Lisa Morrison, aka the Beer Goddess, is hosting one of her popular women-only beer classes at Fort George Brewery & Public House on Feb. 20. It’s called Hoppy Housewives. You don’t have to be a housewife to attend, but you do have to be a woman! The two-hour afternoon class takes ladies on an entertaining and educational tour of several beer styles, as Lisa shares tips on pairing beer with food, cooking with beer — participants even get a take-home recipe book — and great stories about beer’s HERstory (instead of history). Light fare in the form of finger food and tapas will be provided so students don’t get hungry!

Don’t forget, it’s also Stout Month at the Fort George, with rotating stouts on draft from countless different breweries all month! Class attendees and their escorts are encouraged to make a weekend of it by booking a room at the newly opened Commodore Hotel, nearly right across the street from the brew pub! Details: http://www.commodoreastoria.com/

Many beer geeks may have heard about a Jeroboam, but what about a Methuselah or a  Salmanazar?

Anyone who knows Preston Weesner knows the guy is seriously geeked about craft beer. When he’s not organizing and orchestrating fanatical beer festivals (Holiday Ale Fest, Portland International Beer Fest), he’s usually thinking about, talking about, and promoting great beer. Now, Mr. Weesner has teamed up with the beerophiles over at Saraveza to coordinate a unique and intimate tasting of world class beers from big ol’ bottles. This sort of  event is unlike anything many beer geeks have experienced before.

By Ezra “Samurai Artist” Johnson-Greenough and Jimmy Blum

Alaskan Smoked Porter

Alaskan Smoked Porter is the prototype for US craft smoked beers. Many still consider this smoked ale the best of its kind, and the numerous medals it has won at the Great American Beer Festival certainly justify this belief. Geoff and Marcy Larson, owners of Alaskan Brewing Company in Juneau, Alaska, created the beer in 1988. Marcy’s research into traditional smoky beers brewed during the Alaskan gold rush at the turn of 20th century provided a launch point for the project.

We recently had the fourth edition of this great event. Cooking with beer is a pleasure and should be included to every day recipes. Brewpubs with kitchens use their own products to create delicious meals, so why couldn’t we?

The guidelines we gave us were simple:

Here’s a quick look at a few brewery’s in the Pacific Northwest that are taking steps to meet higher standards of ecological mindfulness.  It also makes sense that cutting waste and renewing/reusing makes more sense not only from a health perspective, but an economic one as well.  We are more concerned with the environmental impact here, so we dug up a few tasty brewpubs from the region that exemplify that is can be easy being green.

Christian Ettinger