Portland has been blessed by great weather lately considering it’s January! Yesterday, hanging out in the back yard with my friend Dave, I noticed our hellebores had flowered and realized it was the first time I have enjoyed my backyard in some time. As we settled on a few tasty beers a package arrived from Craft Brewers Alliance containing two Red Hook Copperhook Ales. Not a beer I would probably reach for on the shelf, but perfectly quenching on a day such as this. The warm sun felt great on our faces. My cat even enjoyed soaking it in atop our fence. Copperhook has a nice balance of robust maltiness considering its sessionability; coupled with 35 IBUs of hop snap, it was a very nice sunny winter day beer.

A great thing about living in the Pacific Northwest is that with all of the winter rain, you can count on days like this betwixt the grayness. 53 degrees Fahrenheit. Another great beer drinking day.

We opened a bottle of Dominus Vobiscum (Latin for “The Lord Be With You”)Blanche from our friend Marc in Quebec. A great spicy golden-tawny 5% ABV wheat ale that paired perfectly with this afternoon.

It’s great to know the days are gradually growing longer and warmer. West of the Cascades, December showers can bring January flowers.

From my beer fridge I pulled out a bottle of Lake Louie’s Imperial Stout that I purchased when in Wisconsin. Deep, dark, coffee complexity with some mild sour off flavors probably due to age, but enjoyable nonetheless.

My friend Gammet hung out with us and enjoying playing in the grass. After being sick a few weeks ago, he was back to his old self and loving the weather as much as we were.

Being a beer collector, I sometimes find that all I have in the fridge are barleywines, imperial stouts, and sours that I only break out on special occasions. The lighter stuff goes quickly. I found a bottle of homebrew given to me by a friend. Unfortunately I can not remember who gave it to me. Perhaps the bottle cap above will be familiar to that person if they are reading. It was a magnificent imperial stout with a big coffee presence. Thank you to that person!

The sun had to set eventually. Dave left and Gammet and I moved inside. Our friends Ty and Laura came by and shared some great brews with us including a few special beers from Brewdog. The Paradox Smokehead was intensely peaty as the label indicates. 10% ABV. It also was heavily whiskeyed. Can I use whiskey as a verb? Well, I just did. The Chaos Theory was not so chaotic (not compared to Barley Brown’s Chaos or Double Mountain’s Imperial Chaos) but it did have a deep ingredient base for a 7% ABV brew. A little too unbalanced for my liking but hey, I like most beer, so I guess I did like it. Make sense? I’m confusing myself.

All things end with sours. I was anxious to give Cascade’s Sang Rouge another go after uncapping a sample bottle the brewers gave me a few weeks back. Very nice beer. I need to get more stat. I could live off this stuff.

Other delicious beers were enjoyed that I didn’t mention, and it’s too bad, but I didn’t get a picture of the Sang Rouge. Anyhow, I am tired of typing so I will leave you with a few more pictures. Enjoy the sunshine!

Keeping with a somewhat randomness of this post, here’s a video by my friend Stuart Valentine.

Posted under beer me, beer reviews

You’ve probably already heard about it and we’re sure you know about the stubby bottles. Full Sail has released the Black Session dark lager to the market to celebrate ten years of employee ownership. Here’s the lowdown from Oregon’s windy city, Hood River:

Hood River, Oregon – Full Sail Brewing has a lot of things to celebrate this July. Our nation’s independence, Oregon Craft Beer Month, and, most significantly for us, celebrating our own independence. On July 2, we
celebrate our tenth anniversary as an employee – owned brewery. To commemorate, we are delighted to showcase the release of Session Black Premium Dark Lager, which is ready to hit the stores in early July.

“Session has been about the love of beer. As an independent, employee-owned brewery, we have the freedom to be innovative and to brew beers of world class quality that celebrate the joy of beer,” said Irene

Firmat, Full Sail founder and CEO Session is more than just another beer brand. It’s a breath of freshair. Sporting a stubby old-school bottle, distinctive name and retro-cool logo, Session has rewritten the rules of creating a new beer brand. Session is neither a micro, a macro, nor an import. It’s a little of each. And yet, none of the above. In other words, Session is a true original. It has an authenticity all its own and that is something tobe proud of. “Session Black is short, dark and totally drinkable. The initial tastes are a subtle pairing of caramel and chocolate malt flavors with precise hopping to provide an elegant citrus background to the delicate finishof dark cocoa,” said Jamie Emmerson, Full Sail’s Executive Brewmaster. Classic 11oz stubby bottles of Session Black will be available in twelve packs year-round. ABV 5.4 IBU 22

Released in 2005, original Session, with its bright red label, is a classic all-malt pre-Prohibition style lager. Named World’s Best Premium Lager at the World Beer Awards and winner of a slew of other shiny trophies, Session has truly earned itself a place at the bar. Not to mention the barbeque. So who is the quintessential Session drinker? That’s hard to say, really. You see, virtually everyone who likes beer likes Session.Whether they’re craft beer aficionados, import drinkers or devotees of lawnmower beers, Session is the one beer they can all agree on. Even Session’s name speaks to that rare ability to cross boundaries. Beer geeks might presume we named it Session because it bears a resemblance to British ’session beers,’ the ones that go down so easily you can drink two or three in a row. At the brewery in Hood River, Oregon, locals would insist it’s called Session as a shout-out to Full Sail’s boardsports heritage: as in surf session, jam session, have a good session. In fact, they’re both right. And that’s the beauty of Session. It’s inclusive without being ordinary. Accessible without becoming mainstream. It’s a brand that lets you own a little piece of it. And there’s nothing more powerful than that.

So there you have it, another black beer. Seems black beers are all the hype these days, be it black IPAs or the loveable schwartzbiers. Look for Full Sail’s Black Session in the stubbies or at several events and craft beer bars during Oregon Craft Beer Month aka July.

Posted under Oregon beer, beer releases, press releases