It’s somewhat hard to believe that Oregon Craft Beer Month is about 60% complete. In one sense, the month, and summer has flown past us here in Oregon. With a late start to summer that, save for three 90 degree days, has been rather cool and reserved. However, in some ways, it’s amazing how many events have occurred so far here in Oregon, and with the biggest festival, the Oregon Brewers Festival, still to come.

For craft beer enthusiasts here in Beervana, the biggest “problem” is having too many options; multiple events each day and with only limited time and liver capacity to soak it all in. So, it is important to rely on careful planning and preparation in order to maximize the potential of each fortuitous July day. It is also key to accept the fact, that you will miss out on some events you’d really hoped to make it to, and do the best that you can. In some ways, it’s akin to a craft beer-minded tourist visiting Portland for a weekend, having never been before, and trying to sort out what places to venture. It’s a laborious task that requires both stamina and flexibility (yeah yeah, we know).

This past weekend was another big adventure in beer that really hasn’t seen a hiatus for us since… Not really sure. Between the Portland International Beer Fest (PIB) and Saraveza’s Imperial IPA Fest (IIPA Fest), we’re left anxiously looking ahead to the remainder of this wonderful month.

Portland International Beer Fest

Friday afternoon, we arrived at the fest upon the gates opening to the masses. As many have previously noted, and we have as well, arriving early on the opening day of a beer fest offers a relaxes, low stress atmosphere where you wind up running into a lot of beer geeks and industry folk who also know this virtue. So, on Friday, we scoped out the pleasant grounds of the North Park Blocks, a setting where kindly looming trees offer plenty of shade, but there is also ample sunshine to soak in if desired. This festival is well run with little notable belligerence if any.There’s a distinct culture, or perhaps aura, amongst festival goers here in Portland that focuses on community and appreciation for artisan brews. We’ve been to festivals in other regions of the country that played more like a drunk fest. In Idaho Falls, Idaho at the Mountain Brewers Beer Fest, we can recall several inebriated folks dipping their mugs in the dump bucket near the end of the festival. This is something, thankfully, you don’t see here. PIB is a relaxed atmosphere with lots of well behaved people and well behaved canines.

As far as the beer, this year’s fest was a little thinner on the mindblowing selections we’ve witnessed in years past, but this only proves the high bar to which the organizers have set for themselves. With some imported bottle beers costing multiple tickets, this year we opted to go for the taps, mostly in the one-ticket realm. Here’s what we viewed as some highlights:

Flyers Kentucky Uberfest: From Oak Harbor, Washington’s Flyers Restaurant & Brewery on Whidbey Island, this was the steal of the show for us. A traditional English-style barleywine brewed with bourbon-soaked oak chips, brewer Tony Savoy concocted with beer with inspiration from PIB organizer Rick Carpenter where it gets its name. Carpenter also runs Uber Tavern in Seattle, and this dark chestnut beer with a lavish creamy head and bold boozy oaken notes was designed initially for the bar. For just one ticket, this was one of the few beers we went back for multiple samples of.

Ninkasi Maiden the Shade: It’s easy to see why Ninkasi Brewing has a cult following here in Oregon. Not only do they have some of the nicest and hardest working folks in the business working for them but their uncanny skill at bringing generously hopped ales into the mainstream. One of the longest continual lines for PIB was the one leading to Maiden the Shade, a 7-hopped quencher with an adequate malt spine and a bounding floral nose. At 6.8%, 72 IBUs, this beer was a hit right off the bat, when it debuted last summer at the Oregon Country Fair. Also for just one token was a lesser known Ninkasi Strong Ale.

Great Divide Oak Double IPA: This beer for one ticket was well worth it, just as was Great Divide’s Chocolate Yeti Imperial Stout. Big, chewy malt character over run with a mighty hops girth and the pleasantry of creamy oakiness made this beer a stand out. Not necessarily a hard to find beer, but every brew can’t always be about rarity. This Double IPA is one you could be contented just sniffing at for a while. We’re planning a trip to Colorado in November and one of our most anticipated stops is Great Divide Brewing in Denver.

Laurelwood Workhorse IPA: Four ounces of one of the best IPAs in Portland for one ticket? Sold. Perfectly balanced combo of amplified hops and underpinning malts, this IPA rolls without too much of the catty, onion-garlic high alpha aroma hops you see trending these days. We feel this beer strikes the perfect balance and we absolutely love it. Laurelwood was also pouring their Green Elephant IPA, which is also amazing. Hop heads rejoice, for this is one hell of an India Pale Ale.

Hopworks Mystery Bourbon Barrel Aged Beer: This HUB beer could have easily been the best beer at PIB. A light, bodied, golden-orange hue with an out of this world nose of orange, tangerine, soft pine, and a flower bouquet. This beer was the last beer of the fest for us, and sent us on our way with a smile on our face. The bourbon character was quite subdued buy just hinted at in the background. Garnering both attributes of drinkability and complexity, this beer… oh, this beer…Just one ticket. Think we’ll ever see this brew this cheap again?

Unibrou Maudite: Unibrou’s Maudite is a beer we love to sip on during the autumn months. From Chambly, Quebec, Canada, this strong dark chestnut hued beer possesses a prominent malt character in both nose and flavor. Hints of orange zest,  fragrances of coriander and cloves, and adequate floral hop notes prelude a “robust maltiness and spiciness that is counterbalanced by an assertive crisp hop finish.” 8% ABV. This beer also reminds us of our pal Marc from Quebec, who we wish was here to enjoy the fest with us. Cheers, Marc!

Lompoc Bastille Day

Funny how life is filled with random adventures. This is no different in the world of craft beer. On Saturday while walking around North Portland passing out a few fliers for our upcoming BrewPubliCrawl, we noticed a van pass us by driven by New Old Lompoc owner and Bald Guy Brigade frontman Jerry Fechter. “Follow me to beer!” he yelled to us, then trumpeted to us with a vuvuzela. We obliged and found ourselves amidst the festivities of Lompoc and Pix Patisseries Bastille Day Block Party. A live band was playing to an audience of wildly adorned party-goers. It was a hopping scene with the sun shining down on a perfect July day. Our first inclination was to prospect the beer garden by the brewery where we enjoyed a newly released summer Lompeizer and Son of C-Note. We were happy to see brewers Dave Fleming, Sam Orlansky, Bryan Keilty, and Zach Beckwith all in attendance as well as Oregon Brewers Festival organizer Chris Crabb. The highlight of the party for us was poking our faces through a wooden cutout of Fechter while the rest of us watch in amusement.

Saraveza IIPA Fest

Five days of Imperial IPAs is a true test of will…and a whole hell of a lot of fun. Saraveza’s bonanza of boisterously bittered beasts was just that. Thanks to the hard work and planning of the bar staff, lead by Jonathan Carmean, Northwest Brewing News’ 2009 bartender of the year, IIPA Fest offered a wide range of such beers from what some might inaccurately perceive as a one dimensional style. Beers like Mikkeller’s I Beat YoU of Norway, brewed at BrewDog in Scotland, exhibited a big malty, chewiness, much like Southern Tier‘s ginormous Unearthly and Oaked Unearthly. Others such as Double Mountain’s Molten Lava and Alameda’s Yellow Wolf were far lighter bodied, though the hop character of these beers was equally as bodacious. In total, more than 30 IIPAs exhibited the diversity that this style can offer, while bringing forth a range of interpretations within the art form of brewing. IIPA Fest was a big success thanks to everyone who participated.

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

On July 14 in honor of the French National Holiday, Bastille Day, Pelican Brewery will release a new one-off beer called “The Guillotine,” which is made with experimental hops from Alsace, France. The Guillotine will be an international-style pale ale that is golden hued and slightly stronger than other brews at 6 percent ABV—a perfect beer for summertime on the Pelican patio. The Guillotine will be available on draft only.

We recently spoke with Pelican brewmaster Darron Welch to find out more about this exciting if not interesting new beer.

“This (hop) is an experimental variety from the grower’s co-op” said Welch. “It’s the first product of the breeding program.” When asked what the hop is called, Welch said “It’s a no-name hop. It’s referenced as P05-9.”  So how did a craft brewer on the Oregon Coast come to find such a specimen? “I came across a tiny booth at the Craft Beer Conference in Chicago a few months ago” said Welch. ” A representative there named Francis (Heitz) and I got to talking about experimental aroma hops. And, he asked about (Pelican) doing variety brewing trials.”

Interested in the hop mentioned by Heitz, Welch and company returned to their quiet life and brewing routines in Pacific City. “About six or eight weeks later a mystery box arrived at the brewery” said Welch. “I had forgotten about it.” With the shipping information lost in transit, Welch spent the next week and a half trying to figure out who sent it. Finally he was able to discover that his new friend from France had been responsible. When we spoke with Pelican’s brewmaster, he was just gettin ready to brew a batch of beer with the new hops. “We’re making a beer designed to be straight ahead” he stated. “It will be a beer that allows for the characteristic of the hop to be prominent.” The beer will employ Northwest Pale Malt at 14 Plato and 40 bittering units, folks able to try it at the pub will find a hop-forward beer with a bitter 1.3 kilos of lupulin. “(We) used Magnum (hops) for 90 minutes in the boil. The entire (experimental P05-9) hop charged the beer as a dry hop addition in a 15 barrel batch” siad Welch. When asked about what sort of attributes the new hop will provided to the brew, Welch said he was unsure. “According to (Heitz’s) description, it’s a mild green herbal variety; spicy and slightly citrus.”

Are you a beer geek? Did you need an excuse to get down to the Oregon Coast this summer? Looks like now you’ve got one.

The Pelican Pub & Brewery is located at 33180 Cape Kiwanda Drive in picturesque Pacific City, Oregon. Visit them online at www.pelicanbrewery.com

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

You gotta love it here in the summer. This weekend there’s a butt load of things to do, and great weather to do nothin’ in, if that’s your bag. We usually leave the “Weekend Best Bets” list to Jeff Alworth @ Beervana, but being that it is Oregon’s biggest beer month, we couldn’t help mentioning these noteworthy hoppenings:

Puckerfest Kick-off Night Featuring Double Mountain’s Devil’s Kriek Release  Friday July 10, 2009

One of Oregon’s finest brewery’s, Double Mountain of Hood River will kick off a radical sour beer festival organized by Belmont Station. Beer guru Chris Ormand has compiled a sweet…ur, sour…line-up of some of the best tart beers for the Bier Cafe’s third annual event. Double Mountain staff will be on hand to unveil the Devil’s Kriek, a sour Belgian-inspired cherry brew. Says DM’s Charlie Devereax:

It’s an honor for us to kick off Puckerfest at Belmont Station with the release of this year’s Devil’s Kriek, our Belgian-inspired ale brewed with cherries from Matt’s orchard in Odell. Matt will be on hand to give a short talk, and to share some cherries from this year’s harvest. We’ll also have a quarter-barrel of Rainier Kriek, a super-limited sister brew made with Rainiers instead of Bings. This is an event not to be missed.

Enjoy Puckerfest all week long at Belmont Station, located at 4500 SE Stark Street in Portland, OR. Check them out on line at www.belmont-station.com.

Raccoon Lodge/Cascade Brewing’s Beer, Brats & Music Fest  Saturday July 11, 2009

At this weekend’s Beer, Brats & Music Fest, the Raccoon Lodge and Cascade Brewing will tap a full 58-gallon barrel of their new Honey Moon, a collaboration with the PDX Homebrewers Club. Honey Moon is a deliciously sweet honey-infused, barrel conditioned brew.

They’ll also be serving up Cascade’s new Gose Summer Wheat, a traditional German spiced summer sour with a hint of salt that weighs in at 5% ABV and is the ideal beer for the season. That will not be pouring from the barrel.

The Raccoon Lodge and Cascade Brewing are celebrating Oregon Craft Beer Month with their annual Beer, Brats & Music Fest! Come join the fun on Saturday, July 11th on the patio. The event will feature live music throughout the afternoon, including tunes by Juan & Ari, and headliner Black Lodge – Cascade Brewing Brewmaster Ron Gansberg‘s bluegrass-folk band (BridgePort’s brewmaster, Karl Ockert rocks out with ‘em, too).
The festival kicks off at 3 p.m. and lasts through 9:30 p.m. There’s no cover charge, and all ages are welcome. Come on by and raise your pint to celebrate the summer and Oregon Craft Beer Month!

The Raccoon Lodge is located at 7424 SW Beaverton Hillsdale Portland, OR. Info at www.raclodge.com or call 503-296-0110.

159th BEERthday Party  Sunday July 12, 2009

Three of Beervana’s biggest beer geeks and promoters of the craft are throwing a big bash at the Horse Brass to celebrate their lives. Brass founder Don Younger, Lisa “Beer Goddess” Morrison, and Point Blank Distribution owner Scott Willis share a July 11th birthday. So, on Sunday the July 12, they will party it up with a party to raise money for the Glen Hay Falconer Scholarship Fund. According to a recent press release:

They also are upping the ante with some really big news about the Falconer Foundation itself. This news will not be released until shortly after the birthday party begins at the Horse Brass on Sunday, July 12, so you must attend the celebration to hear the announcement, which promises to be important information for pro and home brewers alike.

In addition to the big news announcement, the following special beers will be available for purchase at the party:

Full Sail Saison
Double Mountain Pils
Hopworks Urban Brewery Cascadian Dark Ale (2nd place People’s Choice Winner at the NAOBF)
Laurelwood Green Elephant
Terminal Gravity Triple
Walking Man Sasquatch Legacy (09 – Belgian IPA)
Hair of the Dog – TBA
and at least one Mystery Beer

Photo courtesy of The Oregonian's John "The Beer Here" Foyston

The event will feature lots of fun and excitement and a Traeger grill will be raffled off to one lucky winner.

Check it out at 5pm at the Horse Brass Pub located at 4534 SE Belmont, Portland, OR

These are just a few of the events going on this weekend around Beervana. Others of note include McMenamins 8th Annual Roadhouse Brewfest and New Old Lompoc’s Bob Farrell Braggot Release Party, both going down on Saturday July 11, 2009, which is, incidentally, also Bastille Day. Salud! For more ideas of where to quaff and be seen amidst area beer geeks, check out our killer events calendar.

Posted under beer events