On Tuesday November Beer zealots in Portland lined up around the block of Deschutes Brewpub to be some of the first to get their paws on this year’s Abyss. Promptly at 2PM, the side door on NW Couch Street opened and the faithful were received by pub staff with platters of samples before heading through the restaurant and toward the front entrance. Deschutes’ Portland lead brewer Cam O’Connor welcomed the drooling masses while the first 48 in line who opted to purchase at least six bottles (but limited to twelve bottles on this day) were allowed to purchase a single bottle autographed by Deschutes brewmaster Larry Sidor.

This year’s Abyss was characteristically robust but appeared a bit boozier than in years past. Lots of bourbon up front could indicated that some cellaring might not hurt. The 11% ABV wax dipped imperial stout was at the epicenter of the pub on this autumn day. What’s in your cellar?

City Beer Store in San Francisco

City Beer Store

It had been four days since we’d left Gold Beach and already we had already visited fourteen California breweries.  We packed up our belongings at Erik’s place in the Presidio after a beer filled night on the town in San Francisco and headed back to the lower mission for one last San Francisco hurrah.  Our first stop was the City Beer Store on Folsom Street. The place was a little cubby hole filled wall to wall with craft and imported beers.  I am guessing there must have been about 300 in all.  They also featured an assortment of beers on their six taps.  Many of the bottled beers were not in coolers and randomly hanging out on a tall shelf in the back of the shop.  This is where I discovered some hard to find bottles for Oregonians like Drakes Imperial Stout, Port Imperial Pilsner, as well as a can of 8.5% Belgian-style fruit beer from Santa Cruz..  I also noticed that they had the 2008 Deschutes Abyss available, but decided to try my luck with it upon returning to the Rose City.  I purchased three different 750ML bottles of beers from the Bruery, only to discover they had become available for distribution in Oregon while I was on the road.  Still, some excellent beers including the Black Orchid, the White Orchid and the Autumn Maple brew were worth discovering.  Being from Oregon and working at a beer store in Washington, I wasn’t blown away by the selection, but being a beer lover, I can appreciate what this place is attempting to do for the people of San Francisco.  Outside of BevMo and larger supermarkets, SF doesn’t really have a place like Belmont Station, the Bier Stein, or By the Bottle.  City Beer Store is an oasis of sorts.

Deschutes Brewery sent out their most recent Bitter Truth Newsletter this month.  It is an informative, colorful, and well-designed update of many of their happenings around Bend and Portland.  It also lists several newly released and soon to be released beers of interest.  Among these are the Luckiest Lager, a German style lager with a bountiful supply of hops , the Old Samhain (Sah-win) Halloween nitro brew, six different fresh hop beers, and the Big Red Double Cinder Cone barleywine.  Perhaps, the most intriguing new offering to soon be released is a Wild Plum Stout brewed with sour wort and tart plums.  Mmm.  If the puckeringly sweet flavor of the Dissident Oud Bruin was any indication of how well Deschutes does sours, then this could be nothing short of spectacular.

I phoned Deschutes’ brewmaster Larry Sidor at the brewery in Bend this morning to find out more.  Sidor informed me that the Wild Plum Stout will be release soon and will be a pub only brew.  “We made about twelve and a half barrels of it” said Sidor.  “The plums are from our refrigeration mechanic.   He grew them in his yard and we felt it was something we should work on.”  So, about 20-25 pounds of plums were handpicked and run through a wine grape crusher.  The hand-cranked quarter-inch press extracted the sugar and tart qualities from the fresh fruit.  “(The stout) has a sour wort with a Lactobacillus culture in it.  We put about two or three gallons into the mash.”  So how did it come out?  Said Sidor: “When I tasted it, it was pretty darn tart.”

Larry Sidor Deschutes brewmaster