New Age Boilermakers and Triple IPAs: your week in beer for Feb. 26 – March 3

John Foyston | February 26, 2016 | Beer Brewing, Beer events, Beer Fundraiser | No Comments

Yes, the days are getting brighter, but a good, dark porter is still a welcome beer and they don't get any better than Widmer Steel Bridge Porter, which began life 15 years ago as a Collaboration series beer designed by Noel Blake. Since then, Widmer has occasionally brewed small draught-only batches of Steel Bridge Porter and in 2013 expanded the beer’s availability to 22-ounce bottles . In what was supposed to be a one-time run exclusively for the Portland market, the hoppy, robust porter proved it had staying power and continued to be bottled for the Oregon market for two years. Based on increasing demand, Widmer has just reintroduced the beer with a bold new look to match its big flavor, and you should be able to find sixers of the bottles with the new labels just about everywhere. — Yes, the days are getting brighter, but a good, dark porter is still a welcome beer and they don’t get any better than Widmer Steel Bridge Porter, which began life 15 years ago as a Collaboration series beer designed by Noel Blake. Since then, Widmer has occasionally brewed small draught-only batches of Steel Bridge Porter and in 2013 expanded the beer’s availability to 22-ounce bottles . In what was supposed to be a one-time run exclusively for the Portland market, the hoppy, robust porter proved it had staying power and continued to be bottled for the Oregon market for two years. Based on increasing demand, Widmer has just reintroduced the beer with a bold new look to match its big flavor, and you should be able to find sixers of the bottles with the new labels just about everywhere.

New Age Boilermakers and Triple IPAs are your highlights for your week in craft beer from February 26 through March 3.

Meet the 10 Barrel Brewers: Whitney & Shawn
6 p.m. Friday Feb 26, The BeerMongers, 1125 S.E. Division St.;
Many Oregon beer drinkers were dismayed at the news of Anheuser Busch buying up Bend’s 10 Barrel Brewing, but the fact remains that whoever the owners are, 10 Barrel’s brew crew is a great one, and brewers Whitney Burnside at the Portland 10 Barrel Pub and Shawn Kelso from the Boise pub are two of the main reasons why “Dream Team” is not overstating things. They’ll be on hand with swag and – better yet – some of their beers that rarely venture beyond the taps of their respective pubs; this should be a great evening.

Insane in the Yeast Strain: Imperial Organic Yeast & Everybody’s Brewing
6 p.m. Friday Feb. 26, Imperial Bottleshop & Taproom, 3090 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd.;
Check out yeasts from Imperial Organic Yeast – Everybody’s Brewing is brewing up five different versions of the same beer, each using a different organic yeast strain from Imperial Organic Yeast and the Imperial crew will be pouring all five side by side so brewers and drinkers will get to know the specific nuances of Imperial’s yeasts.
Everybody’s Brewing started with their Local Logger Lager’s malt and hop bill. The light nature of the beer will allow the yeast strains to shine in these iterations:
A20 Citrus Wild Saccharomyces strain
L05 Cable Car Lager strain
G01 Stefon German Hefe strain
G03 Deiter German Kolsch strain
B63 Monastic Belgian ale strain

Brewstillery Festival
Noon-10 p.m. Saturday Feb. 27, StormBreaker Brewing, 832 N. Beech St.; $25 includes tasting glass and 10 tix.
In this era of craft beers and spirits, the boilermaker is an endangered species, rarely seen except in the pages of hard-boiled crime fiction. But that doesn’t mean that the combination of beer and spirits is dead. Dan and Rob at Stormbreaker rounded up beers from 22 breweries and spirits from 21 craft distilleries to prove that the new kids on the block play exceedingly well together, complementing each other and creating a complex interplay in ways that industrial lager and cheap rye never could. Even if it was Mickey Spillane’s favorite. Here’s what the organizers say:

Brewstillery is breweries and distilleries teaming up to create the perfect pairings, each comprising a 4-oz beer pour and a ¼-oz spirit taste. Only like beer? Then just drink beer. You can pick and choose, although we strongly recommend going for the pairing.

Here is the pairing list:
Baerlic/Rolling River
Barley Brown’s/Stein
Base Camp/North Coast
Breakside/Thomas&Sons
Cascade/House; Coalition/New Deal
Commons/Stone Barn; Culmination/4 Spirits
De Garde/Ransom
Double Mountain/Hood River
Ecliptic/Clear Creek
Ex Novo/Parliament
Fat Head’s/Big Bottom
Gigantic/Ransom
Ground Breaker/Vinn
Humble/Tualatin Valley
Laurelwood/Indio
Migration/House
pFriem/Camp 1805
Upright/Eastside
Wild Ride/Bendistillery
StormBreaker/Bull Run
StormBreaker/Wild Roots

Triple IPA Festival
Noon-10 p.m. Saturday Feb. 27, NW IPA, 6350 S.E. Foster Rd.; $10 for glass & 5 tix; last year’s glass is OK to use.
Sample some of the biggest, baddest IPAs around when N-Dubs brings out the heavyweights, – triple IPAs from heavy hitters like Barley Brown’s, pFriem, Boneyard, Fat Head’s, Breakside and more. Food available from Chicken and Guns in the afternoon and Bunk Sandwiches from 6-9 p.m.

Imperial/Commons Beer Dinner
6:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 27, Imperial Hotel Pettygrove Room, 410 SW Broadway; $80 includes food, beverage, and gratuity
Chef Doug Adams and the Imperial team welcome award winning Commons Brewery for a four-course beer dinner with a menu that thoughtfully complements some of Commons’ most iconic brews. Stand out meal pairings include Beer Braised Elk Shoulder with smoked elk tongue spaetzle, wild mushroom and pickled huckleberry paired with Commons’ Boysen and a S’more with marshmallow toasted over the Imperial wood-fire grill paired with Commons’ Unconquerable Sun Beer Float.

Customer Appreciation Party
Growler House, 21319 SW Sherwood Blvd., Sherwood:
The Growler House crew celebrates two years with a party that includes beer floats – Gourmet Ice cream from Cream Northwest, Red Ox Peppermint Stout; Full Sail Session Black & Not Your Father’s Rootbeer – raffles for beer swag and lots of good beer on tap.

Family Meal
10:30 p.m. Monday Feb. 29, Ex Novo Brewing, 2326 N. Flint Ave.; $15 admission and light snacks.
This is the first cooking battle in Ex Novo’s new event series “Family Meal,” an after-hours party featuring two top chefs from Portland squaring off using secret ingredients and trying to impress the judges. Live music by The Lovesores, Ex Novo beer on tap and you get a free one if you bring your OLCC or Food Handlers card. Proceeds from event benefit the Portland Kitchen.

Culmination Tap Takeover
6-9 p.m. Thursday Mar. 3, NW IPA, 6350 S.E. Foster Rd.;
N-Dubs celebrates the new beers from Culmination Brewing and the release of Ferret the Younger Triple IPA. Tomas Sluiter, Conrad Andrus and Shaun Kalis will be in the house Phaedrus IPA, Urizen ISA and more will be on tap.

Tags:Brewstillery Fest, Culmination Brewing, Foyston's weekly beer events, new yeast strains, Steel Bridge Porter, Triple IPA Fest

About The Author

John

John Foyston is Oregon's longest serving beer writer, and wrote a weekly beer column for The Oregonian until just recently. His work has appeared on CNN, and in Beer Connoisseur, Celebrator Beer News, Oregon Beer Growler, Mix Magazine and other publications and will occasionally appear on these pages, at least until Angelo and DJ get tired of him too...He can be followed on Twitter at @beerherejohnny.