the letter in their new site on NW Quimby, having located one of the last islands of industry in the Northwest for their new pub. From their east, the wicked Pearl encroaches, from the south and west, the effects of Trendy Third and Restaurant Row. One imagines their outpost doesn't have long to cling to its identity.

The Pub
No worries. Something about Portland keeps the river qualities alive, even amid the rush of wealth and youth. The Lab has made a counterintuitive gamble, recreating the Hawthorne pub's vibe piece by piece. Built in a warehouse, the pub occupies a vast space that is scattered with a field of tables. A separate room has been notched out of the pub, just as in the Hawthorne site. The long, handcrafted wooden bar is there, as is the outside seating, suitable for canine companions. Even the menu is identical to Hawthorne's. Two differences: the floor is cement, not scarred wood, and the light fixtures are fashioned from kegs (very cool). In short: new pub, same as the old pub.

Given that a few blocks away BridgePort has renovated its formerly river city pub to a haute Pearl haunt (Seattle wannabe), the Lucky Lab's move seems even more counterintuitive. So far, the gamble looks like a risky one. I've been to the Lab twice, and both times it was sparsely populated (BridgePort was packed). When no one is in the pub, it feels a little lonely--that vast space needs to have quite a few bodies to avoid feeling empty. On the other hand, it's instantly relaxing to walk into the place. It feels like home to me. The beers are the same, and once I got a pint into my hand, I was happy as a clam, despite the empty seats.

I am interested in the gamble. The Lucky Lab is betting on that old, parochial Portland. Even in the trendy Northwest, that aesthetic persists--we remain, after all, a river city. If the new pub can survive while people find it (the location's sort of weird), I wouldn't be surprised to see it become as popular as the old Hawthorne site. I hope so--we definitely can't have too many Lucky Labs.

[Update: By coincidence, the Portland Tribune has an interesting article on the future of the Lucky Lab's new neighborhood--Slabtown. "Hittner’s window looks out on an abandoned warehouse and parking lot — a warehouse that rumors say will be turned into condominiums soon. And it reminds him of years ago, when this area just west of the tony Pearl District was teeming with industrial life. And when dozens of factory workers and longshoremen would frequent his restaurant every day, for bacon and eggs, a quick lunch, even to cash a paycheck."

More here.]

Updated 6/27/06

Lucky Lab

[Note: I'm about to post a review of the new Northwest Lucky Lab, but since it refers to the original, I'm posting a review I wrote in 2000 (I think). Don't expect reviews of this depth to continue.]

915 SE Hawthorne
Monday - Saturday 11:00 a.m. to midnight
Sundays noon - 10:00 p.m.
Minors until 9 p.m.

Beers: Black Lab Stout, Hawthorne's Best Bitter, Dog Day IPA, Stumptown Porter, Reggie's Red, Organic Golden Ale, seasonals and specials.

Like restaurants, brewpubs have personalities. They may be temples to brewing, with gleaming kettles and fermenters looming behind the bar, or they may be modeled after an English pub, with dark wood and darts, or they may have an original feel created by the owner. If you wanted to describe the Lucky Labrador Brewpub’s personality, “authentic” wouldn’t be a bad choice. Like an old flannel shirt, Lucky Lab is comfortable and unaffected.

The best brewpubs reflect the character of their neighborhood, and the Lucky Lab is situated at the edge of one of Portland’s most down to earth, the Eastside Industrial District. An active pocket of light-industrial business, this is a part of town where people come to put in a good day’s work. One of the most popular coffeehouses isn’t a Starbucks, but My Father’s Place, an old-style diner where you can still smoke and get a plate of biscuits and gravy for breakfast.

True to the feel of the neighborhood, the Lucky Lab is located in what was, from 1922 to 1994 (the year the pub opened), a roofing and sheet metal warehouse. A cavernous building with exposed wood joists, skylights high overhead and the original wood floor underfoot (very much worse for the wear after seven decades of steel-toed boots and dropped tools), it takes no imagination at all to envision the years of hard work that took place there. “Brewing beer is industrious work,” co-owner Geist said of the space, “and we wanted to convey that with our building.”

Pub
It is possible to enter the pub from the Hawthorne Street side, but that entrance, which sends you down a long, deserted hallway, feels like the back way. Rather, most people head to the north entrance where there’s a covered back patio and picnic tables—seemingly populated even in winter by groups of chatting pubgoers. From the back door, you are delivered right into the hubbub of the main seating area.

Although the building is a mostly unaltered warehouse, it doesn’t feel industrial inside. The floor, ceiling, and thirty-foot bar running along the wall are all wood. Light drifts down from the high canopy onto a dense scatter of tables, also wood. Inspired by English pubs, the atmosphere is warm and inviting, if not exactly English.

On the wall near the restrooms you can find a bulletin board covered with snapshots of patrons' dogs—mostly labs of every stripe. And near the rear door is a similar collage, this one showing the brewery’s faithful on vacation, standing in front of famous monuments while proudly displaying a Lucky Lab T-shirt (my favorite is “the grassy knoll”). The patio outside is home to another group of regulars—the four legged variety. Particularly in the summer, the one often finds as many dogs as their human companions.

The food tends toward the basic side, with soup, sandwiches, and bento. During one tour, Geist noted, "This is our kitchen—it’s a hallway—which I guess shows our emphasis on beer." In fact, though the menu is limited, the food is excellent. Featured are a wide selection of vegetarian options as well as particularly meaty choices like a stout-cooked sausage sandwich.

History
Portland natives Alex Stiles and Gary Geist founded the Lucky Lab in 1994. The idea for a brewpub first came to Geist and Stiles in 1991, when they visited Europe on a post-college backpacking adventure. Enjoying the pub culture throughout their travels, it was at the magnificent brewing monastery Kloster Andechs in Germany that, as Geist punned, they were “almost divinely inspired” to own their own brewpub.

After returning to Portland, the two worked at BridgePort, Geist in the pub pulling pints, Stiles in the brewery, and the inspiration grew into a business plan. In the early summer of 1994, with $190,000 raised from ten investors, they leased the 1922 warehouse on Hawthorne and set to work converting it. They did most of the work themselves, from making their own bar to dismantling an unnecessary chimney brick-by-brick to creating and insulating a walk-in refrigerator (“we’ll never do that again”).

Initially, Stiles and Geist had planned to lease the building, but the opportunity to buy it arose, and they took out a Small Business Association loan and bought the old warehouse outright. They outfitted the new brewery with a mash tun and kettle, as well as some grundies from Cross Brewing Equipment, and by fall were ready to brew. In all, the process took 3 ½ months and, even doing most of the work themselves, they finished without a dime left over.

The Lucky Lab was a success from the start. Locals were immediately supportive and it remains a model for a neighborhood pub. In the years since it opened, the Lucky Lab has become one of Oregon’s largest brewpubs, brewing around 1,200 barrels of beer each year. Along with the McMenamins and BridgePort, where Geist and Stiles once worked, the Lucky Lab has become one of Portland’s signature brewpubs.

Brewing Style
Once a month Stiles, Geist, and assistant brewer Dave Fleming sit down with several classic examples of a style of beer for research and development. They’ve tasted everything from abbey ales to Bavarian weizens to Irish stouts. You’d never know it from their beers, though, which all bear the same distinct flavor profile.

Most obviously, the Lucky Lab beers are hoppy. Even those without a lot of bitterness have layered hop character, starting with the nose and lingering after each sip. Hawthorne’s Best Bitter, the brewery’s best-selling beer, is a good example. With a mere 26 BUs, it is nevertheless densely citrusy from liberal Cascade hopping. More subtly, the beers all have a hard-water quality reminiscent of the beers produced by the famous waters of Burton-upon-Trent (though Lucky Lab beers are brewed with gentle Portland city water).

Most of the Lucky Lab beers are aggressive, which suits the taste of Portlanders, who like their beers to have intense flavors. Dog Day IPA is an exceptional example of an India Pale Ale, a notoriously strong, hoppy style. On the other end of the spectrum, Black Lab Stout is so impenetrable with dark malts that, unless it’s been cask-conditioned, it is likely to overwhelm most drinkers. For a milder beer, try Stumptown Porter or Königs Kölsch.

PHOTO: Kyle G. Grieser. Post updated 6/26/06.

Testing some coding here. Imagine I was writing a post and I wanted people to know how big a barrel of beer is. Could I use this handy feature? Apparently so.

Thanks, Iggi!

Beers of Summer - Deschutes Twilight

Look down the list of beers Deschutes offers, and you will find the standards of the British ouvre: pale ale, porter, stout, brown. Another traditional style, and one of the three Deschutes first brewed, is bitter. That's a noun, not an adjective:

bitter (n) - An English term for a well-hopped ale, most often on draught. Although examples vary widely, the name implies a depth of hop bitterness. There is usually some acidity in the finish and colour vanes from bronze to deep copper.

By "depth of hop bitterness" one should not read "bitter," which is rather confusing, given that hops are bitter and the name of the beer is bitter. Bitters (noun) are, nevertheless, not particularly bitter (adjective).

They are, in fact, the first in a triumverate stretching through best bitter and terminating and extra special bitter (ESB). Bitters are the sessions of the bunch, weighing in at 3.5 - 4% abv. Best bitters are stronger 4-5% abv, and ESBs positively robust at up to 6% abv. So a traditional bitter will have a layered hop profile, with lots of aroma and flavor to go along with noticeable (if not agressive) bittering.

A good bitter is hard to make, and one of the best was Bachelor Bitter, Deschutes' first (and still available at the brewery). It morphed into the less interesting and bottled Bachelor ESB (which is probably confusing at the brewery), and for years Deschutes has offered no bottled bitters for those of us on the west side of the Cascades. Until Twilight.

Tasting notes
Pours out a slightly hazy honey with a fluffy head. The aroma is a delicious bouquet of scents--floral hoppiness, caramel sweetness, and a touch of peppery spiciness. I wasn't at all surprised to learn it was dry-hopped with Amarillos. (Amarillos are the hop of the moment--all brewers seem to have fallen in love with them. They have a grinding, raspy quality typical of high-alpha hops I don't find pleasant in high concentrations, but as a dry hop, Amarillo is dandy.)

As for the palate--well, Twilight is an impressive follow-up to Bachelor Bitter. They have hedged their bets, giving it a bit more oomph than is strictly legal for the style. Yet even at 5% it has impressive creaminess. The brewery employs four hops (only the Amarillos are identified), and the flavor is layered right through the aftertaste, as the volatile dry-hopped aromas waft around your mouth.

Although clearly a session, it has the gravitas of a larger beer. The image of a well-engineered 4-cylinder car came to mind--small engine, big performance. Deschutes has the knack of creating exceptional beers that wow drinkers without overwhelming them. The kind of beer you hold up, halfway through your third, and remark, "Damn, that's really a good beer." I imagine that if you took a half rack to a party, everyone would congratulate you on your good taste. Consider it a recommendation.

Stats
Hops:Three unknown varieties and Amarillo dry hopping.
Malts: Unknown
Alcohol By Volume:5.0%
Original Gravity: Unknown
BUs: 35
Other: 2003 GABF Gold Medal in the bitter category

Rating
Excellent.

Site Update

Sorry about the incredible lack of content on Beervana. I actually have three reviews ready to post (Deschutes Twilight, the new Lucky Lab pub, Czechvar), but I've been both swamped and plagued by a bum DSL line. I expect activity to pick up and reach a robust clip this week.

The Beers of Summer - Pilsner Urquell

Among beer afficianados, no story is more familiar than pilsner's (except in Oregon, possibly, where IPAs are king): in 1842, a newly-founded brewery in Plzen, Bohemia shattered convention by introducing a clarion gold beer. Until its release, all beers had been dark and murky, suitable for serving in ceramic steins. The new, straw-colored beer captured the imagination of beer drinkers with its bright clarit, spread across the globe like a virus, and now is produced in nearly every country on the planet. It is one of the most popular products in world history, and certainly the most popular beer. That newly-founded brewery was Pilsner Urquell--literally "the original beer from Pilsen."

Due to their ubiquity, pilsners have some backsliding in quality. Beers like Singha, Kingfisher, Panama, and Pabst may be interesting national variants, but they don't really match the original, which is one of the few pilsners still widely available across the world--and rightly so. It's also a very nice beer to crack on a sunny afternoon.

Tasting notes
Pilsners are remarkably fragile. They are sensitive to light, heat, and age, and by the time any of their golden essence arrives in America--worse, Oregon, way over on the west coast--they have inevitably degraded somewhat. I have heard tales--uttered in uniformly hushed tones--of freshly-racked kegs taken from the brewery to waiting planes and airlifted (chilled, of course) directly to waiting Americans. The beer described in these stories apparently cures disease, reverses aging, bestows enlightenment. (Variants of the story, in which pilgrims tell of fresh beer pulled from taps in the Czech Republic, are equally as glowing.)

I can't speak to that beverage--I have only tasted the beers available to American mortals, which is absurdly shipped in a green bottle, an aid the forces of degradation. Still, when handled gently, it is nevertheless an extraordinary beer. As beautiful today as in 1842, it bursts with the pepper of Saaz hops and Bohemian yeast--an aroma unique in the beer world, and one of the most familiar.

The palate is simultaneously soft and dry, effervescent and--in a surprise to people who think Budweiser is a pilsner--intensely hoppy. The beer is triple-decocted, which may be one reason it's so gentle (though the decoction debate is an ancient and hotly-contested one).

In much the way that alder-smoked beer remind people of salmon, Saaz hops give pilsners their "pilsner" flavor--that earthy, spicy, peppery quality that typifies the style. Pilsner Urquell is the most aggressively hoppy of any exported Czech pilsner, and if you're looking for a study in the hop style, go no further. Plzen water is reported to be very soft, but I detect a slight quality of mineral in the beer--perhaps from the effervescent carbonation. A wonderful beer.

(Finally, a note on the "skunky" flavor. When light hits the iso-alpha acids from hops, the acids undergo a chemical change that give beer a skunky flavor. Darker bottles protect beer somewhat, but green or clear bottles offer almost no protection--and Pilsner Urquell comes in a green bottle. The lighter and hoppier the beer, the more susceptible it is to becoming light struck, and at least half the bottles of Pilsner Urquell I've purchased from grocery stores have been so fouled. And even the flourescence of the beer case is enough to turn the beer. So, if you do buy it from a beer case, dig around in the back of the case where its shadowy and hope for the best--that's improved my odds. And let it be known that that skunky flavor is not "European" or characteristic of pilsners. It's bad.)

Stats
Hops:Saaz
Malts: Two-row Bohemian and Moravian (proprietary strains)
Alcohol By Volume:4.4%
Original Gravity: 1.048, 12 degrees Plato
BUs: 40

Rating
Oh, come on.

Tuak

Fal Allen is one of the old-time brewers from Seattle, having turned in stints at RedHook and Pike. He is currently the brewmaster of Archipelago Brewing (a division of Asia Pacific Breweries) in Singapore. And he has a blog.

All of this would be interesting enough on its own, but add to it this: in his wanderings, he discovered a locally-produced Indonesian coconut beer called tuak.

As the lane turned onto a wider road a small gathering of people called me over to a house, where on the front porch area they were sitting around drinking out of these unusual looking bottles. As I got a little closer I could see that the bottles obviously contained a fermented beverage of some kind that I was not familiar with. I was offered a seat and the chance to buy a bottle. My first thought was - well, look it's still fermenting in the bottle - those guys are drinking it and they are not dead (yet) or comatose (yet), so sure why not, what could happen?

(As he managed to complete the post, I think he must have survived.) The entire tale is fascinating, so go read the rest.

North American Organic Brewers Festival

The pied pipers of Organic beer, Craig Nichols and Jason McAdam of Roots, are hosting what they describe as the world's only organic beer fest. One day only--tomorrow. Sad to say I won't be able to go, but you can:

World Forestry Center in Portland
(In Washington Park, adjacent to the Children's Museum and Oregon Zoo)
June 10, 2006

Admission to the festival is $4 which includes a mug, tickets for 4 ounce samples of beer will be $1. Attendees get $1 off admission with three cans of food for the Oregon Food Bank, a validated MAX ticket, or a World Forestry Center ticket. The Forestry Center will offer a $1 discount for festival attendees.

Nineteen breweries (including three international) are bringing thirty beers. Craig always does things right, so I expect it to be a rockin' good time. Go forth and bring back news.

Summer Beers

Ah, summer, that time when I really don't want to drink beer. It's too hot, the beer dehydrates and goes to my head. I guess, like my fellow webfeet, beer is a beverage for a cold day and a warm pub. (Maybe that's why local breweries often just skip summer seasonals.) But then again, summer is long, far too long to go without a beer. So, since we must slake our thirsts with something, I bought a few examples of summer seasonals (okay, two are classic Czech pilsners, but to me that's a summer seasonal) and I'll review 'em this week. First up, Alaskan Summer Ale.

Alaskan Summer Ale

Much as you will not find American made “Belgian Ale,” you will only find Kölsch-style ales; the city of Cologne made sure of this by enshrining Kölsch’s status in the German legal code in 1985 (one of the definitions was a strict limitation about where the beer is brewed). The style is one of the few German ales, but the flavor palate, like altbiers, is drier and less fruity than other ales. For an obscure style, Kölsches are more popular in the NW than you'd imagine. Widmer has experimented with the style, and the McMenamins' regular summer ale is a Kölsch. In fact, there seem to be more examples of Oregon-brewed Kölsches than pilsners--perhaps the only place outside Cologne where that's true.

(Perhaps it's more than coincidence that no less than Michael Jackson has made a comparison between Portland and Cologne. From an interview I did with him in 1998:

I was asked on radio this morning, 'How important is Portland in all of this, and is Portland the beer capital of the United States?' To which my answer always is that it's a private squabble between Portland and Seattle, really, and nobody else comes close. Portland has, within its zip codes, between a dozen and 20 breweries, which is actually slightly more than Cologne has--and it's the most breweried city in Germany. So, you could make an argument for Portland being the beer capital of the world. I'd like to see more evidence of this when the city promotes itself. When I come into the airport, I'd like to see a sign that says, 'Welcome to the Beer Capital.'")

Tasting notes
Alaskan Summer Ale is a rather rich hue of gold--substantially darker than the pilsners to which Kölsh is often compared. The head dissipated quickly, but the beer roiled with a vigorous fine bead. I don’t doubt that there’s an aroma to Summer Ale, but next to none from the bottle I poured (maybe the slightest note of yeasty tartness).

Kölsches, despite the paucity of ingredients, can pack a complex punch--the good ones, anyway. Alaskan's is a nice example. The first note is subtly sweet and tart, but it finishes with a dry note. Alaskan underhops their version, but it's not a mistake; the more subdued flavors come to the fore. The brewery uses its regular yeast, which is a drier version more akin to the yeasts of Germany (and atypical for West-coast beers)--a great fit for Summer Ale. All in all, a beer fit for Cologne.

On a hot summer day, you might have a bottle or two and not regret it. A cooler summer eve? Even better.

Stats
Hops: Hallertauer
Malts: Pale, Munich, Vienna and wheat
Alcohol By Volume: 5.3%
Original Gravity: 1.048 OG
BUs: 18

Rating
Excellent.

[Note: posting has been edited slightly to remove gross errors of grammar and syntax.]

BridgePort's Renovated Digs

1313 NW
Monday-Thursday: 7 am - midnight
Friday-Saturday: 7 am -1 am
Sunday: 7 am -10 pm

Beers: IPA, ESB, Porter, Blackstrap Stout, Ropewalk Amber, Blue Heron (session), seasonals.

In 1984, Dick Ponzi decided being a pioneer in the wine industry wasn't enough, and so he founded BridgePort, Oregon's first craft brewery.* He dug around until he found a place in gritty Northwest Portland near to the railroad tracks and freeway--much as Fred Bowman and Kurt and Rob Widmer did a year later when they founded Portland and Widmer nearby. The BridgePort building was a brick warehouse, and it was apparently as gritty as its neighborhood when Karl Ockert first brewed BridgePort Ale (which became the name of the brewery, at the time called Columbia River Brewing). Ah, but what bones: thick beams of native fir supported nicely rounded, 100-year-old brick. It became, along with the Lucky Lab, the quintessential Oregon brewery.

But then came the Pearl and wealth and young urban professionals, and apparently, a need for a new aesthetic. Thus a million-dollar remodel.** Gone are the homey nooks, the dart board, the pizzas, the beer towels, the loading dock languor. In it's place? Well, here's how the brewery describes it:

Whether you drop in for a meal with friends at our east side BridgePort Ale House, or stop by for an espresso at the new bridgeport brewpub + bakery in the heart of Portland’s Pearl District, you are sure to have a great experience. Our brewpub and bakery has just reopened after a major renovation. While so much has changed in the century-old building, you’ll find a comfortable and familiar atmosphere awaits with rustic brick, aged timber, and classic iron.

I alert you to this language so that you'll see where I'm headed in this (now overlong) review. The new place is engineered to appeal to those who love sterile steel, vast expanses in which to be seen, and an unchallenging nouveau industrial (nouvel industriel?) chic style. In short, none of the people who used to go there.

It is a radical change. The entire floorplan has changed and all the old Portland pub quality is absolutely scrubbed from the place. Even the food menu accentuates wine--for the beer list, you have to go to the drinks menu. Pearlies want shiraz with their crispy artichoke risotto cakes (okay, maybe pinot gris), so the brewery makes it easy for them. (Though the truth is, as I looked around the place, I saw that most patrons had pints of cloudy IPA in front of them.)

Food
All brewpubs don't have to have the same halibut fish and chips to please me. Pub fare is often starchy and fatty and just so-so on the tongue. A change-up is welcome. BridgePort features pretty standard Northwest cuisine (which was formerly known as California cuisine, until Greg Higgins appropriated and tweaked it, adding local vegetables and meats). I had the pork tenderloin with cannelini beans and rapini, and Sally had a special halibut dish with assorted tubers. Both were excellent, and both went fairly well with the classic British ales BridgePort serves (I had porter with the pork, and the halibut went well with ESB). Even more surprising, the entrees were fairly reasonable, ranging from $11-18.

Beer
BridgePort long ago standardized its beer menu. In addition to beers available in bottle--IPA, Blue Heron, Ropewalk, Old Knucklehead, and Supris--they serve old standbyes Porter, ESB, and Blackstrap Stout. I suggest trying the porter and ESB as your food selection dictates. The porter is thick, creamy, and intense--black sunshine for rainy nights. The ESB is in the British style, with an accent on malt. This makes it far more suitable for most entrees than the IPA, which may tend to overwhelm. Blackstrap is aptly named; if you like molasses, you'll like the stout. I don't.

Final Judgment
Gambrinus, which owns BridgePort, has made what is probably a shrewd short- and middle-term decision. When we were there on a Thursday night, it was packed with people, all of them paying more per person than the old pub ever got. It has a contemporary style that serves the neighborhood that (unexpectedly) grew up around it.

But it is not a classic, nor does it reflect anything intrinsic about the brewery or Portland. Styles will change and so, presumably, will the brewery. In ten or fifteen years, as aesthetics have changed, it will have the dog-earred, slightly embarrassing aspect trendy restaurants inevitably acquire. And then Gambrinus can update it. I hope, for the sake of the brewery and the city, that the company recognizes the beauty and history resident in the massive beams that still span the old warehouse and restore some of the old Portland funkiness.

That may seem a long wait, but hey--I recall the brewery of 1991, and it doesn't seem that long ago. The beams will still be there.
_________________
*Okay, second, but the Cartwright Brewery, founded a few years earlier, died after a short life of making (reportedly) bad beer. BridgePort is now the oldest Oregon brewery. Deep history here.
**I surmise/recall. A Google search fails to locate the actual cost.

Updated 6/26/06

Overheard

Great rule of thumb right? Where ever you are, try the local brew.

I'm in St. Louis....


Is Budweiser really beer?

(Mike Rasmussen, via email)

Blind Tasting: Pale Ale

The first Beervana blind tasting happened outdoors under (unseasonably) sunny Oregon skies. Appropriately, we sampled that epitome of summer beers (at least here in Beervana), the pale ale.

Tasters
I'm toying with the title "Council of Beer Elders" for anyone who becomes a regular in the panel, but I don't want to encourage arrogance. We'll think on that one. In any case, the four tongues that swished ales were Iggi, a native Oregonian who counts Roots among his favorite breweries, Absent Mindful, a ringer and a pro who works for BridgePort (and another native), and Cap'n Cyber, the elder of the beer elders, who has surely drunk more pints than anyone on the panel. Rumors that he enjoys Hamms are slightly exaggerated. I rounded out the panel.

Beers
In alphabetical order: Caldera, Deschutes, Fish, Full Sail, Pike, Sierra Nevada, and, to mix it up, London's Whitbread. We happened to be drinking BridgePort Blue Heron, which is not a true pale, but Absent Mindful demanded its inclusion.

Initial Impressions
The major discovery in this tasting was that pales are uniformly good, but, ah, uniform: with small distinctions, five of the eight beers were very similar. Everyone was able to not only distinguish, but also identify the Blue Heron, Pike, and Whitbread. The other five were the toughies. Iggi and I both felt we knew Mirror Pond and FS Pale, but couldn't actually tell which was which (we were right and we both guessed wrong).

Individual tastes seemed to determine which beers got the big thumbs up. There were four tasters, and four different beers were identified as faves: Mirror Pond, Caldera, Sierra Nevada, and Whitbread. I asked which were second faves, and we had votes for Caldera, Mirror Pond, Full Sail, and Pike. And, just to show how close the beers were top to bottom, I asked for least favorites and got a Pike, Whitbread, and Sierra Nevada--all beers that were others' fave or second-fave.

Identification
Based on what I've already reported, it won't come as a surprise that tasters did a poor job of identifying the beers. Absent Mindful batted .500--the best in the group. Cap'n Cyber and I got three right, and Iggi--well, Iggi didn't strike out completely, and we'll leave it at that. (If Iggi and I had guessed right on the FS/Mirror Pond pair, we would have stood a little taller.) Bragging rights to both Absent and the beers we tasted--all of which were very nice.

Other Thoughts
It's worth mentioning that Caldera is available only in can. (All beers, incidentally, came from Belmont Station, so I know they were their freshest.) This caused some eyebrow-raising among tasters, but no one could distinguish the slightest tinniness from Caldera (which was my favorite).

Also, Caldera, Deschutes, Fish all employ solely Cascade hops. Full Sail and Sierra Nevada use Cascade, but others, as well. It was interesting to see the differences malt and yeast make in the production of beers--Caldera and Deschutes, for example, were noticeably different, yet made from substantially the same ingredients.

Next time, I may vary the flight somewhat and perhaps through in some beers that we should be able to identify as outliers (a macro, and import, or a beer we profess not to like, say). Just something to keep the Council honest.

Blind Tastings

This weekend, we conducted our first ever blind beer tasting--in what I hope becomes a rich tradition at Beervana. I generally followed the successful formula I used in the winter beer tasting I did for the Willamette Week last December, which was itself a modification of the now-legendary (but unavailable online) macropilsner taste-off. I may make minor revisions along the way, but here's how it works.

1. Rating.
A non-participant poured out the beers into numbered glasses, keyed to a sheet with the list of beers in the tasting. Participants then tasted each beer, gave it a rating, and identified his favorite (yes, all the tasters were men, but that, with luck, will change) and second-favorite. I also asked for least fave, but that potentially volatile element may or may not continue.

2. Identification.
This is more than a parlor trick. Depending on the flight of beers you're tasting, it is remarkable to see how similar they are, and how much factors unrelated to our senses are in determinining which beers we think are our favorites. It is also useful in exploding certain myths privately and publicly held. Explosions are painful, but we are fearless drinkers.

This weekend's tasting included a flight of pale ales, and I'll put up the results in a few hours.

Inactivity

Q: Good lord, man, do you realize how long it's been since you last made an entry?

A: Yes.

Q: This blog isn't going down the crapper is it?

A: Possibly, but not due to lack of content, which will pick up directly.

Q: You're just lame, then.

A: That's right.

Elysian's "The Wise ESB"

As I just two posts ago discussed Elysian, I'll jump right to the tasting.

Tasting notes
What's the difference between an IPA and an ESB? They're both biggish (IPAs are bigger) and both hoppy and both pale and both British. It's the malt. In an IPA, the malt is merely there to protect you from the lacerations of the hops' alpha acids--brewers may hope there's residual flavor for the discerning drinker, but that's gravy. Not so with ESBs--although they feature robust hopping, it's their malty depths by which they're defined.

The two best ESBs I've tasted are Fuller's and Elysian, and both are distinguished by their wonderfully complex malts. Elysian is a deep golden in the glass, and smells delightfully of caramelly malts and a touch of citrus. I don't recall exactly what Fuller's looks like, but my recollection of the palate is that it is much like Elysian's--a deep, rich maltiness (nutty sweet) offset (in a IPA reversal) by balancing bitterness. The hops in Elysian are pure Northwest, but they, like the English hops in Fuller's, are there to carry out the malt note.

It's one king hell of a beer.

Stats
Hops: Bittering, Chinook, finished with Cascade and Centennial hops
Malts: Pale, Munich, Crystal, Cara-hell and Belgian Special B malts
Alcohol By Volume: 5.9% by volume
Original Gravity: 4.5 Plato/1.058 OG
BUs: 39
Other: Won the gold for ESB at the 2003 & 2004 GABF.

Rating
A classic.

Widmer Broken Halo IPA

The Widmer Brewery has been in a bind since the late 80s, victims of inadvertent success. When Rob and Kurt founded the brewery, they imagined the flagship ale would be an alt like the one they fell in love with in Germany. Dry, bitter, and smooth--it would actually have been a great beer for current Oregon palates. Alas, they started brewing a wheat ale during a period of evolving palates and now their flagship--and anchor--is the bland Hefeweizen.

The Widmers have staked out a few interesting niches. Their Collaborator project, wherein homebrewers create obscure beers, has produced a milk stout, Snowplow, that is now part of their regular rotation. Mmmm, tasty. And they are famous for producing some of the most interesting beers for brewfests--beers locals can later try at the Gasthaus. But the commercial experiments tried and abandoned--Big Ben Porter, Sweet Betty Blonde, Hop Jack Pale (the list goes on)--litter beer bottle collections across the state.

Will Broken Halo break the string of bad luck? We'll see.

Tasting notes
The brothers always produce very bright, filtered beers, but Broken Halo looks too bright when it pours out. It's straw pale, clear as water. This is a hint to the central character of the beer, but we'll get to that in a moment. The aroma is nice--a clean, citrusy bouquet.The head is, like the picture in the photo, snowy white. My initial impressions were favorable, but there was something out of place.

Turns out that Broken Halo is not an IPA--which had been suggested by its delicate appearance. Judged against some of the broad shoulders of the NW IPA world, poor BH is wouldn't stack up well. But if the label said Pale Ale, you'd nod admiringly. The hopping is rich and resinous, not just bitter, but flavorful. The malting is subdued, coming through as a mildly sweet balance. A fine pale and a fine beer.

I think what we're seeing is the result of the misnamed BridgePort IPA--one of Oregon's most popular beers. Though it tastes big enough to be an IPA, it has the advantage of drinkability: people knock back a couple-three and they're not staggering around. All the flavor, but manageable alcohol. No other IPA has cracked BridgePort's domain because they tend to be actual IPAs--7% alcohol or more--which are just too big for people to drink regularly.

The downsizing of IPAs leads to compromises. The Widmers have made a tasty, balanced beer. Pour this in a glass and hand it to a hophead, and she'll be happy. Just leave out the India part.

Stats
Hops: Bittering, Alchemy, finishing Cascade and Columbus
Malts: Pale, Caramel (10 and 20l), and Munich (10l)
Alcohol By Volume: 6.0% by volume
Original Gravity: 14.25 degrees Plato
BUs: 45
Other reviews: Belmont Station Blog

Rating
As an IPA, Average. As a pale, Excellent.