Redhook Slim Chance

The history of light beer is brief relative to other styles, and certainly less august. After a few fits and starts in the 1960s, Lite Beer from Miller struck the right chord in the 1970s and we have been burdened with this phenomenon since. Light beers are effectively a PR trick, not a beer; Miller, the first to actually sell the beer, did it through clever advertising ("Tastes great!" "Less filling!") Our sports events have been clogged with blights like Spuds MacKenzie and silver bullets ever since.

Of course, we've always had light-bodied, low-alcohol, low-calorie beer. In fact, the regular macros are pretty damned low-cal. A standard Bud or Coors clocks in at 150 calories, while their light version runs about 100. But draft Guinness has just 125 calories. Deschutes Cascade is 140. Widmer Hef is 159. (Buy low alcohol, light-colored beer, and you can be assured it's relatively low-cal.) The average man eats 2,500 calories a day--if he's putting away so many beers that he has to watch the difference between 125 and 150 calories, he's got a bigger problem than a beer gut.

And now we have Slim Chance, Redhook's entry into the low-cal sweepstakes. It's not the first craft-brewed light beer, nor even the first light ale. Hell, it's not even the first low-cal Redhook ale (Sunrye tips the scale at just six more calories than Slim Chance). It is, transparently, a market-driven lunge toward sales.

(We've recently been discussing what a "craft" beer is. I would argue this is a perfect example of what it's not. This beer's raison d'etre is commercial; nothing about it was "crafted," unless you mean by the marketers. That it comes from a craft brewery gives it no sufficient fig leafage, so far as I'm concerned.)

So how's the beer? Fine. It's professionally-made, reasonably drinkable, and actually pleasant. It's got just 3.9% alcohol but a noticeable 18 IBUs. There's a smattering of wheat, providing interest. It's lively on the tongue and easy to swallow. I'd certainly choose it over anything the macros are peddling. But it's not a high point of the brewers art, nor was it intended to be. It's a commercial product, period.

[Post slightly edited for clarity.]

Full Sail LTD 03 ... a Pilsner

This just in, via Twitter:

FullSailBrewing We bottled LTD 03 today and it is AMAZING! Prepare for a killer pilsner coming your way soon.

I am preparing.

Cool Article

It's one of those weeks. Blogging likely to be spotty in terms of both quality (I know, I know--how could you tell?) and quantity. So instead I direct you to this nice article in Imbibe. It surveys new trends in brewing, which look a whole lot like very old trends to writer Joshua Bernstein. Here's a tasty passage:

Despite the challenges, more and more U.S. hops and wheat growers are going pesticide-free. More than 150 organic beers (and growing) are sold domestically, with sales ballooning from $9 million in 2003 to $19 million in 2005, according to the Organic Trade Association. Goschie Farms in Oregon’s Willamette Valley has started growing small batches of pesticide-free organic hops, and fifth-generation hops farmer Steve Carpenter in Washington state supplies organic hops to Olympia.’s Fish Brewing Co. for its certified-organic pale ale. In Berkeley, Calif., Bison Brewing crafts a certified-organic, plum-sweet Belgian ale with ingredients sourced from the Midwest and, north of California’s Bay Area, Eel River Brewing Co. makes a line of certified-organic beers, including a smooth, citrusy India Pale Ale.

“We just try to reinvent the wheel,” says Craig Nicholls, a 38-year-old father of three with a shaved head and a fist-size brown goatee, who launched the first Northwest Organic Brewers festival in 2003 (it now attracts brewers from England and Germany) and co-founded Roots Organic Brewing, Oregon’s first all-organic brewery, in 2005. “We’re not a bunch of tree-huggers, but we do our part.” Roots’ beers are oddballs. Burghead Heather Ale eschews hops for 100 percent heather tips, while the toasted-coconut porter is a tropical transplant, fashioned from hand-toasted organic coconuts.

This level of commitment is not always easy. “It took us months to get our beers certified organic,” Nicholls recalls. Plus, every time he conceives a bizarre new brew (like Epic Ale, which features malt smoked over cherry wood that’s been soaked in cognac and cherry juice), he files reams of paperwork proving the ingredients’ organic provenance. Tack on costly ingredients, and “it’s a lot of work for not a lot of bucks,” Nicholls says, adding that brewing organics is not about cashing in—it’s about the tradition of richer, sweeter, fuller-flavored beers. “We’re returning to the roots of brewing, the way beer is supposed to be made.”

There's more, including a section on barrel aging featuring Vinnie Cilurzo. Go read the whole article.

Toward Consensus? Impossible.

Let's try a thought experiment. Imagine you assembled a list of a city's best beers. Then you polled a bunch of people to find the consensus of which of these they would recommend. Here's the experiment part: how many of those beers would have high levels of agreement--say 75% or more?

I would have guessed you could get at least a couple beers in every style--essentially broad agreement on the "best beers." Well, Matt Wiater at Portlandbeer.org actually did this, and guess what: not much agreement. Of the top 15 beers, only two met my hypothetical standard. Mostwere recommended by only a bare majority of people. Mirror Pond, for example, surely one of the more famous, beloved, and best-selling beers in all of Greater Beervana, managed a recommendation from only 50% of the people.

So who were these half-wits? Bloggers, mainly (including me).

The lesson is clear to me: there is no "best" of anything. "Bests" are reserved for track meets, where you can actually measure performance. In beer, the master is the taster. What's best is what your tongue likes. I tend to think we can talk about some general standards of quality, but specific beers?--clearly this isn't so easy to figure out.

So the next time (and there will be a next time) we get in a spat about a specific beer, we should recall this lesson. Different strokes, folks. And ain't it nice we have so many breweries to serve these different tongues?

Go have a look at the recommendations. You'll probably be surprised.

Strange Press Release

I attract a lot of press releases. About half relate to beer, and the balance come from random alcohol producers, food-related products, and some just random stuff. The hallmark of these latter, non-beer pitches (and some of the beer pitches, too) is that they've clearly never read my blog.

Every now and again, I get a weird release like one I got recently, from Estrella Damm, a Barcelona brewery. Here's the first line of the pitch:

Estrella Damm today announced the launch of Estrella Damm INEDIT, a beer specifically created to accompany food. INEDIT was crafted by world-renowned chef Ferran Adrià, Juli Soler, elBulli sommeliers and Estrella Damm, the leading brewer of Barcelona.

Now, I don't write about the pairing of food and beer very often, but I would hope that anyone who spent a few minutes on my blog would understand that I think it pairs very nicely with food--better, in many cases, than wine. So this line not only misunderstands my blog, but apparently misunderstands beer. Not a good start, and things turn south from there:

“INEDIT was developed from the belief that there was a need for a beer that could complement a dining experience," said Ferran Adrià, elBulli Executive Chef. “INEDIT is the fruit of more than a year and a half and 400 trial iterations between the master brewers of Estrella Damm and the team of sommeliers at elBulli.”

Hmmm. Hard to know what to make of a beer company that has just stumbled onto the idea that food can accompany food, that their product does not, and that it took them four hundred batches to get it right. That doesn't mean it will suck. In fact, it sounds tasty:

INEDIT is a unique coupage of barley malt and wheat with spices which provide an intense and complex aroma. It aims to complement food once thought to be a challenge in terms of culinary pairings, including salads, vinegar-based sauces, bitter notes such as asparagus and artichokes, fatty and oily fish, and citrus.

With its delicate carbonation, INEDIT adapts to acidic, sweet and sour flavors. Its appearance is slightly cloudy, and INEDIT has a yeasty sensation with sweet spices, causing a creamy and fresh texture, delicate carbonic long aftertaste, and pleasant memory. The rich and highly adaptable bouquet offers a unique personality with a smooth, yet complex taste.

The release didn't come along with a bottle, but I requested one. After this incredibly bizarre pitch, I'm not sure I expect one. I'll let you know...

Fun With Beer - Berliner Weisse

I spent the waning, sunnny hours of the evening last night at the Pilsner Room enjoying a Berliner Weisse. Chris's Summer D-Lite is assistant brewer Chris Haveman's wonderful entry in the "Brewer's Share" program at Full Sail. I've enjoyed Berliner Weisses in the past, but never as they're served at the Pilsner Room--and in Berlin--with accompanying woodruff and raspberry syrup.

The style, noted for its dry, tart lactic character, is at least 400 years old and may date back to the Huguenot migration into Germany. The Huguenots were Flemish-French protestants, so could the style have passed through, say, the Zenne Valley? A hypothesis I consider with relish. In any case, the style is, for sourheads, a joy. Beers are sour in different ways; a good Berliner Weisse should be sharply tart, like a fresh lemon. They aren't punishingly or funkily sour, just tart, and therefore perfectly thirst-quenching, like a fresh lemon soda.

I have always been intrigued by this passage from Jackson, and have regretted that I'd have to go to Berlin to enjoy the experience:

"I have only ever seen the summer versions, with a dash of the herbal essence of woodruff (Waldmeister) or raspberry syrup. This is now the familiar face of Berliner Weisse.

"The syrup colors the head as well as the beer, the woodruff making for a vivid lime-cordial hue and the raspberry looking more like peach. Everyone knows the flavor of raspberry, but what about the essence of woodruff? Sampled on its own, it is heavily fragrant, with notes of hay, lemon grass, and cough drops. The herb grows in the forests around Berlin, and is also used to make a soft drink and to flavor mineral water. When Berliner Weisse is served in this way, the idea is that the drinker first tastes the sweetness of the syrup, then sense the acidity of the beer.

"Whenever I asked for a Weissbier in Berlin, the server has demanded: "Red or green?" If I have requested it without either, to sample the beer in its native state, I have sometimes been viewed as a madman. The syrups are considered necessary to moderate the intensity of the acid..."

You get something like this experience at Full Sail. Instead of--or in addition to--the query "red or green," you may hear "raspberry or marshmallow?" (Marshmallow? See below.) I wanted to taste all three variants, so I ordered the syrup on the side. My experience with the style isn't vast--there just aren't very many examples available in the US--but this version seemed like a perfect example. Berliner Weisses are not designed to be complex; they depend on the clarity of the tart note. It has to be very fresh and clean and have that citrus-like thirst-quenching quality. These beers are made with some wheat, a flavor evident particularly in the finish, but not a dominant one. All of these things describe Chris's Summer D-Lite. It's spot-on. Germans might find a beer like this too intense, but those of you who like sour beers of Belgium will find it quite approachable.

The syrups surprised me. Added to the beer, they recall some long lost fountain drink, like a phosphate. (For those who don't like to stray too far from sight of a hop, these are a distant wander to foreign land--a word to the wise.) The raspberry wasn't too weird--hold your mouth right and you could imagine a fruit lambic. But the "green" was something else. I didn't get "marshmallow" from it. There's a strong vanilla note, and something herbal behind that. Hay isn't far off, but with a tiny touch of anise. The syrups are heavier than beer, and you need to stir as you go along, or you'll end up with two fingers of weird Fanta. I recommend getting them on the side so you can add to taste. Just a touch and they add some flavor without much sweetness. Go hog wild and dump the whole thing in if you want a wild ride.

It was one of the more entertaining times I've had drinking beer in the past decade or so. Don't miss it--you'll regret it if you do. (Or end up having to go all the way to Germany. Not bad, but inconvenient.)

Honest Pint Act - Two Items

This just in from Facebook, where Evan Manvel is trying to get the Honest Pint Act passed:

Here's the scoop from the capitol:

The Honest Pint Bill, HB 3122, is sitting in the Senate Business and Transportation Committee, and may or may not get a hearing. So if you can take 30 seconds and call the chair of that committee and ask for a hearing, that would be very helpful!

Especially if you're a constituent of Senator Rick Metsger. Even if not, it's helpful. Here's Senator Metsger's office phone number: 503-986-1726.

Say that you're an Oregonian in support House Bill 3122, the honest pint bill, and that you'd like it to move forward.

If you want, you can note:

• It's a voluntary certification program
• It's a consumer protection measure
• It's a step forward in highlighting beer, a great Oregon product and part of our national image
• It doesn't cost the state, as businesses pay for it themselves

But really just say a sentence or two on why the bill matters to you. Be very polite.

Thanks!

Evan

p.s. If you want to do something further, it wouldn't hurt to call your own Senator and the other members of the committee as well:

- Sen. Martha Schrader, 503-986-1720
- Sen. Joanne Verger, 503-986-1705
- Sen. Larry George, 503-986-1713
- Sen. Bruce Starr, 503-986-1715

Also, the Freakonomists picked this up on their blog at the NYT:

Oregon’s House recently passed the “Honest Pint Act,” which would allow drinking establishments to display state-issued stickers certifying that their pint glasses actually hold 16 ounces, as opposed to the 13- and 14-ounce glasses that some bars try to pass off as pints. The act is predicted to cost at least $20,000, not including the price of pint “measuring tools.” House Republicans, meanwhile, think full pints should be the least of Oregonians’ concerns.

So there you go.

Upright Brewing - Early Impressions

Upright Brewing
240 N Broadway St.
Portland, Oregon, 97227
Tasting Room Hours: Sat-Sun, Noon-5pm

We learned almost a year ago that a new brewery was coming to the Left Bank Project, in the fork where Weidler and Broadway split in two. Founder/brewer Alex Ganum described his vision for Upright Brewing then:

Imagine combining the spirit and methods of rustic French and Belgian style farmhouse brewing with the positive energy and downright beautiful ingredients the Pacific Northwest offers us. These are beers inspired by historical records and the dedicated few who have kept traditions alive, drawing from our city and region for resources and raw materials. In addition to the year-round brands expect to see several unusual special releases including barrel-aged beers, sour beers, fruit beers, smoked beers, and many other distinct brews.

I have been saying that Upright's beers speak with a Flemish accent, but maybe French is more accurate. Having interned at Ommegang and assisted Dan Pederson at BJ's (who was one of the earliest Portland brewers to experiment with Belgian styles), this isn't entirely surprising. Yet he takes great pains to emphasize that his beers aren't brewed to style. He would pour a beer, then describe how it behaved, not what it was. His vision does not include telling beer writers what styles inspired him. This is disorienting--you're always trying to get a bead on the beer and the style the brewer was shooting for. Ganum doesn't want to be pigeonholed, so he gives you very little to work with.

Guess what? This makes him all the more Belgian. What other country cares so little for the dictates of style?


The Brewery
The brewery is a ten barrel system, already outfitted with pinot casks for barrel-aging--with quite a bit of room to grow. Following Ommegang's example, Ganum uses open fermenters in a small, sequestered room, accessible by beautiful fir doors. (The restoration of the Left Bank means lots of beautiful fir.) The day I visited, a batch was near the end of primary fermentation, and seem dangerously exposed. Not to worry, Ganum said cheerfully, "as long as you keep your brewery clean, you shouldn't have any problems. And you should keep your brewery clean anyway."

He uses a French saison yeast (perhaps this one)--not Dupont's. His doesn't require the exotic conditions of Dupont's, although it apparently needs a little heat. The day I visited, he had a heater going in the fermentation room. It's a very nice yeast, finishing out to bone dry gravities but somehow leaving the beer tasting smooth and sweet. It is versatile and distinctive, but not aggressive or overly "Belgiany." Funky flavors are mostly absent, but subtle, earthy ones reward the observant.


The Beer
Let's start with the naming convention. Upright's can be said to be in the Rochefort system, following the specific gravity of the wort. (Not, as you might have surmised--as I did--the batch numbers.) So "Four" comes from a wort of roughly 1.040, "Five" of 1.050, and so on. Ganum prefers this to the baroque names many beers have. (The brewery name comes from the Upright bass--he's a jazz fan.)

Four (4.5%).
We had a discussion just before I left about which of Ganum's beer would emerge as favorites. He thinks it will be Four, which is his most distinctive. (I agree, but assessing mass tastes has never been a great forte of mine. In any case, it's my favorite.) A cloudy wheat beer (50% of the grist) Four is made with a sour mash, which gives it a lip-smacking tartness. I was recording Alex so I didn't have to take copious notes, and he gave a great description of the process:



Ganum may not like to refer to established styles when he describes his beer, but I have no such compunction. I'd put this halfway between a weissebier and a Berliner weisse. It lacks the banana/clove quality of a weisse, but isn't as sharp as a Berliner. Rather, it's cleanly tart and acidic and very quaffable. The wheat is evident, as are the Hallertauers. It's a very classic-tasting, accomplished beer. We didn't have any cheese or a salad to pair with Four, but I bet they would have gone wonderfully together.

In addition to the regular Four, there's a batch on wood to which he will add cherry puree, lactic, and brettanomyces claussenii (a purportedly gentle brett). Thereafter, the inoculated barrel will continue to add funk to future batches.

Five, (5.5%).
Upright's yeast isn't in-your-face, but I had the opportunity to see just how much it contributes when I tried two batches of Five--one on Upright's usual yeast, one on an English ale yeast. Five is an golden, slightly cloudy ale with a creamy, frothy head. The English version was a fairly pedestrian beer. Slightly nutty but underhopped, it was sweetish and bland. But on the saison yeast it was a totally different bird. It had a rather pungent nose (absent the other Upright beers--odd) and was marked by a strange bitterness--"herbaceous," in Alex's words. The hops come forward, and the malt plays a more supportive role.

Six, (6.7%).
If people don't resonate with the names of Upright's beer, my guess is that they'll refer to six--the only non-golden Ganum brews--as "the brown." But more than brown, it's a rye (15-18% of grist), and also has a touch of black barley. It is also highly attenuated, but has a round, fruity/raisiny character. Malt-forward and creamy, it is the most familiar of Upright's beers.

In addition to the base beer, there are three variants on wood: one with Turkish chiles, one with standard brettanomyces (not the claussenii), and one with chocolate. The plan is to release them simultaneously.

Seven, (8%).
If BeerAdvocate is any guide, all Upright beers are going to be classified as "saisons." Seven seems closest to the mark. It would be considered a strong saison, but the character is right. An orangey, lively beer with a super dense, creamy head, it sports pronounced hopping. (Magnums to bitter--as is the case with all the beers but Four--as well as Mount Rainier, Liberty, and Hallertauer.) It was still a bit green--Alex poured it from the tank--but already finishing out to be a dry, refined beer. I'll have to try it again on tap, but after Four, it was my favorite.

Others.
Upright's submission to the Organic Beer Fest is an unhopped Gruit ale made with a bit of spelt, lemongrass, two types of orange peel, hyssop, and sichuan peppercorn. Upright's yeast is especially suited to a gruit because it finishes so cleanly. We sampled a bit from a batch still in the fermenter, and it was already past the cloying stage. A nice combo of herbs, with the peppercorn adding a delicate spicy-herbal note. A Rauchbier may or may not also be on the way. The brewery hand-smoked the malt themselves over redwood. Unfortunately they had some yeast issues. If it's not up to snuff, they'll have to dump it.

Final Notes
You can now find pubs around town pouring Four (EastBurn) and Five (Belmont Station, Bailey's, Concordia Ale House). Tonight Six makes its debut at Seraveza, when Sarah will tap a fresh firkin at 6pm.

Upright will ultimately be bottling their beer. They are currently trapped in that terrible Kafkaesqe process of trying to get their labels approved by the Feds. Samurai Artist is the man behind the label art--variants of the image seen at the webpage and on my little audio clip.

Organic Beer Fest Ho

We are but two weeks six weeks [sorry, month confusion there] from one of the best beerfests in all of Beervana. Earlier today, Abe Goldman-Armstrong sent out the list of beers in this year's lineup--and it looks like a good one. (That's how you know it's a good fest, right?--the beer.) Thanks to a hat tip from Samurai Artist, we also have a cool vid to get us in the mood. Here's Alison Grayson's short doc on last year's fest:

North American Organic Brewers Festival, 2008 from Alison Grayson on Vimeo.

Get out your calendars and mark it down: June 26-28, Overlook Park, Portland.

Cool Bits

I have noticed a few fragments of interesting news of late, and in case you missed any of it, I have collected it here for your reading convenience.


Berliner Weisse
John Foyston alerts us to a rather exotic brew over at the Pilsner Room: a Berliner Weisse. A style not much seen anywhere, but especially not in Beervana, this is a rare, rare sighting. It's one of my fave styles, but I can't recall ever having a domestic interpretation. Consider me much hyped. If you want to know more about the style or this beer, go read John's full post. Here's a key passage, though:

Full Sail Brewer Chris Haveman made the latest of the company's innovative Brewer's Share beers...

"When I found out that my beer was going to be brewed at the beginning of summer," said Haveman, " I immediately thought of the perfect style, a Berliner Weiss. This is an easy drinking unfiltered beer made with 50% wheat malt, a tiny amount of hersbrucker hops and a touch of lactic acid to give it a refreshing tartness."

Stone Beer
If you happen to be in Central Oregon, take the opportunity to hit Bend Brewing, where there are not one but two stone beers on tap. Jon has the story:

[T]hese were collaborative beers co-brewed by Tonya Cornett of BBC and Tomme Arthur of Lost Abbey. They brewed the first beer, Hot Rocks Lager, down at the San Marcos location of Lost Abbey, and the other, Rocksy, here in Bend. Since hearing about the collaboration, I’ve been dying to try the beers.

The gist of a “steinbier” is the brewing method: instead of bringing the wort (unfermented beer) to a boil by placing the kettle over a heat source (such as a flame), it is instead boiled by placing glowing-hot rocks directly into the wort. The super-heated rocks bring the wort to boil in a great sputtering, roiling, smoky spectacle that caramelizes the sugars and lends a unique smoky-like character to the finished beer.

The Great Midwest
Also, Angelo De Ieso is touring the Midwest, and has some great posts up. He was just in New Glarus, WI--just outside of Madison, and home of New Glarus Brewing. Watch Brewpublic for a future write-up of that stellar brewery.

My "Craft Brewing" Manifesto

Buy local, buy good, drink on tap.

Back in the 1970s, Charlie Papazian founded the Association of Brewers--and the more well-known American Homebrewers Association--as advocacy groups for fledgling brewers. The mission grew out of the particular circumstances of that time and place, and was, for at least a decade, clear, accurate, and important. There were two categories of beer: insipid, tin-can beer and handcrafted, artisanal beer. The former had eaten its own, stamped out diversity and quality, and was busily consolidating itself into a single, monolithic product where the only distinction could be found in the color on the label. The latter cared about beer, brewing history, and beer styles, not money. The Association of Brewers therefore had an easy task: support the little guy, support good beer, support independence. It was a moral as much as business crusade.

Unfortunately, the Brewers Association (as it it now styled) still holds to these values, and they no longer have clear, obvious referents. Breweries can't easily be divided into good beer/bad beer, big/little, and independent/multinational. The brewing industry is a market, and markets grow like amoebas. Trying to contain them in boxes is of no use. And markets are by nature amoral.

I have not particular interest in how American breweries organize themselves politically. Presumably, those that are small and local have more in common with each other than they have with Anheuser-Busch. But does Hair of the Dog have more in common with Widmer/Redhook than it does with Maine's Gritty McDuff's? Probably.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
American Craft Beer Week
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We are midway through Craft Beer Week, a promotional event of the Brewers Association. The Charlie Papazian multiverse dominates everything in American craft brewing, and so we must dutifully turn toward Denver this week. But while we do so, I'd like to offer my counter-manifesto to his outdated one. His has become a political organization. The following manifesto is designed to create the conditions for the production of good beer and a sustainable market. It could also be said to be a blueprint for how Beervana became Beervana. These things, rather than a series of ever less explicable categories of being, are what we want to nurture.

Buy Local
Show me a town where the beer drinkers are avid fans of good beer, and I'll show you a town with local breweries. It makes sense, right? If locals are buying your beer, you're inclined to make them happy. But it's not just small breweries that have this effect: look at the great brewing regions, the areas around Portland, Seattle, Denver, Philadelphia--have or had large, regional breweries located nearby. Beer is local. If you have a beer city, it means you have beer people. If those beer people buy locally, they'll have access to good beer.

Charlie has focused on the independence, but this misses the point. Markets require masses. Towns with breweries have those masses. The problem with consolidation in the 60s and 70s was that local brewing culture died out--vast swaths of the country, lacking any local beer, drank whatever was cheapest, further fueling consolidation. It's counterintuitive, but even bigger regional breweries help smaller ones flourish because they make the market even that much bigger. You don't have to be xenophobic about it, but spare a copper or two for the local guy(s).

Buy Good
Of course, it's not enough to only buy local--consumers have to demand good beer. Rather than descending into a long philosophical dispute about good, let's use the Judge Stewart rationale: we know it when we see it. Minimally, it's a beer brewed with quality ingredients and attention to style. The reason we should support good beer--whether or not it comes from a small brewery--is that this creates the market for good beer. If consumers always eschew the good for the cheap, they'll get the cheap. If they spend a bit more and buy the good, they'll make it possible for breweries to continue to brew the good. And round it goes.

Drink on Tap
You can buy many of the world's greatest beers in bottles. You can buy brewery-fresh local beer in bottles. But from time to time, you should go to your neighborhood pub and plunk down a five spot on a pint (an honest pint, naturally). The brewing ecosystem is large and diverse. If we don't support pubs, we fail to support the incubators of beer culture. Seeing others in a public space, sampling different kinds of beers, talking with your local publican (who may be the brewer), these things are the fertilizer for healthy markets. When people go to pubs, they support local beer and local business. By creating an additional market for beer, they allow non-bottling breweries to flourish--all of which makes the brewing ecosystem as a whole more sustainable.

Buy local, buy good, drink on tap. Do these things, and good beer will continue to be brewed in your neighborhood. After all, isn't that's what Charlie Papazian is really after?

What's Going on Here?

In the manner of Stan's ongoing series, here's one for you. Care to hazard a guess why these little lovelies are meaningful? Hint: they reside in Upright Brewing, Portland's newest brewery.

FredFest Online Auction

I totally forgot about the FredFest online auction...which is still ongoing. All the beers were donated and 100% of the proceeds go to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of America. If this recession has left you with a spare c-note rattling around your pocket, go put in a bid. There are some pretty notable beers, including:

• Hair of the Dog Matt. A commemorative beer celebrating Bottleworks' 10th anniversary, it's an extra special Adam, "aged in bourbon and 33-year old Apple Eau de Vie barrels for approximately one year by the time it was released."
• Sierra Nevada Celebration, 1982. I doubt this beer would be much tasty now, but it is a piece of history. Four are going for just $25 bucks now.
• Midnight Sun Venus (a quad), Anchor (brett wit), The Viking (strong ale), M (Tenth Anniversary barleywine, 2005)
  
• HotD Dave, '94(?), an eisbock, if memory serves, of something like 30% alcohol. I actually had about a half bottle of this for a time, and it is definitely unique.
  
• Verticals: Thomas Hardy ('86, '87, '89). HotD Doggie Claws ('01-'08). Alaskan Smoked Porter ('97-'08). Full Sail Old Boardhead ('98-'08). Rogue Old Crusty ('93-'00). Stone Epic ('02-'08). Samichlaus ('03-'07).

The current big value is a 2002 bottle of Fish Old Woody. 750 ml, seven years old, and currently going for a measly $22. The moral of our story: there are rare beer to be had, a few rare deals, and all of it goes to charity. You have two days left to bid, so go have a look.

Hipsters With Beer

The New York Times discovers Portland (again):

One accessory, however, was ubiquitous: as breakdance crews windmilled and as the Portland legend Fogatron did his human beatbox routine, every hipster — male, female or otherwise — carried a plastic cup full of beer. Free beer.

And not just free beer but pretty good free beer. Next to the cash registers, barmen pumped kegs of hefeweizen and amber ale, both made by Widmer Brothers, one of the two oldest breweries in what has become the microbrew capital of America. (There are better beers in Portland, but compared with your usual party beer, Widmer’s is premier cru.)

Hipsters? Great, another trigger for Doc Wort's inner curmudgeon. But actually, the article is a pretty spot-on. Writer Matt Gross captures happy hour and brewpubs:

All that exertion justified the other indulgences, which would resume around 4 p.m. with happy hour. Portland requires that its restaurants serve a certain amount of food with their booze, so even the fanciest places offer high-end treats at a big discount. My friends and I ate briny-sweet Willapa Bay oysters ($1 apiece) and short-rib macaroni and cheese ($5) at Ten01, one of the city’s top restaurants, and at the pan-Asian Ping, in Portland’s dilapidated Chinatown, we had Thai-style dried cuttlefish (paradoxically juicy) and Macanese pork-chop sandwiches.

Happy hour didn’t always mean food. On Mondays, it meant $2.50 pints of the wonderful smoked-malt Lompoc Strong Draft, at the New Old Lompoc tavern, and on Tuesdays, it meant $3.50 IPAs at Hopworks Urban Brewery, an energy-efficient brewpub that’s a stop for cyclists on their way home from work.

As well as our other (mostly unmentioned, saltier) drinking establishment:

Finally, and because, as my friend Becky said, a visit to a Portland strip club is inevitable, I wound up one night at the Acropolis Steakhouse Plus, a Vegas-y joint with a $3 cover charge that had been recommended by — of all people — my little sister. She liked it, however, not for the performers (who earned it its nickname, the A Crop) but for the ludicrously cheap steaks. My eight-ounce sirloin cost $5.50 and came deliciously medium-rare. This being Portland, the meat was locally sourced, too, from cattle on the owner’s ranch.

The title tells you the orientation of the writer: to a New Yorker, we practically give stuff away here. (He raved about Thai food at Pok Pok that was $25.) Just no one tell him that salaries in town are also rock-bottom. Maybe we can lure some of those New Yorkers for a visit.

FredFest 2009

This is where I would normally write up a review of FredFest. I will make a comment about a couple of the beers--especially that 1994 Saxer doppelbock--but actually, this event calls for a slightly different kind of treatment.

Although it has some of the appearance of a beer fest, FredFest is actually a birthday party. The space and "guest list" are both small enough that within a couple of laps, you've laid eyes on everyone in the place. Mostly people spend time talking and enjoying each other's company rather than focusing overmuch on the beer. For me, it was sort of a harmonic convergence of bloggers/beer writers and blog readers.

Let's see if I can do this justice: Bill, Dave, Lisa, Abe, Derek, John, Chris, Kerry, plus Josh (who suggested Doc Wort and I are one--and who remains in my doghouse) and Nate, regular commenters it was nice to finally put a face to. Of course, the event was for the ur-writer, a fact not lost on any of us. We managed, through Bill's organization, to get a picture with Fred. It should appear on various blogs, from which I plan to steal it as a treasured memento. (Unfortunately, we missed Angelo, Matt, and one Doc Wort, who did not make himself known if he was there.) Very cool to see you all, and all in one place--

Okay, that doppel. It held up very nicely--good thing Bob had kept it in a cooler all those years. The structure was intact, and it was still lively after all these years. A wee bit of oxidation, but fairly minimal. Some fruity notes emerged, and it was silky smooth. Everyone raved, but no one I talked to remembered the original particularly clearly. I do. Despite decoction and several weeks in the tank, it still came out like a Hell's Angel. A very big, burly beer--smooth and supple, but still big. In the current gigantism of brewing, 8% seems trifling, but this was no lightweight. It came out in the dead of winter, and I drank it to chase away the chill. So, while the aged beer was a beauty, I have to confess missing the force of the original. I had somehow hoped to visit the past--but of course things change.

The other beer of note, and one you may actually encounter, was Firestone Walker Abacus, which was deep, dark, and mysterious. I had it late, so my palate wasn't its freshest, but I'm still prepared to declare it damned impressive. (Actually, there were plenty of beers to note: Double Mountain Ingelmonster, Cascade Bain de Brugge, Fred on the Wood. I didn't take notes, though--I was at a party, and I was just enjoying things. Even a beer blogger gets a day off every now and again.)

Got a few pictures here, and if others write about it, I'll link to them.

Live-tweeting FredFest

FredFest and Me

In a most delightful turnabout, it appears I have scored a ticket to FredFest after all. I will take along the phone and live-tweet the event as I did with Cheers to Belgian beers. Sweet!

Weekend Best Bets

Since there are only 250 tickets available for FredFest, I therefore conclude that some of you might be tippling elsewhere. Here are my recommendations.

• Go sit out on the sidewalk at Bailey's and have a Stonefly Rye from Three Creeks. I was down in Sisters just a couple of weeks ago, and this is the beer that most impressed me. Perfect sidewalk-on-a-sunny day beer.

• Two of Upright's beers are pouring at Belmont Station, and Four is also ideal for sunshine. Five? Go, try it, and tell me. Or wait until after I visit the brewery on Monday. There's also a cask BridgePort Hop Harvest pouring, which might serve to answer the question: how long do fresh hop ales reside tastily within a cask?
  

• The Horse Brass is pouring Fort George's Vortex IPA. It's one of the better IPAs brewed in Oregon, which is saying a lot. And it doesn't often make it up and over the Coast Range to our fair city.
  

• At Eastburn (and also the Horse Brass) you'll find Double Mountain's Kolsch, a beer over-hopped by German standards, but perfecto by our own.
  

Of course, you might also find yourself wishing to boldly go to a movie. In this case, I recommend the St. Johns Cinema and Pub, where for ten bucks you get both a ticket and a glass of beer and no assaultive ads. Eschew Regal; go indie.

A Round of News

A Friday morning omnibus post of news from around the beer-o-sphere...

FredFest
Let us start with the important news first. Tomorrow is FredFest, an event that promises to collect together more good beer in one place than anyplace since ... well, the last FredFest. There are a limited number of tickets, and apparently there are still a few left. Enticements: FredFest is hosted by Hair of the Dog, a place with the finest beer vibes in the city; the regular beer list is amazing (an old keg of Tony Gomes' legendary Doppelbock--likely the last one left on the planet--is going to be tapped after fifteen or so years, there's a '98 Full Sail beer, Double Mountain's barrel Ingelmonster, etc.), as is the list of rare and specialty beers up for silent auction is astonishing; all the proceeds go to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of America. I have decided the event is not in my budget, so you should also go and report back so I'll know what happened. Take good notes on that Saxer Doppel!

Tomorrow, 2pm-6pm, Hair of the Dog brewery. Tix here.

Beer Cit(ies) USA
Charlie copped out: he has unsatisfyingly declared both Asheville and Portland Beer City USA. Man, was that a waste of a lot of time and energy. I'm not even sure what he's talking about in the announcement:

This was the first Beer City USA poll. Ballots were cast during a time when the emergence of local beer communities began to be relevant. For the future, beer communities and networks will need to exist and find common cause to preserve choices.

Seller beware! Offer choice and offer quality or beer drinkers just may go elsewhere.

On more of a big picture view, many Americans feel that the quality of life in the USA has been seriously eroded over the past decade. What happened with Beer City USA polling is the kind of local, regional and community support many are seeking to foster to bring back quality, value and purpose. Local food and beverage producers seek this kind of grassroots enthusiasm. Small, local and independent businesses will strive to connect with the qualities that matter....

Who gets top honors? I’m honoring both Portland, Oregon and Asheville, North Carolina this year. They are number one in the east and number one in the west with about 6,000 votes apiece. What, no definitive Number 1 and Number 2? Correct. Is that a cop out? I don't think so, but of course beer drinkers are an opinionated group of individuals and may beg to differ.

I don't fault Charlie for trying to do a cool thing here, but he should have talked to someone who's been involved with the internets for a few years: online polls are wildly inaccurate, hugely unscientific, and easily prone to mischief.* Good intentions, but...

Seattle Beer Week
First it was Philly Beer Week, then SF Beer Week, and yesterday was the first day of Seattle Beer Week. (Resist, Portland, resist!) If you happen to be up in the Emerald City, you may have a gander at the schedule of events and check something out. A couple local bloggers (1, 2) are busy covering events)


_____________
*Counting IPs doesn't work, expecially as we enter the age of wi-fi and iPhones. Measuring traffic has constantly been a pain in the ass for websites, and it's no different with online polling.

Weights and Measures

Have a look at the following picture and tell me 1) what's wrong with this pour, and 2) what's right with it?



Got it?

This is, in a nutshell, why the Honest Pint Project exists. The wrongness of it is clear by visual inspection, yes? It's the Herve Villechaize of pours (that means "short" to those of you too young to have enjoyed the high art spectacle of Fantasy Island back in the 80s). It is in fact a rather succulent cask XPA enjoyed earlier today at Deschutes (a certain beeronomist is racing to capture the picture in the background to offer a competing, erudite post on the lessons of symmetric information). The rightness? Because this is an honest pint, you know exactly how short the pour is. Because we know what the size of the serving vessel is, we can make adjustments accordingly.

Your options: 1) order a regular tap, 2) stiff the waitress, 3) blog about the injustice later.But because the pint glass is honest, you have the opportunity to adjust your behavior accordingly.

And on to the Senate...

The Honest Pint Bill passed another hurdle, making it out of the Oregon House. Now it's on to the Senate. Strangely, the O is already on the case (read the comments for extra amusement):

"It's a little past 10:30 here, but it's 5 o'clock somewhere," said Rep. Jules Bailey, D-Portland, in opening his pitch on the floor.

The vote was 34-26. Critics argued businesses could do this on their own. They don't want state agencies spending time on this and anyway, isn't the economy tanking out there?

Rep. Nick Kahl, D-Portland, put his own spin on that kind of thinking.

"Our state faces serious problems and we're dealing with this bill," -- wait for it, wait for it -- "because now more than ever, Oregonians deserve a full 16 ounces."

Another milestone, and just two left before it becomes law. Who'da thunk?

Update. KGW also has a story up, quoting from this blog (is there any better evidence that the MSM is in trouble?). I will confess to being totally mystified about why the media thinks this is news. I was even beginning to wonder if my few hundred readers on this site--which is an exclusively beer-interested crowd--still cared. But two major news outlets have stories up already on the assumption that their hudreds of thousands of readers care. Far out.

The Difficulty Defining "Craft Brewery"

In case you missed this comment from my "I am a craft brewer" post, have a look. It highlights the trouble the Brewers Association has in trying to nail down which breweries qualify as "craft." A lovely and passionate defense of independent regional breweries:

"I was a craft brewer." That's the movie I want to make. Because, I was at one time, according to the BA and the video. But alas, I work for August Schell now, and we are not craft brewers (just ask the BA). Never mind the fact that we will celebrate our 150th year in 2010 as the second-oldest family owned brewery in the US. We survived prohibition, a Native American uprising that burned New Ulm to the ground, and the vanishing of regional breweries in the 70's and 80's. Forget the fact that we sold a tree on our grounds in the 80's to pay the bills. Discount that we brewed a German Pilsner and Weizen in 1986.

Because, the fact is, the bulk of our production uses corn as an adjunct. And even if you discount that beer, we would still produce a larger volume of non-adjunct beers than most of the top craft breweries. But hey, what does that matter?

No, I am not a craft brewer, and I'll happily be that for another 150 years.

Cheers!

David Berg
August Schell Brewing

I have written about this issue when A-B released American Ale (both here and here) and when the BA dumped Widmer/Redhook. This is definitely going to be an issue--and soon.

The Scorsese Principle

America's contribution to the history of film is mostly on the commercial side. There are a few exceptions--Billy Wilder, John Ford, Orson Welles. One of these is surely a contemporary, Martin Scorsese, whose oeuvre will one day be considered among the world's finest. Among his credits are some landmark films that changed cinema (Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, The Last Waltz, Raging Bull, Goodfellas) as well as some underappreicated masterpieces like Gangs of New York and Bringing out the Dead. Yet for none of these was he awarded Hollywood's supposed marker of artistic achievement, the Oscar. That he was finally awarded one for a minor picture is a testament only to the shame of the academy who had spurned him for three decades.

The point is, Scorsese's talent didn't require an Oscar for validation. That the Academy hadn't seen fit to award him one only reflected their own shameful, stunted sense of art.

I bring this up because tomorrow is the final day to vote in Charlie Papazian's online poll to recognized "Beer City USA" at next week's American Craft Beer Week. It is likely that the winner of the poll will be Asheville, NC, which currently leads Portland 39% to 34%. This is, of course, a function of a more robust effort at boosterism among the locals of that nascent beer community than anything like an objective survey of which town beer geeks think is the most beery. Some from Beervana are mounting a last minute get-out-the-vote campaign to push us over the top, and so maybe we'll win in the end.

I say don't worry about it. Let Asheville win the contest. It may be good for their brewing community to have a shot in the arm like that. Maybe more people will head down to their local pub and try a craft beer. In the end, a contest like this says a lot more about the people conducting it than who wins. Scorsese's films were landmark creations whether or not the Academy thought Kevin Costner's directing was superior. How many of you still rent Dances With Wolves?

A week or two ago, I was in the County Cork after work having a pint and a lentil burger. In that sun-suffused neighborhood pub, eleven tables were occupied and in the room, eight of the patrons were children under ten. They were accompanied by their parents, nearly all of whom were also having a pint, and by seven, seven-thirty, they had all departed, mostly by foot. Of the many ways in which to gauge what a "beer city" really is, I can think of no better marker. If you have local pubs where families go to dine and enjoy locally-made craft beer, you have deep penetration into the culture of the town. You have young parents who are beer fans and who are rearing their children to regard beer not as a vice, but a healthy, wholesome part of the diet and the pub as a healthy, happy place to see members of your community. The health and roots of such a beer community are robust and sturdy and will support the creation and consumption of local beer for decades to come.

In my admittedly not-to-extensive travels around the country, I've never seen anything like it. Show me a mom with a toddler on her hip and a stout in her hand and I'll show you Beer City USA. Better yet, I'll show you Beervana.

What the?

In yesterday's email, the Oregon Brewer's Guild listed new and renewing members, including Hop Valley Brewing, a Spingfield brewery that celebrated its grand opening April 24th. Anyone hear of this (besides Brewpublic)? What kind of blogger am I to have missed this? Anyone tried their beers?

With the new spate of breweries opening over the past 2-3 years, I really gotta get down to the Southern Willamette Valley and check them out. I see a road trip in my future.

Hopworks is Your Winner

Via Twitter, Brian alerts us that the winner of the Cheers to Belgian Beers Fest (and his blog post on the matter): Hopworks, with their impressive Dubbel Suplex. I'm quite pleased with this selection--it was one of four beers I thought was distinguished and worthy of winning. I don't wish to ruffle feathers, but suffice it to say that last year's winner, the Lucky Lab, was not in my top echelon. Hopworks deserved it.

Top Ten finishers (alpha order):

• Astoria Brewing Co.’s-Avante Guarde Akloo(say it with a French accent)
• Deschutes Brewery & Public House Bend La Fleur
• Deschutes Brewery Portland Pub Streaking the Quad
• Double Mountain Brewery & Taproom Ingelmonster-Barrel Fermented
• Double Mountain Brewery & Taproom Ingelmonster
• Fort George Brewing Co. XVIth Chapel
• Lucky Labrador Brewing Co. Beljamin
• Pyramid Breweries Smooth Operator
• Roots Organic Brewing Co. Feudal Surfer
• Widmer Brothers Brewing Co. Forever and a Day Trippel

Two passing thoughts upon seeing the winners:

• Could it be that Corey Blodgett's excellent Zen Lunatic didn't win because drinkers, disrespecting the McMenamin's brand, didn't try it? My only disappointment is not seeing it among the winners.
  
• Half the top five were dark beers, half were light.

As winner, Hopworks may host next year, select the yeast strain, and also select the benefiting charity. I would say now is the time to begin lobbying them on the yeast strain. Say it with me now: Saison, saison, saison!

"I am a craft brewer" Vid--Oy

A video titled "I am a craft brewer" has been circulating the internets over the past few weeks. For some reason, I never stopped to look at it--until now. Man, is it tripe.

The idea is to distinguish craft breweries from faceless corporate industrial breweries, yet the video is so overproduced and badly-written that it sounds a whole lot like faceless corporate propaganda. The swelling music, the painful sincerity of the speakers, the insistence on first-person readings of pap that obviously came out of a marketer's brain--all of this is terrible.

This is one of those times when a less-produced and funny approach would have been way, way more effective.

Honest Pint Act Vote Today

I received word that Jules' Honest Pint Act is headed for a vote in the Oregon House today. If it passes, it's on to the Senate. A legislative process is slow and incremental, but this would be a pretty big deal. The number of bills that die after clearing one chamber is substantially lower than those that get introduced or even sent out of committee. So if it passes, that will be something of a deal.

Here's a question. I'm too close to the issue to have much perspective. I notice that my updates about it rarely elicit a comment. So are you all disinterested or secretly opposed and just too polite to tell me to shut up?

Final Thoughts on Cheers to Belgian Beers

In no particular order, a few random observations, opinions, and questions about this year's edition of the fest...

• The glasses rocked. I have boxes of old glasses from other fests. None has been upgraded to my regular beer-glass rotation, but this one will. Classy shape, good size, cool logo, an an absence of sponsors or other unwanted signage.

• What happens if a non-Portland pub wins the event? Are we off to Astoria or Corvallis next year?

• All beers must be made with the same yeast. Last year, I voted for a brewery (Full Sail) that didn't use the selected yeast. (They eliminated that problem this year with an official ballot.) This year, a pretty decent number of the beers weren't made with Inglemunster. Breweries like Upright, which didn't exist when the event was set, get an exemption.

• More volunteers. For the first couple hours on Saturday, there were two guys manning every tap in the fest. Two! I know this thing is only a semi-official fest and that the proceeds go to charity. Still, seems like they could muster a couple more folks.

• On the other hand, the fest was an amazing value. The glasses were only five bucks--you'd pay at least that in a store--and the pours were just a buck. Given that most of the beers were north of 7%, your buck went pretty far.

• The idea of compelling breweries to select a general quadrant (strong/mild and light/dark) was a good start. It effectively resulted in a number of different beers. Two things would improve it more: use a more versatile yeast (my vote: saison), and give breweries at least six months to brew their beers. Even better, start right away. Breweries might even have a chance to try a few different batches if you gave them a year.
  

• What happens when they run out of yeast strains to try? Is this event doomed to sunset? (Or do we just go back to some of the ones we've already used?)

• Other reactions: Beer Around Town; Doc Wort, Brewpublic. (Holler if I missed one or if some of the usual suspects update their blogs with reviews.)
  

Big fun. Can't wait for next year.

Cheers to Belgian Beers Wrap-Up

Among the many markers that this is indeed Beervana, we enjoyed the fruits of the third Cheers to Belgian Beers fest. (Asheville, your move.) Two-dozen beers from 19 breweries in probably 20 styles, and they all used the same yeast. In this case, Ingelmunster, the yeast Kasteel uses for their range of beers (longer description, if you missed it, here).

Yeast Character
First a general comment on the yeast. I had the very good fortune of sitting next to Dave Logsdon, founder of Wyeast Labs, the guys behind the Ingelmunster yeast all the breweries used. (He's an Ohioan, and had family in town who were all sporting Buckeye paraphenalia. Eventually Sally and I--alums of Big Ten rival Wisconsin--finally had to call them out, and that's when we learned who it was.) We chatted for a bit about yeasts, and he mentioned--gingerly--that Ingelmunster is a yeast that takes its own sweet time. Not unusual for Belgian strains. However, the breweries didn't have a lot of time to get these beers going--style guidelines weren't assigned until February. Ingelmunster, according to Wyeast's description, is "very tart and dry on the palate," and a "high acid producer.'

You wouldn't know it from the beers at the fest. With one expection, they were sweet and wet. In the more successful experiments, brewers used this character to their advantage (there's nothing innately wrong with sweeter beers). Unsuccessful beers tended to cloy or were inappropriately sweet. And Sally and I kept picking up a funky note that was just short of foul (call it compost or cabbagy--in some cases it drew out almost to a burning chemical quality). It seemed to be worse in the dark beers. I harbor a suspicion that it was a volatile note that would have, given more time in the tanks, worked its way out. Maybe half the beers had it.

The Beers
I tried 14 of the Ingelmunster beers, as well as Alex Ganum's semi-debut Upright Four. (We'll treat that to it's own post.) Four of the Ingelmunster beers stood out for me: Astoria Brewing's biere de garde (Avante Garde Akloo), Corey Blodgett's McMenamins Zen Lunatic, Pelican's Le Fleur Amere, and Hopworks' Dubbel Suplex. I had to make a call on my ballot between Astoria and McMenamins, and it was close enough that I'll keep my vote to myself--both Corey and Bolt produced very nice beers.

Astoria's was a silky, rich biere de garde. Brewer Bolt Minister took full advantage of the yeast's sweetness, and the result was the most quaffable of the Ingelmunsters. Zen Lunatic, by contrast, managed to produce some of the quality I think the yeast is supposed to have--it was a little drier and had some of the tartness. Bright, crisp, and floral, it was accomplished and tasty. Pelican's gets a nod for boldness. The idea was an English-hopped IPA with the Ingelmunster. I would say it wasn't exactly the right yeast, but the execution was nice. Perhaps if it has a chance to age, it will dry out and allow some of the dry-hopping to come out. Finally, Hopworks brought what I would call a "fortified dubbel"--it was a traditional dubbel recipe amped up with cane sugar. The result was the prettiest beer of the day--a clear and bright hazelnut brown. It was the one beer that finished out dryly. Using the sugar was an inspired call.

If you want a fuller review of these beers, I'll point you to Doc Wort, who tasted almost all the same beers I did, and had almost identical impressions. (Yes, the world must surely be about to end.) The beers of which he disapproved I found tolerable near-misses at worst. However, look at his Lompoc Le Chat Noir description--I think he's identifying at the same qualities I kept tasting.

A great event, and I had a great time. I think the Twitter experiment was even worthwhile. Or worth further testing. I'll have one more post with some final, scattershot thoughts and observations about the fest more generally. I'll leave you with a few more photos.

Honest Pint in Seattle Weekly

On Thursday, Seattle Weekly had a nice piece that covered both the Honest Pint Project and Oregon's proposed Honest Pint Act.

Enter Oregon House Bill 3122. Introduced in the state legislature in Salem earlier this month, the Honest Pint Act states that, as an added service during a regular visit by the health inspector, Oregon bars and restaurants may request a measuring test of their glassware. If it passes the full-pint test, the establishment is certified as serving an "Honest Pint," good for two years and for the privilege to display a sticker on premises. Jeff Alworth can take much of the credit for getting this bill off the ground. A much-respected beer blogger and long-time chronicler of beer for Willamette Week, his Web site, HonestPintProject.org, first proposed a non-legislative solution that the act in the legislature now closely resembles.

It's a succinct overview of the issue, handled as well as I've seen. It does, however, conclude with a sentence that doesn't thrill me:

As with many ideas born in our plucky little sister to the south (craft spirits, the bartenders' guild), expect something like the Honest Pint Act to hit Washington soon.

"Plucky little sister?" I will accept a number of descriptors: "historic leader," "moral guide," "pioneering visionary," "brewing giant." But plucky little sister--nyet.

Anyway, go have a look at the whole article.

Live-tweeting Cheers to Belgian Beers

This experiment will begin when I arrive, sometime in the early afternoon. Join me:

Saturday, May 2, Noon – 10 p.m.
Lucky Labrador Beer Hall
1945 NW Quimby, Portland, OR 97209
Admission is free. There is a $5 charge for a tasting goblet, which is required to sample beers, and $1 for tastes. Tickets can be purchased at the festival entrance.

This experimental post will feature--inelegantly--the Twitter feed in both html and flash formats. If you're reading this on the blog, the flash looks waaaaayyy better. But if not, you can see the html version below.

Flash Version

Weekend Best Bets

A quick-and-dirty survey of the city's most alluring pours:

1. Cheers to Belgian Beers Fest, Lucky Lab NW, noon to 10 pm.

2. Deschutes the Dissident, Bailey's Taproom.

3. Upright #4 Farmhouse, Saraveza.

4. Double Mountain Kolsch and Caldera Pilot Rock Porter, Horse Brass

5. Cascade Mouton Rouge, Belmont Station.

6. Trade Roots (formerly Laughing Buddha) Ginger Pale, Concordia Ale House.

7. Deschutes Oatmeal Pale, Deschutes

8. (Pacific City edition) La Fleur Amère ("the Bitter Flower"), Pelican's entry to CtBB, Pelican.

Twitter Question

Okay, you smart techno-geek types. I would like to embed my twitter feed into a blog post so that tomorrow, when I'm Cheering to Belgian Beers, my post will be updated with tweets of every beer I try. Two questions:

1. What's the code to embed?
2. Is it possible to embed a code that would capture not only my own tweets, but tweets of others who use a # tag?
   

If this works, it could be groovy as we head into fest season. Beta test tomorrow--but only if you can help out! Me stoopid wid tech.

Update. Well, turns out Twitter has embeddable code you can cut and paste. That's my speed, baby, cut and paste. It's a flash application--can everyone read this?