A Great Stocking-Stuffer: Beervana, the Book

It was about ten months ago that I simultaneously celebrated this blog's fifth anniversary and, to celebrate, released a book of the best posts. Sometime after the first of the year, I'll pull the banner ad down and call it a good run. In the meantime, let me flog it for the holiday season. It's ideal for that beer geek in your life! Below is the original post announcing the book, with relevant information and, I hope, teases enough to lure you in to gift buying. Happy holidays!

________

And so we arrive at the grand day: this blog's five-year (also, wooden) anniversary. This means Beervana is now eligible to attend kindergarten. Actually, in blog years, it means Beervana is ready for a gold watch and a wistful pat on the back. Only a few beer blogs are older, but none are as creaky or forgetful. Beervana, in short, has aged badly.

What was I saying? Oh right, anniversary. Yes, well, as many of you know, I am a hermit, and so there will be no party. I leave it to the spry youth, Angelo and Ezra for example, to throw anniversary bashes. Instead, I will celebrate in the manner of a blogger-hermit, which is to say in a quixotic fashion: by releasing a collection of the best posts from the blog, bound for all time in the warm, corporeal covers of a book.

A book!

Why, you might ask (as my mom did yesterday), would you bother turning a blog into a book? Good question. Partly because I love books and I thought it would be cool. But also because amid all the crap here, there are actually some good bits. The barley isn't always easy to separate from the chaff, so now you have them, all in one handy, elegant package. Or, to quote from the back cover:

In the past five years, he [sorry, the slug text is in the third person] had written roughly 1,900 posts and over a half million words. This book is a collection of the best of those posts, including:

• Over 130 beer reviews
• Reviews of 60+ breweries, brewpubs, and pubs
• Considerations of fifteen obscure(ish) styles
• An all-new "best-of" section that has never before appeared in print
• Typos, errors, factual improbabilities
• Rumor, gossip, speculation
• Poorly-sourced reportage, and
• No posts about Oregon's beer tax!

Important Questions Answered
The book will set you back $18 and can only be ordered online at Lulu. Yes, eighteen bucks ain't cheap, but Lulu charges a lot to print them out one at a time. More importantly, you're asking yourself, "why the hell would I buy a book when everything's available here for free?" You are a reader of this blog, and therefore astute and wise, and I expected you to ask. So:

• Books rock, and this one has a nice layout and substantial heft in the hand.
  
• There are over a hundred names listed in the index, and maybe one is yours--but you'll have to buy a copy to find out!
• It's relatively cheap when compared with the four pints you're going to go drink tonight at the pub and it will be there on your shelf in the morning, unlike those IPAs. Plus, no hangover!
  
• The proceeds of this endeavor will go to me, and like a lot of good causes, I can really use the dough.
• It's a fun and festive thing to do to celebrate the blog's anniversary.
• [Real answer]. Despite the fact that it's a collection of posts, the elements actually hang together very nicely. It's not comprehensive, but I honestly think that anyone who reads it will have a very good sense of this place we call Beervana.

Order your copy today!

Even if you decide to pass on the book, raise a pint to all the brewers, brewery workers, and readers who made this blog possible. I know I will--it's been a great five years.

Revisiting the Best Oregon Beers

I will not make a habit of flogging my new book--in fact, this is probably the last I'll say on the matter. However, I did want to draw your attention to one section in the middle called "Best in Beervana," a long-overdue follow-up to some best-of lists I made some time ago. Things change, and the past five years have seen the arrival of lots of new pubs, breweries, and especially, lots and lots of new beers.

My old list of the best beers in Beervana was looking particularly dated. Widmer no longer brewers Snow Plow. Roots no longer brews anything. More importantly, the range of beers has exploded, and while I still love every beer on the old list, not a single one comes from the Belgian tradition. Remarkably, even four years ago when I made my first list there were precious few examples. Many of the beers I most admire today are brewed by breweries that didn't exist four years ago. Of my original ten, only two beers made this year's list, which includes:

• Beers from four new breweries
• Three beers with Belgian lineages
• One cask ale
• Three session beers
• Two sours
• A fresh-hop beer

This time, I didn’t limit myself to an arbitrary ten. My criteria was: you get X number of beers that you can take to a desert island and no more. In order to never suffer from want, which beers would you take? The resulting number was 12--the Beervana Half Rack. I also assembled a list of the best breweries in Portland (9) and Oregon (12) and the best alehouses in Portland (10). Of course, to see which beers, breweries, and pubs made the list, you have to buy the book. (Also note: apparently the $5 "file download" option produces a handsome e-book. Thanks for checking it out, Dann!)

Click to buy the book.

Thanks to All of You

The last word on all this anniversary business will be my thanks. Blogging is a communication, and I’d like to thank anyone who has ever read Beervana first and most. It would have died a long time ago if you hadn’t been joining the conversation. I’d also like to thank the breweries and fest organizers who treated me like regular media. For some reason, if I email a brewer, s/he will invite me to spend two hours touring the brewery and learning about the beer. I never cease to be amazed by that. Sally, my wife, deserves a large measure of thanks for being willing to forgo many a restaurant so I could drag her into a brewpub. She has a great palate and enjoys beer, but would have no doubt drunk less of it had I not started the blog. Finally, thanks to the other Oregon bloggers and beer writers who have created a supportive community. We actually do this thing collectively, and it’s great to be a part of the group.

Beervana, the Book

And so we arrive at the grand day: this blog's five-year (also, wooden) anniversary. This means Beervana is now eligible to attend kindergarten. Actually, in blog years, it means Beervana is ready for a gold watch and a wistful pat on the back. Only a few beer blogs are older, but none are as creaky or forgetful. Beervana, in short, has aged badly.

What was I saying? Oh right, anniversary. Yes, well, as many of you know, I am a hermit, and so there will be no party. I leave it to the spry youth, Angelo and Ezra for example, to throw anniversary bashes. Instead, I will celebrate in the manner of a blogger-hermit, which is to say in a quixotic fashion: by releasing a collection of the best posts from the blog, bound for all time in the warm, corporeal covers of a book.

A book!

Why, you might ask (as my mom did yesterday), would you bother turning a blog into a book? Good question. Partly because I love books and I thought it would be cool. But also because amid all the crap here, there are actually some good bits. The barley isn't always easy to separate from the chaff, so now you have them, all in one handy, elegant package. Or, to quote from the back cover:

In the past five years, he [sorry, the slug text is in the third person] had written roughly 1,900 posts and over a half million words. This book is a collection of the best of those posts, including:

• Over 130 beer reviews
• Reviews of 60+ breweries, brewpubs, and pubs
• Considerations of fifteen obscure(ish) styles
• An all-new "best-of" section that has never before appeared in print
• Typos, errors, factual improbabilities
• Rumor, gossip, speculation
• Poorly-sourced reportage, and
• No posts about Oregon's beer tax!

Important Questions Answered
The book will set you back $18 and can only be ordered online at Lulu. Yes, eighteen bucks ain't cheap, but Lulu charges a lot to print them out one at a time. More importantly, you're asking yourself, "why the hell would I buy a book when everything's available here for free?" You are a reader of this blog, and therefore astute and wise, and I expected you to ask.

• Books rock, and this one has a nice layout and substantial heft in the hand.
  
• There are over a hundred names listed in the index, and maybe one is yours--but you'll have to buy a copy to find out!
• It's relatively cheap when compared with the four pints you're going to go drink tonight at the pub and it will be there on your shelf in the morning, unlike those IPAs.
• The proceeds of this endeavor will go to me, and like a lot of good causes, I can really use the dough.
• It's a fun and festive thing to do to celebrate the blog's anniversary.
• [Real answer]. Despite the fact that it's a collection of posts, the elements actually hang together very nicely. It's not comprehensive, but I honestly think that anyone who reads it will have a very good sense of this place we call Beervana.

Order your copy today!

Even if you decide to pass on the book, raise a pint to all the brewers, brewery workers, and readers who made this blog possible. I know I will--it's been a great five years.

Biggest Trends of the Past Five Years

Beer trends move swiftly--even in one-year increments they're pretty obvious. Look back on five years, though, and some are so well-established you forget there was ever a time they didn't exist. So, as a part of anniversary week, I offer my picks for the most significant trends of the last five year.


5. Reinheitsgephobia
This trend really only began in the last couple years, and I suspect it is only getting started: the use of non-standard ingredients in beer. The use of fruits and certain botanicals (coriander, orange peel, licorice, etc) has been around for a long time, even in American brewing. But breweries are now throwing in everything they can think of, like: chestnuts, blood oranges, prickly pear, coconuts, chiles, tulips, hyssop, lemongrass, apricot nut meat, peanut butter, and on and on. Some of these experiments have been flops, but many more demonstrate that the judicious use of adjuncts can enhance subtle flavors. It's a fantastic trend, and one that has the potential to radically alter the beer landscape.


4. Belgianization and Souring
I suppose we could break these into separate trends, but I think they're of a piece. Breweries have gotten much more excited about deploying Flemish techniques to produce new styles or tweak old ones. A few years back I noticed that farmhouse ales had become standard--amazing given that Michael Jackson declared them all but dead twenty years ago. The use of sugar to strengthen beers or yeast strains to funkify familiar beers (recent fave, Le Freak from Green Flash) is now pretty standard. Rare is the brewery without at least one Belgian-inflected beer.

And then there's souring. Google the phrase "is sour the new hoppy" and you get a sense of how entrenched this trend has become. Sour isn't the new hoppy, incidentally, but neither is it a flash in the pan. With breweries like Cascade, Russian River, Jolly Pumpkin, and Allagash, not to mention successful experiments like Deschutes The Dissident and New Belgium's Lips of Faith, sour is here to stay.


3. Barrel-aging
This innovation didn't start in the last five years, but it has become standard. Breweries have recognized the value of putting out barrel-aged specialty beers--ones that retail at SPEs of $25 bucks and more--and most now have a barrel-aging program. What I find hopeful about the trend is the growing interest in the organic potential wood exerts on beer rather than just the use of infusing a bourbon character. Pinot barrels and straight oak are making their way into breweries, and a few brave souls are even allowing native cultures to set up colonies inside their little woody ecosystems.


2. Imperialization
American beers have always been a little stronger than their European counterparts--and West Coast beers have been stronger than most American beers. (I was amused to see Full Sail release a beer called "Session" than was north of 5%.) The trend is only growing. It used to be surprising to see beers stronger than 7% on store shelves, but now you can buy regular six-packs that are 8% or more. I'm not excited about it, but the trend appears to be with us for the foreseeable future.


1. Fresh hops
While the other four trends could be applied to most American beers, this last one is unique to the Pacific Northwest. Fresh hop beers have been around well over a decade, but it has only been recently that they've exploded to become a regional celebration of the hop harvest. For three or four years, dozens of breweries across Oregon and Washington have taken to brewing fresh-hop beers, a phenomenon akin to the release of Beaujolais Nouveau in France.

What makes these ales so delightful is their evanescence. The good ones are transcendent when they're fresh and thoroughly mediocre after that vivid, green flavor wears off. I can imagine a time when tourists will flock to the Northwest in October to try these lovely seasonal offerings. Of all the trends I've seen come and go, this one seems to most fully express the quintessence of American brewing--fresh, green, vibrant hopping. And, while it seems firmly rooted in local culture, I think the rest of the world has yet to discover the joys of fresh hop beers. They will, they will...

Feel free to weigh in with your own observations in comments.

Five Amazing Years in Beervana

I first started writing about beer for Willamette Week in 1997 (I think), which was just about the grimmest time in American craft brewing. All through the 80s and early 90s, breweries were notching shocking growth. In 1987, Full Sail was bottling beer by hand--the homebrew method--and the receptionist was labeling it in her spare time. A decade later, they had expanded to a massive plant capable of kicking out 250,000 barrels. The Widmers had moved across the river from their original, small location. McTarnahan's (née Portland) had also moved, but in the other direction, further Northwest. Then the market plateaued, and lots of breweries that had expanded on the assumption of 20% growth were in deep trouble. Star, Peak, Saxer, and Nor'Wester all died during the years I was writing for Willamette Week. Even Henry Weinhard's plant closed--and I still have a scar from that psychic wound.

In a kind of nice mirroring, when I came back to beer writing in 2006 with this blog, things had flipped. In a 2006 press release, the Oregon Brewers Guild touted 16% growth in 2005. The next five years, even though they include the worst recession in seven decades, continued apace. We don't have numbers for 2010, but growth continued at 15% through 2009--the heart of the collapsing economy.

Oregon produced 683,000 barrels in 2005 and 1,050,000 in 2009--54% growth. If the market expanded even by a relatively modest 10% in 2010, that would put five-year growth of production at an astounding 69%. Those are numbers like we were seeing twenty years ago.

It's a little harder to calculate new breweries. Much of the growth happened as breweries opened new outposts--Lompoc, Lucky Lab, the McMenamins, and Laurelwood all expanded substantially over the past five years. In terms of new brewing companies, Heater Allen sort of kicked off the half-decade trend of nanobrewing. Should we count some of the newer breweries that have produced little or no beer for commercial production? In any case, using the classic "visual inspection" method, I count 28 new breweries since I started writing Beervana. Portland, predictably, had the biggest growth in terms of numbers (12), but the story of 2006-2011 is the rise of the Willamette Valley. Ninkasi, Oakshire, and Block 15 have all established themselves as brewing leaders, and Brewers Union, despite minuscule production, has brought quite a bit of attention to cask ales.

(By comparison, there were about 1,400 craft breweries in the US in 2006, and there are still only 1,640. That's healthy growth--17%--but not exactly eye-popping.)

The other huge trend in terms of growth was the arrival of the good-beer pub. Consider that in 2005, your best options for a good beer were a brewpub or the Horse Brass. The beer bar, where you could find a range of regional and international specialty beers, was pretty obscure. In the past five years, the city has added: Apex, Bailey's, Beermongers, Belmont Station, Concordia Ale House, Green Dragon, Hawthorne Hophouse, the Hop and Vine, Plew's Brews, Roscoe's, Saraveza, and the Victory Bar. You can now find more local specialty beer and rare international beer in one building than you could in most of the city just a few years ago. Amazing!

In a separate post, I'll discuss some of the trends we saw in the past five years, but let's rest for a moment and consider the numbers. If you were a beer geek, the last five years was arguably the best period in craft brewing history. What a fortunate time to be blogging.

Anniversary Week

On Saturday, this blog will officially turn five years old. To acknowledge the landmark, I'll be doing celebratory posts in anticipation of the Very Important Announcement scheduled for Friday. (On Saturday, no one will be at work to read the blog.) Ezra and Angelo celebrate their blogoversaries with huge parties, somehow securing special beers from the breweries who clearly love them. I am a hermit and huge parties frighten me, so don't expect anything like that. The Important Announcement will be appropriate to the ways of a hermit.

In any case, wheeeee!, the blog is old. Put on your party hats.

Five-Year Anniversary Period Begins

Exactly five years ago today I parked the URL for this blog. One could say that it was born then, but I like to think of that as conception. Five weeks passed--gestation--before, on February 26, I posted the first actual post. So let's call 2/26 the actual date. There will be little in the way of celebration--Angelo and Ezra's blogoversary events scare hermits like me--but I do have one thing in the works. In any case, it was five years ago today that I had the idea of Beervana. All in all, I think it was a pretty good one.