It's Pub Night

Brewers Union Local 180 - Oakridge, Oregon

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Thu, 24 May 2012 17:31:00 +0000

Finally! Only four years after the one-of-a-kind Brewers Union Local 180 opened in the out-of-the way location of Oakridge, Oregon, I finally paid a visit this week and was able to sample a range of brewer Ted Sobel's cask-conditioned beers in their native habitat.

In case you're not familiar with Brewers Union, it's a pub which brews and serves "real ale" in the sense of England's Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). Ted brews beer in 2-barrel batches -- that's British imperial barrels, about 2.8 Yankee barrels -- conditions them in firkins, and serves them at cellar temperature in 20-ounce imperial pints. The small batches are open-fermented, typically between 4% and 5% ABV, and drawn from the firkin with hand pumps. So, the proprietor must be a homesick British expat, right? Er, no, but he did learn the trade during a stint a few years ago at a Lake District pub called the Woolpack Inn.

There were only four house-made beers on the pumps Monday when Carla and I were in Oakridge, all delightful:

Wotcha Best Bitter - 4.3%: smooth and honeyed, balanced with a touch of earthy hops.
Good With Bacon Special Bitter - 4.9%: light caramel flavor, nice balance of bitterness.
3 Sigma Out IPA - 5.3%: beautiful floral aroma, light body, long hop finish.
Cumbrian Moor Porter - 4.8%: smooth and roasty without being charred; full-bodied but not cloying.

I enjoyed all the beers, but Wotcha -- this batch made with Mt. Hood hops -- was the standout and I came back to it again and again. It might have an alcohol content lower than Budweiser, but it was packed with flavor. Ted credits the Maris Otter malt from Thomas Fawcett with the great taste. Northwest aroma hops in most of the beers provide a nice counterpoint to the otherwise studiously English recipes and presentation. The food menu, too, is more Oregon than England, though there is an obligatory fish and chips plate (I got mine with sweet potato fries).

The usual IPA -- Union Dew -- was out when we were there, but a fifth pump had on a nice malty cask of Block 15's Ridgeback Red -- at 6.3%, pretty potent compared to the BU180 beers. There are always a few guest kegs of "regular beer" on tap for non-believers. Monday's guests were Oakshire Domaine du Lane Saison, Oakshire Watershed IPA, Seven Brides Chocolate Stout, and Hale's El Jefe Hefeweizen. There was also a cider on tap from Wandering Aengus, and a mead from Eugene's Blue Dog Meadery.

A lot of attention goes into the brewing, storage, and serving of the ales, but Ted says the important thing about Brewers Union is that it provides a space where people can get together and socialize. He is a very hands-on publican, mingling with the customers, and getting to know them by name. I once needled him for setting up such an idiosyncratic pub pretty much in the middle of nowhere -- Oakridge (pop. 3220) is the only incorporated city in Oregon that lies entirely within a national forest -- but his response was simple: "Every town needs a pub". It is a cute little town, surrounded by miles of beautiful scenery, and now that I've seen it, I do think it's a great place for a pub. If you ever have the time, take the hour's drive out from Eugene and experience it for yourself.

Honest Pints... of Pabst

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Thu, 10 May 2012 16:33:00 +0000

Well, they didn't use the term Honest Pint, but I like the anti-cheater pint sentiment, even if it is just to make sure you get a full pint of PBR. I was a little surprised to see this sign up outside a neighborhood bar, but I'm glad news of the cheater pint menace has gone mainstream.

Here's an old post with photographic evidence that a cheater pint plus a reasonable amount of head on the beer is really just a 12-ounce pour.

Join your Pabst-drinking hipster brethren in saying "no" to cheater pints!

Gregwatch: May 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Tue, 08 May 2012 15:24:00 +0000

A little over four years ago, I wrote a post called Gregwatch: March 2008. At the time, Hair of the Dog's unusual winter-squash beer Greg was only available at Higgins Restaurant in downtown Portland, and the quality of Greg seemed to swing back and forth between sublimely wonderful and almost undrinkable. Hence the silly name of the blog post, as though we needed to keep track of when there was good Greg available.

Around that time I asked Alan Sprints why there seemed to be so much variation between the batches, and he seemed genuinely perplexed by the question, basically saying he didn't think there was. So I was amused last weekend when I asked the bartender at HotD's tasting room if Greg was good right now, and he shot back "It always is!"

There's been a lot of water under the bridge since 2008. I don't work near Higgins anymore and so I get there a lot less often, though the last few times I was there they didn't even have Greg or any HotD beer on tap (they have various ones in bottles of course). Meanwhile, Alan has opened a pub of his own, and it does always have Greg on tap.

And it's doing fine. There was a nice tight head -- oddly gray in color as Greg's head often is -- on top of a cloudy and delicious Belgian golden ale. It wasn't the best iteration of Greg I've had, but it was perfect for a cloudy evening, chatting with some friends.

I'm looking forward to Fred Fest 2012 at Hair of the Dog this Sunday. It looks like tickets are still available. Among the many delights at the festival, apparently the Hair of the Dog/Deschutes collaboration beer will be served. If you want more convincing that you should buy a ticket, read some of my reports on previous Fred Fests. You'll have the time of your life.

Let's Stop Calling It "Craft" Beer

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Thu, 03 May 2012 16:30:00 +0000

The term "craft beer" annoys me. I wrote part of this diatribe a long time ago, but since a lot of beer friends have headed to San Diego this week for the Craft Brewers Conference, it reminded me that I think it's a silly term. Why?

The Brewers Association promulgates a definition of "craft brewer" that excludes Widmer's parent company -- the ironically named Craft Brewers Alliance -- while including three larger breweries with similar product lines. The reason? Anheuser Busch owns a large stake in CBA.
On the other hand, the Gambrinus Company -- parent company of Bridgeport, Shiner, and Trumer -- makes the BA's list of "craft brewers". All right, Bridgeport fits in with what people think of as craft beer, but Trumer? Everything from Shiner? I say that with love in my heart -- Shiner Bock was the first beer I loved, and I will always love the Spoetzl Brewery and its beers.
Many perfectly fine imported beers would fail the BA's size or ownership tests: Spaten, Guinness, and Hoegaarden to name a few.
Look at wine connoisseurs. Do they talk about "craft wine"? No. They know there is good wine and bad wine, and it's clear from the context which kind they are talking about.

Lots of people have already made these points or similar ones about the term "craft". I'm not claiming any originality here: Brian Yaeger had a good rant last year when he said I hate "craft beer"; a few months later Jeff Alworth slyly asked Is This Craft Beer? about some lovely bottles from Goose Island, which was thrown off the BA's craft brewer list after being bought by Anheuser Busch themselves.

A comment by Vasili Gletsos (now the Laurelwood brewmaster) on Jeff's post captures the matter so perfectly that it can't be paraphrased, and has to be reported in its entirety:

To me, the term is most useful as a historical movement to describe the resurgence of smaller breweries in a post-prohibition environment. We are now in a post-craft environment in which there is a wide variety of business models and ownerships in addition to a great depth of beer styles and experimentation.

"Post-craft environment": what a great phrase. Let's move on and just talk about "beer" from now on. If you need a word to distinguish beer from mass-produced macro-lager, turn the tables and call the latter "crap beer" as Brian suggested in his post.

Who cares how many barrels are produced, or what company owns a stake in the brewery? If the beer's good, drink it. If it's bad, complain.

Check Out These Floaties

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:18:00 +0000

I was excited to hear that Two Beers Brewing would start selling beer in Oregon -- in cans no less. When Geoff Kaiser invited me up to Seattle last year to help judge the Fresh Hop Throwdown, the entry from Two Beers was one of my favorites, and I'm very picky about fresh hop beers.

So I've been looking forward to trying more of their beers now that they're coming this way. Yesterday I snagged cans of their Trailhead India Session Ale and Evolutionary IPA. The Trailhead is a nice hoppy pale with a relatively low 4.8% ABV. Not quite as bitter or even as low alcohol as the Stone-Ballast Point San Diego Session Ale, but it's a choice I'll seek out again.

I liked the Evolutionary also, but wow! what a lot of yeast floaties were in there, so many that you can see them pretty clearly even in the crummy cellphone picture there. I was taken aback a few years ago by Hop Henge floaties, but Evolutionary takes it to the next level entirely. It was kind of mesmerizing to watch them rise and fall with the bubbles in the glass -- it was like a beery snow globe. Thick and sticky, with tons of citrusy hops, it's good stuff as long as the big chunks don't turn you off.

One more note about Two Beers: the recently introduced Churchkey Pilsner is contract-brewed at Two Beers. Interestingly, the recipe for that was developed by Sean Burke, the full-time brewer at SE Portland's Commons Brewery.

Portland Pub Crawl: NW 17th and 16th

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 16:03:00 +0000

This is the second in our series of Portland pub crawls (the first one was a mile-long classic SE Portland pub crawl). This isn't a total beer geek-out -- the only place on the main list that really has a beer focus is Caps and Corks -- it's a sociable and short stroll through a few interesting places that you might not have heard of before. The pub crawl centers on a growing bar scene that sits in the shadow of the I-405 flyovers heading up to the Fremont Bridge. It's easy to get there via the Portland Streetcar or the #77 bus, and if you stay too late to catch the train or bus home, the Radio Cab garage is right there. If you're biking there, the best east-west through streets are Overton and Johnson.

Click on the pins of the map for more details like opening hours:

View Portland Pub Crawl: NW 17th and 16th in a larger map

The green pins represent the main route on the pub crawl starting at NW 17th and Marshall; the yellow pins are optional but interesting places nearby.

Main route:

Bent Brick: A somewhat upscale "tavern" spin-off of Park Kitchen. Five carefully-chosen beer taps.
Moonshine Kitchen and Lounge (aka Paymaster): Homey bar with a few nice beers, a cider tap, and a burger-and-fries menu.
Caps and Corks: Fun little bottleshop with 400 bottled beer choices, 7 taps (soon to be more), and imperial pints.
Slabtown: Ostentatiously seedy dive that focuses on live music at night. A few drinkable beer taps along the lines of Lagunitas, Deschutes, and Ninkasi.

Optional add-ons:

Yur's: Comfortable and friendly dive bar with excellent greasy-spoon menu and a few good beers on tap, a couple blocks down from Slabtown on 16th.
Bridgeport Brewpub: If your pub crawl must visit a brewery, you can start off at Bridgeport, a couple blocks east of the Bent Brick on Marshall.
Lucky Lab: A bit further afield, a classic Portland brewpub at NW 20th and Quimby.
Le Happy: A late-night French cafe and creperie in the same block as Slabtown. No beer to speak of, but a cozy atmosphere and full bar.

The impetus for writing up this overlooked corner of town is that I'm about to move out of my office at 18th and Lovejoy, so I wanted to document the neighborhood's drinking opportunities while they are still part of my regular beat. You get both ends of the spectrum by starting at the fancy-pants Bent Brick and ending up at gritty Slabtown, but each place has its own charm. For instance, not only does Slabtown have several pinball machines and a Ms. PacMan, but it also has air hockey, pop-a-shot, skeeball, and some weird coin-operated punching bag. Just don't eat there unless the recent management change has improved the kitchen.

I also highly recommend a visit to Yur's, which is my favorite dive bar in Portland. It always feels like nighttime in there, which makes it a nice break in the middle of the day. And even though it's got plenty of atmosphere, you won't get that "Yeh ain't from around here, ere yeh?" attitude that some dives drape themselves in (Slabtown is a little bit like that, though it's far from the worst offender in town). Yur's is by no means a beer-geek paradise, but they always have something workable, and they usually have one or two choices that are a little off the beaten path like Coalition or Migration.

Portland vs. Austin: Beer Festival Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 18:15:00 +0000

Wow! Word out of Austin is that the bad feelings left by a botched beer festival last weekend is partly to blame for the cancellation of another festival there that was scheduled for later in the month.

Don't take what follows as gloating -- I swear it's not. But reading about the failed Austin Beer Festival -- described on a Beer Advocate thread as a complete disaster -- is a surprising reminder to me of how good we've got it in so many ways in Portland. I lived in Austin for almost 20 years, and I while I still love that town, I can say confidently that moving to Portland 9 years ago was the best thing that our family ever did. I love returning to Austin for visits, but it's a place I could never live again. Naturally there are more reasons for that than the beer festival situation, although reading the links above underlined some other differences between the two towns:

It was 90 degrees there Saturday (Portland's high was in the low 50's)
Everyone attending a Texas beer festival drives there in a car. OK, 99%.
The organizers of the ABF aren't really plugged in to the beer community -- it's just another business to them

On the last two points, think of the central locations of Portland's big beer festivals, all well-served by multiple forms of public transit and easy to reach on a bicycle (granted, I used to occasionally bike out to Decker Lake where the ABF was held, but even then it wasn't a particularly nice ride). Think also of the grassroots origins of all of the Portland festivals, and how they are staffed in large part by volunteers (which it sounds like was not the case in Austin). And how about the 2 ounce sample size at the ABF? I guess bike lanes are not the only proof that not everything is bigger in Texas.

This seems like a good place to mention that Portland's red-headed stepchild of beer festivals, the Spring Beer and Wine Fest, is happening this Friday and Saturday. In the past I've been somewhat critical of the SBWF, though I attend almost every year, as I will this year. This time, though, I'll think how bad it could be, and I'll consider my taster glass half-full instead of half-empty.

If you share my interest in watching train wrecks and you didn't yet click on the ABF stories above, they are interesting reading. Glad I didn't get wind of it on April 1st or I would have thought it was a prank.

Beer Licensing Agreements

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 16:39:00 +0000

In college we used to say, "You don't buy beer, you rent it". That statement may become more true than ever if a trend that started with some well-known California brewers catches on. To fight against the black market in rare beers, Stone Brewing Co. has announced it will stop selling its limited release beers, and start licensing them instead, in the same way that computer software is licensed and not sold. [Editor's note: At Stone's request, I would like to point out that this post is an April Fool's gag. The folks at Stone enjoyed it on April 1, but the joke wore thin as they continued to get complaints about the new policy from readers who thought it was true. For maximum effect, be sure to click on the "Stone's BEULA" link below.]

It sounds very peculiar at first, but it is a logical extension of brewers' efforts to prevent unscrupulous scalpers from making obscene profits re-selling highly prized beers. Several prominent brewers have been vocal about their opposition to beer auctions on Ebay for quite some time. Lost Abbey's Tomme Arthur penned an article called *&^% Ebay about four years ago, and last year an article in the Washington Post interviewed several brewers about the problem. Stone's founder Greg Koch was quoted in that article as saying "We have involuntarily been a part of the eBay aftermarket for many years". Since then, Stone and Lost Abbey have hit on a clever solution to the problem. Henceforth, their rare beers will be subject to End User License Agreements, similar to those you might be familiar with if you use computer software from companies like Microsoft or Apple.

The first beer of Stone's to be sold under a "Beer End User License Agreement" -- BEULA for short -- is a rich and flavorful triple IPA along the lines of Russian River's vaunted Pliny the Younger, aptly named "Not For Sale Ale". Whereas the back of a typical Stone bomber is adorned with several paragraphs of whimsically rambling boasts, NFSA's bottle (click on the picture for a closer look) is embossed with a dense legal contract that stipulates -- among other things -- that purchasers "may not lend, sell, auction, redistribute or sublicense" the beer, and that the beer may not be used in "the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons". Click here for the full text of Stone's BEULA.

As a fan of good beer, I have inveighed against Ebay beer scalpers for quite awhile -- I even auctioned an empty Abyss bottle once to demonstrate what a joke it is for beer auctioneers to skirt Ebay's rules by claiming that the bottle itself is what's valuable, not the beer inside. Even so, I confess that I'm a little uncomfortable with treating beer as intellectual property in this way. Aside from the essentially coercive nature of EULAs and BEULAs, the legalese in the contract goes against the convivial spirit of the beer world. There is also the practical question of how to enforce a BEULA, though I suspect that having the prohibition printed right on the bottle might finally convince Ebay to be more proactive about shutting down beer auctions.

Several more California brewers are rumored to be working with lawyers to prepare BEULAs for future releases, starting with the next offering for Lost Abbey's Saints and Sinners club. The Bruery and Russian River are likely to be the next breweries to follow suit -- the Bruery's license allegedly goes so far as to prohibit the use of its beers in so-called beer cocktails. Russian River seems to be taking it a little more slowly -- supposedly they will try out their new BEULA on this year's bottling of Objectification, a lighter beer unlikely to attract much collector interest anyway.

What's your opinion? Are beer license agreements a legitimate and reasonable way to combat beer profiteering? Or are they an unwarranted intrusion into our enjoyment of quality fermented beverages?

BenderPDX: Finding New Portland Bars

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 16:49:00 +0000

Here's a great idea: a computer program that scours OLCC filings online, and creates a Google map of all the new liquor licenses that have been applied for recently. Portland computer expert and cocktail aficionado Chris Barker has created just such a program, and publishes links to its maps on Twitter. Here's this week's map:

View Larger Map

Chris calls his creation BenderPDX. The Futurama reference is a good name for a Twitter bot, especially one that can see into the alcoholic future. If you follow BenderPDX on Twitter -- or even just occasionally click that link to check the feed -- you'll get the link to the latest map.

With a hat tip to #pdxbeergeeks and their series of Meet the Geek blog posts, I decided to bombard Chris with some questions about BenderPDX.

______________________________________

BN: I used to occasionally try to remember to look up the OLCC filings to see what was coming down the pipe in Portland, but I wasn't very regular about it, and it's kind of boring. BenderPDX is like a dream come true for me, with a Google map to boot! Why did you create a bot like this?

CB: Thanks! I'm glad to know that other people are finding BenderPDX to be useful. I live out near Mt. Tabor, so when my "good enough" Thai place closed and I found out it was being replaced with Tabor Tavern via a news blurb in Eater, I realized I wanted to know when more places were coming in. I have done work in Python in the past, so I figured that I could probably find a module to strip addresses from the OLCC PDF that gets posted weekly, and then once I had the addresses, I could do some geocoding and then make a Google Earth KML file to view it. It was only after I had gotten that working that I realized it was only a few more lines of code to get bit.ly url shortening and tweeting worked into the script as well.

BN: How often do updates come out? Is it automatic? How do you make sure it finds the right documents at the right time?

CB: The first iteration of the script is manually invoked, it just dumps the output from the PDF to kml then tweets it. The new version (which does Portland only), scrapes the HTML from Portlandonline.com's liquor license notification page, which includes links to the submitted applications in PDF. It is still very much a work in progress, and I don't have much in the way of integrity checks yet, so if there is a garbage upstream or I don't parse the location properly, you might end up with a bad link or pin location (usually right in the center of Portland).

Eventually I hope BenderPDX will be able to do a collection of different actions, so weekly OLCC updates, as they come in single business notifications, and random snarky Bender quotes as appropriate. And really, it's an excuse for me to keep playing with Python some more.

BN: How long do entries stay on the map? Are there links from the map to the source documents?

CB: Right now for simplicity, I just show the 15 newest applications in Portland, but each tweet BenderPDX generates is to its own map. So yesterday's tweet is a link to the map it built yesterday, and so on. As I expand on the concept, I hope to clean it up a lot and make it a little less hacky. The pins should link folks to the actual PDF of the business's application, but I have no idea how long Portland Online keeps those records available, and I don't want to get into the grey area of caching/hosting them locally. The rest of the information is just scraped from the same notification page I got the PDF links from.

BN: I met you through my friend Lindsey, who knew you as mrzarquon from Metafilter events. How did you get involved in the Portland Metafilter community? Are Metafilter people as cool as Beer people? Are there flesh-and-blood Metafilter groups everywhere, or just in Portland?

CB: I've been a member of MetaFilter since 2005, and starting going to local events put together by MeFites when I was living in Seattle. I've been to meetups in LA, Chicago, and San Francisco as well. I was actually attending Portland meetups long before I had moved here, as I loved the city and found that it was a great excuse to get to know people here in anticipation of eventually moving. For the tenth anniversary, Metafilter had 67 meetups on all seven continents (yes, even Antartica).

Being a member of MetaFilter means you have a social network stretching around the world full of interesting and strange people. When you hang out with Beer people (or cocktail people, or car people), you can in a way have a diverse group of people who all share this one common interest. When you hang out with a group of MetaFilter folks, the common interest is intelligent discussion on the internet, which can encompass beer, cars, computers, politics, healthcare, mortuary practices, what is the most cost effective way to raise chickens and what was the name of that song you heard that one time while watching Saturday morning cartoons as a kid. I don't know if I have a common definition of Cool, but I find that meetups with other folks from Metafilter to be interesting if not fascinating. I am proud to say I participate in a community where folks like Adam Savage drop by, because they like the conversation and the topics discussed.

BN: What's your day job? Have you spawned any other bots we should know about?

CB: I work for Portland State, doing IT work for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. In short, I herd professors and help make sure that they get their labs and systems setup properly, so they can focus on teaching instead of how to get their bioinformatics software working in a new lab. In the past I've worked mostly as an IT consultant, so the change in pace (from 60+ hours/week and travel to 40 hours and a bus commute) has finally allowed me to pursue honing some of my programming skills and working on making some creative projects for once, not just troubleshooting an Exchange server at two in the morning or flying across the country to repair someone's SAN.

BenderPDX is my first bot, I'm hoping to work on extending it out nicely so it is a genuine robust script, and not something "good enough." There is a ton of potential in parsing twitter feeds, and the other day I was thinking how it would be cool for there to be an #ontappdx like system but for food carts, but my programming abilities aren't up to that task yet.

BN: What kind of bars are you hoping BenderPDX finds for you? What are your current favorite places in town?

CB: Interesting ones near my house, so I can walk home afterwards. I like places that do creative things with alcohol, so a bar that actually knows to stir a Manhattan and not muddle the orange in an Old Fashioned are things I am always looking out for.

Of my favorite places in town, it depends on what I'm going for:

Brunch: City State Diner, fast, great food, no line
Dinner: Over and Out/The Observatory, awesome two for one space in Montavilla, bar in the back with pinball, fine dining in the front.
Drinks: Vintage Cocktail Lounge - I've been there so often I run their website now, and they are always trying to think of new ways to mix drinks. If I was going to open a bar, they have the template I would most likely copy from. Also recently I've been hanging out at the Guild Public House, which has had a nice bounce back since they got new owners (one of whom is the owner of Vintage), it helps that I pass it on my bus ride home from work.

But I am also excited just for the rain to finally stop so I can actually have a nice weekend BBQ in my back yard.

Portland Beer Price Index: Spring 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:22:00 +0000

A pretty quiet installment of the PBPI this quarter: no change of more than 3 cents in any of the categories. Suits me, I'm ready for some quiet time. Here are the numbers:

6-packs: $9.25, up 2 cents
22-ounce bombers: $4.96, down 3 cents
6-packs (sale price): $8.73, unchanged
22-ounce bombers (sale price): $4.77, down 1 cent
16 oz. draft: $4.33 up 2 cents
16 oz. draft (happy hour): $3.54, up 2 cents

The draft prices are actually lower than I reported last time, but I realized I had been recording too high of a pint price at the Horse Brass for a few quarters. Taking that into account, the draft prices are up 2 cents from what I should have reported last time. I discussed the details in last week's meandering Horse Brass post.

The bomber availability battle that I fight every quarter seems to be pretty stable for now: Pelican IPA was available at 3 of the 5 stores I canvass, and Beer Valley Leafer Madness was at 4 of them. But in a surprise development, the Division Street New Seasons has stopped carrying any Rogue bombers. An employee told me they dropped them because the prices were getting too high. Uh, yeah, for the last 20 years or so; you guys are just now figuring that out? For now Rogue and New Seasons have enough coverage that I'll keep them both in the survey, but it's something to keep an eye on.

Horse Brass Musings

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:40:00 +0000

The other night a few beer bloggers were standing around drinking beer, and a man in a suit and tie asked what our favorite beer bar was in town. It's a tough question with so many great places in Portland, but Ezra was quick to speak up for the Horse Brass, and I had to admit that would be my first choice also. (For what it's worth, Saraveza was the favorite of our well-dressed interrogator; Saraveza and Bailey's got a lot of nods around the circle.)

Yesterday I went to the Horse Brass for lunch. It's only been a few weeks since I was there last, but there were a handful of noticeable changes in that short time:

The old Belmont Station sign has been replaced by a Horse Brass sign (pictured). Finally!
The rotating tap menu now lists prices. Hooray!
The regular lineup beers have gone up in price by 25 cents. Rats.
There was music playing -- country and western -- on speakers throughout the pub. Really?
My fish and chips came with a side of ranch dressing instead of tartar sauce. What the...!?

For a while I've considered it a drawback that there was practically no way to know the price of a rotating beer at the Horse Brass until your check came. Bravo for printing the prices on the daily menu -- they're even listed online now. We're not in nirvana just yet: the beer I ordered was listed at $4.50 but I was charged $4.95. It's a start.

Speaking of prices -- are you sitting comfortably? I'm about to go off on a tangent. For a few weeks I've been fretting because I realized that the Portland Beer Price Index has been overstating the "typical" pint price at Horse Brass by 50 cents. What happened was, in the fall of 2010 I decided that most of the beers I ordered there were over $5, and only a few were under $5. So, I rather brazenly raised the price I was recording in the PBPI from $4.50 to $5. Problem is, the non-rotating, everyday beers on the menu have still been just $4.50 all that time, so that's the number I should have used, except now they have raised the price to $4.75. This quarter's PBPI will be adjusted properly when it comes out next week.

Music playing on the stereo -- that's new, right? I don't recall being in the Horse Brass, even at quiet times, and hearing canned music, or am I just forgetting? Country music seemed a vaguely surprising choice, though the selection sounded more like Americana than Nashville, and it was inobtrusive enough that it didn't bother me. I'll admit I would rather hear that in the background than authentic folk tunes from anywhere in the British Isles.

Many's the time that the devil on my left shoulder whispered to me to steal the square Belmont Station sign that hung next to the Horse Brass office awning for many years after the Station had moved up to Stark Street. I'm glad that there is now a Horse Brass sign hanging there -- that temptation is now safely behind me.

I didn't make a fuss at the time, but ranch dressing with fish and chips? Let's hope that was a one time accident.

2012 Toronado Barleywine Festival Recap

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 15:20:00 +0000

The weekend I recently spent in Oakland happened to coincide with the final days of San Francisco's annual SF Beer Week. That was why Beer Revolution had an L.A. brewery takeover when I was there, and it's also why I was able to partake of some lip-puckering Cantillon drafts -- Mamouche and 2010 Iris -- that Saturday evening at The Trappist.

Another legendary SF Beer Week event is the Toronado Barleywine Festival, and on Sunday morning I couldn't resist heading into the City on BART for that, especially since I knew I was going to have to miss the Lucky Lab Barleywine Festival in my own hometown. Publicity for the event said it would begin at 10 AM, and following the "arrive early" rule of thumb for festivals, I walked past Toronado a little before 10 while searching for some pre-barleywine breakfast. There was already a line of perhaps a dozen people waiting out front.

Now, 10 AM is pretty early to start with the big beers like that, so I was a little relieved when I came back at 10:30 and found that the place hadn't opened yet. I took my place at the back of the line, and waited until the doors finally opened a little after 11. My notes say that I tried about 14 of the beers that day though some of those were little sips generously shared by my neighbors at the end of the bar. My three favorites of the day were:

Speakeasy Old Godfather 2009
Emelisse Barleywine
Stone Old Guardian 2009

All three had that brown sugar note that tastes so good in a big barleywine, with the characteristic alcohol heat. If you're not familiar with Emelisse, it's a Dutch brewery that is starting to show up more often over here, though I'm more used to seeing their Imperial Stout than their Barleywine. I'm a little surprised at how much I liked the 2009 vintage barleywines at the festival -- that's pushing the envelope on how long a beer should be aged, in my opinion. Maybe I need to be more flexible about that. At the other end of the spectrum, here were three I didn't like:

Alaskan Rough Draft 2011 -- fruity, too sweet, "tootsie roll"
Shipyard Double Old Thumper -- too sweet
Triple Rock Dragonaut -- weak

Getting to the festival early was definitely a good idea. Sitting at the bar, I was treated very well by the notoriously touchy Toronado staff, who did a good job keeping the samples flowing. There were two sizes: small (3 oz.) and medium (6.5 oz.), $3 and $5 respectively, though sometimes the smalls seemed to be as full as the mediums. Apparently there was a large serving in years past, but experience had proven that to be a bad idea.

If you go to the fest, remember this trick that Ezra told me about: bring an empty six-pack holder to carry your samples back to your table, since you'll want to order a few at a time. It ended up not mattering for me since I found a seat at the bar, but the people with six-packs were definitely having a nicer time of it.

Oakland Beer Getaway

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 16:06:00 +0000

Last month I had to spend a week in the Silicon Valley on business. I took the opportunity to spend the preceding weekend in Oakland and check out the growing beer scene there. It's a good way to have a cheap Bay Area getaway -- I pricelined a hotel right downtown for $42 a night -- and San Francisco is just a $6 round-trip away on BART.

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My first stop was a couple of blocks from the hotel, a Belgian-heavy place called The Trappist. A cozy, narrow space that they call The Front Bar calls to mind Dutch or Belgian beer bars, but opens onto a back patio that is perfect for sunny California days. There are fifteen taps at the front bar, and ten more in a bigger room called The Back Bar -- an assortment of off-the-beaten track Belgian and Belgian-inspired beers, some nice California offerings, and some surprises from Mikkeller and Evil Twin, including an Evil Twin coffee porter specially brewed for The Trappist.

The food is reasonably-priced and not too fancy, and there is a good assortment of special bottled beers if you need to show off. Compared to the similarly-named and -themed La Trappe across the bay in North Beach, there are more taps here, though La Trappe seems to have a longer bottle list. Both are fine establishments, but The Trappist is less crowded, less expensive, and seems a little more laidback than its counterpart in the City.

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A few blocks toward the bay from The Trappist is the new beer-geek darling of Oakland: Beer Revolution. It's easy to see why people are so enamored of Beer Revolution: over 40 taps of well-chosen beer, plus several coolers full of bottles for takeaway or drinking there ($1 corkage fee), and the easy-going taproom/bottleshop system of bringing in your own food. It's like a less crowded, less expensive, more laidback version of SF's City Beer Store (a theme is developing here). There's even a small but sunny patio area out front. I had a great time at Beer Revolution, enjoyed a delicious glass of barrel-aged stout from Drake's before wading in to the LA brewery tap takeover that was going on that weekend.

One big gripe about Beer Revolution: the pint glasses there are cheater pints, those big-booted bastardizations that only hold about 13 ounces of beer. It wasn't just one that slipped into the mix -- after I noticed that I was served one, I started watching and all the pint glasses that came across the bar were cheaters. C'mon guys, it's the year 2012, please get with the Honest Pint program. Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I'll still say that the selection and atmosphere make Beer Rev a must-stop in Oakland despite the glassware, and many of the big beers they'll tempt you with will be in smaller glasses anyway.

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On the advice of Beer Revolution's co-owner Rebecca, I went from there right down to the waterfront to check out Heinhold's First and Last Chance. Something of a tourist trap which claims an association to Call of the Wild author Jack London, it is nevertheless worth a visit. They have a couple of sessionable local beers on tap, and they also serve -- another hat tip to Rebecca -- a very nutritious and delicious Bloody Mary. The floor and bar slope noticeably downward towards the back of the building -- a little remodeling done by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Heinhold's cleverly straddles the line between cheesy and authentic, and it would be better to say you'd been there than to say you'd missed it.

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There are a couple of breweries in downtown Oakland: Linden Street Brewery, which I didn't get around to visiting but which had some tasty beers on tap at Heinhold's; and Pacific Coast Brewing around the corner from the Trappist, which is friendly and comfortable enough but doesn't make very good beer (luckily they have about a dozen guest taps). If you're looking for a good meal with good beer to accompany it, head up Broadway away from the bay to Luka's Taproom. The 16-tap beer list won't blow you away, but it's serviceable enough, and it's fun to watch the hip locals come and go while you fill up on good food.

Oakland has a lot going on beer-wise, and offers easy access to San Francisco while being much cheaper, quieter, and easier to navigate. Next time you're headed to the Bay Area, consider setting up camp in Oakland.

Widmer Brothers Sow Their Bro Oats

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:13:00 +0000

[Editor's Note: Another nice guest post from Brian (msubulldog25). Keep up the good work, Brian!]

On a recent mid-week evening, Sharon and I attended a release party at Irving Street Kitchen for Oatmeal Porter, the latest from ‘Series 924’ by Widmer Brothers. The event was an unveiling of sorts for this new recipe; it also was a chance for us to meet representatives from the brewery and sample beers both new and familiar (Pitch Black IPA and Nelson Imperial IPA also graced the menu).

Though the Oatmeal Porter was the stated focal point of this night, the spiel by brewer Doug Rehberg was short and to the point. The new seasonal (available March – May) weighs in at 6%, with a modest 27 IBUs, and is crafted using a liberal dose of custom-toasted oats (made exclusively for Widmer Brothers by the folks at Briess Malting and dubiously dubbed ‘Bro Oats’). I enjoyed the beer quite a bit; its feel is smooth and creamy and its nutty and sweeter flavors evoke cocoa powder, brown sugared oatmeal, vanilla and toasted coconut flakes. In early sips, I found ‘bourbon’ and, thus, could have sworn that some barrel-aging was behind it. There is none. Whether this dessert-y porter finds a home in the market remains to be seen, but I found it satisfying for my malt-loving leanings and a good complement to the hoppier things in the brewery’s current lineup.

Once the brief speech ended and the noshing and sipping resumed, a familiar-looking gentleman approached me, shook my hand and introduced himself as ‘Kurt’. After some awkward chit-chat about the food pairings and -facepalm- the rainy weather, we settled on topics more near and dear to Widmer. We discussed upcoming beers, such as the ‘Series 924’ summer release Marionberry Gose (fans, like me, who recall a similar beer at last year’s Fruit Beer Fest will note the switch from raspberries) and the imminent release of the Raspberry Imperial Stout (‘Babushka’s Secret’ without the fancy name).

Among other Widmer tidbits:

Upstairs remodeling in the building where the Gasthaus is located has (finally) been completed.
Several small tanks will soon move from the original brewery to the test facility at the Rose Quarter – meaning more opportunities for smaller/experimental batches.
Several huge fermentation tanks (I forget the volume, but it’s a lot!) will be added to the main brewery, filling the void in the N. Mississippi/Russell St. corner. This will require the roof to be temporarily removed, an endeavor which the architect in me finds fascinating. Can’t wait to watch.
In business news: the annual shareholder meeting (which Bill blogged about last spring) will NOT be held in Portland this year (but it’ll be just a daytrip away, up at the Redhook brewery in Woodinville, WA). Bummer for us Portlanders, but great for longtime HOOK shareholders who’ve asked for it in recent years.

The window is short on the Oatmeal Porter -- check it out before it gets replaced in May.

Preview: Lucky Lab Barleywine Festival 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:21:00 +0000

[Editor's Note: I'm happy to add Pub Night stalwart Lindsey -- developer of It's Pub Night's Six-Pack Equivalent Calculator Android app -- to our ever-expanding roster of guest writers. Thanks, Lindsey!]

On Saturday I had the distinct pleasure to represent It's Pub Night at an exclusive event for Portland beer glitterati: taste testing the beers for the Lucky Lab's upcoming Barleywine Festival. Beyonce and Jay Z were there. Jay even had their new baby in one of those front facing slings. True story.

The 2012 Barleywine Festival will be held next Friday and Saturday, March 2nd and 3rd, 2012, at the Quimby Street Lucky Lab, from noon to 10 PM both days. It's one of the more relaxed festivals in town, and the early Friday opening gives you a great opportunity to beat the crowds if you can make yourself free that day. Since it's held right in the pub, food, water, and seating are all abundant.

Many of the barleywines at the festival are vintages from previous years, stashed away in the Lab's vaults. Because the kegs are stored over long periods of time, each one has to be tested to make sure they are still drinkable. That was our job. Unfortunately two or three didn't fare so well and will get dumped.

I recorded 27 different beers and there will likely be a few more vintage editions plus a selection of new beers, which weren't on hand to try. While no beer is older than '07, each day of the fest will feature a changing set of vertical tastings whenever possible.

Here are a few of my standouts -- you should try them if you attend the festival:

'11 North Coast Old Stock: very nice and quite sweet
'10 Ninkasi Critical Hit: mellowing nicely but still hoppy
'09 Sierra Nevada Bigfoot: aging nicely but still has a nice hop presence
'10 Anchor Old Foghorn: a longtime favorite of mine didn't disappoint
'09 Salmon Creek Brother Larry: a nice and mellow trippel
?? Terminal Gravity Bucolic: well-balanced hop presence
?? Three Creeks Brewdolph: very nice Belgian
'11 Anchor Old Foghorn: "oh f*** yes"

Portland Beer Carts

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:25:00 +0000

Today's Oregonian has a front-page article about the new Cartlandia food cart pod on 82nd applying for a liquor license from the OLCC. Since the modern style of news reporting mandates that every story must convince you that you are in grave and immediate danger, the article sets the scene with phrases like "the issue has new urgency now", "waves of concern among Portland officials", and -- the pièce de résistance -- "they envision alcohol flowing from nearly all of the 700 carts across town, creating a new source of public drunkenness and neighborhood disorder". Run! You are in great danger! Your neighborhood is being overrun by barbarians right now!

What the article glosses over is that there are already beer carts quietly operating alongside food carts, with no apparent ill effects. Captured by Porches has been selling beer from their beer buses for a year and a half now, and Buckman Brewery (a.k.a. Rogue's Green Dragon) has a cart at the food cart pod just up Belmont from the Horse Brass. The article does mention that "carts asked the OLCC about regularly selling beer and wine" two years ago, but it fails to point out that carts are already selling beer under temporary licenses, though the online version links to an earlier story about CbP's cart near 33rd and Division.

The online version has a fairly staid headline, but in the print edition today it is "Alcohol with food carts gives city indigestion". What gives me indigestion is the podunk worldview of our local paper -- and friends, I lived most of my life in Oklahoma and Texas. The Oregonian is an unending source of disappointment for me in many ways, though their declining beer coverage -- they're cutting back John Foyston's The Beer Here column in the Friday entertainment section to once every two weeks, and last year they referred to Colorado as "Beervana" -- seems ill-advised when the local beer culture is continuing to grow at a healthy pace.

I mentioned the CbP and Buckman carts. Are there any other beer carts around town right now? [Update: Jim points out in the comments that there is a Lompoc beer cart at 51st and Foster.]

2011 Pub Night Memories

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:21:00 +0000

Last year by accident I didn't reminisce about the previous year until the end of January. I enjoyed that month's delay so much that I'm going to make it a tradition. Now that you've had a breather from all the looking back, looking forward, and the Top 7 Top 5 Lists, it's time to take a walk down memory card lane. Here is a slideshow of pictures that I took at various beer events last year that never made it into the blog:

It's great to look back on the good times of last year, and reflect on the good times to come this year, though my enjoyment is dampened right now by some terrible news about an old friend I received as I was compiling this slideshow. Come what may, I hope you all have a great year.

Don't Cook with Expensive Beer!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:33:00 +0000

Cooking with beer is nothing new, but the trend does seem to be taking flight as of late. I have occasionally cringed to see recipes that use a beer that would be better put to use by drinking it -- say, making an ice cream sauce from Deschutes Abyss. But the recent event that made today's rant inevitable was Beer Advocate's Thanksgiving installment of the Homebrew Chef, which counseled readers to brine their turkeys with 4 (four) 750 ml bottles of Allagash Tripel, and serve it up with cranberry sauce made from an even rarer Deschutes beer than Abyss: The Dissident.

Beer can chicken is one thing, but soaking a turkey in $40-$50 worth of beer which then has to be dumped down the drain is just sick. And no matter what your opinion is on extremely sour American takes on Belgian ales, can you see opening a bottle which is nearly impossible to get hold of right now, and pouring it into cranberry sauce?

Look, if you find that beer adds a flavorful dimension to your cooking, that's great. But suppose a recipe calls for red wine. Are you going to add 2 cups of Châteauneuf-du-Pape to it? No, because it's an insult to a wine of that quality, not to mention a silly waste of money. You'll use a good-enough table wine, and your food won't be any worse for it.

I suppose a Deschutes chef cooking with Abyss is just using what he has on hand, though I don't think the dish would have suffered any from the use of the less costly Obsidian Stout instead. Here's a picture of Alan Sprints whipping up some chocolate-raspberry sorbet that includes some Hair of the Dog Adam. It's not a cheap beer, but he's the brewer and it's what he's got. Even so, I doubt he would pull out some of his barrel-aged creations and give them the same treatment. [Oops! Matt points out in a comment below that Alan has made cheesecakes and ice creams with Cherry Adam from the Wood. Now I don't have to feel so bad for making him the expensive-beer-cooking poster boy.]

I'm not the first person to inveigh against the evils of cooking with rare beer Here's a year-old blog post from across the pond that gets it about right: "Sometimes, it seems the point is to impress with big beer names. Regardless of the impact it actually has on the dish’s flavour." There are also a couple of quasi-sensible comments about it on the Beer Advocate turkey-brining fiasco mentioned above.

Respect beer: don't cook with the rare stuff!

Portland Pub Crawl: SE 9th to SE 12th

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:27:00 +0000

Not long ago I claimed to have invented the Portland pub crawl. But looking back through the pub crawls I've written up over the years, every single one of them is out of date. The other day when I asked your advice on where to send tourists drinking in Portland, a common theme was that a pub crawl is the best way to experience Portland's beer scene. I heartily concur, so I propose to outline a few easy-to-walk Portland pub crawls. The audience for these posts is more likely to be visitors than natives, though of course I welcome your input if there's something you would change about the routes.

First up: a no-brainer through my own zip code of 97214:

View Portland Pub Crawl: SE 9th to 12th in a larger map

The green pins represent the main points on the pub crawl. I recommend that you go from north to south, since Apex and the Firkin are open far later in the night than anywhere else, though if you're hoping to visit the worthy Beermongers, keep in mind that they close at 11 on weekdays and midnight on Friday and Saturday. The yellow pins are optional (except for Commons Brewery: don't miss it if your pub crawl happens during the few hours they are open). Here's the green-pin plan:

Cascade Barrel House: Nice patio, Crazy wild beers, but also more accessible beers available in honest pints
Green Dragon: Great taproom. Maybe the least Rogue-ish Rogue establishment.
Lucky Labrador: A Portland classic. The patio isn't very scenic, but it's a convivial hangout if the weather is good. Great setup for darts.
The Firkin: New place with 14 rotating taps, midway between Lucky Lab and Beermongers.
The Beermongers: Super casual bottleshop, with great prices, and 8 well-curated beers on tap.
Apex: Portland's answer to Toronado. No frills, just reasonable prices on excellent beers.

Now, this is a pretty serious itinerary, and although it's only 1 mile from beginning to end, it would probably take you an entire day to finish it. Maybe it's better to think of this map as describing two separate pub crawls: one north of Hawthorne Blvd., the other one south of Hawthorne. Clicking on the pins will tell you the opening hours of each place -- most of them are open between 11 am and at least 11 pm every day -- as well as a short description of the pub.

Clicking on the bus icons will tell you the last departing times for the main buses to and from downtown Portland, and also gives you the Trimet stop IDs so you can check bus arrivals in real time. If you click the "View larger map" link, the Google map lets you select the Transit overlay to see more bus routes in the area.

I added the optional yellow pins to give you more choices if you decide on one of the smaller routes, or if you need to stick close to TVs for some kind of sporting event, or if you want some different food options. As I said, even though its pin is yellow, don't miss the Commons Brewery if your pub crawl is early on a Friday or Saturday evening -- it's a small brewery that makes high-quality, approachable beers in a variety of interesting styles. There are many other optional places I could have added, but I didn't want to clutter the map too much. If you crave more variety, click to the larger Google map and search nearby for "bar".

Enjoy your pub crawl!

Caps and Corks

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 17:04:00 +0000

It's not often that I pick up a beer scoop around here, but the other day I stumbled on a newly opened bottleshop/taproom in NW Portland: Caps and Corks at 17th and Lovejoy. As Jason and Nicole pointed out last year, the NW quadrant is hurting for just such a business. The location had for years been the Emanon Cafe -- the name was "No Name" backwards -- but has started a rebranding this week.

There are currently 7 beers on draft and 400 bottled beers, with plans to add more taps and a few more bottles. 20-ounce pints are $5 and shaker pints are $4, both 50 cents off during happy hour. When I stopped in Wednesday at lunchtime, the taplist was pretty good, about evenly split between widely accessible and more esoteric regional beers:

Occidental Alt
Anchor Steam
Fearless Porter
Widmer Hef
Klamath Basin Lager
Goodlife Stout
Boneyard Notorious IIPA

Beer and wine bottles are available to go: the corkage fee on beers is $1, whereas the price tag on a wine bottle is discounted by $5 if you get it to go. The bottled and canned beer selection had some interesting choices but will hopefully evolve further; I'm not a wine guy but the wine selection seemed a little paltry to me. They have a good selection of mainstream lagers in tall-boy cans if someone in your party can't drink the good stuff.

Caps and Corks is a welcome addition to the neighborhood for me: it's kitty-corner from my office, and open for lunch. Most food items are in the $4-$10 range, and the menu includes such Portland favorites as poutine, house-made pickles, and meat and cheese boards. Nice to see the 20-ounce beer option at a reasonable enough price; in a perfect world every new beer bar in Portland would start off immediately using glassware with a marked fill line, but we're not there yet.

There's quite a little tavern district popping up along NW 17th in the last year: the Bent Brick at Marshall, Moonshine Tavern mid-block, and now Caps and Corks at Lovejoy. Along 16th are some colorful bars that have been there a while: Slabtown (supposedly due to re-open soon), Le Happy, and my personal favorite dive bar in the area, Yur's. Caps and Corks is the only one to focus heavily on beer, let's wish them luck. They're already open for business, but they will have a Grand Opening celebration on January 27th.

Thinning Out the Cellar

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:19:00 +0000

It's fun to cellar beer. You get to buy something cool, and you still have it months or years later. At some point you can amaze your friends by opening that oldie but goodie.

But there are risks involved. All beer will eventually be too old to drink, even beers that age very well. You invested some money and some storage space on that beer -- how long is too long to keep it? I've been known to say that you should drink beer within two years of its bottling. Of course that's not a hard and fast rule -- on New Year's Eve I cracked a 3-year-old Roots Epic that was truly delightful -- but I claim that aging beyond two years doesn't add much benefit to most beers, and the things that can go wrong start to have more effect.

After an initial excitement about cellaring beer when I started geeking out a few years ago, I'm now at the point where I'm trying to reduce the amount of beer in the basement -- and I'm not a very big hoarder by any means. One part of that equation is to not keep as much beer -- hey, those big ones age well, but they can be really good fresh also. The other part is trying to use up more of the bottles I've got.

It seems like I hear more people talking about thinning out the cellar lately. Is it just me, or are a lot of people having the same idea? Are you keeping less and/or drinking more of your collection?

Changes to Hopworks Cask Ales?

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:14:00 +0000

[Editor's Note: Another excellent guest post by Dave.]

Please excuse this interjection, but I felt the need to sic the blogosphere on Hopworks. This evening we were at the mothership with our children and in-laws (HUB is first on our list with out-of-towners when the kids are in tow) and I ordered one of my favorite cask-conditioned ales, their IPA. The CO2 version never does much for me, but the cask version is perfect...floral nose, bitterness, and the malt comes out shining. Tonight, the pour seemed like a flat, cold CO2 pour.

I was almost embarrassed describing it to the waitress...I felt like a noob complaining about my first cask-conditioned pour. After some well-tipped commiseration, she brought a replacement CO2 pint and relayed that the pub was experimenting with a new method: Lower gas pressure for the cask taps. Huh? Why is there any pressure, isn't it pumped out by hand? My suspicion is that they are trying to cheat the cask, and I'd like to get informed opinions to confirm. I had a tried-and-true cask IPA before Christmas that was just fine; has anyone experienced the new method?

Your Thoughts on Where to Drink Beer in Portland

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:16:00 +0000

Somehow on Tuesday's post about Bridgeport, the comments veered off on a tangent of what beer places to recommend to out-of-town visitors to Portland.

My top three recommendations to anyone are always:

Horse Brass: great atmosphere, great beer, decent food
Deschutes: great beer, good food
Lucky Lab (Hawthorne): perfect Portland vibe

One of the commenters yesterday suggested Hopworks as a great place to take visitors, and even though it isn't the first place that comes to my mind, there is nothing but solid beer there, and guests I've taken to HUB have always been very impressed (especially if they have young kids).

I think pub crawls are also a great way to show off the town, since there are often several good pubs within easy walking distance of one another. If you can get your guests on a bike, so much the better. I've written about a few Portland pub crawls, but several of them are out of date due to openings and closings, so you might want to check out Jeff's series of pub crawls on Beervana.

What about you? Where do you insist on taking out-of-town guests for beer, and why?

Scattered Thoughts about the Bridgeport Pubs

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:50:00 +0000

Yesterday I took advantage of Bridgeport's Monday beer special at their Pearl District pub while watching the Rose Bowl -- $3 imperial pints is about as good a deal as it gets in Portland these days. As I was leaving, I happened to walk directly in front of the bar, and noticed that Bridgeport's new "black pale ale" Dark Rain was on tap. Funny, I'd been there for hours, and it wasn't listed on the sign above the bar, nor was it on the printed menus, nor did anyone bother to tell me about it. Talk about hiding your candle under a bushel.

It points to an issue at that pub: the employees do not seem very happy. The service is rarely great but usually OK there, but sometimes it's really bad. Unhappy employees are unmotivated employees -- you know this yourself from whatever bad work experience you might have had in the past. Somewhere on the management side is something keeping these people gloomy. If the wheels were running smoothly, someone would have read me as a beer geek -- first question: "What's on cask?" -- and alerted me to the new beer.

Something else was odd yesterday. Looking up at the bar chalkboard, I ordered a pint of Ebeneezer -- the winter warmer -- but was told, "Oh, that's only in bottles". Reasonable enough, it's a seasonal release, they ran through the kegs, but some bottles remain. But the next bit of information was more surprising: "That, and Blue Heron. The brewers have been on vacation." Out of kegs of Blue Heron? It's no longer the flagship beer, but it has a following and its low alcohol makes it a great choice for a few pints watching a football game.

In case you missed it, the coffee porter Bridgeport released last year, Cafe Negro, is out of the lineup at least temporarily. No surprise, it was due to be replaced by Ebeneezer when that rolled out. A straight-up Bridgeport Porter -- the previous recipe, last seen a little over a year ago? -- is on tap right now. A cask version of Kingpin double red was on yesterday. It was darker than I remember it being, and a little smoother and richer than the non-cask version, but still not as malty as many of its local competitors.

Finally, if you've been to the "remodeled" Bridgeport location on Hawthorne, what do you think about it? I'm disappointed that it's no longer open for lunch, only dinner. And the changes to the interior were very minor. Was the whole thing just a tactical maneuver to be able to lay off all the staff -- some of whom I remember seeing there even before I moved to Portland eight years ago -- without calling it a layoff?

Portland Beer Price Index: Winter 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 17:18:00 +0000

Could you imagine yourself trading June sunshine for December sunshine? It's not a good trade, but aren't you glad that our dreary summer has been partially made up for by a dry December? That's right, I'm talking about Portland weather on the shortest day of the year. It's the winter solstice, time for the Q4 2011 Portland Beer Price Index:

6-packs: $9.23, up 25 cents
22-ounce bombers: $4.99, up 6 cents
6-packs (sale price): $8.73, up 5 cents
22-ounce bombers (sale price): $4.78, up 1 cent
16 oz. draft: $4.35, up 2 cents
16 oz. draft (happy hour): $3.57, unchanged

An anonymous commenter last quarter said that wholesale six-pack prices were heading up, and that certainly showed up in the six-pack retail prices: this was the biggest jump the PBPI has ever seen. In fact, everything went up this quarter except happy hour pints. One pub raised their regular pint price, but kept the happy hour price the same. I'm sad to see bomber prices bounce up from their record low last time. They are still overpriced, with basically the same SPE price as happy hour pints.

As far as logistics go, I had to adjust the prices I have been recording at the Pearl Specialty Market, because I didn't notice until this time that their shelf price includes the bottle deposit, even on six-packs. Not that most of us cash those deposits back in, but all the other prices I've been recording leave off the deposit, so this time I brought Pearl's prices down accordingly. As a result, the previously reported Q3 numbers are slightly higher than the base price used for the price differences above.

Has the beer selection been shrinking at the Seven Corners New Seasons? Unlike QFC and Fred Meyers, they continue to carry Pelican IPA, but they did not have sixers of high-volume standbys Widmer Hef or Deschutes Black Butte Porter on the shelf, nor did they have Rogue Shakespeare Stout. I was able to record reasonable prices since they had other bottles from those breweries that are always priced the same as the missing ones, but it makes me wonder what they're up to.

Finally, I want to remind everyone that this is not a complaint about beer prices, not that I'm above that, especially with numbers like these. But the main purpose of the PBPI is to track price trends over time. Click here for an explanation of how the numbers are gathered, and check back three months from now for the Q1 2012 PBPI. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say to get ready to see even higher prices next time.