The Other Portland (And Its Beers)

[Updated: Geary's Autumn Ale and Shipyard Bluefin Stout added Saturday, Sept 30.]

This may come as a shocker to Stumptowners, but there is actually another Portland in the US. Originally known as Machigonne, it was settled in 1632 by the English as a fishing settlement. Some years later, it became "Casco" (for the city's bay) and then "Falmouth" before landing on Portland. Had New Englanders managed to get out to Oregon a couple hundred years earlier, who knows--we might be proud Falmouthers, with none of the subsequent (and now mostly vanished) confusion the two Portlands caused each other.

There are a number of similarity in the cities--but, since this is a specialized blog, I'll confine myself to beer. Much as in Oregon, there is a thriving market for micros in Maine. The state, with a population of just 1.2 million, has 25 breweries. Portland, with just 63,000 people, has eight. When you go to a pub (which look a lot like English-influenced Oregon pubs), you'll find a number of local taps. When I went into the supermarket to buy beers for review, there were perhaps a dozen local offerings (making my decision difficult). And when you go to the airport, there's a local brewpub--Shipyard--offering fresh pints. The beers are mostly British-influenced ales, and are tastier, more robust, and hoppier than any region outside West Coast.

Enough preamble--to the beers!

Geary's Autumn Ale
DL Geary is Maine's oldest brewery, and one of its best. (In fact, it's the oldest micro east of the Mississippi.) In my visits to Maine, I've had most of their beer, and was impressed especially by the pale ale. Thus did I look forward to their interpretation of a nut brown. It's not a bad effort, but it unfortunately lacks transcendence. It looks great--tawny brown, bright, with a nice roasty aroma. It's meaty, too, like too few browns, but the flavor misses the mark. It's slightly too bitter and not malty or sweet enough. Fine, but the wrong balance, neither sprightly and aggressive nor comforting. If you're in Maine, try the Pale Ale. (Two row English malt, clarity, crystal, chocolate and wheat; Cascade, Golding & Fuggle hops 5.8% abv)
Rating: Average.

D.L. Geary Brewing Company, Portland, ME
Brewer: David Geary
Founded: 1986
Beers: Pale, London Porter, Autumn Ale (nut brown), Hampshire Ale (winter warmer), Winter Ale (IPA), Summer Ale (kolsh).
Available: New England and the Northeast
Web: Gearybrewing.com

Shipyard - Blue Fin Stout
Pours black with dramatic effervescence--and a fluffy brown head. The aroma, of rich chocolate, is delightful but misleading--as you discover with the first sip, which has not the hint of sweetness. It's a bit like smelling baker's chocolate. It is a wonderful beer, thick and dense, highlighted by the strongest roasted barley I've tasted in a stout. It produces a earthy, rooty darkness on the palate that is intense like coffee, though more akin to chicory or even beets. (Hard to claim that beets taste good in beer, but here the note is delightful.) It was a beer brewed to cut through the harshest North Atlantic winds (and they are harsh). I've never had a stout like it, and I regret I have to travel 3,000 miles to get more.
Rating: A Classic.

Shipyard - IPA
Classic cloudy golden hue, with a rather weak head. Spicy aroma with a slightly bicarbinate note. Hopped solely with the classic English hop Fuggle. The flavor is a little weak for an IPA--as is the strength. It's a nice beer, with the Fuggles imparting a spicy, soapy quality. (Interestingly, though I found it to be only mildly bitter, Sally thought it was harshly so--more evidence of how bitter perception is variable.) There is little malt quality except for a pleasant, residual sweetness. Worth trying for the Fuggles, but not an exceptional beer. 5.8% abv
Rating: Average.

Shipyard Brewing Company, Portland, ME
Brewer: Alan Pugsley
Founded: 1992
Beers: Fourteen, including flagship Export and a range of mostly English ales.
Available: Throughout Southern Maine (sorry, Webfeet!)
Web: Shipyard.com

Allagash White
Cloudy, classic white head. One of the whitish whites I've seen--like unfiltered pear juice. Nice crisp aroma with the suggestion of coriander without cloying. Palate tends toward the light and dry. The spicing is modest, producing a more vinous interpretation of the style. A great choice for a brewery's first beer (as this was)--I expect it has found its way into the coolers of many of the vacationers across "Vacationland." 5% abv
Rating: Good.

Allagash Brewing Company, Portland, ME
Brewer: Rob Tod
Founded: 1995
Beers: White, Dubbel, Tripel, Grand Cru, Four, specialty and barrel-aged beers.
Available: Belmont Station
Web: Allagash.com

Casco Bay Oktoberfest
Honey-amber with a brief, light head. Oktoberfests usually have understated aromas, and so does Casco Bay--just a bit of Munich malt and a hint of floral hops. The palate is delightful--rounded and creamy, subtley sweet, and a long, spicy finish. The brewery uses a special Munich yeast for the beer, and it pays dividends--a great beer.
Rating: Excellent.

Casco Bay Brewing Company, Portland, ME
Brewer: Bryan Smith
Founded: 1994
Beers: Casco Bay: Red, Pale, Summer, Winter, Oktoberfest; Carrabassett: Pale, Brown, Winter, Summer
Available: Five states outside Maine--none closer than Ohio.
Web: Cascobaybrewing.com

Beers of Maine (1)

Famously, Asa Lovejoy and William Pettygrove tossed a coin for the right to name a 640-acre plot they obtained from William Overton on the bank of the Willamette River. Exactly 151 years later (a sesquicentennial and one), I lured another Portlander west, and ultimately married into her New England family. Thus do I get to return to the founding land once every year or two and sample the other Portland's beer. (You don't get to select your spouse's hometown, and often do I thank lady luck that mine's isn't in Indiana.)

Anyway, I will report back on a brewpub and five bottles I managed to safely transport home. (The brewpub was a dud, but as evidence of the maturity of the Maine industry, I have a stout, and IPA, an Oktoberfest, a fall seasonal (nut brown), and a Belgian wit yet to sample--in only a handful of states could you find that diversity on your local grocery store shelf.)

Give me a couplethree days and I'll do mini-reviews of those and talk a bit about the trip.

Industry News - Oregon Beer Up

The GABF begins in two days, which is always a slightly melancholy event for me. Colorado and Cali brewers end up taking home the lions' share of the awards, while a select few Oregon breweries burnish their already shiny cred. It is disappointing because, while I recognize the sincerity and quality of the GABF, I also know it's akin to a European beer awards held in Berlin--with Oregon standing in as Belgium. We make far and away the best beer top to bottom, but its bold, funky, non-Coloradan verve earns us meager rewards in Denver.

It is therefore with relish that I point out the following news from the Oregon Brewers Guild:

Oregon Brewers Guild members beer production grew at a rate of nearly 24 percent in the first half of 2006 compared to the same period in 2005.

This will be the third consecutive year that Oregon’s brewers have shown production growth in the double digits. Oregon’s craft brewers production grew 16 percent in 2005 and 11 percent in 2004. In 2005, craft beer production in the United States (U.S.) grew 9 percent and in 2004 it rose by 7 percent.

The volume of beer sold in Oregon was up 3% the first half of 2006. In 2005, the volume of beer sold increased less than one percent. In 2004, the volume of beer sold increased 3%.

My reading of that is that while Oregon beer continues to sell ever better in Oregon, it's flying off the shelves elsewhere. We may fail to win our requisite medals in Denver, but this is perhaps better evidence of how good Oregon beers are.

Cheers!

Stone Arrogant Bastard

There's something very attractive about a beer with the motto "You're not worthy" and a demon on the label. It announces itself with verve. In Beervana, this attitude is rewarded, as has been Arrogant Bastard, with devotion and sales. I have tippled a few myself, but oddly, the beer doesn't stay in my memory. I received a gift bottle recently (thanks Iggi!), and decided to pull out the critical apparatus and have a look. Here are my findings.

Tasting Notes
I was surprised at how dark the Bastard pours. In my memory, I recalled it being a lighter amber. Despite the agression of the name, it's a rather beautiful walnut. There's also an attractive latte-colored head to the beer--surprisingly frothy for a beer of this strength. The indignities continue: the aroma is rich and nutty with delicious citrus notes and promising alcohol volatility. It may be a Bastard, but it's purty and smells nice.

Unfortunately, I find the beer a little less interesting on the palate. If I give you a laundry list of the flavors, it'll sound like a great beer--I get a deep nutty maltiness and creamy mouthfeel and hops throughout. There are strong flavors suggestive of barleywines and old ales, the kind of hopping (bitterness and flavor) that Beervanians love.

But the parts add up to something less as a whole. As is more common than not with strong ales, it's out of balance. The distinctive quality is a sharpness wrought of clashing bites--hop, alcohol, barley. Beers of great intensity and strength don't have to punish you, but this Bastard does. (And maybe I'm starting to see from whence the name came.)

I compare beers like Arrogant Bastard with two titans of the genre--the now sadly defunct Sasquatch Strong and Russian River's Pliny the Elder, both of which found the sweet spot where the intensity of flavors melded into transcendent beers. Arrogant Bastard has the style; it just misses on flavor. Probably that's why I have a murky memory of it--I love the packaging and style, and I can't reconcile it with the flavor.

Results vary, of course, so maybe you'll like it. Many have.

Stats
ABV: 7.2
Availability: 19 states and DC; Stone has a list here.
No other stats are available for the beer, which is odd for a company with such verve.

Rating
Average.

Beer Pong

In lieu of actual content, I offer you another silly beer video:

Pssst

Widmer double alt* on tap now at the Gasthaus, pass it on.

____________
*Twice hops and twice the fun.

Autumn Beers - Sam Adams Oktoberfest

The next autumn beer to appear on the shelves is one that commenter DF recommended in last week's review of Widmer Okto: Sam Adams. Since I rattled on about the style and history in that review, I'll commence directly to the tasting notes of Boston's finest.

Tasting Notes
The beer looks great--a rich amber with a dense tan head that dissipated a mite quicker than I'd have liked. Not quite as deep red/orange as the Widmer, but attractive. The nose is limited to a spice and a very slight candied orange scent.

Sam Adams has gone for a lighter interpretation--the body is thinner and the mouthfeel less creamy. There's is a drier version. It is, if anything, more peppery than the Widmer--suggestive of autumnal spices like clove and nutmeg, and perhaps a little ginger. There's not a lot of residual sugars in this beer, so the sweetness is just suggested, again with a candied fruit essence. The finish is very dry and crisp. I expect it would complement somewhat lighter foods or serve as a nice apperitif.

It would be interesting to try Widmer Okto and Sam Adams side by side to see how they compared and contrasted. I suspect selecting the "better" of the two would be a fool's errand, but fool that I am, I'd choose Widmer. (On purely personal, subjective ground, admittedly.)

Stats
Malts: Pale, Munich 10, caramel 60, Moravian
Hops: Tettnanger, Hallertau-Mittelfruh
Alcohol by volume: 5.4%
Original Gravity: 13.6° Plato, 1.048
Bitterness Units: N/A
Other: Brewery uses a decoction mash and secondary fermentation.
Available: Throughout the Northwest; in stores now (Sept 14, '06).

Rating
Good, tending toward excellent.

Beer Cannon

This is definitely irresponsible, but I can't resist. Old Milwaukee Light drinkers in Wisconsin construct a cannon from which they fire beer cans. There are actually two cool clips, and I guess I'll go with the montage--for it's elegiac celebration of destruction. You might also enjoy the set-up vid, wherein the beer cannon is introduced and explained.

And now to how it is used--

Extreme Brewing

While I'm pointing you to other fascinating corners of the blogosphere, you might skate over to the best-named blog on beerosphere ("Champagne of Blogs") and read about a brewing experiment at the headwaters of the Metolius River in Central Oregon. The experiment began with the river:

We drew all the water for the brew directly from the icy waters. It was crystal clear, having just emerged from its underground source, but we boiled it anyway, lest we end up brewing Giardia Pale Ale. As river-brewer Tom Petty once said, “the wading is the hardest part.” Not only was it extremely cold, but the bottom of the river was covered in sharp rocks whose pain required a significant quantity of alcohol to ease.

It's quite a tale, replete with pictures. I have to say I'm unlikely to replicate the process, but I admire it. Go read the full story--

_____________
Picture: beer on the way back to Portland.

Hop Dive

A very cool 21-second vid clip of hop heads diving in and swimming around a massive pile of hops over at the Belmont Station blog. And I thought beer might be too static a subject for video!

(Hey, wasn't Belmont Station supposed to be moving?)

Commercials: Olympia and Rainier

A couple more from the vault. First up, a groovy sixties ad for Oly put to folk music:



And next, a sublime offering from the dadaist series of Rainier ads:



Ummm, mountain fresh!

Autumn Beers - Widmer "Okto" (Oktoberfest)

You know when Oktoberfest starts, right? September, natch. And you know when Oktoberfests are brewed, yeah? March--giving them the confusingly dually temporal name Oktoberfest/Marzen. So it is perhaps no surprise that the first autumn beer on shelves is Widmer's tasty "Okto" Oktoberfestbier, which, apparently, could be released anytime.

(I would love to report that Okto is the name of a funny character in Lederhosen, poised to fill the void left by the Hamms beer bear, but alas, it's not so. Just a silly name.)

The Oktoberfest style is one of the tastier lagers (I hereby demonstrate my biases against lagers), spicy and malty, the color of a Halloween maple leaf. It is one of the most universal accompaniments to food, going well with everything from pasta to salmon (and of course, sausage), and also one of the most well-liked styles. Oregon, being an ale state, tends not to produce many Oktoberfests, so the Widmers have the shelf (and taps) mostly to themselves. This turns out to be just fine.

Tasting Notes
As the style demands, Widmer Okto has a rich autumnal hue--in this case, a deep red/orange (the picture I've included does not do the beer justice). The brewery describes the aroma as "floral," but it is mostly absent olfactory interest--I do get a very mild candy sweetness.

The flavor is just about perfect to style--malt forward, but with a classic peppery spiciness that I wouldn't begin to know how to brew. (I'd assume it were a yeast characteristic in anything but a lager.) The Widmers' play this note up, which will appease ale-drinking hopheads, but not dissuade classic lager drinkers. Despite its absolute clarity, it has a rich, hearty mouthfeel, suitable for crisp evenings.

(If you'll allow me to wax poetic--not that you have any choice--a good Oktoberfest should have the quality of fall infused into its essence. The warmth summer's last sun and the sweetness of late fall's harvest--pumpkin pie and cider. It's a beer for a particular time, and, like the start of school, somehow actually seems to coax that season into being.)

Not only is this one of the two best Oktoberfests I've ever tasted (along with New Glarus's interpretation), but it's quite reasonably priced. Forget the airfare to Munich--one liter of the festbier (two pints) is over eight bucks! Go to the Gasthaus instead and have a fine German meal--spaetzle, anyone?

Stats
Malts: Pale, caramelmunich 60L, extra special, carapils
Hops: Alchemy (bittering), Mt. Hood, Tettnanger(finishing)
Alcohol by volume: 5.5%
Original Gravity: 13° Plato
Bitterness Units: 25
Available: Throughout the Northwest; in stores now (Sept 11).

Rating
Excellent.

Elsewhere

Guest on Tap has a story cum (brief) interview with Craig Nicholls of Roots Brewing. Somehow, Craig managed to win a trip to Munich for Oktoberfest, and it looks like he's gonna make the most of it, brewing at a German brewery and later making a trip to Belgium. I presume this means we'll end up reaping the rewards--which I look forward to with relish.

Rainier Commercial

Rainier was doing stuff in the 70s and 80s that was essentially abstract video art. It was dada. It was magnificent. A couple of guys have been posting these ads on Youtube lately, and they're really extraordinary. In our hyper-macho world of the new millenium, it's hard to imagine some of these ever crossing the mind of a beer company, let alone making it to air. Anyway, here's a couple for your viewing enjoyment.

Beerish on America


All Abeer!

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.

Hamm's Beer Commercial

So, this isn't one of the classics from my youth--it's even earlier. But you still get the beer bear and the classic tune. Plus BONUS lyrics. Behold:



From the land of lakes and sunset breezes
-- Hamm's beer --
Dance and sparkle in each glassful [?]
-- Hamm's beer --
Hamm's, the beer refreshing
Hamm's, the beer refreshing
Hammmmm's.

The Great Saison Disaster

I suspect few of you care about my homebrewing foibles, but drama compels me to relate a story. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I successfully cultured yeast from a bottle of Saison Dupont recently and made a batch of my own saison with it. For those of you familiar with the style, you know it's marked by its effervescence--great rocky bubbles roil as it cascades into a glass.

Turns out that comes from a rather slow-developing yeast. As usual, I left the beer in the carboy for two weeks and then bottled, never bothering to consider whether the yeast had finished gobbling malt sugar. Two weeks has been perfectly adequate for every beer I've brewed, no matter how strong. All is well and good. I taste the beer going in, and although I went heavy on the botanical additives, the cultured yeast remained unpolluted and it tastes clean and fresh. All good.

Except that the yeast wasn't done. My lovely wife approached me yesterday with the information that she suspected a little creature was trapped in the basement--she found a pool of yellow liquid on the floor. When I descended the stairs, the aroma that greated me wasn't acrid, but nice and beery. I nostalgically recalled the smell of the dorm on a Saturday morning. And sure enough, there was the first exploded beer, pooled on the floor. I tried to pop a couple of the beers and dump the batch, but they were so explosive I feared that even rousing them would cause them to blow like grenades in my hand. Instead, I hustled them outdoors, wrapped in towels, and will wait for nature to take its course.

It's supposed to be 85 today. Boom!

Oly Commercial

Here's another in what will constitute a short series of old beer ads. I've scoured the net, and so far have failed to come up with some of the classic Henry's and Rainier spots. Nor the "I seen 'em" ads from Oly. But here's a precursor, a headwaters, if you will, of the water that begat the artesians. (The embedding was disabled, so you just have to click on the picture.)

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.

Classic Rainier Ad

Thank god for Youtube.

Phantom Beer at Safeco Field

I caught my first baseball game at Safeco Field, lured up by a Red Sox visit. Sadly for me, the Red Sox are in one whale of a tailspin, so we were naturally waxed by a fairly woeful M's club. Big Papi had 46 dingers coming into the game, and left with 47, so the day had its perks. (Raul Ibanez hit a grand slam, too, which added drama.) But hey, the sun was out, we were in the shade, and the beer was good. Yeah, surprisingly, the beer was good.

At quite regular points near all seating were places to get bottled beer. Just up from section 213 was a vendor with over a dozen bottled beers, including Full Sail Amber and Deschutes. Redhook ESB was on tap just about everywhere. It nostalgically has that diacetyl character that was the result of inexperience when the brewery first got started in the early 80s. Not a lot of hopping, but a pretty tasty fair-weather beer.

Also on tap was a far better choice, a phantom beer that was not, I see now, Sierra Nevada Summerfest. When I ordered an $8 pint, I expected a summery straw-colored beer, a kolsh or light ale or perhaps a lager. And in fact, that's what Summerfest is--a classic pilsner. What I got instead was a thick, hearty ale of nearly brown hue that bulged with Chinook hops. It was a strong beer, too, for my head began to spin right about the time Raul was winding up to smack the grand slam.

As I ponder this mystery, something occurs to me. When I went to buy my afternoon coffee--that's pre-beer, to keep the caffiene demons at bay--I got fitty cents in change. (Biggest rip-off at Safeco? $3.50 coffee. Not latte, not mocha, drip coffee. Twelve ounces of. They know they have a whole lot of addicts at their mercy and they take advantage). One of the quarters was a state quarter for Massachusetts--which I brandished to nearby Sox fans as a lucky omen. Even after the Mariners went up 6-1, I still held faith in my little Mass quarter. With two outs at the top of the ninth, I whispered to my brother-in-law that my faith in the omen was wavering--but not completely gone.

Now I see what happened. The omen was accurate. It augured good beer for a Beervarian (Beervarian (n) a resident of Beervana) outside his home habitat. After all, what do I care about baseball?

Whisky is beer ... condensed

Cool article in the Willamette Week about a partnership between Roots and House Spirits Distillery, which just moved in across the steet from the brewery:

It's hot as hell in Roots Organic Brewery, and Christian Krogstad is grinning and sweating like a whore in a confessional. The co-owner of House Spirits Distillery is standing atop a 600-gallon mash tun, stirring its contents with a canoe ore [sic].... Soon the concoction will be strained, placed in two 300-gallon cubes and shipped across the street to the new House Spirits distillery, where it will age in oak barrels for five years. The 600-gallon tank will make a mere 50 gallons of whiskey. The process will be repeated weekly....

The pair began distilling Medoyeff Vodka in Corvallis less than three years ago. Last December, they moved to a surprisingly cheaper space in hometown Portland, revving up a small liquor boom that includes locally distilled New Deal vodka and Indio Spirits, a development that has happy lushes clinking glasses all over the city.

You know what they say about House Spirits Whisky: there's a little bit of Roots in every bottle. Cool.

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.

Our Program Will Resume Shortly...

I'm back and have a review almost ready to post. Thanks for your patience.

Meta

1.
As an FYI, I'll be out of town from midday today through Saturday, and may not even sit down in front of a computer until next Monday.

2.
I get a fair number of Google hits looking for things like "BridgePort IPA," and it occurred to me that I should go through the famous Oregon beers, even though I think for most of my regular readers (the two of you), this will be boring and redundant. I'll try to give some background and historical context, though, as appeasement. First up: Full Sail Amber. (Maybe before I leave.)

That is all.

Changes at Belmont Station

A Portland treasure, Belmont Station, is about to move. The temporal distance is not great--just a wee bit north to 4500 SE Stark--but in terms of beery opportunities, call it a vast surge forward. New improvements planned:

• On-site cafe to seat 45, so you can sample in the store. Food, too!
  
• Four or five taps with custom-made beer or beer unavailable in the bottle.
• 36 cooler doors so customers don't have to wait for a staff member to retrieve the beer. (The store is ensuring, via various filters, sleeves, tinted glass, and so on, that beer will remain free from harmful light exposure.)
  
• A new cross-indexing system so that the 1,000+ beers are referenced by brewery, style, and region.

Most of the stuff we've come to love will be staying, including the name. For newbies, this will be confusing and abstract, but then, so is much in the arcane world of beer. True geeks will persevere. Scheduled open date: September/October.

I can't wait...

Update

I am in the (slow) process of putting up current listings of Oregon breweries and brewpubs. You can find the listings in the navigation section at right. Currently, I have the breweries section complete.

That is all.

Fat Tire Amber Ale- New Belgium Brewing

I really yearn to like New Belgium's beers. The labels are pretty, the styles are interesting, the company is philanthropic and green, and they have a Belgian brewer. Alas, that makes them a lot like Starbucks*--cool company, poor brew. I've worked my way through most of their beers in the past few years, and I'm always disappointed. They are underwhelming echoes of the classic styles they were inspired by.

But New Belgium didn't found its craft brewing empire on their interpretation of Frambozen or Abbey Ale. It is the company that Fat Tire built, and the company will be riding Fat Tire, good or ill, to the end. In 2005, New Belgium was the 13th largest brewery in the country, and the third-largest craft brewer, making about 33% more beer than Widmer, Oregon's largest. That's a lot of Fat Tire.

Sometime in the past three or four years, New Belgium decided it wanted a piece of Oregon's market, and it spent an enormous amount of money trying to get shelf and tap space. It appears the effort has been only partly successful--after displacing regional ambers for a time, New Belgium has given back a lot of shelf space and tap handles to Full Sail and Mactarnahan's. They may do decent business, but I don't think Oregon is the pot of gold NB hoped.

But before we get to the review, let me confess that I've always found this beer insipid and have, I think far from uniquely, taken to calling it "Flat Tire." I am, nevertheless, a trained beer-tasting professional and when I sat down to taste this beer, wiped my biases clean.**

Tasting Notes
Fat Tire pours out a brackish amber, with a quickly-dissipating head. The color is honey/amber, but strangely murky, as if by hop haze (foolsgold, of course). I pick up the briefest caramelly malt note in the nose, with possibly a hint of citrus.

Malt is Fat Tire's central flavor, backed by a creamy mouthfeel. Hops add a single flavor note, the same citrus you might detect in the nose, which draw out the sweetness of the malt. That's really all there is. If the brewery is like Starbucks, then Fat Tire is like that Charlie Sheen sitcom--a perfectly mainstream product without the character to inspire love or hate. It is a wholly inoffensive beer. What more to say?

The label promises that the beer's "appeal is in its feat of balance: toasty, biscuit-like malt flavors coasting in equalibrium with hoppy freshness." A friend of mine sitting at the table as I took notes offered a rebuttal: "it's weird and tinny and stale and gross. It would not be a beer I'd be proud of."

The truth lies somewhere between: Fat Tire will satisfy none of the beer drinkers who find delight in robust, characterful, hoppy Oregon beers. (The brewer, Peter Bouckaert, in describing how to brew a clone of this beer to Brew Your Own magazine, cautioned: "don't use Cascade or other overpowering hops." Cascades, gentle and aromatic, are the most common and beloved hops in Oregon ales.) But neither will they dump out their bottle.

It's a beer of a kind that get brewed across the globe: a mainstream product so lacking in character you forget you're drinking it.

Stats
Unavailable. Apparently Bouckaert regards his recipe as a state secret. He can keep it.

Rating
(very) average.
_______________
*Starbucks, for those who think their nine million stores are only a soul-destroying yuppie huts, is actually a cool company. They give their workers benefits and buy coffee from farmers. Sadly, their product is a thin gruel of over-roasted bitterness.

**No, I don't believe it, either.

Theakston's Old Peculier

One of the more recognizeable imports--available in the US for decades--is Theakston's Old Peculier. Anyone who's taken the plunge knows that the beer is itself peculiar, but probably they don't know the half of it. Theakston's is a beer with a lot of stories.

Let's start out with the peculiar spelling of Peculier. If you look very closely at the funny little seal on the bottle (reproduced for you at right), you'll see these words (in 2-point type): "the Seal of the Official of the Peculier of Masham." Curious. It turns out that a "peculier" is an ecclesiastical court established to arbitrate church law in the absence of a bishop on issues like wearing a hat during communion or carrying a dead man's skull out of the churchyard. You know, common offenses. In this case, the peculierate was established in Masham (a town in Yorkshire) by the archbishop of York. The offices were terminated by a series of laws 150 years ago, but it's just like a brewery to keep this odd bit of historical trivia alive (if obscurely so).

But wait!--we're only getting started. Now to the other word in the beer's name, "old," which designates its style of ale. Old ales are ... well, actually, there are two kinds of old ales. There are those like Thomas Hardy's Ale, which is a very strong beer designed to be aged in the bottle. And then there are those like Theakston's which harken back to beers brewed in the olden days. Of this latter variety, there can be great variation, but they should be sweet with unfermented barley, hearty, and dark. Strengths vary.

(There's another story Theakston highlights about its connection to the Crusades, but it is far enough afield that you'll have to go read it on your own.)

Tasting Notes
Theakston's has been around since 1827, and Old Peculier has been brewed since at least 1890--and probably long before that. So it is in fact, not just style, a fairly old ale. You have a sense of traveling back in time when you pour out a bottle. It is thick and viscous, and froths into a nice head in the manner you imagine medieval ales might have. I held it up to the sunlight, which refracted dimly and murkily only through the narrowest part of the glass. It's mostly an opaque brown, but under summer sunlight, it has a cloudy, dark amber-brown color, similar to iced tea. The aroma is bready and hearty, much as the beer looks. Fruity notes waft up with raisin and plum. There is one additional quality that I could only identify after I tasted it--we'll come to that in a moment.

I bet many people don't notice the odd spelling of the beer, or forget it once they take their first sip. It's a strange beer. First of all, it's rather thick in a way most commercial beers aren't. It is sweetish and estery, and again, I picked up a plum note. I suspected--and later confirmed--that sugar was employed, for it had that characteristic estery quality that seems to come mainly from fermented sugar. However, here again the main identifying quality about Old Peculier is a bit of funkiness. It's not like the funkiness you'd find in a Belgian or even an Irish stout, and it took me a long time before I could figure out how to describe it.

Rye is by itself not a sour grain, but when bakers make rye bread, they generally use the sourdough method of adding a little old dough that's gotten a bit of lactic-acid funkiness to it. Thus are most ryes varying degrees of sour.

Eventually, I came to discover that this is what Old Peculier reminds me of--liquid rye bread. It's dark and hearty and slightly sweet, but it's predominant characteristic is that "peculiar" note--a little bit of sourness like old dough.

So, perhaps we need to revise our definition of old ales, or at least tip our hat to the depth of meaning in this curious style, of which Old Peculier remains the world standard.

Stats
Malts: Pale, crystal, brewers' caramel, and torrefied wheat.
Hops: Northern Brewer, Fuggles, other unidentified hops. Dry-hopped with Fuggles.
Alcohol by volume: 5.6%
Original Gravity: 1.057.
Bitterness Units: 29
Other: Three sugars are also used.

Rating
A world classic.

Video - Oregon Brewers Festival

I had initially planned to take my video camera along to the fest when I when I went on Friday, but it's sort of heavy and bulky and would have interfered with the joy of my annual ritual. The downside is that I have no intersting human clips to offer. (And we did see Charlie Papazian and John Harris cruising around, so I might have had something kind of cool to show.) What I do have is a video scrapbook from footage I shot Saturday afternoon. The music playing is a momentary jam band called "The Jerry Garcia Birthday Band," whom I stopped to film. This is a low-res Youtube vid, and I'll have a high res version on Google video in a couple days. Enjoy.

Micro Market Grows; Beervana Leads the Way

An article caught my eye this morning with the depressing title "Beer sales falling flat while wine, other beverages grow in popularity." The lede was equally depressing:

"U.S. beer shipments last year were flatter than a stale ale, falling 0.1 percent according to the Beer Institute. The industry group says shipments to the U.S. market -- which accounted for about 86 percent of overall business -- declined 2.2 percent to 178.8 million barrels."

I did a little digging, though, and it actually looks like macro sales are falling flat--micros (many of which are no longer micro) are posting robust growth. And Oregon is leading the way. In 2004, according to Modern Brewery Age (.pdf), the big four (AB, Miller, Coors, and Pabst) brewed 171 million barrels of beer; in 2005, they brewed 169 million. Larger regional breweries* also saw their sales decrease from 5.47 million barrels in 2004 to 5.26 in 2005.

Conversely, the top ten craft breweries saw their sales increase rather substantially from 3.29 million barrels. in 2004 to 3.52 million barrels. That's nearly 7% growth. More impressively, all but one of the top ten showed growth in 2005. (Because Pyramid absorbed Portland Brewing in 2004, I threw it out for this calculation.) Here are the big 11 (including Pyramid), with total barrelage and growth in parentheses--and I'll toss in a couple of other Oregon bigs for comparison:

1. Boston Beer Co. (1.4 million, +7.2%)
2. Sierra Nevada (612,640, +3.9%)
3. New Belgium (350,000, +5.7%)
4. Matt Brewing [Saranac] (251,800, +8%)
5. Redhook (234,200, +7.1%)
6. Pyramid (230,500)
7. Widmer (226,500, +13.8)
8. Deschutes (144,422, +7.1%)
9. Alaskan (105,300, +16.5%)
10. Boulevard (103,584, +16.3%)
11. Mass Bay [Harpoon] (90,333, -4.5%)

13. Full Sail (85,756, +3.8%)
23. BridgePort (43,432 , +2.2%)
24. Rogue (43,000, +12.%)

Finally, Oregon led all states in growth in 2005, up 100,000 barrels and 3.9%. Washington grew more marginally--36,000 barrels, just .9%, but good enough for 14th place.

To put some context to this, when I first started writing professionally about beer back in 1997, we watched the first major contraction in microbrewing since it got started a couple decades earlier. That slump was a harsh reality for a lot of breweries that had over-extended themselves on unrealistic expectations of growth. Saxer and Nor'wester were early casualties, and Portland Brewing eventually got absorbed from the wound that slump caused. It was a long time before people came back to craft beer, and we're seeing a nice little renaissance now.

Predictably, Beervana leads the way...

____________
These are traditional regional breweries producing more mainstream beers. Some have been purchased by the big three, but are still regional in nature and distribution. They include: Yuengling, City Brewery, Latrobe (recently purchased by AB), High Falls (Genesee), Pittsburgh (Iron City), Leinenkugel, and Spoetzl (Shiner).

OBF - Blind Tasting Results

I just received the results of the blind tasting they did at the OBF. It was the first time they'd tried it, and it got off to a slow start--only a couple hundred people showed. I suspect this is because there's no tradition for it, because anyone who's been to a blind tasting knows what a blast it is. Let's hope the OBF organizers give it a shot next year and hope to see growth. I could imagine this as a signature event a decade from now.

The way it worked was this: people were given 12 (1) beers in two categories, pale ales and IPAs, and asked to 1) judge their favorite, and 2) identify the beers they were drinking.

Identification
Those of us who conducted our own pale ale tasting this spring can take heart: none of the tasters in the pale ale flight got even half the beers right. The best was five of twelve, which a number of folks got. (They pulled names out of a hat to determine the "winner" and it was, I am not surprised to learn, Roots' Craig Nicholls. He seems lucky indeed.)

In the IPA category, brewer Jamie Floyd got 10 of 12 right, proving that there is far greater variation in IPAs than pale. I learned something else by this win--Jamie's no longer at Steelhead (Eugene), where he brewed a number of GABF-winning beers, but with the new Ninkasi Brewing, which was unfamiliar to me. Two data points from one winner--nice.

Judging
You may be surprised at the results of the judging. Despite some very big names in each category* (including some highly-decorated Oregon classics) it was the brewpubs in a near sweep. Here are the final tallies, with votes in parentheses followingthe brewery's name.

1. Rock Bottom Velvet Pale (22)
2. Alameda Klickitat Pale (16)
3. BJ's Piranha Pale (13)

A major brewery snuck into the IPA winners list, but it was still a win by a brewpub, and another brewpub rounding out the top three.

1. Pelican India Pelican Ale (28)
2. Deschutes Inversion (18)
3. Ninkasi Total Domination (16)

Shocking, no? Sure, Deschutes Mirror Pond has a bushelful of medals, but it gets aced out of the pales. BridgePort IPA may be the best beer in all of England, but it doesn't make the top three Oregon IPAs. Looks like the big boys have some cred to earn back. (In seriousness, it goes to show how many world-class beers Oregon has.) Congrats to the brewpubs for taking five of six slots on the medals podium.

____________________
Pale ales in competition: Klickitat Pale Ale (Alameda Brewhouse), Piranha Pale Ale (BJ's Restaurant & Brewery), Blue Heron Pale Ale (BridgePort), Mirror Pond Pale Ale (Deschutes), Full Sail Pale (Full Sail), Mac's Ale (MacTarnahan's), Pinochle Pale Ale (Old Market Pub & Brewery), Ringtail Pale Ale (Raccoon Lodge), Velvet Pale Ale (Rock Bottom), Juniper Pale Ale (Rogue Ales), Pond Turtle Pale Ale (Roots), Hop to Trot (Steelhead).

IPAs: BridgePort IPA (BridgePort), Inversien IPA (Deschutes), Full Sail IPA, Boss IPA (Laurelwood), Total Domination IPA (Ninkasi), India Pelican Ale (Pelican), Pyramid Thunderhead IPA, Paddle Me IPA (Siletz), Standing Stone IPA , Bombay Bomber IPA (Steelhead), Terminal Gravity IPA, Broken Halo IPA (Widmer).

Fraoch and Ebulum, Ancient Beers of Scotland

In Gaelic the word heather is rendered "fraoch"--which has in turns become the name of a beer and shorthand for the brewery that produces it. That company began in 1986 in a Glaswegian homebrew shop, when a customer brought in an old family recipe for "Leann (ale) fraoich" (no word on what happened to the "i"). The owner, Bruce Williams, then went on a crusade to bring back the historic beers of Scotland. With his brother Scott, he first began to brew at the Maclay & Co. Brewery during heather season before the brothers ultimately got their own brewery in 2000. They relocated in 2005 to a larger brewery.

And yet, although the company produces four additional historic brews, it is still known by its earliest incarnation: Fraoch. I've had a couple of bottles recently, and am finally getting the reviews posted. In addition to these two, the brewery also produces Grozet (a gooseberry ale), Alba (spruce and pine), and Kelpie (with, I kid you not, seaweed).

Fraoch Heather (5% abv)
The company claims that heather ale is the oldest style of ale still produced in the world, and who's to argue? We know of earlier Egyptian recipes, and the Williams Brothers don't actually have the 4,000-year-old Scottish version. But still--what's a little PR among beer geeks. What they have produced is a barley-based beer with botanicals--principally heather--in place of hops. Also added is sweet gale (related to bayberry), which is actually bitter and itself a historical additive, having been used in a Yorkshire brew (known, not surprisingly, as "Gale beer").

Tasting Notes
From aroma to aftertaste, this is a disorienting beer. Nosing around, you might think you're picking up notes of pine or mint (the gale?). In your mouth, your tongue keeps instinctively waiting for the hops to kick in, and when they don't you expect to be left with a cloying sweetness after swallowing.

It looks like a normal beer: a sort of nondescript amber with a nice head. It even, the further you get along in a pint, tastes like a beer. But the palate does disorient. Fraoch doesn't get treacly, and yet you never identify a source of bitterness that might offset it. Somehow the sweet gale and heather used to spice the beer balances the malt. It's ... herbal.

One note: it tastes weird the first four or five (dozen?) sips. Perservere. Much as with Craig Nicholl's Burghead Heather ale, Fraoch comes around. I find the palate both soft and substantial and strangely thirst-quenching. By the end of the bottle, ten to one says you'll be enjoying it--if not understanding why.

Rating: Good.

Ebulum (Elderberry black ale) 6.5%
As much as I admire the heather ale, and could even drink a few bottles every summer, I don't know that I could ever grow to crave it. But the Ebulum is another matter. I try to avoid this where possible, but here's a bit of pretty cool text about the beer from the brewery:

Introduced to Scotland by Welsh druids in the 9th Century, elderberry black ale was part of the Celtic Autumn festivals when the "elders" would make this strong ale and pass the drink round the people of the village. The recipe was taken from a 16th Century record of domestic drinking in the Scottish Highlands.

Tasting Notes
As labeled, Ebulum is black and sports a toffee head. The aroma is herbal tending toward medicinal, but with a more traditional British yeast note. It is a deliciously rich and creamy ale, and fairly beery--although interesting new flavors abound, you're on more familiar footing here. The elderberries are rooty more than sweet, and they contribute a strange astringency that seems like it's anesthetizing your tongue. Of course, it doesn't. Elderberries apparently contain a host of compounds, and these contribute a flavor that seems like it includes more than one additive. (There is no fruit flavor.) It is a fascinating, lovely beer, and I envy the Scots who can go have a pint at the pub.

Rating: Excellent.

OBF Wrap-up

Of the 73 beers pouring at this year's fest, I had already tried 17. Another handful are easy enough to track down in town. That left a pool of roughly 50 I hadn't or won't easily be able to try, and of these, I managed to sample my way through 16--or almost a third.

This year's fest happened to land on a delightfully cool weekend, with a high on Friday of just 72. The crowds were fairly typical, and we actually had until four before things started to get hairy. All in all, a fine time.

As to the beers--here are my findings. I'll get to the good and bad tomorrow.

[Update, 11:46 am: The Bad just posted below.]

[Update, 4:23 pm. The Good, and the last of the review, posted below.]

OBF - The Good

It is a testament to the brewers and the OBF that my list of good beers is longer than my list of Bad and Ugly beers combined (and the Uglies were also pretty good). However, there are good beers and then there are good beers. We'll save the best for last.

I recommended starting out with the Sweaty Betty from Boulder, and sort of failed to take my own advice. Blame the vastness of space and my late arrival at the right truck. Nevertheless, it delivered just what I hoped (and through a hazy scrim of previous beers)--a dry, tart, satisfying beer with classic notes of clove and banana. Just like they make in old Bavaria for breakfast. [Bavarian Weizen, 5.9% abv, 15 IBUs]

The first beer I tried was Full Sail's Vesuvius, so my tongue was completely unsullied as it splashed around John Harris's rich, Belgian brew. The classic brand in this style is Duvel, Flemish for Devil, so named because the beer is extremely approachable, quaffable, and tasty, concealing its substantial alcohol. Vesuvius was too, with nice fruitiness, a very slight Belgian tart, and a long, dry finish. Very tasty and very dangerous. [Belgian golden, 8.5% abv, 20 IBUs]

A slightly controversial beer that I loved was Bell's Hell Hath No Fury, a Belgian dubbel. I confess that I had this late in the game, and while I was happily lapping it up, others in my party were giving the "eh" sign. I found the malt amazingly creamy and rich, but not overly sweet. My somewhat damaged taste buds were telling me the malts were providing some of the balance while the yeast added some interesting dark fruit notes, but even I'm suspicious of my judgment. Still, you gotta go with your experience, and amid the uberhoppies, this was a great change of pace. [Dubbel abbey-style ale, 8% abv, 20 IBUs]

Three others deserve a nod, if not a rave: the McBrothers' White Lightning Whisky Stout was a few pounds of hops from perfection. It was very rich and subtley inflected by the whisky, but, sadly, was overly sweet (I didn't realize until looking just now--it had only ten IBUs!). New Belgium, which tends to under-engineer every beer they brew, got their entry right with 1554 Enlightened Black Ale. It is called a Brussels black ale, purportedly based on an ancient recipe, but it tasted like a German black lager (schwarzbier)--malty rich, but not fruity. Boundary Bay brought a Double Dry Hopped Pale that wowed the nose as much as the tongue. Brewed especially for the Fest, I hope it's one of those beers that received a warm enough welcome to encourage the brewery to put it in its regular rotation.

Okay, to the cream of the cream. Early in the afternoon, a friend went for the Elysian Bifrost, and raved. I suspected it was a palate-destroyer, and waited, only to find, to my surprise, that it was a fantastically balanced, wonderfully aged winter ale. It's hard to make a big beer that offers pretty pronounced flavors of malt, hop, and alcohol but is simultaneously gentle--but that's what Elysian has done (note the rather modest 50 IBSs--modest because they're balancing a lot of malt). It's a big beer that drinks like a porter or brown. (I feel all the more brilliant for having put three 22 ounce bottles down in the cellar to age.) [Winter warmer, 7.7% abv, 50 IBUs]

And finally we come to the beer I came to at the end of the fest--and kept coming back to, at least twice more: Pliny the Elder. At about 7 Friday night, the line was the longest I've ever seen at the fest, stretching all the way past the middle of the tent. I went back the next day to shoot some video (I'll get to that eventually) and at two the next day, the line was already 15 deep--while nearby lines were literally empty. What to say about the beer? Imagine brewing the perfect Northwest pale ale, with that kind of delicious citrus hopping and fruity backbone, and then distilling it. That's Pliny. It has 100 IBUs, and yet I could drink it all night. Apparently I was not alone. [Imperial IPA, 8% abv, 100 IBUs]

OBF - The Bad

Once upon a time, bad beers were common enough at the OBF--and throughout the microbrew world. (Old timers will recall when RedHook's signature characteristic was its butterscotch note, which homebrewers recognized as high levels of diacetyl.) But in the modern era, you don't go to the fest expecting to stumble across bungled or infected beers. That mostly held true for 2006 (exception below), and in this case "bad" refers to beers I personally found problematic. And even with that, there were only three.

I'll start with one of the fest's most popular beers: Watermelon Wheat from 21st Amendment Brewery (CA). Every time I walked past that damn line, it was bristling with people. Inevitably, I had to try it, just on the off chance it was one of those extremely rare, subtle fruit wheats with some complexity and a fidelity to the beery taste we all love. It wasn't. Overly sweet and fruit-punchy, it was the beer for the non-beer folks who were dragged by their beergeek friends (and, probably, husbands). It was perfectly well-made, but it tasted like a new product from Mike's Lemonade. [fruit wheat, 5% abv, 15 IBUs]

With all the over-the-top superhopped ales at the fest (a dozen had more than 80 IBUs), you'd figure a handful would be nastily unbalanced. I located only one: Skagit River's (WA) Scullers. The numbers pretty much tell the story--a beer with an original gravity of 1.066 and 110 IBUs. Hey guys, there's more to making a kick-ass beer than dumping a field of hops in. The beer's available in bottles, but I'd avoid it. [IPA, 7.2% abv, 110 IBUs]

Last we have the big loser, Jack Russell's (CA) Farmhouse Ale--a beer I regret having recommended. It's always a little difficult to identify off-flavors in a plastic mug (and after a couplesix pours), but this beer had 'em. The nose was sharply cabbagy and fetid (the usual suspect is DMS from wort bacteria). The palate wasn't quite as noticeably off, but I picked up a sharp, burning quality that may have come from ethyl acetate (from wild yeast) or fusel alcohols. The recipe itself had some promise, but I couldn't get past the off-notes. (It's worth noting that Ghost Dog identified Farmhouse Ale as one of his faves, and he tried the beer on Saturday. I wonder if he got a keg from a different batch?) [Saison, 6.7% abv, 20 IBSs]

OBF - The Ugly

Taking my cue from Sergio, I characterize as ugly three beers that I actually liked quite a lot--call em' the Tuco beers.

First we have Ned (Flanders Red) from Rock Bottom. Typically, this style of beer will be characterized by a tart, sweetish (fruity) sour palate. It's wholly approachable, yet novel. I was delighted, poking my nose in the glass, to detect all the right aromas. The first note was spot-on, but then, to my surprise, there was a rather bitter note of fairly pronounced hopping. I really admired the beer, even with this note, but I found it a little less beguiling than a more traditional version. Not all beers need agressive hopping. (For those of you who, like me, dismiss Rock Bottom out-of-hand, it might be time to reconsider. Not only was Ned an impressive experiment, but apparently Rock Bottom's pale won the taste off.) [Flanders red, 8.5% abv, 30 IBUs]

Next up we have Roots Organic Wit, and deja vu all over again. The nose on this beer, as with Ned, was perfecto: orangey with coriander, and fresh with wheaty malts. And again, the palate offered a first, almost phantom-like note of classic Belgian white, followed by ... extensive hop bitterness. I think both breweries were aiming for classic styles souped-up for NW palates. The hops in this example were actually quite nicely married to very soft, fruity wit, but they overwhelmed them. [Belgian wit, 5.3% abv, 35 IBUs]

In the Widmer Hooligan, we have one of the stranger beers I've ever tried. Much as some Belgian beers demonstrate the varieties of yeast, and some--okay all--Oregon beers highlight hops, Hooligan highlights malt. In reverse: it's made entirely without barley using sorghum and tapioca. It has no head and an odd clarity, but a wonderful nose of Summit hops. The flavor was similar to beer, but the mouthfeel was somehow slick and the hop flavor was conducted differently. I only had four ounces, and so didn't get to delve into the beer much. I suspect it's at the brewery, and it's worth dropping by for a sample. [pale ale, 5.8% abv, 30 IBUs]

Oregon Brewers Fest Preview

Oregon Brewers Festival
Waterfront Park
Thursday, July 27: 4pm - 9pm
Friday and Saturday: Noon - 9pm
Sunday - Noon - 7pm

• Minors are permitted when accompanied by a parent, but no pets.
• Entry is free. Tasting mug costs $4 and is required for consuming beer. Tokens cost $1 apiece. Patrons pay four tokens for a full mug, or 1 token for a taste.
• Free bicycle parking is offered each day, courtesy of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance.

General Orientation

Last year, fest organizers experimented by adding an extra day; it must have been successful, for the first pours begin today at four. My guess is that this isn't a bad time to attend--though generally, evenings are when the crowds get thick and the beer selection gets thin. You might gamble on a first night visit, or you could more reliably show up at noon on Friday: you'll have around three hours of blissful quiet with just a handful of the most avid drinkers. If you're lucky, you'll be in a merry mood by the time the fest turns frattish and you won't care.

A couple tips: If you actually want to appreciate the beers, start with lighter, less-hoppy varieties and save the intensely-flavored, darker, and hoppy ones for later. This year's crop is especially rich in high-alcohol, super-hopped beer, and even one of these will ruin subsequent attempts to find subtlety in a modest wheat ale or lager.

Even though the weathermen have forecast moderate temperatures, it's wise to drink lots of water as you go along. You'll thank yourself the next morning. Finally, a belly full of protein (beast or bean) tends to moderate absorption rates, so eat before you go.

To the Beers!
A glance down the list of beers reveals a growing trend: huge is in. There are a dozen beers with modifiers like "imperial," "double," "strong," "nuclear" (okay, I made that last one up), not to mention another dozen IPAs. Those are deep waters to swim, so take a life preserver if you go. For my part, I like the looks of Standing Stone Double IPA and Walking Man Knuckle Dragger. These are a couple of fantastic draft-only breweries whose beers aren't always easy to track down. Both are over-the-top hoppy (95 and 100 IBUs respectively), but I trust the breweries to have created balanced, drinkable ales.

Wait, didn't I just say don't start with big beers? Put those down. Let me direct your attention instead to a nice starter beer or three. Perhaps no beer was more suited to a sunny day than a Belgian Wit (white), and there are two at the fest. The style is crisp, sweetish, and orangey. Even though one comes from the center of the country, and the other is close enough to hit with a rock thrown from the fest, I'm taking the local: Roots Wit. A close second in terms of tasty summer styles is kolsch, a dry, tart German ale, and Ballast Point from San Diego has sent a version. Finally, Lucky Lab brewed a steam beer--a lager fermented like an ale (think Anchor Steam)--which is just deviant enough for them to turn my head.

I will move from there toward one of America's most famous breweries and its unexpected offering: Bell's Hell Hath No Fury (MI), a Belgian dubbel. Bell's is known for their hearty, NW-style ales, so it will be interesting to see what they make of this abbey-style ale. From Colorado and one of America's oldest breweries comes Boulder Brewing's Sweaty Betty, a Bavarian hefeweizen. This style is brewed at high temperatures and has a banana-y, clovey quality that is contrasted with a tart, puckery finish. It's one of the most under-appreciated styles in the NW. To sweeten the pot, let me add that brewer David Zuckerman got his start in Portland at BridgePort.

There is a style of beer brewed in the Belgian city of Flanders that is equal parts sweet and sour, and which most people find irresistible. It's called red, but oftentimes modified Flanders Red to distinguish the style. The Portland outpost of Rock Bottom has tried a batch, and the style is just tasty enough to induce me to try it. Oh, that and the name: Ned. (Get it?)

My favorite style, and one of the more difficult to brew, is saison. It is something like a Belgian IPA--generally very dry and hoppy, made interesting by slightly funky yeasts and a cellary, aged quality. It is an ancient style, and the two breweries that sent versions allude to them in their names: Flying Fish 10th Anniversary Farmhouse Summer Ale (NJ), and Jack Russell Farmhouse Ale (CA).

Pale Ales are another summer standard, and I recommend three: Boundary Bay Double Dry Hopped Pale, Ninkasi Quantum Pale, and Widmer Hooligan. The Boundary Bay because dry hopping makes beers wonderfully aromatic; the Ninkasi because it's a Eugene Brewery I've never heard of (new?), and Widmer because the Brothers always use the OBF as an occasion to brew up something special.

Okay, now we're ready to revisit the big boys--I have three more and then I'll desist. Full Sail, apparently also availing themselves of the chance to brew something special, is sending Vesuvius, a Belgian golden. If it is akin to the landmark version, Duvel, we're in for a treat. (In this case, golden is not a euphemism for "weak"--Vesuvius is 8.5% abv.) The McMenamin Brothers rarely catch my eye with their beer. Their architecture, definitely--not their beer. But White Lightning Imperial Whisky Stout? I'm paying very close attention. (

Years ago, Eugene's now-defunct Wild Duck Brewery made a strong ale called Sasquatch. It was perhaps my favorite big beer, a fantastic way to end a brewfest once my tongue could no longer distinguish subtle flavors. Each year, at the end of the OBF, I greatly missed its passing (as well as the man who brewed it, Glen Falconer, who died in 2002). While I will always miss Glen, I finally found a beer to rival Sasquatch: Pliny the Elder from Russian River. Named for the Roman who gave the name to hops ("lupus Salictarius," or "wolf among scrubs"), he was also ironically killed in the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius--a fact about which Full Sail may or may not care. It fills a long-vacant need. Whatever you do, save a token for Pliny. You might even offer a toast for the Sasquatch of your choice.

That's sixteen beers, which ought to at least get you started. Report back and let us know what you found. Cheers!

[This is a slightly altered version of a post from BlueOregon. Read the longer version there.]

OBF - The Good Pours Are Back

I know it's hard, but try to recall: last year, in a slap to the face of servers and festgoers everywhere, the OBF implemented a policy of pouring into a little cup before dumping the beer into your taster mug (the pic at right may help jar your memory). It eliminated the joyous overfill and gave the whole fest a rather regimented (I recall the word "fascist" bandied about) quality.

Ah, but a little bird tells me that the little cups are gone! Back to human-powered pours! Now the only thing that separates you from a precious quarter ounce of extra hooch is a winning smile.

Good luck and godspeed.

_________________
PHOTO: Andy Orenstein.

OBF Buzz Beers

Breweries adopt one of three or four strategies when they send a beer to the Oregon Brewers Fest. Sometimes they send their flagship, hoping it will convert some of the masses. Sometimes they send a new beer they're launching, hoping to convert the masses. Or sometimes, they send something unexpected, hoping to delight the masses. Uniformly, it is from this last category that the "buzz beers" come from--those beers that get the chatter going at the Fest. No one goes for Pike IPA or Redhook Rye: serious drinkers want to see something new and funky.

Fortunately, it looks as if breweries are finally starting to get with the program. This year looks to have more potential buzz beers than any previous year. Here are ten possibilities that I'll be looking to try ASAP. My money's on the White Lightning.

1. Bell's Hell Hath No Fury...Ale (dubbel) - Bell's Brewery (Michigan)
2. Double Dry Hopped Pale Ale - Boundary Bay (Bellingham, WA)
3. Elysian Bifrost (winter ale) - Elysian (Seattle)
4. 10th Anniversary Farmhouse Summer Ale - Flying Fish (NJ)
5. Vesuvius (Belgian golden) - Full Sail
6. White Lightning Whisky Stout - McMenamins
7. Ned (Flanders Red) - Rock Bottom (Portland)
8. Pliny the Elder - Russian River (CA)
   
9. Standing Stone Double IPA - Standing Stone (Ashland)
10. Hooligan (pale) - Widmer
    

It's a bit hard to guess which monstrous IPA is going to capture the attention of drinkers, but Pliny the Elder's my guess--it is a faithful heir to the Sasquatch throne, a hoary blast of lupulin fury, apt for palates shattered late in the day. I also gave Widmer the nod because they have long been champions of the "special beer" strategy, and had a run of four or five years where they were one of the two or three most talked-about beers. I'll keep grandfathering them in until they send over kegs of Hefeweizen.

Your best bets?

All the Beer News That's Fit to Print

The center of gravity on the annual beer calendar revolves around the last full weekend in July, when the Oregon Brewers Festival (OBF) lures tens of thousands of beer drinkers to Waterfront Park. It's become such a large celebration that it has expanded into a full week--the first day of which as now arrived. So, without further ado, and with thanks to the stinkin' Devil Sun, who has stifled his fury long enough for me to blog, here we go...

Tonight, July 24
Beer and cheese tasting with Fred Eckhardt
No one who reads this blog is unfamiliar with Fred, right? Well, just in case: Fred is the poet laureate of Oregon beer, having documented professional and homebrewers and homebrewing for 30 years. There is at least one portrait homage in the McMenamin's kingdom (Grand Lodge); another homage by BridgePort as an Old Knucklehead; and more famously, he is the namesake of Hair of the Dog Fred. He is also the James Beard of beer, having turned Oregonians on to beer tastings as paired with chocolate and cheese. He just celebrated his eightieth birthday, so you know he's got some experience with these things. Thirty bucks advance, $35 at the door. Rogue Public House 1339 NW Flanders, doors open at 5pm. 503-222-5910.


Tuesday, July 25
Oregon Brewers Guild Dinner
Sold out! (As the popularity suggests, this is a great event, and one to put on the calendar for next year. It's a cool, insidery event with lots of brewers and brewing mucky-mucks, along with some of the bigger beer fans in the city. And they pour rare beers you can't get at the regular OBF.


Wednesday, July 26
Pale and IPA blind tasting
Ripped straight from the pages of Beervana, we have what may be the first of its kind (but I'm relying on a very faulty memory here, so correct me if I'm wrong). Much as with our own blind tasting, there are two phases--identification and rating. Participants will get twelve (!) pales and IPAs, after which they will be stacked like cordwood until Thurday afternoon, when they should be sobered up and ready for the fest.


Thursday, July 28
Over the Edge Tour
There have been alternafests in the past, usually involving the word "edge" for its multiple entendres, to feature beers who didn't make the cut into the OBF. This may or may not be one. The link the Brewers Guild supplies is dead. Supposedly at a number of local pubs, and probably one will be the Rose and Raindrop, so maybe I'll go scope that out and see. Holler if you have info.

Oregon Brewers Fest
Repeating a recent experiment, the Brewfest kicks off at 4pm on Thursday. But the real fun begins Friday at noon, when I arrive. (Not that I have a limited perspective, or anything.) Seventy-two beers, seventeen million people, and predicted moderate temperatures. What more can you say? Waterfront Park.


Friday, July 24
Sasquatch BrewAm Golf Tournament
This looks like a pretty cool thing. Held at the Edgefield's pitch-and-put course, twenty-one brewers have agreed to participate in this event, which is a fundraiser for the Glen Hay Falconer brewing scholarship program. The brewers feature some pretty bright lights, too: John Harris (Full Sail), Alan Sprints (Hair of the Dog), Dick Cantwell (Elysian), David Zuckerman (Boulder, a brewer who got his start at BridgePort), Jamie Floyd (Steelhead), Darron Welch (Pelican) among many others. Cost: $75. 9am tee time. Email here to sign up.

If I've missed anything, let me know.

Devil Sun

I've been hiding under a cool rock, waiting for the fury of the burning sky to dim. There is no internet connection here. More when I can stand it--

Deschutes Anniversary Pils and Elysian Jasmine IPA

Pardon me for grouping, but I've got a pile of reviews cluttering my inbox, so here's a twofer on a couple of second-tier beers from first-tier breweries.


Anniversary Pilsner - Deschutes
Deschutes celebrates its 18th with a summer special in their Bond Street series. You may know this beer under its previous (and future?) name--Pine Mountain Pils. It took gold in last year's GABF in the European-style pilsner category, sort of the European Bud category--but with predictably more character (akin to Bitburger, for example).

Deschutes' version certainly looks the part. It is certainly one of the palest beers I've poured out of a bottle of Oregon craft brew--misleadingly of an industrial lager hue. As with an industrial lager, it has a nice head and effervescence. Actually, if you don't have the same visceral reaction I do to extremely pale lagers, it's quite attractive.

But somewhere in the transparent depths resides a true Northwest beer--hoppy, hoppier, hoppiest. It's a pilsner for beer drinkers who like IPAs and wish they had a tin-can beer they could tolerate. It is in fact a mildly-alcoholic beer, but it packs a lot of spicy Saaz bitterness. I'm shocked it won anything at the GABF--it's the kind of beer the folks in Colorado usually scorn with a dismissive "way out of balance." It is, and that's good.

(And thanks to Stumptown Girl, who offered the beer as a housewarming gift.)

Stats
Hops: "mostly" Saaz; malt: 100% pilsner malt.

Rating: good.


Jasmine IPA - Elysian
A lesser brewery, experimenting with dried jasmine petals, might simply dump them into a regular beer. Not Elysian, which leaves Immortal IPA alone and creates a wholly new recipe for its Jasmine variety. That's a good start, because Immortal's a bit rugged for the delicate essence of jasmine. But perhaps even the toned down recipe Elysian uses here is too brawny.

It's a straightforward-looking beer--a typical golden with a relatively quickly-dissipating head of fluffy white. The nose is floral, as you would predict, but rather mildly so. It's readily detectable (someone would identify it who didn't know it was the Jasmine IPA), but it's mild enough that it comes across as generically floral.

The flavors are even subtler. Malt notes come forward and, appropriately, hops take a backseat so as not to overwhelm the delicate floral essence. Still, the jasmine merely accentuates the malt, commingling in the palate, to seem like a flavor by-product of malts. A nice beer, but something of a novelty. I would love to see how jasmine would compliment a lighter beer, likesay a kolsh or helles bock.

Stats
Hops: Chinook, finished with Glacier and Amarillo; Malt: English Pale, German Munich, plus small amounts of German Carahell and English Crystal; Original Gravity: 1.062; Alcohol: 5.6% abv; Other: jasmine flowers added to the boil and hopback.

Rating: average.