By D.J. Paul

As the saying goes you can judge a person by the company that he keeps. Well I can confidently say that Van Havig and Ben Love are doing just fine. Yesterday Van and Ben celebrated their 1^st year in business and what an outpouring of appreciation they received. For the entire evening the beer line extended out past the door and for a significant time all the way back to the bike racks.  The duo is obviously doing something right.

And for this milestone in being in business for one year was their first foray into barleywines. Massive! is what it’s called and it has no challenges in living up to its name. Word around the pub was how surprisingly mellow it is for being so young. Nothing overtly sweet with this one! They poured their only keg of this throughout the evening and released their pub only bottle sales. The artist of the label, AJ Fosik, has his sculpture, which was the inspiration to the beer label on display inside the taproom for the next few weeks. Make sure to stop by; it’s an amazing piece.

Now lets bring it back to Van and Ben’s company they keep. Tonight is one very special night at APEX. A few friends of Van and Ben from Chicago have sent one stellar lineup of beer Read More…

Posted under beer awards, Beer Brewing, beer events, beer history, beer news, Beer personalities, beer releases, brewpubs, places to drink beer, Uncategorized

We’re now midway through the 3^rd Annual Eugene Beer Week with many more fun and exciting events left to take place throughout the Eugene area. Brewpublic was able to make it to Eugene to take in a few of the festivities over the past couple of days.

The nice attribute that Eugene Beer Week offers is that most, if not all of the events are very affordable. The events are geared for both the beer geek and the beer novice just beginning to understand what craft beer is all about. You can take in a free sensory analysis class at Ninkasi Brewing conducted by Jamie Floyd, a few various beer dinners for $35, a Whiskey Barrel Beer Fest with free admission and the list goes on. From my vantage point it’s a week worth of fun, easy going, casual beer events that anyone can attend and make a good time out of it without draining the pocketbook.

Once in Eugene our first stop was the newly relocated and much Read More…

Posted under beer and food, Beer Brewing, Beer Education, beer events, Beer personalities, beer releases, beer reviews, brewpubs, Oregon beer

Posted under beer news, beer releases, brewpubs, Oregon beer, press releases

By D.J. Paul

Located just east of Portland in Boring, Oregon is home to the new Boring Brewing Co. Founded by John Griffin on his farm on the southeast side of Boring, this recently opened Nano Brewery began operations the first of the year.

Two years ago after 24 years of homebrewing, John decided it was time to pursue his dream and open up his own brewery. Still working a day job in the medical field John decided to go with a brewery on his property in a revamped out building. When it was time to decide on his brewery build out he went with a 4-barrel brewhouse from Glacier Tanks. He poured a sloped concrete floor for his brewhouse and added two fermentation tanks and a brand new walk in cooler where his two brite tanks are located to the space. Once all the paperwork was cleared he began brewing in January.

While driving back from Mt. Hood this past Sunday I decided to stop by and get a first hand look at Boring Brewing Co. I first heard about them back in February while at Belmont Station I had a glass of their Hoppy Blonde. It was a crisp, refreshing lighter bodied ale. On my way there I tried using Read More…

Posted under beer news, Beer personalities, brewpubs, Oregon beer, places to drink beer

Posted under Bay Area beer, Beer personalities, beer reviews, brewpubs, places to drink beer

Press release:

Bring me some peanuts and… IPA? The Single-A baseball Hillsboro Hops announced a multi-year partnership with BridgePort Brewing Company based in Portland, Ore.  As per Hillsboro Hops team policy, financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“We knew when we named our team ‘The Hops’ that we’d need to find a beer partner that has a rich history of excellence, and BridgePort Brewing Company, Oregon’s oldest craft brewery is that partner,” comments vice president and general manager K.L. Wombacher. “It has been our goal to offer the best craft beer selection of any Single-A baseball team and having everything from BridgePort’s IPA to Hop Czar and Summer Squeeze on tap will do just that.”

The partnership includes BridgePort brands featured throughout the Read More…

Posted under beer news, brewpubs, Oregon beer, places to drink beer, press releases

Laurelwood Public House & Brewery is turning twelve and to celebrate this occasion, they are having a 21-day promotion called “12 Beers for 12 Years.” The promotion starts March 1, 2013 and goes through the party on March 21, 2013. Guests have the opportunity to enter a drawing to win two Laurelwood all-access weekend passes to this years Great American Beer Festival and airfare for two to Denver, CO. Patrons qualify for the drawing by visiting Laurelwood’s pub locations eleven times between March 1^st and March 20^th, then visiting on our anniversary, March 21^st. Each guest will get a stamp on their promo card each visit. In partnership with Leatherman’s 30-year anniversary, the first 100 completed entries turned in at our NE Portland location on March 21^st will receive a Leatherman tool. Guests can pick up their stamp cards March 1, 2013 at 11 am.

The “12 Beers for 12 Years” promotion concludes with a Read More…

Posted under beer events, brewpubs, Oregon beer, places to drink beer

By D.J. Paul

Once again, Lucky Lab Beer Hall in Northwest Portland will host another installment of their Annual Barleywine and Big Beer Tastival next month. This year’s tastival takes place on Friday, March 8^th and Saturday, March 9^th from Noon-10:00pm each day.

This annual fest has been going strong for at least 16 years. Originally held at the Lucky Lab on SE Hawthorne the tastival moved to their NW Quimby location after they converted this former Freightliner warehouse to a brewery and pub back in 2006. With their massive amount of pub space along with a nice outdoor patio this space allows for an enjoyable atmosphere while quaffing some strong barleywine samples.

From the recent media preview I did learn some promising updates to this annual tasting. According to Lucky Lab brewer and tastival organizer, Ben Flerchinger, this past year he along with a few others went through their stockpile of barleywines and disposed of the ones that have not aged all that well. This was one of the reason that I skipped the tastival last year. In 2011 I had few more oxidized barleywines than my palate could handle. From this re-tooled cellar of barleywines we were able to sample 7 different ones with each one offering their own unique flavor. Read More…

Posted under beer events, beer reviews, brewpubs, Oregon beer, places to drink beer, vintage beers

Press release:

Portland, OR – The Commons Brewery will be releasing the third beer from the Beetje Series on Thursday, February, 21st at 5:00pm at the brewery.

Brotherly Love is our Belgian Dark Strong Ale, Little Brother, aged in second-use Bourbon barrels with Northwest grown sour cherries and Ecuadorian Cacao nibs roasted by Woodblock Chocolate in SE Portland.

While just 150 bottles were released in 2012, production was increased this year to yield 50 cases. This year’s vintage has an enhanced chocolate note provided by the nibs selected during a tasting at Woodblock Chocolate.

Brotherly Love will be available in 750ml capped bottles for $15 per bottle and $160 a case. On the release day we will have both the 2012 and 2013 versions on tap, as well as chocolate from Woodblock using the same Ecuadorian cacao as the beer.

The Beetje Series is a celebration of The Commons Brewery’s Read More…

Posted under beer events, beer news, beer releases, brewpubs, Oregon beer, press releases

By D.J. Paul

BridgePort announces pub release of new beer on Thursday February 21, 2013.

Over the past few years the line up of beers coming from Oregon’s oldest craft brewery has been evolving. There have been some hits and a few misses. But when BridgePort Brewing releases one of their small batch brews I tend to seek those out.

Being released this week is BridgePort’s newly developed Bear Hug Cherry Chocolate Stout. Only 1,500 cases of 22-ounce Bottles are being released throughout Bridgeport’s distribution network. Fortunately for us here in the Pacific NW they have a very limited amount of kegs that will be showing up at finer establishments over the next few months.

BridgePort Brewmaster, Jeff Edgerton, took a lot of time and effort in developing this new beer. Jeff stated, “This was the most expensive beer I ever made”.  He began this process by cranking up a previous stout recipe to produce more alcohol along with adding more chocolate malt to get the base beer that will be used. Jeff then sourced out cocoa nibs from Africa and dark sweet cherry puree. From here they brewed three batches. Two of these batches were with the dark sweet cherry puree and the other was with crushed cocoa nibs. They used 15 pounds of the Read More…

Posted under beer news, beer releases, brewpubs, Oregon beer, places to drink beer