Thursday July 22, 2010 marks the beginning of the Oregon Brewers Fest weekend and, in true Beervanian style, more and more great beer events keep piling up. If you haven’t already scored your ticket for the sold out brewers dinner, there’s still a heap of other fun events that should spark your interest. Here’s some ideas for Wednesday, July 21, 2010:

Deschutes Brewery OBF Kick-off at The EastBurn – One of Portland’s premier craft beer spots, The EastBurn, known for their beer belly dinners and infamous $2 Tuesdays, invites you to join them on their outdoor patio where the folks from Deschutes Brewery will be here presenting some interesting brews. The lineup will include Mystery Hop IPA, Streaking the Quad and Miss Spelt. This event runs from 7-9PM.

The EastBurn is located at 1800 SE Burnside Street in Portland, Oregon. For more information, call (503) 236-2876.

Rogue Premier Pour of “21″ – Rogue Brewmaster John Maier has brewed 21 different beers for the 21 years of the Oregon Brewers Fest. This year’s one-time brew is an Olde Ale, called 21 Ale, to be released at the Horse Brass Pub, and is dedicated to OBF founders Art LarranceTeddy Peetz. 21 Ale will also be available in limited 750ml ceramic flip-top bottles. Release begins at 5pm. and

The Horse Brass Pub is located at 4534 SE Belmont Street in Portland, Oregon. For more information, call (503) 232-2202.

Oakshire Meet the Brewer at Bridgetown Beerhouse – Meed Oakshire Brewmaster Matt Van Wyk at the Mississippi neighborhood’s favorite craft beer bottle shop, Bridgetown Beerhouse. Try the refreshing summer Line Dry Rye, as well as some year round favorites like the award winning Overcast Espresso Stout, Watershed IPA, and their Amber Ale.  Tasting runs 4-6:30PM.

Bridgetown Beerhouse is located at 915 N. Shaver Street in Portland, Oregon. For more information, call (503) 477-8763.

Deschutes Quasimodo Tapping – As previously mentioned, Deschutes’ Portland pub is tapping a different special beer  each day through the end of OBF weekend. Tonight’s specialty is their Quasimodo soured quadruple ale. With a deep orange body and bubbly white head, Quasimodo possesses a nose of orange zest, candi sugar, honey and medium tartness. The taste is likened to puckering cherries, raspberries, and persimmons. On tap all day at the pub.

Deschutes Portland Pub is located at 210 NW 11th Avenue in Portland, Oregon. For more information, call (503) 296-4906.

For a more complete list of events going on, check out the Oregon Brewers Guild’s calendar.

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

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

Posted under events

July is undoubtedly the most festive month regarding beer in Oregon, as it is most other places in the Northern Hemisphere. The hot weather this week has beckoned us to indulge in the refreshing brewhas like no other time throughout the year. This week, the weekend started a bit early. The Oregon Brewers Guild Dinner kicked off the week of grand brews on Wednesday. We pulled an early shift in pouring to help out, and were reciprocated by receiving the t-shirt/glass/tickets to enjoy the latter half of the wonderful event. From the pouring end, it was great to see the pillars of the Oregon brewing community congregate to celebrate the freedoms that spawn creative and flavorsome brews unlike those from most anywhere else on the planet. Serving folks like Deschutes Brewmaster Larry Sidor, Fifty Fifty Brewmaster Todd Ashman, Beer Valley Brewmaster Pete Ricks, and Oakshire Brewmaster Matt Van Wyk. Pretty damn cool if you ask me. This who’s who event was pretty fun and the only down side of the pouring portion was people asking for samples without providing tickets.  Still, it was a hoot. On the tasting end, the five tickets I received were redeemed for the following brews:

Double Mountain Red Pilsner, Wakonda Sneaker Wave Imperial Pilsner (I was fortunate enough to snag the last pour from this 1/6 barrel keg…very bold), Ram Big Horn Pauliny Pils (from Salem, very nice!), Upright Flora Rustica (some fool from Shelton Brothers import company said Upright was terrible…more reason to distrust importers), and Rogue’s Maierfest lager (very smooth and enjoyable).

On Thurdays, the early weekend proceeded with a stop at Bailey’s Taproom for a Chuckanut meet the brewer special event. Brewer Josh Pfriem and beer guru Jim Parker were on hand to talk beer and share some phenomenal German-style brews from the Bellingham brewery. On hand for the first time in Oregon was a Dunkel, a Marzen, a Kolsch, and a Helles. Chuckanut also had a Dortmunder on tap at the big fest (OBF) on the Waterfront. Legendary Rogue Brewmaster, John Maier was on hand at Baileys during the Chuckanut event. At this point it was obvious the OBF weekend was getting rolling.

On Friday, Hair of the Dog hosted a special open house event with their rich line-up of brews and a few specialties unavailable to the public until just recently. A Flanders Fred poured alongside a Bourbon-barrel aged Fred. The Bourbon Fred was definitely the buzz brew at this intimate gathering. 2008 Glen Hay Falconer scholarship winner Patrick Murphy tended the taps as a long line of beer geeks awaited samples of the highly sought after brews of Brewmaster Alan Sprints.

After Hair of the Dog, we journeyed over to Belmont Station for a nutsy (in a good way), event. Green Flash’s Brewmaster, Chuck Silva was on hand to share bottle and tap pours of his wonderfully floral hop-driven brews. Boulevard Brewing of Kansas CIty was at the station as well, with lots of delicious offerings, including the summery Single Wide Pale Ale. Carston Haney, head brewer of Alameda Brewing was also at Belmont Station talking about his new dank Imperial IPA, and it was reported that Rogue’s John Maier was at the beer depot earlier on this day. Wow! What a beer undertaking.

On Saturday we were attending a wedding of a dear friend in Vancouver, Washington, where BridgePort IPA flowed like water and the summer heatwave rolled on into the night. After the wedding, we paid a special visit to our friend David Nunez of By the Bottle, Southwest Washington’s premier bottled beer stop, and sampled some great summer beers before catching up with a Heaven and Hell blend involving a 2007 Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA and their 2008 Worldwide Stout. Talk about bold!

On Sunday, we pretty much just chilled out (well, as much as we could with a window-AC unit) and made a quick stop at Upright Brewing’s new tasting room where we hung with our friends/brewers Alex Ganum/Gerritt Ill and caught up with McMenamin’s best brewer Corey Blodgett (now brewing at St. Francis School in Bend, Oregon) and his fiancee Anastasia. Upright will be bottling some of their Shelton Brothers-hated beers on Tuesday.  Brewpublic will be there!

Concluding sunday, a visit to the Horse Brass was needed to sop up more of the phenomenal hoppy brew list of late. This included Astoria’s Bitter Bitch and Stone’s 13th Anniversary Imperial Red. So, as all the outtatowners head back to whereever they are from following this big brew weekend, we smile knowing it is just another day in Beervana. We some riders!

Posted under Oregon beer

If you are a beer geek in the Pacific Northwest, you’d have to be living under a rock to not know the importance of July for craft beer in Oregon. For the fifth consecutive year, the Oregon Brewers Guild headed by Brian Butenschoen has organized a magnificent schedule of events to highlight the significance of craft brew in our great state. Butenschoen notes that the summer is undoubtedly the most successful month for craft brewers in the state. “It’s not surprising considering the weather here” says Butenschoen, who was on hand raffling off t-shirts and prizes at the Horse Brass Pub on the month’s kick off party. “(Craft beer) makes its peak in July and August. Since we started doing this five years ago, we’ve had a proclamation from the governor and mayor.” A parade of brewers kicks off the Oregon Brew Fest during the last weekend of July.  the inspiration was taken from the Brewers Association‘s American Craft Beer Week. For Butenschoen and others dedicated to promoting the craft that is so vital to Oregon’s economy July involves a lot of hard work but is also very much worth it. “It’s Craziness, but a good kind of crazy” he says. “The Brewer’s Dinner that kicks off the OBF is the closest thing to the brewers reception at the Great American Beer Fest. Lots of different specialty beers.” Butenschoen explains that the fest is really about the brewers. The dinner is a great way for industry people to gather in one spot in a great environment, Tom McCall Waterfront Park. “It’s more of a gathering than a sit down dinner” he says. “It’s nice to be on the river drinking good beer with friends.”

Each year, Oregon’s craft brew movement gathers momentum. More and more new breweries keep popping up across the state. Butenschoen says that from 2007 to 2008 Oregon has seen an 18% growth in barrelage during the month of July. That’s a whopping 10,000 barrels! According to Butenschoen, the success of craft beer on tap in the summer is quite significant. “About 85% of beer sold is sold in grocery stores” he says. “In Oregon, close to 40% of what is sold on tap is craft.” From a brewer’s perspective this makes the summer months a quintessential period for their livelihood.

Brian Butenschoen

Several publications around Oregon will feature big spreads on Craft Brewers Month including Portland, Bend, and Eugene. Across the state, several noteworthy event will be held to celebrate the impact of artisan brew for the culture and the economy.  For a comprehensive list of these events, go to the Oregon Brewers Guild website.

At the Horse Brass on July 1st, two hop randalls were installed to pump fresh hop nectar through from special kegs provided by Deschutes and Full Sail. Deschutes Cellar Door India Black Ale was marinated with whole nuggets, while Full Sail’s Grandsun of Spot Imperial IPA was enlivened by a randall full of sarache ace cones. Lots of other noteworthy brews graced the taps, including a delicious Pilsner from the guys at Double Mountain Brewing.

Posted under Oregon beer, beer events