I suppose here could exist the year in review, but after five top five lists, I am sure many of you have probably had your fill with those shenanigans. So, once again, we look back to the first weekend of 2010. What a weekend filled with new and exciting brews and a few age old favorites.

Friday was New Years Day, and as expected, not a lot of folks had taken to the streets. However, it was Friday after all, and people love them a Friday. Thursdays mixing of beer, wine, champagne, and hard liquor made for a slow uprising for our posse on Friday. But, this did not deter our weekend beer excursions.

Taste the Roses

People in this area love their college sports, and who can blame them? I mean, with such terrible teams as the Seahawks, Mariners, and a basketball team that left for Oklahoma City, the pro circuit is a rather drab prospect for fans hoping for a contender. So, being that the Oregon Ducks football squad was in the heralded Rose Bowl, green and gold flags were hoisted citywide to the dismay of the Oregon State Beaver honks.

Rogue Ales were serving up a special beer called Granddaddy Ale for this occasion, and it was fitting seeing as the founders of these delicious yet pricey suds are themselves U of O alum. Also fitting, the beer was brewed at Rogue’s Eugene City Brewery in downtown Emerald City not more than a few skips from Autzen Stadium where the Ducks play their home games.

So, out into the elements we traipsed to the bus stop, heading downtown to Rogue’s Flanders Street Pub to get a taste of this beer that was said to be brewed with two pounds of rose petals. After getting puddle-sprayed multiple times by passing cars at our stop, the bus finally showed and we were on Tri-Met, bound for our destination, aboard with the stale odor of last night’s alcohol and some who had already gotten started with this day’s bounty.

After nearly twenty minutes on the bus, we landed a few blocks from Rogue and were relieved to be, at last, at our destination. The bar was surprisingly unpopulated, which was good news to us as we planted ourselves by a big screen TV just in time to catch the second half of the Rose Bowl and the first half of a pair of beers.

First up the Granddaddy Ale: crisp, golden, and very easy drinking. Brewer Nate Sampson did a nice job in making this a beer that would appeal to a wide spectrum of beer drinkers from the Coors-loving CEO-type to the beer geek microbrew lover. Not a lot of rose flavor was detectable but it was quite pleasurable nonetheless. I am still partial to the Caldera rose petal golden I enjoyed as one of my favorite beers of 2009, but I do have to take my hat off to Sampson for concocting this innovative and well-rounded beer. Fourteen liquid ounces of this delicious sessioner really fly down the old gullet easily and before I knew it I was on to my next.  Turns out, the Ducks folded on some poor play calling and lousy excursion down the stretch. Actually, the pragmatic spectators like myself on this one, really didn’t think the Ducks had a chance against a much bigger, faster, and defensively potent Ohio State Buckeye squad. Duck fans can be satisfied though, because they do not have to live in Ohio where the beer options are rather disheartening in comparison to the Pacific Northwest. Maybe someone like Columbus Brewing could have made a beer with (they’re relatives of the hazelnut and are totally edible), but they didn’t. Go Oregon (the state not the football team)!

While at Rogue, we indulged in two excellent beers following the Grandaddy: Issaquah’s White Frog, a Belgian style wit with a heavy presence of coriander and nutmeg,  and other intriguing spices like sweet orange peel, cinnamon, ginger, and even chamomile flower. This was a very welcomed and innovative interpretation of a Belgian wit and quite delicious to boot. Our last brew at the Flanders Street Pub was the latest in their Chatoe Series of beers using malt grown at Rogue’s, own farm in Tygh Valley, Oregon. Named Chatoe Dirtoir, the beer is a wonderful black lager with lots of body (1300 Lovibond) and lingering chocolaty notes. It is no surprise to hear that Rogue’s renowned brewmaster John Maier put this brew together. Released on New Years Day, this was one of the best lagers, if not all around beers we’ve tried in a while. I was thinking they might have named it the Ed Schwartzbier, but was fine with Chatoe Dirtoir.

From the Pearl District in NW Portland, we headed back through downtown to hop a bus back home on the East Side. Before doing so, we paid a visit to our friend Michael who was bartending at Bailey’s Taproom. He had just gotten back from holiday in New York and shared some of his beer experiences with us before we moved on to Rock Bottom Brewing to get a taste of some of Van Havig and company’s latest creations. The line-up of beers was quite impressive on this day. Pouring ar RB was their Black Peter, a special black Belgian-style beer brewed with Chimay yeast and a touch of anise and licorice root. It was, indeed liquorish…and smooth. Also flowing from the taps of RB was a hoppy, deep amber 15th Anniversary ale, and the delectable Blitzen Belgian golden ale. All were quite palatable. The only disappointing factor of the experience was that we had just missed out on the dregs of the Maude Flanders sour ale that had just kicked moments before we had arrived. Oh, well, you can’t win ‘em all (…remember this, Duck fan).

Posted under beer releases, beer reviews

Walla Walla, Washington has been  a world class destination for wine connoisseurs since the 1970s. Producing some complex and flavorful varietals has garnered international acclaim for the Merlots, Cabernets, and most recently Syrahs of the area. In fact more than 100 wineries in the the Walla Walla Valley generate more than $100 million annually and make the area a hotspot for tourism. Walla Walla Community College offers an associate’s degree program in winemaking through its recently established school of Enology and Viticulture, which also operates its own commercial winery.

However, long before the emergence of the valley’s identity as a wine producer, beer was the lamen’s drink. Thanks to my friend Yvette Uber, I was able to learn a history of Walla Walla’s brewing culture from an issue of American Breweriana Journal which had an article by Herman Wiley Ronnenberg. In this magazine Yvette let me borrow, I learned that in 1855 pioneer brewer Emil Meyer established the first brewery in the future state of Washington. At the time this was Oregon Territory. When gold was discovered along the nearby Salmon River in 1860, Walla Walla became a major depot for supplies and by the following year, Meyer advertised his City Brewery and Bakery on Main Street in the local publication, the Walla Walla Statesman. Meyer’s focus was lager beer, bread, a variety of crackers, fruits and vegetables, wines and liquors.In 1862 Vancouver Brewery Ale from America’s Vancouver became available in Walla Walla to compete with the local brews. Making the long journey up the Columbia before being hauled over land, Vancouver’s ale offered a fruitier tasting alternative to Meyer’s lager. By 1864 Meyer was also in the ale producing business and had the beer brewed at his Second Street brewery on the east end of town. A real entrepeneur it has been documented that Meyer also briefly ran a brewery in Idaho City in the Boise Basin during times of gold rush. In 1865 Meyer was back at the Walla Walla City Brewery manufacturing bock beer. A report says that the brewer gave a dozen bottles to the newspaper and says that some “beer sops who happened to drop in hornswaggled it down and left smacking their lips with smiles of satisfaction beaming upon their countenances.”

In 1870 German born brewer John Stahl made his way via California and Canyon City, Oregon after spending twenty years stateside to acquire the City Brewery from Meyer. This followed a fire that claimed his property in Canyon CIty. Stahl was an experienced brewer. Many accounts believe it was also the gold rush than lead him intot the Boise Basin around 1865. Like in many pioneer towns in the 19th Century, fire and economic troughs claimed the fortunes of many businesses.  In February of 1862, Stahl’s brewery was burned to the ground. A nearby house was rebuilt as a two-story building on South 2nd Street and still is extant as one of the oldest brick residences in Walla Walla. This brewery lies where a present day Eagle’s Club and Bowling Alley exist. After John Stahl passed away in 1884, his wife Catherine successfully continued on with the business. From this year until 1912 Mrs. Stahl remained the sole owner of the brewery. The City Brewery produced exclusively Steam beer until 1888 before switching to lager. Mrs. Stahl personally supervised all brewery departments during this time. According to an 1891 commercial guide to Walla Walla, Catherine Stahl “upon (her husband’s) decease, Mrs. Stahl, who possesses the business ability much beyond the average share of women , or men either, for that matter, determined to continue the business so well established by her husband, and its proud position today among the most solid and reliable manufacturing businesses of Walla Walla, shows her judgment to have been a wise one.”

By 1905 Stahl Brewing and Malting Co. and Jacob Betz’ Brewing Co. were the only noted breweries in Walla Walla. During the time that the City Brewery was operative, other area brewers were manufacturing primarily lager beers. Joseph Helmuth ran rival Walla Walla Brewery that also sold liquors, wines, and from a Main Street operation during the 1860s. The Prussian born Helmuth was referred to as “Lager Beer Joe” by an esteemed Walla Walla brewer.

In 1880, Henry Weinhard’s nephew Jacob Weinhard came to nearby Dayton (about 40 miles from Walla Walla) after apprenticing for his uncle’s Portland brewery. Jacob Weinhard bought a partnership in a small existing brewery. By 1883, he was sole owner and began building his local empire. According to the Weinhard Hotel’s website, during the next decade he expanded the existing brewery and built a malt house with an outdoor German beer garden for the summer.

In 1890, he constructed the Weinhard Hotel building to house the Weinhard Saloon and the Weinhard Lodge. When the saloon opened, the newspaper called it “perhaps the finest in the State of Washington, and we doubt if there is anything of the kind to surpass it on the Pacific Coast”. The interior was covered with murals of scenes depicting the Northwest. In 1904, he built an Opera House on Main Street in Dayton which operated as the Weinhard Theater until 1916 when it burned. In 1907, he built a large Victorian house overlooking Dayton which he called “Hohenstaufen”. This home has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Over the years many changes came to the Weinhard Building. The Weinhard Lodge remained but use was discontinued in 1963. When the Weinhard Hotel was created in 1994, the elements of the lodge hall were used throughout thus retaining the architectural heritage of the building. The wainscoting, doors, moldings and hardware were all recycled from the lodge hall creating the Weinhard Hotel. Great care has been taken so that each guest has the comforts of the twenty-first century while at the same time experiencing the flavors of the past.

Today, as one should expect, much has changed in the craft beer landscape across the county. This is mirrored by Walla Walla, who for many years was without a brewery due to the uniformity that is often associate with the Prohibition and the rule of the Big Three (Anheuser-Busch, Miller, Coors). However, since the most recent wave of craft beer revolutions smaller breweries with a focus on artisanal flavors have been popping up all over America. Still, Walla Walla is a town of only about 30,000 in a region about twice that size. Agriculture is still a prominent part of the economy but the palates of the average blue collar beer drinker has a ways to go. Portland, despite being just over three hours by car from Walla Walla seems worlds away when it comes to beer preferences. This could be in part to the Walla Walla Valley’s identity as wine country. According to Gary Johnson, owner of Mill Creek Brewing in downtown Walla Walla “It’s marginal at best. We’re lucky we’ve stayed alive. We like to make products different from the mainstream market.” Johnson appears to take a deep pride in the history of Walla Walla’s brewing, sharing old black and white photos from the city’s pioneer days. Some of these same pictures were also featured in the American Breweriana Journal Yvette let me borrow. Johnson says that the wine crowd is beneficial to his business. “We see about 70% of wine people when they come to town. Big wine weekends are big weekends for us. Along with small towns comes small minds. We’ve existed because we do what we do well and people come to us.”

Stay tuned. Coming up, we’ll cover the breweries of Walla Walla and surrounding areas.

Posted under beer history

Portland International Beerfest‘s 2009 guide booklet reads “Tapped Out” boldly across the front top. After spending two of the three days at this well organized and executed beer geek event, I feel just that. On the opening night, Friday July 17, I decided to forgo the event due to hot weather that nearly hit 100 degrees. But by Saturday, I was amped to go. Equipped with my new Beer Rock Socks, a plump stack of drink tickets and the event’s classy glass sampler, I was of the determined mindset that neither crowds nor heat would stop me.

Boasting over 150 beers from 15 countries, the choices were plenty. First stop: the rare import bottles table. Here, you can always find hard to find, expensive bottles of stuff that you may not have tasted before, and if you have, perhaps you didn’t want to shell out top coin to chance a let down. I am always inquisitive of the priciest item. This can usually be found here. Exotic Italian import brew is always top dollar, and the Birrifico Troll Geisha at seven tokens was the most expensive 4-ouncer at the festival. A 12% ABV barleywine poured dark, foggy brown hue that served as a precursor to its immense flavor profile. Geisha’s dark fruitiness of a caramel drenched fig soaked in plum wine and kicked things off correct. Just a sip of my friend Joe’s was all I needed to snift and sip to know I was in the right spot.

Wasting little time and palate reserves, I next opted for a brewery that doesn’t make a bad beer. Mikkeller’s Single Hop Simcoe IPA, I surmised would be no exception considering my affinity for this hop varietal. Just like I like ‘em: orange, cloudy, bright, and balmily bursting with tropic paradise at the nostrils. A festival organized in honor of the mighty dank and lush Simcoe would be a sound idea in my Humboldt opinion.

Several delicious, if not interesting, brews were on hand. Many of the best ones I did not taste at PIB because of their availability regularly in Portland. A collaborator brew between Bells Brewing and DeProef dubbed “Van Twee” was the latest in the Signature Series collaboratives brewed at DeProef in Lochrist, Belgium. A tart, yeasty crepuscular-colored beer brewed with sour cherries and dark candied sugar and conditioned with Michigan sugar beats, Van Twee, for me, was a bit of a let down. Considering my affinity for sour brews and off-the-wall (don’t stop til you get enough) forward-looking brews, and my veneration for these two breweries, I found this beer disappointing. Perhaps the keg did not travel well or my palate was not modulated to the mustery cardboard/oxidation notes. Regardless, I was happy to have the opportunity to try it, and in the future I hope to try it again to see if this experience was just a fluke.

A local highlight at PIB was Lompoc’s bourbon barrel-aged LSD, a creamy, boozy, warm and strong ale.  Aging this beer a few more years might provide enough complexity it to give even the most salient palate you a complex.This wonderful brew was yours for a measly 2 tickets. A real steal if you ask me.

On the west side of the venue, a number of bargains were to be had including an assortment of Spaten beers on tap. The Munich brewery provided festival goers with pours of their Premium Lager, Optimator Doppelbock, Pils, Ur-Marzen, and perhaps the hit of the quenching quaffer, the Spaten Helles Bock. Other wonderful German brews from Franziskaner, Weihenstephaner, and Schneider provided a pocket of classic Lagers and Alemania. For those trying to Czech themselves, a great deal was pouring in the south beer garden: $3 pints of Pilsner Urquell. You can’t beat that (well, if they were $2 you could).

After fun and social Saturday, I hung up my beer socks for the day. On Sunday, I returned at 12:40 p.m., sadly just fifteen minutes or so after a rare keg of Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA (20% ABV) ran out. A noon tapping of this beer and the breweries zaftig Worldwide Stout (18% ABV) was designed to offer festival goers a once in a lifetime version of the old Black & Tan dubbed “Heaven & Hell.” I was, however, fortunate to get one of the last pours of the stout. The man pouring the beer enthusiastically explained how droves of people vultured, cellphones in hand, to these uncommon kegs leaving the rest of the grounds bare until the beer was tapped. Oh, well, maybe next time.

Like many other great beer festivals, the final hours are what are often referred to as “trash time.” At many brewfests, the choices close to the end wither down as beer geeks weed out each top offering one by one. Fortunately, the PIB had a lot of great beer flowing right up to the end. Granted, there wasn’t any of the most hyped ones, but for someone from out of town, a one-ticket pour of Deschutes Black Butte XXI, Red Chair IPA, or Mirror Mirror BarleywineDry-hopped Whoop Pass IPA from Silver City Brewing was a hit and their Deluxe Malt Liquor hit the spot on such a fair day. Stone’s well-hopped TripelLat 44 IPA was quite florid and delicious as well. An assortment of brews from Cascade Brewing/Raccoon Lodge were an easily overlooked treasure to an local beer zealot. The Nightfall Sour Blackberry Ale, Gose, Gold Yeller, Mouton Rouge, and other rotating mystery taps were all in effect for most of the event. was nothing to sneeze at (unless, of course you are allergic to great beer). A and Full Sail/Henry Weinhards/Miller/Coors/

These are just a few of what I really enjoyed. The selection of beers overall was simply mind-boggling. It isn’t a complaint, but the problem with Portland is that there’s just too many good beers of too many styles. Thank goodness I only drink two kinds of beer: ales and lagers.

Great work by Preston Weesner and all the organizers and volunteers who helped make this a great event yet again. Prost!

See more photos @ our Flickr site

Posted under beer events, beer reviews

Baron Brewing LLC and their lineup of fine draught and Reinheitsgebottled brews and Pacific Northwest-styled pirate-themed ales have a new home in Seattle’s Greenwood District. The Phinneywood blog states that The Pillager’s Pub has filled the space where the old Tully’s Coffee used to be and are releasing a new India Pale Ale, Hop the Plank IPA, on April 13. Pillager’s Pub is located at 8551 Greenwood Ave N Ste 5 in Seattle and is pouring Sunday through Thursday 3PM-midnight, and Friday and Saturday until 1am.

Photo courtesy of Phinneywood.com

For pirate lovin’ lads and lasses, this is the latest in good news. Now ye can sail over from Maritime Pacific’s Jolly Roger taproom and partake in more wee merriment.

Posted under beer releases, places to drink beer

Just caught wind of a new beer from Sixpoint Craft Ales of Brooklyn, New York called “Hop Obama.” A link from FreeWilliamsburg.com directed us to this page on the Sixpoint’s website:

Posted under beer releases

Just two choices is not good enough for Brewpublic

Call us brew socialists or communistic quaffers…heck, we’ve been even known to drink a pink beer or two. But, when it is all said and done, no matter your palate preferences, we should all be glad to live in Brewpublic. In Brewpublic, several tastes are welcomed, and infact, encouraged. For fun in lieu of the United States’ upcoming Presidential election, let’s look at what Brewpublic might look like if this was a Two-Party System. By Party, we are referring to choices, not a gathering around a keg or cooler filled with something libatious.

In a two-party system, bicameralist, or dichotomously divided beer world, we would only have two choices. Suppose, for arguments sake, the spectrum here of an obstensible right and left wing dichotomy ranged from light lagers to dark ales. In such a hypothetical system, the proportional representation of these choices would see just two beers’ attempts to include positions that will bring them a larger portion of drinkers (supposing this is a democratic beer loving society).

The qualities including flavor, body, color, and alcoholic strength of both parties include mostly middle-of-the-road type branding and tap selections, due to the desire to identify with a majority of drinkers, and this may contribute to some watering down or emboldening of a contending brand and its brewing practices.

For instance, a light lager might add some extra hops and malts to the kettle to appeal to the dark ale constituency, or inversely, a dark ale might devise a product less alcoholic with perhaps some Pilsener malts. This could potentially lead to a lower turnout at the pubs or beer stores, because a beer drinker’s palate is not being fully satiated. This somewhat chaotic and fluctuating system of brand alliances could very well serve to intensify confusion among patrons.

Some beer drinkers tend to have one quality in a brew that highly motivates them to decide – or even completely motivates them off the couch – which grog they will spend their money on. Because two dominant, opposing beer genres would perhaps lead customers to take opposite sides on many issues (ale vs lager, light vs dark, hoppy vs malty), these “one quality libators” will maybe automatically reach for the pint that represents their palate on the one level, even though they may not care for with most of the beer’s other qualities. These competing brands might often concentrate on popular taste issues (especially of those widely considered “flavorful” or ethical in the brewing process) to influence drinkers who are undecided or “swing sippers.” This issue could tend to be one that sparks a lot of emotion or simply lead the beer aficionado to lower his or her standards or ignore preferences.

Salute!

After the ballots are cast and those who do vote are heard, there will still be smaller breweries who would suffer from under-representation. To the “James Madison beer drinker,” a multi-brew system or proportional non-partisan system could be more consensus-based, allowing for taste judgment to be passed less hastily and with more sincere debate on the issues.

If Brewpublic were a two-party system, perhaps we’d be stuck with a daily choice not too dissimilar from Michelob Ultra Amber. But, luckily this Brewpublic offers choice, celebrates diversity, and continues its pursuit of all things in favor of malts, yeast, and the pursuit of hoppiness. One nation under grog!

Posted under beer me