Walkabout Brewing located in Central Point, Oregon, just north of Medford and Ashland is a beer that rarely makes its way to Portland. In fact, it was some years back that kegs would occasionally be available in the Northwestern corner of the state at places like the Horse Brass Pub. More recently, we at Brewpublic brought a few kegs north for our 1st Brewniversary/KillerBeerFest last October. The heartily hopped Red Back IPA quickly emptied at Saraveza while the Jabberwocky Strong Ale was a hit at Bailey’s Taproom.

This elusive microbrewery run by Australian native Ross Litton, a friendly man with a big passion for bold beer recipes, recently put its Worker’s Pale Ale in 22 ounce bottles. Assisted by Green Bottling, a Portland-based contract mobile bottling company based in Portland, 240 cases of the Pale are now in bottles. However, it is not likely that Portlanders will have the beer brought north since the small brewery is focusing on their local beer market nearly 300 miles to the south. The good news is, travelers and passersby will have access to smaller quantities of this dialed brewery’s beers without having to commit to a whole keg. We think we’ll have to make another road trip to Southern Oregon soon.

(l to r): Caldera founder Jim Mills, Walkabout founder Ross Litton, and Caldera brewmaster Trevor Kemp.

Reviewing our tasting notes of Walkabout’s Worker’s Pale, we found the amber bodied brew to possess a thick white head and a lot of citrus hops character indicative of the Pacific Northwest and with enough caramel malt presence to balance. If you get a chance, don’t miss out.

Posted under Oregon beer, beer news

Brewpublic’s Quebecer correspondent Marc Demeule recaps a malt-filled weekend in October where he returns to Portland for more of what he loves…craft beer. This time Marc does it fest-style with Brewpublic’s 1st Brewniversary at Saraveza, The Portland Fresh Hop Tastival at Oak’s Park, and the KillerBeerFest at Bailey’s Taproom. We just wonder if he will make it back for the Holiday Ale Fest. Well, there’s always something exciting brewing in Beervana.

Brewpublic 1st anniversary was a good opportunity for another great beer expedition. I don’t know if I’m dedicated, devoted or just addicted to Northwestern beers, perhaps a mix of all three. Well, I’ve been lucky to get vacation time in early October to fly to a city where hops are brewed fresh. Before reading this travel trip, please take note of that advice: If you bring beer bottles in your luggage, they will be opened by the security agency. Secondly, try to package your bottles as if they where porcelain vases. Consider that the carrier use them as wrestling partners and practice some “bodyslam” on it. I would like to thanks Delta Air Lines. Losing my luggage might be fine, but killing three of my precious beers was a hard and leaking experience to manage.

Anyway, it didn’t stop me. I had time to visit 22 different places during that six days’ trip. Of course, I could have probably drunk more than the 136 different beers I had, but I choose to have quality instead of quantity. Armed with a Tri-Met all zone seven day pass and a thirsty throat, I attacked this second pilgrimage, expecting to get the hop fever instead of the AH1NI flu.

- I did reconcile myself with Widmer Brothers. Nelson Sauvin hops is infused into the Half Nelson IPA, which is particularly resinous. This hop was a real revelation for me. Back home, we already made a homebrew with it, an IPA called the Tazmanian Devil. Simply awesome. Widmer’s Broken Halo did also impress me.

- I went to the Lucky Labrador on NW Quimby. Again, they use to offer plenty of great beers there, so I had the twelve tasters. It would have been bad to forget to taste one of those. Nitro Porter was excellent but the Bavarian Crystal Weizen won the top honours. Very fresh, with a little smoke taste.

- If I could live in Portland, I would regularly visit Rogue. Not for the omnipresence of the logo in their pub, but just for the beer selection. I could drink gallons of that Sesquincentennial. We can easily find Rogue products in Vermont, but it is always better on tap.

- I do admit that McMenamins isn’t my preferred brewery, but if like me you’re not excessively fond of their brews, you will certainly find a location within the 30 (maybe more) pubs they own in the city that you will like. I did enjoy the McMenamins theatre close to my hostel where you can have a movie for 3$ and watch it while you sample beer. This association is perfect when you travel to few pubs during the day and want to have a little break.

- Angelo did resume (very well) the first Brewpublic party we had at Saraveza in an earlier post. Again, thanks to everybody who came and support. Thanks to our host and to all the brewers who came and give us a bunch of stuff for the mighty mighty raffle we did. I think that nobody understands any French there, so calling the numbers in the two official languages of Canada didn’t accelerate the distribution. Brewpublic also released its brand new and exclusive t-shirt for the event. Hurry up, soon it will be sold out! The Lagunitas Hop Stoopid was one of the best taps there, but I had the chance to have a glass of Russian River Temptation. You know, that beer that makes you feel like you are in outer space for just a while…

- Saturday, October 10th, was quite a busy day. I attempted to the Fresh Hop Tastival in the Oaks Park. When you realize that you can have 15 samples and a souvenir pint of the event for 20$, you just don’t believe it. You are just spoiled. It is unfair to have such incredible beers. I had brews from Old Lompoc, Upright, Pelican but the discovery of this tastival (and “ze” beer of my whole trip) was the Beer Valley Black Flag Imperial Stout, hop harvest edition. I must also give an extremely good mention to the Beer Valley Leafer Madness Imperial Pale.

- A couple tastings later, the bus drop me at Bailey’s Taproom. You know that place? Well if you don’t have enough time for beer trekking through Portland, just go there. They have sampled the best taps just for you. This is a noble mission, isn’t it? Bailey’s generously hosted the first Brewpublic KillerBeerFest. I had a promotion and became a tourist-busboy for the evening. The beer listing was impressive and I discovered new breweries like Double Mountain, Vertigo and BJ’s (new to me, though no longer brewing in Portland) with the Belgian sour Enfant Terrible…kind of a liquid paradise. Thanks to everyone who came to this event and thanks for your patience. The line was a little bit long, but the beers were so fantastic…

- To bring back Portland’s best brews, a stop at the Belmont Station is necessary. I took as much I could and had to make heartbreaking choices (airport limitations). What is wonderful with the Belmont, is the Bier Cafe side. I had the pleasure to discover there another fresh hop festival in a bar with 16 taps and a cask. I noticed the sentence written on the menu: “Due to rarity & expense we do not provide free tastes of any beer costing over $3 per glass.” Only one of sixteen was over 3 bucks for a glass! And pints are 4$ !! Do you realize how cheap it is for a tourist? I would have another glass of that New Belgium Trip III anytime.

- I went to HUB, too… Excellent Bike IPA. Excellent service with qualified staff. Do I need to add anything?

- Deschutes Brewery is also an institution you need to visit. The quality of their beers is unique (The Abyss, Black Butte… ). I had my best tasting panel there. Fresh cereals, fresh hops and excellent food. Inversion IPA in cask and the Twilight Ale were simply wonderful.

- Angelo drove me (thanks brother!) close to Beaverton to the Cascade Brewery/Raccoon Lodge where I had a full tour of the brewery, most notably, the oak barrel section. I would like to thanks Curtis who welcomed us and let us taste almost everything available in the place. It is really an art to blend all those aged beers and to get such great results. Couldn’t decide which one is the best between Sang Noir, Sang Royal, Mouton Rouge or Bourbonic Plague.

- A new brewery I discovered is the Upright Brewery; located in the basement of a commercial building, they brew and fill kegs for distribution in the Portland area. Thanks to Alex for letting me visit the installations. I tasted The Fresh Hop of Bel-Aire, the chili-chocolate (Turkey on Rye) during my trip, and a bottle of Saison #4 for a tasting session back in Montreal. I’ve been surprised to see open fermentors there. I don’t think anybody does it in Québec. As Alex told me, you only have to keep it clean. Yeah, sure…

I did visit other places that I described in an earlier post of the PDX airport. I will just use few lines to list some of the best beers I had during that drinking week.

Beer Valley Black Flag & Leafer Madness

Rock bottom Swan Island lager

Cascade brewery Sang Rouge, Sang Royal, Quad Bourbon

Deschutes Twilight Ale

Lompoc C-Note

HUB Bike IPA

Vertigo Midnight Harvest

Upright Fresh Hop of Bel-Air

Lagunitas Hop Stoopid

Rogue Dry-Hopped St-Rogue Red

Widmer’s Half Nelson IPA

À la prochaine !

marc@brewpublic.com

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

Our friend Alison Grayson put this video together from our Brewniversary party at Saraveza.

Brewpublic Brewniversary Party from Brewpublic on Vimeo.

Posted under beer events

The weekend was wild with wacky one-offs from some of our favorite breweries in the world. Saraveza was electric and geared up to showcase some spectacular specimens. On Friday at 1004 N. Killingsworth, an eclectic ensemble of worldly brews and the people who love that kind of stuff were on hand for this kickoff evening to celebrate this humble blogs first year in cyberspace. For sometime my attention was overridden by my fanatical Red Sox fan brother yelling at the screen as our favorite hometown team pissed away their season. But for the rest of the audience, it appeared good beer and company were shining so bright. My first brew of the night was Lagunita’s Brown Sugga. At around 10% ABV, a full pint of this year’s more hoppy Sugga proved dangerously delicious. The hit of the night was Lagunita’s Hop Stoopid on cask. This was evident by it being the first keg to kick. Other wonderful beers like the Sierra Nevada Chico Harvest Estate, a piquant Italian Pale Ale from Re’Ale, Caldera’s snappy Ginger Pale Ale, Upright Turkey on Rye, Deschutes King Cone Fresh Hopped Pale Ale, and Oakshire’s Collaborative Evil were all big winners. Of all the brews on this fine evening, my two favorites were Lucky Lab’s Pavlov Imperial Stout and Fort George’s Belgian Style XVI Chapel Imperial IPA.

There was a lot of life in the packed little bar/bottleshop and this life was rekindled after a crowd appeared following a fresh hop kickoff at Oak’s Amusement Park. Matthew DiTullo, the latest recruit for Brewpublic, had his video beer art installation projected on the big screen to the delight of the beer geeks on hand. Thanks to the generosity of several breweries, several folks left with free beer schwag. We were elated to see folks from Hopworks, Pyramid, Lucky Lab, Upright, Double Mountain, Oakshire, and many others of favorite folks showing some love for our Brewniversary. We were event treated with our Brewpublic Quebecois correspondent Marc Demeule making the pilgrimage from the East Coast to celebrate with us. The staff of Saraveza busted ass to make this night a winner and they did it with smiles. Thanks you guys. You were the ones who really made the night great!

After the long night of fun, we headed home with water bottles in tow, hoping to somehow survive the long wild weekend.

Posted under beer events

It’s not easy being a beer nut, but sometimes it can be fun as hell. Gettin’ geeked out on seasonals, one-offs, and, in general, brews I’ve never had before, is what it’s all about. Granted, the liver takes a toll for rewarding the palate, but in the end, it’s as publican Don Younger once said “It’s not about the beer, it’s about the beer.”

So, amidst scrambling about to shore up the final touches on Brewpublic’s big weekend, we performed a bit of quality assurance work. After a night of merriment…I mean Q.A. in the garage with Bailey’s owner/publican Geoff Phillips, the next morning was again filled with obligatory beer hunting.

Our first stop was Deschutes Brewpub in Portland where we picked up a couple cornies of beer for the weekend. Cam Cameron delivered us a barrel of King Cone Wet Hopped Pale Ale for our Brewniversary event at Saraveza, and one of the sticky Hop Henge #6 for our KillerBeerFest at Bailey’s.

After shoring those up, we returned to Bailey’s to drop of keg and Geoff. There we bumped into Dylan Goldsmith of Captured By Porches, who was providing the pub with one of the best named brews around, the Invasive Species IPA. Here, the brewer who recently made his brewing abode in St. Helens, Oregon, literally gave me the shirt off his back. If you haven’t seen CBP’s new label design and t-shirt, you must. It is quite artful.

After our stopover at Bailey’s Brewpublican Jay and I dipped over to Amnesia to sample a freshly brewed Goldy Hops fresh hop brew. Simply delicious and picturesque was this unfiltered beer that shortly sat illuminated in the afternoon sun beaming down on the brewpub’s beer garden. After our quick brews, we grabbed a keg of Copacetic IPA and headed north to Saraveza to deliver the Deschutes keg.

At Saraveza, we met with head pasty chef Spence Lack. One of the nicest guys around, we were obliged to no lack of suspense with a sampling of some of the great beers that Saraveza had on tap. This included a lavendar infused Ninkasi Transcendence Ale, Cascade’s Prequinox IPA, BridgePort’s Hop Harvest ‘09, and a robust Bear Republic Heritage Scotch Ale. All of these were excellent.

Even further north across the Columbia River in Washington, we paid visit to our pal Arlene Nunez at By the Bottle to pick up some collaborative beer coasters. While we were there, we though it was only fitting to stock up on several bottles of fabulous hand crafted beer. Southern Tier favorites like Creme Brulee, Cherry Saison, and Pumking were obtained alongside other heavy hitters such as Victory’s Baltic Thunder Porter, Dogfish Head’s Theobroma cacao brew, and some other palatable knick knacks.

After returning from beer paradise, we partnered up with our boy Matthew DiTullo who has been diligently working on a video art piece for Brewpublic’s Brewniversary event to quaff and film. Back at the bat cave we unlidded said Southern Tier and Victory brews and I dragged some Northwest favorites from my cellar. Many money shots were captured and a great session of high quality grog was enjoyed. We even made room for a special pour of the Murai Family’s Nigori Genshu Sake. It kind of urks me when people use texting language for effect (e.g. LOL, BRB, etc) but all I can say about this day is OMFG!  TTYL.  -Angelo

Posted under beer me

The interest for microbreweries and flavours from our terroir Québecois is still growing. Sunshine and mild temperatures have attracted a crowd of 65 000 visitors (2008 data) to the 8th edition of the unique Chambly Flavours Festival, an event which every beer lover should attend. I do not remember exactly, but I’m quite sure that I’ve attended every edition of this festival.

I went to two of the four days of the event. Firstly because it is wiser not to make the grand tour in one day and secondly because I had the privilege to work as a volunteer at the booth of the Microbrasserie du Trou du Diable from Shawinigan. I could have and share two different views of the festival.

First stop, promotional items booth. We can provide our own glass for the festival, but they offer a variety of glasses to complete our collections, even if they are already too full. It’s the same for t-shirts. Fine gifts to offer.

Subsequently, we quietly wandered among the ± thirty brewery booths. Over the years, you squeeze more and more hands; talk with the brewers which also explain why it takes at least two days to tour the event. It’s always fun to discuss about their new products, changes in recipes and brewer’s projects. Brewers did present up to eleven beers in their respective booths. Let’s take a look about whom and what they have to offer.

- La Micro de Bromont offers now four hemp beers (black, red, blonde and a light). Nice to taste, but don’t expect to feel the hemp in it.
- For the first time, Bièropholie Private Importations held a booth. Those guys have been (and they still) working hard since years to provide a service of beer private importations in Québec Province. With this service, it is possible to order a case of every brewery in Belgium and United States via our Alcohol Society. So if you have a brewery and would like to offer your products to us, just visit their website www.bieropholie.com
For the occasion, they presented products from The Bruery, Anchor Brewery, St.Bernardus and Brewery Het Anker.
- Le Bénélux still has incredible brews like the Cuda West Coast IPA and the Magnum Pilsner.
- Dieu du Ciel! did add few beers since my last visit. Hors Saison (a Belgian saison) and Pénombre Black IPA. Maybe next bottled beers, maybe not?
- Le Broadway presented a fruit version of the Sein d’Esprit Hefeweizen, brewed with apples.
- À l’abri de la Tempête came to the continent with an expected product: Corps Mort, Barleywine. Run to buy this product and let it aged in your cellar. Simply intense.
- Les Trois Mousquetaires released a new version of their Baltic Porter, brewed with cherry chips. Will be bottled for November.
- Le Brouhaha won the festival contest for the best stout with their Choco-Framboise.
- Le Trou du Diable presented La Chose, an India Wee-Heavy. This unique recipe mixes the strength of a scotch ale and the bitterness of an IPA. It gives a great result. Strong and hoppy.

Being a volunteer in a brewery booth is a great experience. You a can feel what a thirsty crowd is, try to educate them to great beers and teach them that the color of the beer won’t be necessary reflected in the taste. Anyway, as long as you can provide the magical liquid to every drinker in front of you, it is fine. I met people I’ve seen for a while and we made god tips! Another good thing is that you have free beer. You can’t deny that it’s a good argument.

My next beer trip will be in Beervana (oh yeah!) for the 1st Brewniversary at the Saraveza Oct. 9th and at the Bailey’s Taproom on Oct. 10th. Hope to see you there.

Santé.

Marc Demeule

Posted under Uncategorized

Says Green Bottling’s Mike Weksler “Yesterday we bottled 737 cases of the 2009 Hop Harvest for Bridgeport.” Weksler adds “This year the beer has a slightly different taste. It’s got a toasty flavor to it.”

Who’s all in?  This beer is one of Oregon’s finest fresh hop brews, and there’s a lot of good ones. As I type this, I sip on this years Deschutes Hop Trip.  Mmmm! We are geeked to try the Barley Brown’s Wild Hop American Strong Ale at Bailey’s on October 10 and revisit the Standing Stone Wet Hopped Red Ale. Speaking of Standing Stone, I just returned from Ashland to pick up some special brews for Brewpublic’s October 9th Brewniversary Celebration at Saraveza and the KillerBeerFest at Bailey’s Taproom on October 10th. Anyone who’s made this trek on a limited schedule knows how that goes. Look for some more beer updates soon.

From BridgePort:

This year’s beer is brewed using freshly picked hops from Goschie Farms in Silverton, Ore. This is the first year that Hop Harvest Ale will be brewed with hops from Goschie Farms which has been growing hops for over 100 years and are certified Salmon Safe in its growing practices. The hops were freshly picked on August 31 and used to make four brews that will be blended and packaged for sale and tasting.

Posted under beer news

Tonight we were able to get our palates around a flavorsome new maltilicious Full Sail fresh hop beer. Despite the hoparazzi not having many cameras handy, we can confirm that Oregon Guildmeister Brian Butenschoen was on hand to quaff the birra delicioso. Here’s an incriminating cell phone photo taken by Brewpublic’s own Margaret Lut.

Gearing up for our Brewpublic Anniversary event at Saraveza on October 9th and our KillerBeerFest at Bailey’s on October 10th, we couldn’t help but feel the vibe of the harvest season. Though we didn’t anticipate the event to be much of a fresh hop event since the Portland fresh hop festivities will be in full effect the same day at Oaks Park, we were happy to recently discover our event will feature some fantabulous wet hop brews exclusive to the weekend. For example, our friends from Barley Browns, owner Tyler Brown and head brewer Shawn Kelso of Baker City were kind enough to share a gem of a beer from their four-barrel brewery’s library. Making the five hour trek from their Eastern Oregon hotspot, these guys brought us a one-of-a-kind Wild Fresh Hopped American Strong Ale. They will also feature some of these unique highly sought after brews at Belmont Station in the near future. During their brief stay in Portland Brown and Kelso also dropped off eight beers to MacTarnahan’s/Pyramid to submit them in this year’s GABF. Expect some medals from these chaps.

After meeting with the Baker City crew, I headed out to Hillsdale to gratefully partake in a blending and taste panel at Cascade Brewing where brewmaster Ron Gansberg and Curtis Bain pained palates over a series of test blends to come together for a never to be tasted again concoction. This year’s KillerBeerFest will not only feature a divine puckering pour from now defunct BJ’s of PDX, but also this to die for fruity and complex Raccoon Lodge lush lactic.

Plenty more great beers to be announced as the October dates approach. We are enormously stoked!

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Posted under beer events