Please join Boundary Bay Brewery in celebrating their 15th anniversary on
September 16th, 2010!

Come to the Beer Garden at 4pm for a Happy Hour BBQ, dancing and live
music by the Marion Weston band.  Enjoy $1 off your pints, anniversary
cake and the special 15th Anniversary Ale which will be tapped at 4pm!

Boundary Bay Brewery’s anniversary celebration, hosted by Robert Sarazin
Blake, is free, family friendly, and open to the public.

The brewery also wants to show special appreciation to their accounts,
regulars and people that have made major contributions to their business
along the way, so there will be a VIP section of the party that will be by
invite only.

Boundary Bay Brewery has been saving the ales since 1995 and are throwing
this party as a way to say thank you for being a part of their craft beer
community through the years. Cheers!!

15th Anniversary Party
September 16th, 2010
4pm – midnight
Boundary Bay Brewery Beer Garden
1107 Railroad Avenue, Bellingham, WA

Posted under Beer & Music, beer and food, beer events, events

Posted under Oregon beer, beer and food, beer events, events, places to drink beer

Featuring the release of a new beer @ Laurelwood Brewpub

Posted under Oregon beer, beer and food, beer events, beer releases, brewpubs, events, places to drink beer

This Saturday two exciting IPA events take on the Pacific Northwest. If you are in Portland and have a passion for hops, make sure to check out Blitz Ladds‘ IPA Brewer’s Challenge & BBQ. This event is set to feature12 Pacific Northwest IPA’s, Live music and a big ol’ BBQ, and better yet, it’s all for a good cause. The Southeast sporty pub hosts this jovial IPA competition to benefit Oregon Food Bank and Hot Nights/Warm Coats. Donation barrels will be out all month, so please bring warm coats and canned food. On this day, enjoy IPAs from Ninkasi, Lagunitas, 10 Barrel, Full Sail, Alameda, Bend Brewing, Cascade, Fishtale, Firestone, Fearless, and MacTarnahans. Vote for your favorite, enjoy them all. Music by Woodbrain, the Insomniacs, and Ty Curtis. Smokin’ BBQ featuring Ribs, Chicken, and Pork Butt, plus Pizza. You can vote for your favorite IPA and enjoy this killer summer weather while it’s still available.

If you’re a hophead who finds yourself in Seattle this weekend, you’d be a fool to miss out on Beveridge Place‘s  Washington IPA Challenge. Organized by beer geek Geoff Kaiser of Seattle Beer News, the event will feature two judgings–a private one for BJCP judges, brewers and industry folk. The second blind tasting will be a public event that will occur from Noon to 4:30pm that will determine the winner of the Customer Favorite Award (announced at 5pm). According to an email from Beveridge “We’ll have 12 Washington IPAs on tap that you will be able to order and rate blind (sample sizes will be available). This is a great opportunity to test your taste buds and see if your favorite IPA in name really is your favorite IPA! For dessert, have a pint of cask-conditioned Pike Double IPA, to be tapped at 6pm!”  That’s bitter sweet!

For details on these and other fun craft beer events, check out Brewpublic’s event calendar on the side column.

Posted under beer events

The sun didn’t skimp one bit this weekend. Fourth of July weekend was the perfect excuse to beat the heat with some stellar brews. A new keg in the fridge, some new bottles from the store. It was almost too much to (literally) swallow, but who’s complaining. Friday’s happy hour included pints at Hopworks with Matthew “Bo” DiTullo, where Evelyn Sunshine’s Imperial IPA poured. The pricy yet delicious beer had a phenomenal hop profile. Earlier in the day we hit up John’s Marketplace alongside droves of other weekend warriors for a keg and some bottled brews. A corny keg of Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA delivered a hit-the-spot citrus hoppiness. Funny thing: the guy in line in front of us at John’s was ordering the same keg and a beer geek fistbump ensued.

What better way to please the buds than a sixer of sessionable 21st Amendment Hell or High Watermelon Wheat Ale in a can. This fruity beauty along with the brewery’s Live Free or Die IPA are finally distributed in Oregon! Per the recommendation of our man Captain Neil from Belmont Station, I had to grab a bottle of Laurelwood’s Wry Pale Ale. Delicious!  In addition, we snagged a bomber of Ninkasi’s Radiant Summer Ale-a biscuity, floral ale that didn’t exude a typical summerness to it, but was palatable nonetheless.

Still sitting in our beer fridge: a bottle of Great Divides Wood Barrel-aged IPA. Can’t wait to try it!

On the Fourth, friends gathered to celebrate Margaret Brewpublic’s birthday and the 233 big one for the U.S. of A! Barbecue and backyard bangers occured as expected beneath the tall trees. Beer nut Brian Murphy busted out a special bottle of Primator Pivovar from his recent travels to the East Coast. From my cellar, I broke out a 2008 Lost Abbey Gift of the Magi golden Brett brew. It was delicous! Racer 5 was steeped in Fuggle Hops through a tea press for added lupulinity. Good food, great friends, and hot weather…what more could you expect for a fabulous Fourth. Once the sun went down and folks departed, Margaret and I carefully climbed up a ladder to our rooftop to witness a Portland fireworks show that spooked the hell out of every animal within a 20 mile radius.

We had a phat weekend and hope that you did too!

Posted under beer reviews

With the gorgeous weather we’ve been getting lately in the Pacific Northwest, the only regret about the weekend is that it didn’t last longer.

After work on Friday, we found ourselves at a favorite haunt in Bailey’s Taproom. Bustling with a variety of beerovore species ranging from the Quaffasauraus to the Canus Lupulus, the joint was teeming with thirsty folks both inside and out who know what’s good for ‘em. A tall victorian pint filled with Laughing Buddha…er…Trade Route Brewing‘s Mango Weizen was a rewarding spritzily carbonic quencher. I recently enjoyed a bombastically bitter Infidel Lime IPA.  The Trade Route boys don’t do anything extreme, but they are quite inventive with their Southeast Asian-inspired beers of consistently nobel quality.

Following this Bailey’s pit stop, we dipped into BridgePort‘s NW Portland brewhouse for some grub and pub. Keeping it on the session front, a cool imperial fill of Blue Heron was just what I needed, as was an original IPA, to this day, still one of the finest American Indian Pale Ales out there. We are especially stoked to get our palates around the forthcoming release of their Stumptown Tart, this time with Oregon cherries, scheduled to hit in late June. A recent ale house newsletter from BridgePort said:

Using a Belgian Tripel base (think Fallen Friar), our brewers added 2,000 pounds of Oregon pie cherries grown at Fruit Hill Farms in Yamhill County. The juice is currently fermenting in the tanks, and will be ready for release on Thursday, June 25th. This spicy and fruity beer will have a tawny reddish color with cherry and almond flavors, and a slightly tart finish.

(God, I miss New Glarus already!)

Before leaving the west side of town, I made sure to grab a couple cases of Pyramid/Macs brews. A case each of Curveball Blonde Ale (Kolsch-style ale), Summer Grifter IPA, and MacTarnahan’s Original Amber rounded out my NW session order for the night.

Back to the East side of the Willamette River, I had planned on showing up to snag some Upright Brewing beers at Belmont Station for a meet the brewer event with Alex Ganum and Gerritt Ill, both former employees of the bountiful beer market. However, I never made it to the event where the beers named Four, Five, Six, and Seven were on tap. I did manage to swing by Upright earlier in the week and try each of these beers as well as a version of the Four brewed with an incarnation of Walking Man‘s English yeast strain (Anglo Saison!). Damn these dudes are bomb brewers to say the least. According to Chris Ormand of Belmont Station, a new Raggae Junkie hop-free gruit ale that will be pouring at the North American Organic Brewers Festival. Chris says :

I don’t know if Alex and Gerritt want me to say anything about the gruit and ruin any potential surprises, so I’ll just say that I’m really looking forward to this one. I’m also happy to see the #7 on the list; the first batch should be ready soon and popping up around town at the usual suspects, but for folks attending the fest from out of town this is likely to be their first taste of Upright. If the weather gets toasty Alex may regret bringing this instead of the ridiculously quaffable #4, but I’m sure it’ll be a popular beer regardless.

During my visit to Upright, Alex had some fresh yarrow and calendula on hand for a special batch of forthcoming brew. Yum! Friday night caught me sitting home and enjoying a growler of Seven Brides German-style Pilsner (aka Lil’s Pils) that I got from Jeff DiSantis on a recent trip to the heart of the Oregon hoplands in Silverton. Jeff hooked me up with some hops from his Mt. Angel company Hops 2 You that I will certainly employ in a homebrew soon. Look for an interview with Jeff coming up this week here in Brewpublic.

On Saturday, we scoped out Sushi Mazi, a tasty new sushi restaurant on SE Division Street where we enjoyed fresh rolls, Inari, edamame, seawead salad, and deliciously unfiltered, creamy sake. Being that I am not a sake geek like I am with beer, the name of the delicious libation totally escapes me as I type this. Making the most of our local street, we popped by Bar Avignon, a wine bar next door with a handful of killer taps. At Avignon we enjoyed pints of Double Mountain Kolsch and North Coast Old Rasputin Imperial Stout on nitro tap.

Following Avignon, an obvious choice was Division Street’s best beer spot, Victory Bar. Here, it is no surprise to be surprised by some beer geek special. On this occasion, a Saison from Concord, California’s Black Diamond Brewery pleased me with a pounding spiciness of coriander. Hot diggity!

On Sunday, I rolled up to Washington State to grab some 750 ML bottles of Boulevard Brewing (Kansas City, MO)’s Smokestack Series brews at By the Bottle. This includes a Brett-Saison, Long Strange Tripel, and the Sixth Glass Quadrupel. Lately, on a wit kick, I was also pumped to find their Zon on the shelf. It’s always interesting to see what brews you can find across the river that aren’t currently sold in Oregon.

With weather like this, it’s hard to be in front of a keyboard. Time to get outside to the barbie with some cold ones. Our buddy El Gordo finished up the weekend with a Sunday night Belgian tasting that including sampling a variety of brews from a recent trip across the pond, some grubbin’ vegetarian eats, and porch settin’ with some decent people.  Peace!

Posted under Beer personalities, Oregon beer, beer events, beer reviews