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?