Oregon Trail Brewery and Old World Deli in Corvallis, OR

Last weekend on our action packed travel to Corvallis, we learned that the college town was about more than just Oregon State Beavers and their prosperous Division 1 sports programs. The seat of Benton County, Corvallis is home to over 50,000 people as well as a thriving craft beer community.

Orange and black lights up the streets where the Beaver faithful seem to never waiver from cheering on their favorite school. In fact Oregon State University offers a Fermentation Science option that is approved by the Institute of Food Technologists program. In recent news, Indie Hops, an Oregon  supplier of aroma hops, donated $807,000 toward a new program for aroma hop research at the university in the College of Agricultural Sciences. In total, the hops merchant has provided over $1 million toward hops breeding and chemistry research. This is not only good news for OSU and Oregon, but it’s great news for much of the North American craft beer community.

Last evening the Brewpublic faithful made our way down to the Green Dragon Pub and Bistro to enjoy a variety of hearty nebulous darks from Fort George Brewery and Public House of Astoria. On this night, Fort George co-founder Chris “Nimz” Nemlowill was on hand with his lovely wife Zeddy and the good folks at Mountain Peoples Distributing to share some sumptuous and sought-after stouts. In a sense, the coastal brewery was bringing a little of their Stout Month with them to a thirsty Portland pack. Zeddy runs a coffee shop on Astoria’s Pier 39 (next to Rogue’s Alehouse) known as Coffee Girl. A special Fort George stout of the same name pressed in a wonderful Ethiopian blend. Also, two versions of Fort George’s Cavatica Stout was pouring on this night: one of which was barrel-aged in bourbon casks. Lastly, an oyster stout dubbed the Murky Pearl gave adventurous beer geeks something to discuss and was a highlight of Fort George’s recent Oyster Dinner Pairing. Lisa Morrison, known also as the Beer Goddess, was on hand to enjoy in the tasting and mentioned a special event for female craft beer lovers known as Hoppy Housewives coming up at Fort George on February 20th. During this event Lisa will educate attendees on brewing, cooking with beer, beer pairing, and provide copies of her highly anticipated new beer cookbook. As far as we know, a few tickets for this event are still available but not for long. A great description of last night’s event can be found at Jason Wallace’s Portland Beer and Music Blog, a great read for folks like us who love pairing the two.

Wednesday aka hump day is just another day of the week, but today in Beervana, there’s so much pouring. Here’s some highlights of what’s going on today:

Mac Dragon Release

Bill Schneller

Bill Scheller, a well respected member of the Oregon Brew Crew, and award winning homebrewer, was at Portland’s Green Dragon Pub and Bistro last Wednesday for the release of a special recipe beer he created.

Schneller, who was named OBC’s 2009 Homebrewer of the Year, and the instructor at the Brew Crew’s BJCP (Beer Judge Certification Program), used a 19th Century recipe to produce a wonderfully floral, bitter, and roasty brew akin to one that was once brewed in England and somewhat similar to today’s Cascadian Dark Ales.

Meet the Brewer with Pyramid’s Vasilios Gletsos from Brewpublic.com on Vimeo.

Last Tuesday, Pyramid/MacTarnahans Brewing of Portland sent lead brewer Vasilios Gletsos to the Green Dragon Pub & Bistro to showcase some of the new seasonals. The Macs Humbug’r Porter and the Goosebump Imperial Stout were the featured seasonals and the hoppy Thunderhead IPA was pouring as well. Here’s a video of Vasili talking about the featured beers of the night.

Hair of the Dog’s big dog Alan Sprints made a special appearance at the Green Dragon in Portland to the delight of 1st Gen beer dorks and whippersnapper hophead hipsters. The highly anticipated annual favorite Doggie Claws ‘09 coined the arrival of this year’s big winter brews. In a quasi-momentus speech, Sprints nonchalantly claimed the event was his first personal tasting of this year’s batch. Also available at this HOTD festivity was Cherry Adam from the Wood and Blue Dot IPA. The only downer of the batch, a low alcohol and chlorine-esque Ruth was unleashed. We witnessed a few of these being sent back to the bar, but the plush and dark fruity wooded Adam and 11.5% floral and resinous barleywine seemed to override any insignificance.

There has been a lot of tasty news to break in recent days here in Beervana. Here’s a look at a few items of interest:

The Beermongers

Tuesday is known for bargain beers pouring around the city. Places like New Old Lompoc and Roots have for sometime offered specials on pints. The swankorific crowds of young quasi-connoisseurs at East Burn can enjoy $2 pints from 16 taps of craft beer all day and night on Tuesday-still a deal yet to be beat for the person with a passion and a palate for primo pivo. Here’s a couple of other events going on today that you might not want to miss out on:

Upright Brewing Meet the Brewer

At first we thought this was a twisted attempt to justify more expensive Rogue beer prices, but a recent follow up from Ross Baechle of Rogue clarified “For clarification, all attendees of the No Taxation Party will be paying current pint prices. Sorry for the miscommunication.”  Go get ‘em, Oregon! If this proposed new tax is said to raise your average craft pint price to $6, imagine what that will mean for Rogue’s prices.  We guestimate that the average pint price in Oregon is about $4.  So would this mean Rogue’s $5.25 current ale house price for 16 alleged ounces, if this tax went through, would bump up, after the tax, to $7.25?  Scandanavia anyone?

Portlanders can save the three hour drive to taste the tasty brews of Three Creeks of Sisters, Oregon. This Tuesday at the Green Dragon Pub and Bistro, Three Creeks brewmaster Dave “Flem” Fleming will be on hand at the Dragon to chat it up with beer geeks while enjoying the Prospector Pale Ale, proclaimed “a true English pale with a rodeo twist” as well as the Rudolph’s Imperial Red, a hoppy 9% ABV amber designed especially for December’s Holiday Ale Festival.  Rudolph is described as “Haughty red, full-flavor brew with regal red tones.”

The event will take place from 6PM to 8PM at the Rogue’s 928 SE 9th Avenue location , in Portland, Oregon. Fleming is the former specialty brewer for Lucky Lab’s NW Quimby location and a particularly well-liked member of the Northwest brewing community.