It's Pub Night

Gigantic End of Reason and St. Bernardus Prior 8

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Thu, 09 May 2013 21:10:00 +0000

We're nearly at the end of Gigantic Beer Week, and I have been out of town for all of it so far. But to commemorate the last few days of it, I want to say a couple words about one of the most brilliant Gigantic seasonals to date: The End of Reason.

This is a medium-strong dark Belgian, along the lines of Westmalle Dubbel -- in fact End of Reason uses the Westmalle yeast -- or those Watou masterpieces, Westvleteren 8 and St. Bernardus Prior 8. It's easy to find St. Bernardus Abt 12 around town, but less common to see bottles of Prior 8, so I was excited to notice one in the cooler at the Beermongers a few weeks ago. I highly recommend it if you see a bottle for sale.

The End of Reason has that same floral Belgian yeast flavor as the native Belgians, on top of a large, sweetish malt body. A reasonable helping of hops helps to bring it nearly into balance. The Prior 8 was noticeably drier than the Gigantic offering, but EoR is definitely worth your time if you can still find any bottles or taps of it around town (like my Gigantic Beer Week coverage, I'm a little late in announcing a beer that may not appear more than once, but you can probably still find a few straggling bottles in the usual places).

There wasn't room to mention this in the headline, but Laurelwood also has a Watou-ish dubbel on tap right now, aptly called St. Bernard. I had one at the airport on the way out of town, and was quite pleased with it. I think it was toward the Gigantic end of the sweet/dry spectrum, though it would be difficult to distinguish these three beers in a blind tasting, even harder if you through in a Westmalle. You can't go wrong with any of those beers.

Three cheers to Gigantic for a great first year! Click the link above to see Mr. Foyston's list of the remaining events, including Gigantic's First Anniversary party at the brewery itself tonight (Thursday, May 9, 2013, 3 PM to 9 PM).

Bridgeport Stumptown Tart 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:17:00 +0000

This year's Stumptown Tart is being released tomorrow (Thursday, April 18, 2013) at the Bridgeport Brewpub, 5:30-8:30 PM. This year's brew highlights blueberries for the first time in the 6-year run of the series, but also has raspberries and blackberries. All told, there are 15 pounds of fruit per barrel; the fruit was the most expensive ingredient in the brew -- 150% of the cost of the malt.

I got to taste this year's batch yesterday just as the first bottles were rolling off Bridgeport's line. It's a good one. Forget about the "Tart" in the name, this isn't a sour beer. As usual, there is a little bit of Belgian tripel character -- half of the batch is brewed with Bridgeport's house ale yeast, half with a Belgian strain -- and the blueberries come through nicely. This might be the best batch since the Cherry Stumptown Tart in 2009. The beer is pretty, and the blueberries give a nice cotton-candy pink tinge to the head. There is live yeast in the bottle, but it's not really a beer designed for aging -- drink it fresh.

The pinup model for the label, Bernie Dexter, will be on hand at the release party tomorrow, and she will even be manning a kissing booth. This year's label has her dressed a little more modestly than years past, so I guess they had to kick it up a notch by allowing actual physical contact. You'll also get another chance to try it this weekend at the Cheers to Belgian Beers festival: Friday, April 19th from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. and Saturday, April 20th from noon to 8 p.m. at Metalcraft Fabrication (723 N. Tillamook).

Deschutes River Ale

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 15:53:00 +0000

Without much fanfare, Deschutes has added a wonderful session ale to its roster of year-round six-packs: Deschutes River Ale. Its strength of 4% ABV means it is actually what some states call "3-2 beers" -- 3.2% alcohol by weight. I wonder if that means they can sell it in grocery stores in 3.2 states like Utah, Colorado, and Oklahoma, and if that was part of the brewery's strategy or just a happy accident.

Although it's a 3-2 beer and the brewery describes it as "golden or blonde", it's a little darker than that, and you won't have any trouble distinguishing it from fizzy yellow swill. It's got a satisfying, slightly sweet malt body, with a nice dose of flowery hops but very little bitterness. Jeff Alworth has more flavor analysis over at Beervana.

I first tried River Ale last fall when the Portland pub had an absolutely delicious fresh-hop version of it on tap. Luckily, the regular version out now is nearly as good, and given its pedigree as an English-style bitter, it's really nice if you happen to catch it on the cask engine at one of the Deschutes pubs. Meanwhile, six-packs are starting to appear on shelves around town. Give it a try when you need a beer that you can have a few of without making a fool of yourself. Well, not a complete fool.

Lagunitas Buys Dr. Bronner's Soap Company

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:40:00 +0000

The last few years have seen explosive growth for beloved California brewer Lagunitas. This Beerpulse article says production increased by 50% from 2011 to 2012, after a 56% jump in sales the previous year; Lagunitas owner Tony Magee noted on Twitter that January's sales were up 72% from the previous year. All that growth is before the company's new production facility in Chicago has even been finished.

Now the eccentric beer company is branching out in a completely unexpected direction by acquiring Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, the iconoclastic family-run company that produces the Dr. Bronner's line of soaps that have long been a favorite of campers and hippies everywhere. As a kind of intramural collaboration/consummation, Lagunitas is paying homage to Dr. Bronner's famous peppermint liquid soap by brewing a special amber ale called 18-in-1 Hemp Peppermint Pure-Castile Ale -- yes, dry-hopped with fresh peppermint. That's the same name as the soap, except for "ale" of course, and the label lovingly imitates Dr. Bronner's jumbled spiritual exhortations -- which are not all that different from some of the rambling musings on Lagunitas bottles and six-pack holders, come to think of it. Click on the image to enlarge it and see if you can find the beer-specific verses that have been added to the ale label.

Apart from similar styles of prose, products known as "suds", nonconformist founders, and a shared interest in hemp products, what could possibly have brought these two companies together? Apparently some of the current generation of Bronner soapmakers wanted to add a hop-infused soap to their product line, and being fans of Lagunitas beers, reached out to the brewers in Petaluma for advice on hop-oil extraction and handling. A kind of mutual admiration developed, and since absolute cleanliness is 99% of brewing success, Lagunitas popped the question of corporate matrimony. Dr. Bronner's will keep its name as a wholly-owned subsidiary, and the current management of the soap company will stay on board. The deep pockets of Lagunitas will help the soapmakers enter into new markets and finance new product development, such as the hop soap mentioned above.

Given the rapid growth of Lagunitas, you could also imagine that Dr. Bronner's location in Southern California was attractive to the brewer. Once they wrap up the Midwest with their new Chicago brewery, perhaps they'll use their soap factory as a stepping stone towards building a San Diego brewing facility.

I haven't particularly cared for the few mint beers I've tried to date, though I do have a soft spot for peppermint. As a longtime fan of both Dr. Bronner's and Lagunitas, I am really looking forward to trying the 18-in-1. Let me know if you try it, and don't forget -- in the immortal words of Dr. Bronner -- KEEP OUT OF EYE! OK!

(Thanks to @MoralABC for the image.)

Portland Beer Price Index: Spring 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 16:34:00 +0000

No, no, no! This isn't how it was supposed to go.

Starting in the middle of 2011, the Portland Beer Price Index (PBPI) looked like it was showing bomber prices decreasing while six-pack prices marched slowly upwards. Not that I was excited about more expensive six-packs, but I have always considered the bomber price penalty to be a temporary distortion peculiar to the beer industry. I thought the SPE of bombers would eventually fall below six-pack prices. I can't think of another consumer liquid where a larger package is more expensive per ounce than a bundle of little packages. It's not true of soda pop, wine, liquor, bottled water, shampoo, ... you name it.

But the trend I was hoping to spot didn't continue, and now we have bomber prices -- shown in the chart -- higher than ever before, while six-pack prices fell even more than they did last time. And not just the sale prices, but the "official" prices. Here are the Portland Beer Price Index numbers for this quarter:

6-packs: $9.16, down 7 cents
22-ounce bombers: $4.88, up 4 cents
6-packs (sale price): $8.61, down 15 cents
22-ounce bombers (sale price): $4.71, up 5 cents
16 oz. draft: $4.47 up 3 cents
16 oz. draft (happy hour): $3.59, down 2 cents

What is happening here? I think there is some healthy competition in six-packs, as breweries like 10 Barrel and Oakshire move into that area. Ninkasi must have their six-pack pipeline flowing steadily enough that they have been able to lower their prices, and I think Caldera and Terminal Gravity are feeling price pressure since it's hard to justify the high prices they've enjoyed for a few years when the newcomers have something more interesting at a lower price.

For some reason, the bombers in the PBPI aren't feeling that heat, and Laurelwood has raised the price on their bombers by 10% this time, though most retailers have a sale price on them for now to cushion the blow. However, there might be a bias in the bombers I've selected, because I've seen some new sale prices on other bombers that I've long considered either slightly or wildly overpriced.

Logistically, I'm starting to be troubled by HUB IPA bombers. New Seasons appears to have dumped them in favor of HUB tallboys, and QFC has a space on the shelf for them, but no bottles and an obviously incorrect price tag ($6.30). For this month's numbers I subbed in other HUB bombers those stores were carrying (DOA at QFC, Secession at New Seasons). The HUB tallboys are a great innovation, especially if they can get the price closer to Ninkasi's SPE, but I may need to find a replacement for the bombers in the index (come to think of it, Gigantic IPA would make a reasonable and somewhat poetic replacement).

If you require more information on the makeup of the PBPI, read the page which describes the composition of the index.

Two More Thoughts on Jubel(ale)

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 18:24:00 +0000

First a brief note, then a great Jubelale reminiscence.

____________________________________________

Deschutes announced earlier this week that the Portland Pub was serving Super Jubel 2012 -- the yearly double Jubelale that we were lucky enough to taste the rarely bottled 2000 and 2010 versions of at my recent 10-year vertical tasting of Jubelale. I suspect it will be on for a few days, but it's always fun to try, so hurry in and check it out. [Update: I went in today for my yearly dose. Vinuous (it's aged in Pinot barrels), boozy, and bitter, it's quite a treat. But it bears little resemblance to Jubelale.]

____________________________________________

As I was plotting that 10-year vertical late last year, a local Twitter buddy named Jason -- who I had not yet met in real life -- expressed an interest in attending it. That worked well with my plan to select a group of people to whom such a stunt might matter, as opposed to forcing it on bewildered friends and neighbors, so of course he got an invite once I finally organized it.

While I was pretty proud of my 9-year old stash of Jubelales, and excited at the prospect of tasting 12-year-old Jubel 2000 which predates my relatively recent arrival here, Jason had an even better Jubelale story:

Attached is a photo of myself and a couple buddies in the Army. In December, 1990, we were stuck in Saudi Arabia waiting for the Gulf War. I had just turned 21 that summer and been shipped out to a dry country a week later. My dad smuggled in a care package of a dozen Jubelale bombers wrapped up in sweatshirts and other cold weather gear. Has been one of my favorites ever since.

Jubelale bombers? Great call, Dad. Thanks to Jason for sharing the story and picture.

Jubelale Ten-year Vertical (Plus Jubel 2000)

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 17:35:00 +0000

The second post ever on It's Pub Night was a report on a five-year vertical of Deschutes Jubelale. I fell in love with that beer during our first winter in Portland in 2003, and started a project to build a ladder of Jubelale vintages by stashing a case in the basement each year. It's a fun idea, but it's not a beer that changes all that much from year to year. I kind of wore out my friends with a few years of ritualized vertical tastings, so the collection got less and less interesting to me over time. A couple years ago I cut back to just saving a 12-pack each year, and this year I don't anticipate keeping any. I still love the beer, I just plan to enjoy it fresh from here on.

This year seemed an appropriate moment to let it go, because I still had two bottles left of that original 2003 case, so I could hold a ten-year vertical as a last hurrah. The good gentlemen at The Beermongers allowed me to cart in my dusty bottles for an afternoon tasting with a posse of Portland beer geeks and random passers-by. We had a nice time, and it was interesting to get everyone's take on the various years. Jeff Alworth has already written a very insightful blog post about the tasting, with lots of details it didn't even occur to me to take note of, like the clarity of various vintages, and a quick chemistry lesson on cellaring beer. Go read his article.

I asked people to vote on their three favorite years. The results were not exactly what I expected. For a few years I've been trumpeting the idea that if you're going to age beer, two years is the best amount of time -- long enough to let the flavors mingle and mutate, but not long enough for the beer to spoil. In the vote at our tasting, the 2- and 3-year-old vintages (2010 and 2009) were well respected, but it was the 4- and 5-year-old 2008 and 2007 bottles that were the big hits. This was not a blind tasting, so there is probably some bias here based on people's expectations of the various years. Here are the results of the poll -- for the final score I awarded 3 points for a 1st place vote, 2 points for 2nd place, and 1 point for 3rd.

Year	1st place	2nd place	3rd place	Score
2003	0	1	2	4
2004	0	0	0	0
2005	1	0	1	4
2006	0	1	2	4
2007	5	0	0	15
2008	3	1	3	14
2009	1	3	0	9
2010	1	3	1	10
2011	0	1	0	2
2012	1	0	1	4

The 2008 had more fans -- 7 of us found it a favorite -- but the 2007 had only first-place votes. Isn't that kind of weird? People who liked that year really liked it. Interestingly, that was the new vintage when I wrote up my 5-year vertical, and at the time I wrote that it seemed like the best batch since the 2003. I cracked a bottle tonight as I'm writing this, and it is perfectly clear, but a little too oxidized for my tastes. The bottles I have from 2004 have never been good, I don't know if that was a bad year or if I just got a damaged case.

One unexpected windfall of the tasting was that three people -- Jeff, Jim, and Wallace -- contributed 12-ounce bottles of Jubel 2000. Yes, we had three bottles of Jubel 2000 at this tasting. That's not the 2000 vintage of Jubelale, it's the Double Jubel that Deschutes makes a batch of every year, but only bottles every 10 years. I did not have very high hopes for 12-year-old bottles of beer, but it was actually in very good shape. There was of course a little oxidation, and a little rich soy-sauce taste, but it was a very tasty, malty, big beer. Several people noted differences between the three bottles -- not too surprising given their age -- but I thought they were more alike than different. (For a better review of the bottles we opened, read Brian's Jubel 2000 review on Beer Advocate.) A big thank you to those guys for bringing a beer that I never expected to get a taste of, let alone three tastes of.

So we had a 10-year vertical of Jubelale, a 3-bottle horizontal of Jubel 2000, and I also opened a bomber of Jubel 2010 to compare with the Jubel 2000. To be honest, I liked the Jubel 2010 when it was fresh, but bottles I've opened over the last couple years have disappointed me. At the tasting, however, it was delicious. Perhaps it was the good company, or maybe it is now coming into its own. Given the longevity of J2K, I think I'll hold my last Jubel 2010 bottle for a while. A few people cast their votes for the big Jubels: Jubel 2000 got 7 points (1 1st, 2 2nds, 2 3rds), and Jubel 2010 got one 2nd-place vote for 2 points.

I can't think of a better way to end a tradition than to share it with a group of friends. It was a great way to end an era, my thanks to everyone who was there.

February's New School Rant: Tipping

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 20:41:00 +0000

The second of my monthly "Piss and Vinegar" columns for The New School is now up. It's a Beer Bar Tipping FAQ. I figured since I was complaining last month about clueless bartenders, I should turn the tables this time and rant about clueless bargoers.

Some of it is recycled material from the Beer Tipping Etiquette post a few years ago, but now it's in a handy FAQ format. Go check it out.

2012 Pub Night Memories

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 17:24:00 +0000

It's my tradition at the end of January to put up a slideshow of happy photos from the previous year of friends drinking beer. You can call me cranky for not posting a nostalgic post at the end of December, or maybe I just need to wait until the days get longer before I can get up the motivation to put something together. Anyway, despite a reduced blogging output in 2012, I did have a few pictures worth sharing lurking around the hard drive. Some of them are ridiculously blurry, but capture an interesting enough occasion that I couldn't leave them out.

Last year's slideshow had this note:

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.

2012 was not a great year for me. It wasn't terrible, but there were a lot of challenging times, so I'm not going to jinx 2013 by making a sappy "come what may" wish like I did last year. Onward!

Good Karma Vegan Cafe, San Jose

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 16:56:00 +0000

The Silicon Valley underwhelms with its beer scene, which is odd considering its affluence and large population. But recently I found out about an oasis of good beer served by knowledgeable people that's located right in the middle of downtown San Jose: the Good Karma Vegan Cafe. Talk about your hidden gems -- they didn't put "beer" or "bar" in the name at all. But squeeze your way past the deli counter into the tiny bar area, and you'll find 16 well-chosen beers on tap. "Well-chosen" is probably not an adequate description of the beer list -- knockout is more like it. On a recent visit some of the taps were:

Russian River Pliny the Elder
Logsdon Seizoen
Haandbryggeriet Bestefar (smoked imperial porter)
Allagash Interlude
Dogfish Head Old School Barleywine
Stone Vertical Epic 12
North Coast 15th Anniversary Old Rasputin
Sierra Nevada Ovila Quad

I won't bother listing the other half of the taplist, but there were no duds on it. There is also a small selection of similarly high-end bottled beers.

Good Karma attracts a small crowd of local beer lovers -- you know the type, everyone has an opinion on what beer you should order. The atmosphere is very casual, and even though it's a restaurant/deli first and a beer bar second, the waitstaff take an interest in the beer. Beer prices are on the high side: pints of Pliny were $7, and most of the strong beers listed above were $6 for 8- or 10-ounce pours. Not cheap, but reasonable given the quality level. On the plus side, the small pours were served in glassware marked in centiliters so you knew what you were getting. What's more, with ABVs ranging from 7% to 15%, small is beautiful.

The food is really good also -- no meat or cheese of course, but a nice selection of curries, salads, stir-fries and the like, served with rice or in tortillas. In contrast to the beer prices, I thought the food prices were very cheap -- you could eat a hearty meal for $7, or choose smaller snack options in the $2-$5 range. So you can go in there, eat some healthy cheap food, and spend your surplus on fancy beer. It's a win-win. And if you're wondering -- as I did -- why a vegan restaurant has an antler chandelier, rest assured that it too is vegan: the antlers are made of poured resin.

Here in Portland I'm always complaining when interesting beer places aren't open during the day -- thank God Bailey's now opens at 2 PM -- but Good Karma poses the opposite problem for a business traveler: it's open for lunch but closes at 9 PM every night except Sunday when it closes at 7 PM. The good news is it's easy to get to on public transit from other towns in the area -- the VTA light rail stops right out in front, and only a couple blocks away there is a stop for the workhorse #22 bus that follows El Camino Real all the way to Palo Alto.

Highly recommended next time you're in the Silicon Valley.

Hollywood Beverage: Eastside Liquor + Beer Store

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 17:38:00 +0000

Portland now has a second liquor store which the OLCC allows to sell beer and wine: Hollywood Beverage at about 30th and NE Sandy. A couple of years ago I wrote up the other such store: Pearl Specialty Market, which is still your best bet for a good beer selection in the Pearl.

Hollywood Beverage has been open since October -- its previous incarnation as the more run-of-the-mill Hollywood Liquor was further up Sandy just east of the I-84 overpass -- but I didn't make it in for a visit until a couple weeks ago. I was stunned by how low some of the beer prices were. Some of them seemed like mistakes until I realized there were too many of them to be in error. If you thought the prices at Beermongers were the lowest possible, check out these bomber prices:

Ninkasi Oatis: $3.15
Lompoc Proletariat Red: $3.25
Pelican Silverspot IPA: $4.00
Gigantic IPA: $4.35
Pelican IPA: $4.40
Laurelwood Deranger: $7.25

The selection was good but not a home run -- it struck me as kind of a work in progress. The six-pack prices weren't as startlingly low as the bombers -- most of them could be beat by supermarket sales -- but $8.50 Ninkasi six-packs and $9.50 Caldera sixers were as low as I can remember seeing anywhere. Imported beers didn't strike me as being so cheap; I think Beermongers may have them beat, and certainly has a better selection.

An employee came up while I was shopping and asked if I had any questions. "Yeah, why is the beer so cheap?" He said that the owner is so used to the low margins on liquor set by the OLCC that he thought 20% was a pretty decent markup on beer and wine. The guy who told me that turned out to be the wine buyer for the store -- "You should see some of the bargains on our wine" -- and he said he's encouraging the owner to either raise the beer and wine prices or start promoting them more to increase sales volume. So you might want to get in there and snatch up some bargains in case sanity prevails.

Piss and Vinegar on the New School

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 17:00:00 +0000

I'm excited to report that I will be contributing a monthly column to my friend Ezra's blog/online magazine The New School. The column, called Piss and Vinegar, will be a monthly rant about some beer subject or another. The first installment is called Beer Confusion, where I give a few anecdotes of a beer geek's worst nightmare -- when the bartender or server at a multi-tap beer bar doesn't know the important details of the beer being served. Beer Confusion went up yesterday on The New School; go check it out and share your own anecdotes about clueless service in the comments.

Once a month blogging is the kind of project I can get behind. For the first four years of It's Pub Night, I enforced a quota on myself of about two posts a week (95 a year or so). That worked well, but it was becoming less fun for me as time went on. In order to still enjoy blogging, I dropped the schedule, and now only blog when I feel like it. I missed a couple of months entirely in 2012, and it felt great.

The New School is a natural fit for me. Ezra has become a great friend over the years, and we originally met because he was an early reader of It's Pub Night. Early on I told him that he was the one who should be blogging, since he gets out a lot more than I do and has many more industry connections. He said other people had told him the same thing. Eventually he did start The New School, and it has become a much bigger deal than I imagined. Not that I didn't have high hopes for it -- here's how I introduced it in a post here almost exactly three years ago:

Ezra is so plugged in to the Portland beer scene, that the New School is going to be a must-read blog for getting the latest information.

I'm feeling pretty good about that quote, especially when you consider that of the four new beer blogs mentioned in that post, The New School is the only one that is still being updated regularly. It didn't just survive, it is expanding.

Oh yeah, the new column. Anyway, I chose the name Piss and Vinegar to encourage the idea that I'll be writing ranty, bitter pieces. You can kind of think of piss as a backhanded pet name for beer, and I also like to think of myself in the role of "piss-taker" -- someone sarcastically mocking his subject, but all in fun. Go check it out as I become the oldest pupil in The New School.

Portland Beer Price Index: Winter 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 20:27:00 +0000

I wasn't in a big hurry to get the PBPI out this quarter, in case the Mayans were right. No sense wasting all that work.

Six-pack sale prices are down quite a bit from last time, even though you can see from the graph that the nominal shelf-tag price has been steady for a year. I think you can explain that by sales on Ninkasi Total Domination. Ninkasi entered the six-pack world at a pretty high price point, and it worked pretty well for them, but I think they'll have to keep the sale prices competitive to keep the product moving, especially with new six-packs from 10 Barrel hitting the shelves.

Bomber prices are back up after some declines last quarter. A couple of pub prices went up this time, bringing the average up a bit. I think we'll see more of that in 2013.

Here are the Portland Beer Price Index numbers for this quarter:

6-packs: $9.23, down 2 cents
22-ounce bombers: $4.84, up 8 cents
6-packs (sale price): $8.76, down 10 cents
22-ounce bombers (sale price): $4.66, up 3 cents
16 oz. draft: $4.44 up 5 cents
16 oz. draft (happy hour): $3.61, up 2 cents

The six-pack numbers are slightly adjusted from the ones reported last time, because QFC has made room for Caldera six-packs again. It was a safe adjustment to make, I just recalculated last quarter's numbers with the same price QFC charged this time and the time before. If you require more information on the makeup of the PBPI, read the page which describes the composition of the index.

10 Barrel Pray for Snow

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 17:16:00 +0000

Last month I mentioned three winter beers that had caught my eye. Of course that's just the tip of the iceberg, and there are even more winter beers on the shelves than there were a few years ago when I tried to describe a holiday ale family tree with branches for winter warmers, hoppy winter beers, barleywines, and what I rather inarticulately called "crazy European big brews".

A new contender has entered the field, 10 Barrel's Pray for Snow. This beer kind of flew under my radar -- the brewery's description of it simply as a "strong ale" wasn't very inspiring, and with so many tasty winter beers at hand, there was nothing that made me seek it out. Then a couple days ago I had a pint with a late lunch, and was bowled over by the combination of flavors in this beer.

Thinking of the family tree, I want to put it in the winter warmer family, and the first tastes remind me of Deschutes Jubelale, with flavors reminiscent of nutmeg and pie spices, and a long, bitter finish. But it has less of the dark, roasty flavors -- Jubelale is so roasty it sometimes tastes almost charred to me, in a good way -- and substitutes a caramelly, burnt-sugar flavor that is very appealing. That might make it sound too sweet, but it's not. It's got a medium body, and isn't very boozy at 7% ABV. I love this beer, it's my new favorite for the winter.

Best of all, I picked up a six-pack of Pray for Snow on sale for $7.50. I'm glad to see 10 Barrel join the six-pack fray as part of their quest for world domination. It ensures that cheapskates like me will keep on top of their products.

I found myself wondering if there are spices added to this beer, or if all of its flavors teased out of the malt and hops. The label and six-pack holder don't offer any clues, and Google just brought up more questions. The brewery's outdated webpage shows that Pray for Snow has been a seasonal since 2008; John Foyston says that it's "Tonya Cornett's reprise of the Outback Ale she made at Bend Brewing"; and the six-pack carton says it's "Created by Jimmy Seifrit". 2008 is long before either Tonya or Jimmy joined 10 Barrel, so the true parentage will have to remain a mystery for now. Whatever the case, don't wait for the first snowfall to track down some of this tasty brew.

Beer Book Gift Ideas

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 16:55:00 +0000

For you last-minute holiday shoppers, here are a few books you might consider for the beer lover on your list. Or for yourself.

Hop in the Saddle

Audience: Portland beer fans who want to bike more, or Portland bicyclists with a new interest in beer.

My friend Lucy Burningham has co-authored a book of five Portland bike pub crawls, called Hop in the Saddle: A Guide to Portland's Craft Beer Scene, by Bike. Let's just call it Hop in the Saddle for short. Beer and bicycling are two subjects near and dear to my heart -- I like mapping out bike pub crawls myself -- so I was excited to hear about Lucy's project. This is a nice collection of easy bike routes in Portland neighborhoods, annotated with beer destinations, with longer optional bike rides for more advanced riders.

If you're a Portland beer geek who already goes everywhere by bike, none of the routes or destinations will be news to you, and if you think you don't need this book, you're probably right. But if your bike has been gathering dust and a pub crawl could entice you out for a ride, this book will get you started. On the other hand, if you are a regular rider but haven't yet become a beer obsessive, Hop in the Saddle hits the high points of what each neighborhood has to offer. Click these links to buy it online from Powell's or from Amazon.

Craft Beers of the Pacific Northwest

Audience: Visitors to the Northwest, or locals planning to travel to other parts of the region.

I reviewed Lisa Morrison's Craft Beers of the Pacific Northwest almost two years ago when it came out, but the similarities with Hop in the Saddle are so great that I feel like I have to mention it in the same article (the two books would make a great gift set). On a small world level, I remember locking my bicycle next to Lucy's bike at the press briefing Lisa held when CBPN was published.

Similarly to Hop in the Saddle, you probably wouldn't buy this book in order to learn more about your own neighborhood. But what you would find useful are the walkable pub crawls it maps out in other Northwest cities, and the information about other local scenes you might be planning on visiting. Click these links to buy it online from Powell's or from Amazon.

Brewed Awakening

Audience: Anyone with a new interest in good beer, who wants a good overview of breweries and beer styles.

Lest anyone think I only review books written by women who are friends of mine, here's a book by a male stranger that the publisher sent me a copy of about a year ago: Brewed Awakening: Behind the Beers and Brewers Leading the World's Craft Brewing Revolution.

As the word "awakening" suggests, the book is something of a primer on beer styles and well-regarded breweries. Brewed Awakening addresses various beery topics in a breezy, lighthearted style. But by far the best feature of the book are its dozens of single-page sections called "Four to Try" (or some other number), offering lists of representative beers from around the country. A few of those sections call out a specific style like Saisons or Pre-prohibition Lagers, but most focus more on some other aspect of the beer -- for example, there are sections on barrel-aged beers, session beers, organic beers, and ancient recipes.

If you're already the kind of beer geek who reads a dozen blogs and trades bottles back and forth across the country, this book will not cover much new ground for you. However, if you or someone you know is just getting started with good beer, Brewed Awakening is a readable, entertaining overview. Click these links to buy it online from Powell's or from Amazon.

A Few Winter Beer Recommendations

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 18:02:00 +0000

Now that it is properly wintertime, I don't mind giving a shout out to some fine winter beers. There are so many of them, that I don't at all pretend to do justice to the subject, but a few of them have crossed my path recently that are worth commenting on.

Hopworks Abominable Winter Ale

Yes, I am one of those people that says "Is the Jubel good this year?" and "Wassail seems better than last year", despite the fact that those recipes are probably not tampered with much from year to year. So, here I go doing that same thing with Abominable -- it's really good this year, better than I remember it. Hopworks being Hopworks, it's always a clean, hearty 7.5% sipper, but this year the flowery hops are more noticeable right up front. It's now available in HUB's new tall-boy cans -- thanks to Jaime at HUB for gifting me one a few weeks ago -- but my serving suggestion to you is to have it on tap, especially if your neighbor has it in his kegerator.

Didn't this used to be called "AbominabAle"? Good thing they changed it to the more pronounceable "Abominable". Or you can just call it A-Bomb if you get friendly enough with it.

Red Hook Winterhook

The good folks at Craft Brewers Alliance kindly sent me a couple bottles of Red Hook Winterhook this year. This is more in the winter warmer category than in the winter hop-bomb category, though I was pleasantly surprised at the nice hop aroma and flavor that dry-hopping gives it. Not quite as damaging as a lot of winter seasonals at 6%, and the dark malts are more restrained than in a lot of similar beers. Certainly worth grabbing a sixer if you see it at the supermarket.

Alesmith Yule Smith

A few of the neighbors gathered Thanksgiving evening at Mr. and Mrs. Smith's house, and the host fittingly brought out a bottle of Yule Smith. It was fabulous -- a dense, potent, piney, gloriously unbalanced multiple-IPA. He said he got it at Belmont Station, and I seem to remember seeing some bottles of this on the clearance shelf there recently, so I'm not sure if we were drinking last year's or this year's (the bottle didn't have any kind of date stamp that I could see). No matter -- if you see a bottle, grab it. Highly recommended.

Final Thoughts on the 2012 Fresh Hop Season

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 19:58:00 +0000

Fresh hop season is the reason I started writing It's Pub Night a few years ago. The first post here -- a copy of four emails I sent to my friend Lee which ended up as installments on his blog I Love Beer -- is kind of quaint reading five years later. Highlights:

Excitement over the fabulous first version of Full Sail's (really John Harris') Lupulin Ale (RIP).
Visits to Roots (RIP), Laurelwood NW (RIP), and the New Old Lompoc (RIP). Hopworks was not open yet (!) but I was mistakenly told that their IPA was a fresh-hop ale.
Reports of new fresh-hop bottlings: Deschutes Hop Trip and Bridgeport Hop Harvest.
I found around 12 fresh hop beers around town that year, and 4 more beers that I thought had fresh hops, but which I now know were made with 100% kilned hops. Remember: dried hops are NOT fresh hops.

Now let's talk about the year 2012. Here are some random observations from this year:

1. Best fresh hop strategy: Fresh-hop your flagship.

Look at the list of almost 70 fresh hop beers I tried this year (with approximate ranking from favorite to least favorite). The standouts tend to be fresh-hop versions of already popular recipes: Free Range Red (Laurelwood), Mirror Pond and Bachelor Bitter (Deschutes), and Total Domination (Ninkasi). Makes sense if you think about it: the recipes are already proven winners, the brewers can make them in their sleep, and they probably have a good idea of which hops to add at what point in the brew.

2. Draft is better than bottled.

I often feel this way about beer, especially favorites: the draft version is noticeably better than the bottled one. Current examples: Gigantic IPA and Oakshire Overcast Espresso Stout -- two fantastic beers which seem to suffer a little getting into the bottle.

With fresh hops, it's even more true that you'll get more of the distinctive flavor on draft. A good example is Double Mountain's Killer Red, a must-try, stunningly good beer the last couple years. The bottles I brought back from Hood River contained very good beer, to be sure, but not the mind-blowing elixir that flows from the taps. Talking with Stan Hieronymous before the Hood River Hops Fest this year, he mentioned how much hop flavor escapes into the headspace of a bottle: volatile compounds which easily escape from the beer and vanish into the air when the cap comes off. Yet another reason to drink local, wherever that happens to be.

3. Some people still don't get it.

I had a little aneurysm last week when I read Kris' report on Concordia Ale House's "Fresh Hop-A-Palooza". Nothing wrong with the blog post, but Concordia's list of beers for their blind tasting showed an utter disinterest and lack of respect for the fresh hop style:

Of 10 beers on the list, 2 were not at all fresh hop beers: Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere Harvest and Rogue OREgasmic Ale. To add injury to insult, these two beers came in 3rd and 4th place in the people's choice voting! Sickening.

3 of the 10 beers were incorrectly named on the list: Ninkasi Total Crystallization (should be Crystallation, but I'll give them a pass on that, I often make that mistake myself), Deschutes Little Freshies (Chasin' Freshies), and New Belgium Trip VII. Kris says she learned that the NB beer was actually Trip X -- I hope not, since that was last year's fresh hop Trip. This year's is Trip XIV.

We're already at a 50% confusion level. That makes me think the glass is half empty, so I have to question whether Concordia really laid their hands on fresh hop versions of 2 other beers on the list: Everybody's Head Stash, and the vaguely labeled "Hales Fresh Hop". Now, if they have Hales Harvest Ale, that is made with 100% dried hops, even though the label in years past has deceptively said "fresh hop". There were a couple of Hales entries at the Hood River Hop Fest, but what is in Concordia's keg? And while there was a fresh-hop version of Head Stash this year, is that what the dingalings who screwed up everything above really were pouring?

To sum up, between 20% and 40% of the beers in this supposed fresh hop showcase had no fresh hops -- including the 3rd and 4th place winners. Another beer -- the 2nd place winner, by the way! -- might be from last year's crop.

The Sierra Nevada thing really galls me. Here's a quote from SN's own description of the beer: "Like our Celebration Ale, the fresh hops in this beer are dried right after being picked". Oh great, DRIED FRESH hops. (See also my rant on the subject from a few years ago). Now, for the sake of argument, suppose you accept SN's lame posturing that the first kilned hops of the season are fresh, even though they are dried. Even then, Southern Hemisphere Harvest was brewed months ago, when the hop harvest occurred in the Southern Hemisphere. Not the ideal timeframe for the fresh flavors.

Too bad to end it on a rant. Really it was a great year for fresh hop beers, and some of them are still rolling out. But you better move fast, it's almost over.

Fresh Hops: STOP CALLING THEM WET HOPS

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 16:30:00 +0000

Sometimes ignorance is bliss. Now that we are aware that some breweries -- most notably Sierra Nevada -- label certain products as "fresh hop beer" even though every hop in the beer has been dried, beer lovers often ask for clarification on whether a beer has "wet hops", and brewers often label their beers as such.

Stop it. STOP IT! Stop using this term "wet hops" which was only invented to give a cover to those who wanted to jump on the fresh hop bandwagon, but for whatever reason, did not want to mess with sticky, rapidly wilting fresh hops. Stop giving cover to people who want to deceive, simply in order to elbow in on a beautiful thing.

I have ranted about this in the past, but let me state again some of the reasons "wet hops" is a ridiculous turn of phrase. First of all, what other fresh agricultural product do you have to call "wet" to make sure someone knows you don't think it has been dried? If you go to the grocery store and ask for fresh parsley, or fresh ginger, or fresh garlic, they will point you to the produce aisle. Try telling them you don't want wet parsley, you want fresh-dried parsley. And by the way, where is the wet ginger? I'm making a stir-fry, should I put in dried garlic, fresh garlic, or wet garlic? I see that you have fresh cucumbers and fresh lettuce on sale, but I was really hoping to make my salad with wet vegetables, not fresh-dried ones.

How about fresh fish? Can that be dried? Milk? Eggs? Better ask for wet fish, wet eggs, and of course wet milk. On Valentine's Day you better remind the florist that you want wet roses, because a dried bouquet might convey the wrong message even if the vase says the flowers are fresh.

Furthermore, freshly-picked hop cones are not wet anyway. Think of the roses I just mentioned -- they are vibrant and tender, but they aren't wet, and neither are hops. You can't squeeze water out of them -- a potato is wetter than a hop.

Finally, crowdsourced wisdom at Twitter brings up this question: what do you call it when you dry hop with wet hops?

Now, it is certainly no sin to have a mix of fresh and dried hops in a beer -- that's how most fresh hop beers are done: dried hops for bitterness and fresh hops later in the process for aroma and flavor. But to call a beer with only dried hops a "fresh hop beer" is completely unjustifiable. Yes, the first dried hops of the season are the freshest ones you can use, and should make delicious beer. However, the flavors in those beers are not what people expect when they ask for a fresh hop beer. Most brewers that I have asked about this subject were completely dumbfounded to hear that some fresh hop beers contained only dried hops -- it had simply never occurred to those honest folk that anyone would tell such a ridiculous lie.

Go forth with the awareness that there are deceptively labeled fresh hop beers out there, and spread the word. But do not give in to the falsehood. Don't use the term "wet hop", and push back when you hear someone use it. If you need clarification about a fresh hop beer, ask whether it has some hops that haven't been dried.

Portland Beer Price Index: Autumn 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 16:39:00 +0000

A quiet edition of the PBPI this quarter, after the big increases last time. Bomber prices have come down from the all-time highs of the summer, though they are still pretty steep compared to six-packs: $15.15 is the average six-pack equivalent (SPE) price for bombers on sale. I went ahead and put up the graph for bomber prices again to illustrate the decline but also show how bombers are still near the top of the prices I've seen over the past three years.

Here are the Portland Beer Price Index numbers for this quarter:

6-packs: $9.22, unchanged
22-ounce bombers: $4.76, down 7 cents
6-packs (sale price): $8.83, up 1 cent
22-ounce bombers (sale price): $4.63, down 5 cents
16 oz. draft: $4.39 unchanged
16 oz. draft (happy hour): $3.59, unchanged

Two notes about the composition of the index. First, I was worried about Hopworks IPA: a couple of the places I looked did not have any in stock, and QFC had it very obviously mismarked on the shelf (about 33% higher in price than other HUB bombers). It made me fear that Hopworks was dropping IPA bombers now that they are canning it in tall-boys, but I have been assured by them that while there may have been a "temporary little burp in the pipeline", they are not discontinuing the HUB IPA bombers. The other tweak I had to make was -- for the purposes of comparing to last quarter -- to pretend that QFC had Caldera Pale Ale on the shelf at the summertime price. In fact, the prices above omit a Caldera price at QFC, because it wasn't out, and there wasn't a shelf tag for it. Has it been bumped by the new 10 Barrel six-packs? Or is it a temporary outage? We shall see.

This year has flown by. The next installment of the Portland Beer Price Index will be out around Christmas.

2012 Fresh Hop Beers and Festivals

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 16:22:00 +0000

We're just a week away from Oregon's granddaddy Fresh Hop event, the Hood River Hops Fest, next Saturday September 29, 2012. My beer-blogging brother Ezra over at the New School pulled off the astounding coup of becoming the curator for this year's HRHF, and he put together a superlative lineup of beers. Highlights include new breweries like Pfriem, Gigantic, and Solera; a couple of beers that I've already tried this year that are among the best ever; plus a first-ever fresh-hop offering by Block 15. I don't recall ever getting a fresh hop beer from Lagunitas, but apparently there will be one at Hood River. Seriously, read the list, you'll be amazed. I also like it that Ezra notes the hop varieties on all the beers -- a crucial piece of information that is often lacking at events like this.

Last year was the first year I made it out to Hood River for the fest despite a longstanding interest in fresh hop beers. Even though it's just in a parking lot in the middle of town, the views out toward the surrounding hills make a very nice setting for a festival.

Then Portland gets its turn the following Saturday, October 6, with the Portland Fresh Hops Beer Fest at Oaks Park. I'm not sure the list is out yet for that festival, but Oaks Park is also a lovely setting if the weather is good. Most importantly, I can ride my bike there on the Springwater Corridor.

This year I haven't gone as insane in trying to track down fresh hop beers as I have in years past. The 2012 Fresh Hop Map tells the tale -- not much action compared to last year's map, and this year I have 3 people helping fill it in. Still, it's becoming difficult to avoid fresh hop beers, so here are the ones I've tried so far (I will keep updating this list as the season goes on). As usual, I'll rank them in order of my preference, and split them into four categories: truly excellent must-try fresh hop beers, beers with good fresh hop character, good beers that somehow lost the fresh hop character, and beers to avoid. Beers marked "(HR)" are on the list for the Hood River Hops Fest.
[Update 2012/10/02: Beers that will be at Oaks Park on October 6 (according to the OBG's Fresh Hop Beer List (pdf)) are marked "(OP)".]

Must Try:

Laurelwood Fresh Hop Free Range Red (HR) (OP)
Deschutes Fresh Hop Bachelor Bitter (HR)
Deschutes Fresh Hop Mirror Pond (OP)
Double Mountain Killer Red (draft -- bottle isn't as good)
Ninkasi Total Crystallization (OP)

Good Fresh Hop Flavor:

Crux Crystal Zwickel
Alameda 100# Nugget
Deschutes Fresh Hop Deschutes River Ale
Upright Kiln 'em All (HR)
Logsdon Fresh Hop Seizeon (OP)
New Belgium Trip 14
Gigantic The Most Interesting Beer in the World (HR) (OP)
Rogue Chatoe Wet Hop (HR) (OP)
Lucky Lab Mutt
Pelican Elemental Ale (OP)
Lucky Lab Last Little Fresh Hop in Oregon
Full Sail Hopenfrisch Lager (OP)
Base Camp Hoptastic Voyage
Ft. George Fresh Hop Vortex
Burnside Nuggets With Attitude
10 Barrel Crosby Fresh Hop (OP)
Falling Sky Whoa Dang
Commons Fresh Hop Farmhouse
Three Creeks Cone Lick'r (OP)
Big Horse Paragon
Breakside Wet Hop Simcoe
Anderson Valley Mendo Mellow
Falling Sky So Fresh, So Green Lager (OP)
Oakshire Ask the Fish
Hales Fresh Hop Supergoose
MacTarnahan's Fresh Hop Amber
Migration Green Reaper
Sierra Nevada 2012 Harvest Ale (bottle)
Deschutes King Cone (HR) (OP)
Rock Bottom Fresh Hop Ale (HR)
Double Mountain Killer Green
Pints Fresh Hop Seismic Upgrade IIPA
Amnesia French Connection
Cascade Lakes Harvest
Everybody's Brewing Fresh Hop Head Stash
Sasquatch Fresh Hopped Healy Heights
Burnside Pub Draught
Astoria Fresh Hop
Golden Valley Crystal Fresh Hop
McMenamins Thundercone (OP)

Good Beer, Can't Taste the Fresh Hops:

Bridgeport Hop Harvest (HR) (OP)
Deschutes Fresh Hop Black Ale
Lompoc Harvest Man Red
Pfriem Fresh Hop Strong Blonde
Hopworks Powell Estate IPA
Beer Valley Fresh Hop Leafer Madness
Alameda Failing Street Fresh Hop IPA (OP)
Oakshire 100 Hops (OP)
Logsdon Fresh Hop Seizeon Bretta
Deschutes Fresh Hop Black Butte Porter
Hopworks Give Me Liberty (HR) (OP)
Pints Fresh Hop Saison
Ninkasi Smells Like Purple (OP)
Lucky Lab Reaperweizen
Block 15 Heliotropic
Schooner Exact Amarillo Fresh Hop

Beers to Avoid:

Two Beers Fresh Hop IPA (bottle)
Coalition Green Pig
Solera Kwazy Wabbit (OP)
Old Market Vers Bloem
Flat Tail Home Grown
Beer Valley Tri-State (OP)
Fire on the Mountain Magnum P.A.
Walking Man Cents and Centsability

Some of these beers deserve special mention. Gigantic's beer reminds me of the first fresh-hop beers I ever tried, 7 or 8 years ago when the trend was just getting off the ground: an almost honeyed light ale with beautiful fresh aroma and flavor. It's an indication of how far this style has progressed that the flavor that made me a maniac only gets you into the "good" category these days. Speaking of which, my favorite from the last two years -- Fresh Hop Mirror Pond, which I have often proclaimed the best beer in the history of the world -- is outdone this year by Laurelwood's astounding fresh-hopped version of their Red Ale, and also by Deschutes' own fresh-hopped Bachelor Bitter. Don't miss any of those three beers this year.

My New Local

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

At the beginning of the year I got excited when Caps and Corks opened within sleepwalking distance of the office I was renting. Alas, after a few months I changed offices. Homebody that I am, I rarely make it by C&C these days.

There are definitely some good watering holes near my new digs: I'm just a few blocks from the Deschutes pub; Bailey's is only about five blocks away and plausibly on the way home; and the new brewpub Pints is just across the park.

But one place that I was surprised to find myself returning to for a beer at least once a week is the Pizza Schmizza at 11th and Glisan. The thing that keeps me coming back is that happy hour starts at Schmizza at 2 PM, which is often about when I get around to eating lunch. Happy hour means $1 off beers and slices priced from $2.50 to $3. The beer list is not geeky, but it has as its basis a simple three-beer spectrum that works well at lunch: Widmer Hef, Ninkasi Total Domination IPA, and Oakshire's fabulous Overcast Espresso Stout. One of those will work with whatever mood I'm in on a given day.

I mentioned happy hour. The picture above doesn't do justice to the "Mighty Mug" of Hef sitting there. I haven't measured its volume, but I've been obsessing about glassware lately so I feel pretty confident in guessing that it holds at least 24 ounces of beer, and goes for just $5 at happy hour. If I'm right about that, it's an SPE of $15 -- not the best happy hour SPE in town, but pretty good, especially if you consider that you might be saving money and tips by just having one giant beer instead of two smaller ones. Regular-sized pints are $4 at happy hour.

Big beers, quick service, cheap prices. Fine qualities to find in a new local.

My New Beers

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 15:39:00 +0000

Tuesday I wrote about my new glassware, and since each glass in the fashion show was being worn by a different lovely beer, I thought I'd say a few words about each.

The brutally honest Brewers Union 180 22-ounce pint glass got filled up with Gigantic IPA. Perhaps it's not the style of beer the glass was intended for, but I liked the idea of putting a Gigantic beer in a gigantic glass. The IPA is an instant Portland classic: big, full-bodied, with orangey hops. I fancy that it tastes better on tap, but in a pinch the bombers are available wherever fine beers are sold.

____________________________________________

The stalwart Rogue goblet was shown off by the lovely and talented Widmer Marionberry Hibiscus Gose. At the 2011 Fruit Beer Festival I declared Widmer's Raspberry Hibiscus Gose my biggest disappointment, despite being easily the prettiest beer served that day. On the other hand, I really like the 2012 marionberry version, which is probably still out there on the shelves in 12-ounce bottles. It's not as visually stunning, but it seems maltier and a touch saltier than I remember the raspberry one being. I didn't get much hibiscus flavor from either of them, which is probably a good thing. Hibiscus strikes me as a very strong, distinctive flavor which is interesting on its own but doesn't play well with others, though I'm sure it contributes to the gose's beautiful color.

Oddly, one of my complaints about the 2011 was that it wasn't as tart as Cascade's Goses -- which is a surprising thing for me to complain about in the first place -- but one thing I like about the 2012 is that it is less tart than the 2011. Go figure. Meanwhile Widmer brewer Ben Dobler told me he liked the tarter raspberry version better. Isn't beer wonderful? (Thanks to Widmer for the free bottle.)

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Last but not least, that nutritious-looking potion in the giant grail my Austin friend Brady gave me is a treat that Dave recently stocked in his kegerator next door: Migration's Luscious Lupulin IPA. Even though Migration is not more than a mile from my house, I rarely seem to make it over there. Luckily, they're doing a booming business without me, and a couple years in they seem to be hitting their stride with the beers. Luscious Lupulin is cloudy, dank, and delicious. It's bitter for sure, but really it's the floral qualities of the hops that shine through, balanced with enough malt. I know I've had it in the past, but it seems better to me than it used to, a very well done NW IPA. I'll be filling my chalice with it as often as I can.

My New Glassware

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 16:13:00 +0000

It all started in May, when Carla and I finally visited the Brewers Union 180 Pub in Oakridge. Oregon's only 100% Real Ale pub also serves tactlessly honest pints. A beer glass at Brewers Union is not only shaped like an English pint glass, it doesn't only hold an imperial 20-ounce pint of beer, it is marked with a 20-ounce fill line that also leaves room for a head. The pub sells them for 10 bucks each, so even though I have been instructed to reduce the number of logo-bearing beer glasses on our shelves at home, I just had to bring one of these beauties home with me. As you can see from the picture, if you're careful and slurp off some of the head, you can fit a 22-ounce bottle of beer into a gigantic BU180 glass. Brilliant.

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Then I transgressed further. For a long time, I have admired the hefty goblets that Rogue pubs use to serve some of their bigger beers. At one of Rogue's "garage sales" this summer I finally treated myself to a pair of them so I could feel kingly when drinking beer at home. I really enjoy these goblets, but they don't hold much -- 10 ounces at best. That can often be a good thing, though it would be nice if a whole 12-ounce bottle could fit in one.

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Then I got goblet envy once more in early August when I was at the Black Star Co-op Pub and Brewery in Austin. They were serving some beers in giant fishbowl goblets that weigh about two and a half pounds and hold at least 16 ounces. They didn't bear any logo, and they weren't for sale as souvenirs, but my friend Brady took note of my excitement over this Holy Grail-shaped vessel. When he saw several of them for sale at an estate sale shortly thereafter, he bought them up and was kind enough to give me one. This is the glass I reach for first nowadays, though the huge surface area and heavy weight means I tend to slosh a bit of beer on my feet if I'm walking back to my house after filling it up at Dave's kegerator next door.

Cheers!

Tourist's Guide to the Oregon Brewers Festival (3rd Edition)

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 20:59:00 +0000

I love the OBF. Sure the Oregon Brewers Festival gets crowded as the weekend wears on, and it's often hot and dusty, and there is only one beer from each brewery. Still, it's hard to beat in terms of a happy crowd and pretty surroundings.

In 2008 I wrote up a meandering guide to the Oregon Brewers Festival, which I followed up with a more to-the-point Tourist's Guide in 2010. The rest of this post is a rerun of that 2010 guide, updated with even more Eastside places to drink beer. The guide and the accompanying map have recommendations of things to do within walking distance of the festival, not all of which have to do with beer.

The Journey is the Destination

The OBF's location at Tom McCall Waterfront Park makes for a nice 2.5 mile loop along the east and west banks of the Willamette River, walking over or under four of Portland's drawbridges. Go south along the river, beneath the Morrison Bridge, and cross the Willamette (rhymes with "dammit", by the way) on the beautiful Hawthorne Bridge (1910). Pedestrians should keep toward the bridge railing -- bicycles get the part of the sidewalk nearest the cars. Follow the curving sidewalk down to the path on the east side of the river, the Eastbank Esplanade.

View Larger Map

Heading north along the river, accompanied by the automotive roar of I-5 overhead, you'll cross under the Morrison and Burnside Bridges before coming to a stretch of the sidewalk which actually floats in the Willamette. You'll cross the river back to Waterfront Park on the Steel Bridge (1914). There are other double-deck drawbridges in the world, but the Steel Bridge is the only one that telescopes: the lower deck can be raised while the upper deck remains open to traffic. (For a shorter route, take the corkscrew sidewalk up to the nice wide sidewalk on the Morrison Bridge, and then cross Naito to get back to the festival.)

For Kids of All Ages

If you brought your kids to the festival and need to give them a break, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) is a science museum on the east side of the river, just south of the Hawthorne Bridge, easily accessible from the Esplanade. There is also an IMAX theater and planetarium at OMSI.

Another interesting eastside youth attraction is the skateboard park hidden under the Burnside Bridge. Originally a do-it-yourself project that was later embraced by the city, you can't get to it directly from the pedestrian loop described above -- you can't even see it from there. You have to get onto the south sidewalk of the Burnside Bridge, either on the west side at Saturday Market, or by taking the stairs labeled "Burnside" from the Esplanade. Follow the Burnside sidewalk to MLK, turn right and go a block to Ankeny, turn right and go two blocks to 2nd (the sidewalk runs out), and turn right again to go under the bridge. You probably shouldn't go down there at night, but it's a cool thing to see during the day.

More Beer!

There are several interesting pub options you can walk to from the festival.

The Morrison Bridge sidewalk drops you right at the door of the Hair of the Dog tasting room at Water and Yamhill Streets.

The Full Sail Pilsner Room [review] is about 3/4 mile south of the festival. Go underneath the Hawthorne Bridge and follow the sidewalk down towards the sailboat harbor.

Bailey's Taproom [review] is about 1/2 mile west of the festival. Follow Oak St. across Broadway, Bailey's is one block to your right. Tugboat Brewing Company [review] is across Ankeny.

If you took the stroll to the east side of the river, you're only about a half-mile from a cluster of breweries in a neighborhood that is also known as Distillery Row: the Lucky Labrador [review] at 9th and Hawthorne, the Green Dragon [review] at 9th and Yamhill, Cascade Barrel House at 10th and Belmont, and the Commons Brewery at 10th and Stephens. There is also a brand-new taproom at the corner of 12th and Hawthorne: Lardo has about 15 nice taps, and high-fat snacks.

Further Afield

This article is too long already, so I'll briefly list a few more attractions that you should see while you're in Portland.

Portland Aerial Tram: our answer to the monorail.
Horse Brass Pub [review]: a national treasure. Now non-smoking!
International Rose Test Garden: flowers and vistas.
Ladd's Addition Rose Gardens: short walk from the Lucky Lab.

The Horse Brass would be quite a long walk: take bus #15 (to Parkrose) and get off near SE 45th. The Tram is not too long of a walk if you're already at the Pilsner Room, but it's not a very pleasant one; you could also take the streetcar.

Pfriem Family Brewers

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Night) — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 15:11:00 +0000

You will soon start to see taphandles around town from a new brewery in Hood River: Pfriem Family Brewers. Brewer/owner Josh Pfriem (pronounced "Freem"), was at Bazi Bierbrasserie Friday with his wife Annie and some more of the Pfriem crew to promote his new Belgian-styled beers. Those in attendance got to try the five beers on the current roster -- Pfriem calls them the "2012 varietals", implying that 2013 might offer a different lineup.

The beers don't have clever names, at least not so far: they're just called by whatever style they are. Here's what we tried on Friday:

Wit: Noticeably more bitter than most wits (this is intentional), but a nice take on the style, with the usual herbal/yeasty flavors.
Blonde IPA: Josh said he thinks of this as a "Pilsner IPA" -- it is brewed with pilsner malts -- but also intends it as an homage to Westvleteren Blonde (a surprisingly hoppy light Belgian beer). It is very crisp and dry. Interesting and not bad, though I think IPA is not quite the right word for it.
Belgian Strong Blonde: I loved this beer. It has that nice clovey flavor like Duvel (though it's always dangerous to compare something to Duvel). Like the other Pfriem beers, it's pretty dry and light-bodied, and it is a beautiful-looking beer: impossibly light in color, almost clear, but with a golden sparkle.
IPA: This is intended to be the NW style house offering. Again, surprisingly dry and light on the tongue, but with nice floral hops. Pretty strong at 7.2%. Not bad, but probably not going to become your go-to IPA.
Belgian Strong Dark: A 10% sipper, with the kinds of dark fruit, chocolatey, almost leathery flavors you want in big beers like this, but still drier than a lot of beers this size. Josh wouldn't call it a Quadrupel, but he does want you to think of beers like St. Bernardus when you're drinking this.

All the beers were clean and well-made. At a point in time where saisons and related "farmhouse" styles seem to be all the rage, it's interesting that Pfriem didn't go down that road. Nor are they selling any wild or sour ales, though Josh did say that a wild-ale program is in the works for future releases. I predict that the Strong Blonde and Strong Dark are going to be the most popular Pfriem beers. It's great to have an Oregon brewery focus on those kind of Abbey-inspired Belgians -- I can't think of another brewery in the region that has those as their flagships, though Hopworks comes out with some great strong Belgians from time to time.

Except for the Wit, all the beers we tried were filtered, which gave them a really pretty clarity in the glass. If there's a common theme in my tasting notes, it's "dry" -- there was nothing anywhere near cloying in any of the beers, and even the stronger ones were surprisingly light-bodied and drinkable.

Look for Pfriem beers on draft in Portland at finer establishments. The brewery has ordered equipment to produce corked-and-caged 750 ml bottles. The tasting room at the brewery in Hood River will hold a grand opening Saturday August 4th, and it looks like the hours after that will be 11:30 to 9 Wednesday thru Sunday.

Further reading: Ezra has a very detailed interview with Josh over at the New School.