Fresh Hop Festival

About ten or twelve years ago, Bert Grant, a beloved pioneer in the craft-beer movement, planted an acorn. In October, you should avail yourself of the opportunity to see how big the oak tree has become. In the mid-90s, he decided to take advantage of the vast wealth of hops that grew within a few miles of his brewery in Yakima (where well over half all domestic hops were grown at the time). He sent folks from the brewery out to the hop fields during the September harvest while he started prepping the mash tun. They gathered a batch of fresh hops, brought them back to the brewery, and within minutes of having been picked, were dumped into the boil.

This was radical. At the time, I recall hearing a lot of derision about this practice; fresh hops were reputed to lead to off-flavors and "gasiness." A gimmick, said the critics. Grant, who spent the last twenty years of his life proving critics wrong, proved to be the visionary. Now there is such love of fresh hops among breweries that harvest ales are pretty much de rigeuer; they are, as Bert Grant described them back in the day, the brewing world's Beaujolais Nouveau. Celebrating what has become a major phenomenon, the Oregon Brewers Guild and Oregon Bounty are hosting a series of tastings of 30 different fresh-hop beers in various places across the state. Thirty!

If you haven't tasted a fresh-hopped beer, you have missed a unique experience. Brewing with wet hops produces a far greener, earthier, herbal quality than traditional hopping. Not only do the hops dramatically change the flavor of the beer, they change recipes, too--alpha acids are converted unpredictably, so brewers aren't ever sure how a beer will turn out (even if the same varieties of hops are used year to year). For me, this is a wonderful old-world element. What results is unique and limited--breweries can never exactly replicate the flavor. These beers are also as perishable as the the freshly-picked hops--you have to drink them while they're fresh to experience before the delicate flavors fade. I regard this as pretty much a non-negotiable must-see event. If you love beers, don't miss it.

Our man in the middle, John Foyston, has the impressive list of breweries:

Brewery ________Hop(s)________Style______Name
Amnesia ________Cascades _____Pale Ale __Fresh Dusty Trail
BJ's ___________Willamettes __Pilsner ___Northwest Pils
Bridgeport _____Centennial ___IPA _______Hop Harvest Ale
Calapooia ______Nugget _______Rye Ale ___Fresh Hop Rye
Deschutes ______Perle ___________________Mother of Perle
Deschutes ______Nugget __________________The Golden Nugget
Deschutes ______Crystals _____Pale Ale __Hop Trip
Full Sail ______Cascades _____Pale Ale __Lupulin Ale
Golden Valley __Goldings _____Pale Ale __Golen Pale
Karlsson _______Goldings/Magnum___IPA ___Twisted Sister
Karlsson _______Multi Hop ____Pale Ale __Virgin Sister
Laurelwood _____Tettnanger ___Kolsch ____Fresh Hop Kolsch
Lucky Lab ______Cascades _____Pale Ale __Cascade Harvest
Lucky Lab ______Nugget _______IPA _______Golden Nugget
Lucky Lab ______Multi Hop _______________Mutt The Mutt
New Old Lompoc _Crystals _____Pils_______Crystal Missile
New Old Lompoc _Crystals _____Harvest ___Harvest Moon
Mia & Pia's ____Multi Hop ____IPA _______Fresh Hop Madness
Ninkasi ________Liberty _________________Harvest Fresh
Oregon Trail ___Multi Hop ____IPA _______Hop Doctor
Pelican ________Sterling _____Pils_______Elemental Ale
Philadelphia's _Nugget _______Amber _____Fresh Hop ESB
Raccoon Lodge __Cascades _____Harvest ___Hop Harvest Ale
Rock Bottom ____Perle ________Pilsner ___Perle Pilsner
Rogue __________Centennial ___IPA _______Hop Heaven
Standing Stone _Centennial ___Amber _____Tri-Centennial
Widmer__________Sterling _____Lager_____ Sterling Pilsner

Here's the schedule:

Hood River
Noon-9 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 6; part of the Hood River Hops Fest in city parking lot at Columbia and Fifth streets.

Portland
Noon-9 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 13, McMenamins Edgefield, 2126 S.W. Halsey St., Troutdale

Eugene
Noon-9 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 20, Ninkasi Brewing, 272 Van Buren St.

Bend
Noon-7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 27, Deschutes Brewery, 901 S.W. Simpson Ave.

Admission is free at all tasting events; glasses are $5; individual tastes are $1, full pour $4.

See you there!

Soulless Beer

On a thread at the British beer blog run by Stonch, an English commenter offers some fightin' words:

American beers lose subtlty and class in favour of extremness, why would you want to go there? there are already crass US beers, would crass UK beers make things better?

Absolutely, that lack of connection leaves many such breweries with a slightly soulless range where every beer is totally different and equally out of context.

Stan Hieronymus, US beer writer, responds.

[Update: Whoops, apparently the quote's from a Kiwi. What's he talking about, then?!]

Mythic Beer

I hold in my hand (when I'm not typing) a mythical beer that no fewer than two people (all right, two people) told me was the best beer they ever tasted.* It is brewed by John Maier and was reputed to be served only at the Rogue Brewery. Impressive, no? These factors have created a mystique around the ale that have both attracted and unnerved me. For months I had this beer in the back of my mind, awaiting me in Newport like a green light across the bay.

Before I render my verdict, a comment. Obviously, expectation is a dangerous thing. One's mind can imagine transcendence in a way that one's tongue may be incapable of experiencing. On the other hand, I've had high expectations in rare cases exceeded by experience, which is the double whammy of transcendence--so you never know. As rumors of this beer circulated, I bided my time, nurturing the legend. This is the context into which I sat, regarding my beer, just a half hour ago. As it turns out, you can buy bottles of it at the brewery, which one of these friends did, and it's the one I'm drinking now. Let us proceed in hushed tones, so as not to defile this hallowed moment.

The beer in question is Dry-Hopped Red. It's a variation on Saint Rogue Red, draft-only, as the rumors claimed, until a bottling this year. Unlike some of the big reds we've grown used to here in Beervana of late, it is a more modest-sized beer with just 44 IBUs of bitterness (mid-range for Rogue). It has just two hop varieties, and a fairly standard array of Rogue malts. The transcendence comes from the dry-hopping. a point both of the friends emphasized when they were communicating to me which beer to seek: "It's the dry-hopped red, dry-hopped--remember that." Unfortunately, here's the rub.

Dry-hopping captures some of the most volatile and delicate oils from the hop cone, and in my experience, they don't age well in a bottle. The compounds react with oxygen, of which there is a small amount in bottles (less per ounce in the twenty-twos, but enough). What is available in the bottle, therefore, isn't what my friends tippled at the coast. It is a tasty beer, and the hops are vivid. But the life isn't here--it's a packaged product and the edges are gone. I would call it a great recipe and a very nice session, but I don't believe this is the beer that begat a legend. You may raise your voices--this is a false alarm.

So the mythic beer remains elusive. Somehow, I sort of hope I never find it. We all need a white whale.

_____________
*I wrote this last night. I don't regularly drink beer for breakfast.

Politics Intrude

Wow, who'da thunk this issue would have made it into Presidential politics?

[At] the Democratic presidential candidate debate at Dartmouth last night, ... a mother of two asked if any of them would back removing the federal mandate for a 21 LDA [drinking age], which she believes to be counter-productive. Joe Biden led the very disappointing responses by bloviating about drunk driving deaths, alcoholism, and fetal alcohol syndrome...all of which really have nothing to do with the 21 LDA. Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson fell over themselves to agree, dismissing the very idea of lowering the LDA, or giving that power back to the states (because that, after all, was what the woman was really asking).

More important, who cares? There may be some relationship between a higher drinking age and a mystique that therefore grows up around it,* but does this really rise to presidential-level importance? Can't those who want it lowered just take it up with their congressperson?

_______________
*Which, incidentally, I don't buy. I'd like to see the stats about what it was like before we raised the drinking age to 21. We have a Puritanical culture and the danger of drinking has been a part of our national consciousness for at least 150 years. I don't think anything so modest as changing the drinking age is going to change that anytime soon.

And Two More Reviews

A couple more very brief reviews whilst I'm in the reviewin' mood...

Sierra Nevada Anniversary Ale
As much as it pains me to admit it, the beer that was first to characterize the West Coast style of American brewing was Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale (not, regrettably, something from Oregon). To emphasize this august history, Sierra Nevada offers a robust version for the 27th anniversary of the brewery's founding. This beer (misnamed an IPA on the website) is like Extra Special Pale--everything you love in pale is here but more so! Good stuff.
Rating: A-

Calapooia 'Pooya Porter
I keep trying to make a swing of mid-Willamette Valley Breweries that I haven't been to, but in the meantime, I did have a pint of the 'Pooya (which seems vaguely obscene). There wasn't anything transcendent about it, but with a creamy body, notes of chocolate, and a touch of nuttiness, it was a fine pint. Need to try more to get a sense of the brewery, but this is a good start.
Rating: B

Two Reviews

Pyramid Imperial Hefeweizen
As I alluded to in an earlier post, this proves you can have too much of a good thing. A standard German hefeweizen will be rippling with wonderful flavors, all delicate and breakfast-gentle. Pyramid makes one of the oldest American examples of this style, with perhaps less character than Schneider or Paulaner--but far more than Widmer. So they know what they're doing.

However, the intention to imperialize this delicate beer leads one to wonder: what was Pyramid aiming for? What results is approximately what you'd expect. It is cloudy and cider-colored, and fairly glops out of the bottle. The head is nice and thick, but can survive the onslaught of alcohol--and not the only thing. Delicate cloves, tart yeast character, crisp finish; all of these are mugged by the wrenching alcohol. A wee bit of spiciness persists, like a single peppercorn in a winter stew. The beer is thick, alcoholic, and without much character. It's drinkable, but not much more can be said. The inevitability of the experiment seemed clear. So, what was the brewery thinking?

Malt: 60% wheat, pale
Hops: Nugget, Tettnang
ABV: 7.5%
IBU: Not many.
Available: Sept-Dec
Rating: C

Full Sail Vesuvius
Ten years ago, no brewery in Oregon--possibly on the West Coast--and few in the US could make a decent Belgian ale. Generally a brewer would brew a variation on a regular recipe, deploy a few obvious adjuncts--coriander, candi sugar, bitter orange peel--and call it good. Yeast character--overwhelmingly the most important aspect of a good Belgian--was uniformly ignored. So it is with great enthusiasm that I welcome beers like Vesuvius, a respectable Belgian-style ale.

Last year, Vesuvius led the vanguard of Belgian strongs that have lately appeared across the state. (An odd style to crash Beervana's hoppy gates, as it happens. Unlike English strongs, Belgian strongs are approachable and sweetish. Widely appreciated, they are nevertheless not the types of beer you typically find in a Portland pub.) I am slightly reluctant to give an honest review, because Vesuvius is a rare and interesting enough beer that everyone should go buy a bottle. Still, it cannot meet the standard set by Duvel, Delirium Tremens, et al.

It looks the part--beautiful spun gold, frothy bead, dense, white head. Softly sweet of palate, with a faintly biscuity maltiness; a slight bubblegum note (phenols), and alcohol warmth drying out in the finish. One criticism: the body is too light; it goes watery just when it should be supporting the heft of the style.

ABV: 8.5%
IBU: 24
Available: August-November
Rating: B

The Green Dragon Awakes

Jim Parker's new brewpub, the Green Dragon, is in the midst of a slow opening. The liquor licence is a week or more away, and the beer isn't flowing quite yet. The kitchen is open, and if you want to pop in to see what it will look like, the doors are open. (My guess is that every plate of Belgian-style mussels* you order speeds up the opening, too.) From an email Jim sent out, the beer will be flowing soon: The Green Dragon "should be serving beer, wine and liquor at least in the Bistro space by next week's end."

Leave a comment if you've stopped by and have observations. I will do a review at some point, but it's always nice to let a place get up and running and work out the bugs, so maybe I'll do preliminary posts on the beer first.

The Green Dragon Bistro and Brewpub
928 SE 9th
Portland, Oregon
503.517.0660

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*Actual dish.

Best Beers

A recent Men's Journal article has been getting some attention for it's apparently careful compilation of a "best of" of world beers. The Hops and Barley Blog is detailing their selections by style in a series of posts, and it's worth a look. One of the reasons I often hate these kinds of things is because they overlook West Coast beers or preference a regional style. Men's Journal has a balanced approach and makes me want to try some of them (Russian River Damnation, Firestone Pale, Stone Smoked Porter).

Go give it a look.

Good Beer, Bad Label

Ow, my retinas!

Time for a Bonsai Beer Movement

The joy of drinking beer is in the epiphanies it sparks. In my case, the insights are often directed back on the source itself, and so it was last night as I shared a bottle of Pyramid Imperial Hefeweizen with Sally. We have entered the era of imperial. No style is immune. Imperial IPAs and stouts, of course. But now there are imperial reds, porters, pilsners, wits, and hefeweizens. Never mind the "doubles" and "strongs." The age of supersized beer is upon us.

I love strong beers. When Sam Adams released its Triple Bock back in 1994, I shelled out for a bottle. I exaulted when Hair of the Dog released Fred. I laid away gallons of Jackfrost Doppelbock. Sasquatch Strong still remains one of the best beers I've ever tasted, and I drank it whenever it was available.

But the madness has to stop. I bought the Pyramid Imperial Hef with reluctance but dim hope. Maybe the word "hefeweizen" was an evocation--the beer, I hoped, might be something like a wheat wine. Alas, this really is just a steroidal hef. Hefeweizens are quintessentially light beers; the characteristics that distinguish them are products of smallness--light body, gentle wheaty palate, and the fragile, spicy character from yeast and phenols that make the style unique.

As an antidote, we need some kind of small beer movement. Bonsai beers, miniaturist efforts that focus entirely on producing flavor with a minimum of ingredients. I know that in a vacuum, breweries probably aren't going to invest a lot of time into beers that will get overlooked--especially when they can bloat a beer and get a fair amount of attention. That's why it needs to be a movement--consumers would become more conditioned to appreciate the small beers.

A festival of beers under 4%? A contest? A joint brew-off? Something needs to be done or we're going to have to endure imperial lambics, double milds, and strong sessions. Stop the madness before it's too late!

Belgium in Turmoil

This may or may not have substantial effects on brewing, but I am alarmed nevertheless:

BRUSSELS -- In the back room of an exclusive social club across the street from the U.S. Embassy here, Flemish separatists are plotting the breakup of Belgium....

The campaign here is a modern-day separatist movement for a globalized world. This is not a war of guns and guerrillas in jungle hideouts or suicide bombings on city streets. It is a conflict debated daily in the news media, parliaments, cafes, bars and establishment clubs of a country confronting the schisms now facing nearly every European nation: the struggle over national identity following mass immigration from Asia and Africa, the preservation of native culture and language, and economic competition in an era of global markets.

Belgium has been without a national government for more than three months now.

Will the Walloons have to start referring to their ales as "Belgian-style?" What other consequences might it have? Hmm...

Disturbing Trends

Two separate stories about hop and barley crops came out this week, and they are something of a brow-furrower.

Hops
World hop yields have been in steady decline for twenty years, down to nearly half the production from 1986-2006. This is due to a number of causes--notably the rise of high-alpha hops, which reduce the quantity needed per barrel, and the steady decline of bitterness in national brands, which still produce the overwhelming majority of beer in the US. After very low prices in the late 90s and early aughts, growers started scrapping acreage which has in turn led to spiking prices and hop shortages:

Prices are the highest they’ve ever been - and it’s beyond comprehension. Cascades were priced at $7/lb. three weeks ago and are currently being quoted at or near $10.00/lb. Willamettes went from $5.50 to $7.00/lb. and may also get to $10/lb.

It takes three years to get to full production on a new hop field, however, we don’t have the number of growers needed to put new acres in (the total of US growers is about 45, down from more than 2000 in 1978. About new 2,000 acres are going in this year - almost all of those are high alpha. The Cascade increase in acreage is 0.

Cascades are, of course, the backbone of Northwest brewing. The upshot is that we'll see increasing experimentation with other varieties of hops as availability drives new recipes. Probably this means greater reliance on high-alpha hops, which may be a downside. The upside may not be all bad, though--it could provoke a new wave of beers.

Barley
Barley crops aren't under the same kind of pressure, but Laurelwood brewer Chad Kennedy sent out an email alerting us to the trouble brewers may be in as a result of global warming.

Due to the worsening climatic conditions it is possible that beer will not be made exclusively from barley, but also for example from chickpea, the Czech biotechnology portal www.gate2biotech.cz has found. The weather fluctuations in the past couple of years, especially the drier and warmer climate in association with extreme downpours have had a catastrophic impact on barley producers....

The brewing and malting research institute in Brno has been exploring the possibilities of utilizing for example chickpea, cowpea or sweatpea for the past year. It is therefore possible that in a few years Czech beer will not be made exclusively from barley malt.

For very different reasons, this could lead to experimentation with malt substitutes, which would definitely change the flavor of beer. (And would the German tradition of reinheitsgebot die? Imagine the horror in Munich!)

Makes a man want to go cry in his beer...

Traveling Pub

This is extremely cool: Deschutes is building a traveling pub shaped like a great big beer barrel:

(The actual thing in construction)

(Artist's rendering)

From a press release by the Brewer's Guild:

Deschutes Brewery is rolling out the barrel and introducing a new traveling pub to share their signature pub culture with the rest of the Pacific Northwest. The custom-made truck-sized wooden barrel was created by renowned Hollywood designer Eddie Paul and will be stopping in Portland before heading north to Seattle as part of its new Neighborhood Hops Traveling Beer Festival.

Bad news? It came to Portland two days ago. Sorry, I was on the road and not keeping up on the really important stuff. No doubt there will be other opportunities, however. (Hat tip: Belmont Station.)

[Update: More here, here, here, and here, including a better picture in the latter three.]

Original Beer Alert: Rogue "Brewer"

In my wanderings up and down the Western third of Oregon, I managed to stop in with a group of politicos at Rogue's restaurant in Newport last night. No luck on the much-recommended Dry-Hopped Red (a mythical beer sighted only in Newport), but I did try Brewer, one of the rare beers I would call truly unique.

This is the third batch John Maier has made, but based on descriptions of earlier versions, an interesting departure. Those were based on a doppelbock recipe, and a description of last year's Brewer characterizes it as "a strong ale with tons of hop flavor and a hugh malt backbone."

This year's batch is a wild and wonderful mixture of styles. It is as dark as a porter, but quite light-bodied. It is creamy and chocolatey, again, firmly in porter territory. Now the fun: it's vividly hoppy and seemed to be potent (hard to tell amid the competing flavors). I don't know if it was intentional, but this might have been the conversation John Maier had with himself before setting out a recipe: "Cross a brown porter with a stong ale and hop liberally while ensuring that the body stays light and creamy and the subtler flavors of cacao and roasted coffee remain intact after the riveting assault by pounds of hops. The different flavor components should stay intact but complement each other, yet it shouldn't be a challenging beer to drink."

He pulled it off.

So Little Time

Here's the state of affairs: I have in my fridge two bottles of beer, Full Sail Vesuvius and Pyramid Double Hefeweizen (possibly not the exact name) and not only have I not had time to review them, I haven't even had time to drink them. Nor will I for a few days. I'll be on the road tomorrow and Wednesday, though this isn't necessarily bad news. Over 36 hours, I'll visit Medford, Roseburg, Eugene, Corvallis, Newport, Lincoln City, and Salem. Dunno what kind of time I'll have for beer drinking, but I wouldn't be surprised if some happened. So there could be some interesting non-Portland content in my future.

Meantime, I got nothin'. Perhaps a good opportunity to browse the right column and look at some of the other fine blogs out there--

Hop Events

All of a sudden, brewers rouse themselves from a long summer's drowse, awakened by the smell of fresh hops. What began as a small experiment in the fields near Bert Grant's brewery in Yakima has spread into one of the most exuberent displays of seasonality on the annual calendar. I have yet to participate in these festivities, but that shouldn't stop you.

An evolving list:

Walking Man Brewery (240 SW 1st, Stevenson, WA)
7th Annual Hoptoberfest Sat, Sept. 15th, Noon-10pm
A celebration to benefit local youth group; live music, games, fun.

Deshutes Brewery (901 SW Simpson, Bend)
Harvest Moon Ale Tasting - Tues, Sept 25, 6 - 8pm
Hop Trip and a pre-season release of Jubel (which will be green)

BridgePort Brewery (1313 NW Hoyt, Portland)
Hop Harvest Ale Release - Wed, Sept. 26th, 7 - 9pm
Fresh Centennial hops in an imperial ale

Full Sail Brewery (506 Columbia Street, Hood River)
20th Anniversary Brewers Dinner - Thurs, Sept. 27th, 4 - 8pm
Four-course meal featuring Anniversary Doppel X, $20, no reservations

Okay, that last one isn't related to hops, but it's timely. I will personally pull a beer from my larder for anyone who goes to three of four of these events and writes a guest post on what they encountered. Not my Fred #1 or first-edition BridgePort Old Knucklehead (wee bottle), but perhaps a 1997 Bobbydazzler or the like. Delivery on receipt of the post.

No, go forth and drink, my pretties!

Pronunciations

Very cool site I just discovered in which Belgian brewing terms (beer styles, producers) have short pronunciation .wav files in the Flemish and French. Run up against "gueuze" or "oud bruin" and thought it was best just to keep your mouth shut? No longer! Now, in crisp tones, sort of halfway between German and French, you can hear a Belgian say clearly "Owd Brehn."

Whether your friends will appreciate your newfound pronunciatory skills (yes, it is a word) is another matter. But you, in your heart of hearts, will know you're right.

Jackson Toast

This is cool:

It's a simple idea. On Sunday, September 30th, at 9:00 PM Eastern, we're raising a glass to Michael Jackson, and raising money in his name for the National Parkinson's Foundation.

We hope to have a list up soon of bars and brewpubs that are participating; I know for sure that Monk's Cafe and the Grey Lodge are doing it in Philly. If you are a bar or brewpub owner, and would like to join in, e-mail me and I'll get you the information, and a template we've made for a flyer/poster.

Be generous, folks: this is for Michael, the guy without whom a lot of this would not have happened. As Tom Peters said to me, "I'd really like to be able to hand a check for $100,000 to the Foundation in Michael's name." (Tom's donating the evening's profits at Monk's, and will be passing the hat for direct donations as well.)

There will be other, ongoing opportunities to honor Jackson's name and legacy, but this one, as Sam Calagione said, is from the heart. Here's to Michael. See you on the 30th.

Dunno if places in Portland are participating, but you could send Lew an email and find out howw to participate. In any case, mark the toast on your calendar. That's six, Portland time.

In other Jackson news, he did a video interview just three weeks before he died that you can watch here. Toward the end, he mentions that he was planning to write a book called I Am Not Drunk about his struggle with Parkinson's. "I know a lot of people were saying it, wondering whether I had a problem or not."

[Update: Belmont Station is on it. I'll update the post if I learn about more pubs that might be nearer you.]

Roots Saison

In the A&E friday, John Foyston mentioned that Roots had a new saison on tap--a nice way to break a beer fast of a week, my favorite beer style and one of my favorite breweries.

Saisons are an artisan style and feature pretty broad variability in ingredients. Some, like Dupont, are purely reinheitsgebot (water, malt, hops, yeast), while others have a variety of botanicals. Roots' versions is the latter, and in a couple of ways, strains the style a bit. But as always, the brewers have gone for a bold interpretation, and what results is tasty and mighty quaffable.

From memory, the adjuncts they used were hibiscus blossoms, sweet orange peel, "lemon zest" (your guess is as good as mine), and pink peppercorn. The style is generally spicy and peppery, a quality usually achieved through hops; Roots forsake sharp hopping and draw the flavors out with these adjuncts. The balance was tilted a little heavy toward the floral, and was a little light on the pepper. In other saisons, black peppercorn creates a wonderful earthy note that strikes the palate much like some hops. The finish is dry and crisp, as you'd expect.

The downside is the carbonation, which is minimal. Saisons should have a frothy, rocky effervescence that produces a luxurious head and stays lively in the glass. It contributes that characteristic prickliness on the tongue and isn't heavy, despite the strength. I wonder if this is a function of yeast experimentation--possibly it will continue to carbonate in the kegs.

It's something you won't find commonly at a brewpub, so stop in for a pint.

Out of Town

Where I am going there are no beers or computers, and there I will stay until Saturday. As a result, posting will be nil. A fine opportunity to read that huge Jackson interview.

Cheers--