Another Clinton Administration

The smallest commercial brewery in Oregon -- Clinton Street Brewing (warning: noisy website) -- stands just a few blocks away from new Portland heartthrob Hopworks. The brewery is an offshoot of the Clinton Street movie theater, a small art house cinema at the corner of SE 26th and Clinton. You can enjoy a Clinton Street brew while watching your movie, or have a pint in the tiny pub. There are 4 or 5 tables inside, seating about 15 people, plus a couple of outside tables and about 5 seats at the bar. No smoking inside.

It had been a while since I'd been there, so I stopped in the other day to check it out. It turns out there is a new brewmaster at the Clinton, Dylan Goldsmith, and his beers are beginning to turn up around town branded as Captured By Porches -- which I'll call by the less-embarrassing acronym "CBP". At the time of my visit, there were 3 CBP beers on tap: a Belgian Wit, an IPA, and an Amber. Now, none of these beers is going to become your new favorite, but sometimes you go out on a limb to experience something off the beaten path. The Wit was interesting, but quite a bit more bitter than I think it should have been. The IPA was a little funky. I think the best bet was the Amber, despite having a little bit of a homebrewy flavor (that's Dave's adjective).

The theater owner, Seth, told me that it was quite a feat to brew enough for CBP's 30 accounts at Clinton Street's little two-barrel brewhouse. So Dylan is setting up a new brewery in industrial NW Portland. A decision will be made soon as to whether to continue to brew on Clinton Street or not. Moving the brewing equipment out might make sense for the theater/pub, since it would give them more kitchen space and allow for expanded food options -- currently the menu is anchored by pizza slices from Hammy's Pizza down the street.

There is a concert this weekend to raise funds for the CBP brewery -- see this blurb on the Beer Northwest blog. I've also seen flyers for this on lampposts around 20th and Hawthorne. It's interesting that Beer Northwest talks about CBP as a St. John's brewpub. For one thing, I'm not sure if the NW St. Helens Road address they give qualifies as St. John's, being across the river and a mile or so south. And it would be surprising if there was really going to be a pub in such an armpit location. I suspect that Clinton Street will continue to be the tied house for CBP, with brewing -- but no pub -- out in NW. Or perhaps there's a missing piece of information here: a pub-worthy address that really is in St. John's.

At Clinton Street, pints of CBP are $4, or they'll fill your half-gallon growler for $9. They have a few other taps also -- when I was there it was Ninkasi Believer (yes!), Lompoc Strong Draft, and Bud Light. Meanwhile, keep an eye out for CBP around town. I had a near miss last weekend at Big Daddy's Barbecue on Hawthorne. The bizarre happy-hour posters at Big Daddy's included a subliminal CBP logo along with logos for Bud, Widmer, and Laughing Dog -- any relation to Laughing Cow? -- but they weren't actually serving any CBP.

Deschutes-sur-Willamette

The stealthy opening of Deschutes' Portland brewpub -- it's been open all week -- means I got scooped by several Beervana commentators. Better late than never, Carla and I went over there for lunch today on the official Grand Opening. At least we got some commemorative pint glasses for our effort.

It was probably a good strategic move to open a few days early, to take some of the pressure off, considering Hopworks' fire-code-busting opening day six weeks ago. Maybe it's a different story tonight, but the lunch crowd was manageable. The restaurant tables didn't really fill up until about noon, and as far as I could tell there was never a wait.

The Deschutes Pearl District pub is a great addition to the Portland scene, especially since they're actually brewing there. Their first Portland brew is on tap right now, the Armory XPA, named after the garrison-turned-theater across the street. It's a well-done Northwestern Pale Ale, with very floral hops.

I suppose the "X" in XPA is for "extra", though of course these extra pale ales turn out darker than the pales. On the other hand, there's a code-switching pun here: "ex-pee-ay" is how you pronounce the French verb "expier" -- to do penance or to make reparation. I can't help it, I loved the headline on the Champagne of Blogs' review -- "Deschutes: French for 'Watch out, Bridgeport'" -- and now I can't get the French connection out of my brain. So if there's something troubling you, some sin you have to make up for, go XPA it with a couple of pints.

John Foyston says there are 16 tap handles, but I think some of them just pour root beer, because I can only come up with 12 beers served. I forgot to take home the seasonal beer menu, but between the Deschutes website and my memory, here are the beers that were on tap today:

• Mirror Pond Pale Ale
• Black Butte Porter
• Obsidian Stout
• Bachelor Bitter
• Cascade Ale
• Inversion IPA
• Cinder Cone Red
• Armory XPA
• Hop Henge IIPA
  
• 2005 Mirror Mirror Barleywine
  
• The Abyss
• Green Lake Organic Ale

There were also two cask engines; today they had Black Butte and Bachelor Bitter. The cask Bitter was served too cold, but maybe they'll get that straightened out as they get settled in. As usual, Mirror Mirror was a thing of beauty. The 20 oz. pints were $4.25, served in a Guinness-shaped glass -- I assume it's really 20 oz. -- or 10 oz. for $2.50. Big brews like Abyss and Mirror Mirror are served 10 oz. at a time in a snifter for $3.50. They'll fill a half-gallon growler to go for $10 (more for the heavyweights).

The decor is Northwest lodge through and through: big wood rafters, a stone fireplace, and chainsaw sculptures. The food seemed pretty good to us -- we each had burgers from the $9.50-11.50 burger menu. My french fries were drab and greasy, but the salads were decent. We were intrigued enough to try the hop cheesecake, but we didn't really pick up any hop flavor. Maybe the Mirror Mirror was to blame for that.

Let's talk about what might have been.... Two or three years ago, I noticed a banner on the side of the building on the northeast corner of 34th and Belmont. It said "Future home of Deschutes Public House". That was exciting -- one of Oregon's best breweries opening a pub in our neighborhood. But the banner was soon down, apparently because Deschutes made the deal for the current location in the Pearl, and the low-key Side Street Tavern opened on SE 34th instead. It's hard to imagine getting a pub and a brewery into the Side Street space, so although Southeast lost a pub, Portland gained a brewery. Whatever the case, welcome to Portland, Deschutes!

The Bikiest Brewpub in Portland?

A couple weeks ago John Foyston worked a short review of Hopworks into the Oregonian under the O's Cheap Eats rubric. No slam on either John or Hopworks, but journalists must be doing pretty well these days, if a $9.25 burger qualifies as cheap. Anyway, I don't want to quibble over the definition of "cheap".... Instead I want to take issue with the opening sentence of John's review.

"Portland's bikiest, most sustainable brewpub is now open," writes John. I definitely applaud HUB's moves for sustainability, and I love the bike theme in both the name and the decor of the place. But I had a visceral reaction to the word "bikiest", because anyone who could describe HUB that way has obviously never arrived there by bike.

When I first heard of Hopworks, my immediate thought was, "How am I going to bike there?" I've been getting around by bike for a long time, and I'm not afraid to ride in traffic if I need to. Nevertheless, Powell Blvd. is one of those car-clogged behemoths that makes you roll your eyes when you think about crossing it. If you try and approach from SE 29th, depending on the time of day, you'll watch wave after wave of westbound and eastbound traffic until you get an opening in both directions to scurry through. If you'd rather cross Powell with a traffic signal, your choices are 26th and 33rd, three or four blocks on either side of Hopworks. That probably means you'll walk your bike on the sidewalk from that intersection, though if you love adrenaline you could battle the pent-up traffic both ways and turn left at 26th.

Then I thought, well, fair enough, the people living south of Powell now have a place they can bike to easily. But if you look at a map, their choices are little better -- the nearest neighborhood streets that go through to Powell from the south are 28th and 32nd. And check out this snippet from a map of pedestrian injuries and deaths between 1995 and 2004. HUB is just west of the big dot signifying two pedestrian injuries; the little dots are locations where one pedestrian was injured; the X's are pedestrian fatalities.

Here's another map showing bicycle collisions between 2003 and 2006. Whoops, looks like crossing Powell at 26th isn't such a great idea -- 4 or more bike crashes at that corner during that period. At least there was only one bike crash at 33rd. The point is, whether you're walking or biking to Hopworks, the volume and speed of traffic in that area is a danger to those not encased in metal pods, even if you come from further south.

For the bikiest brewpub, I would put forth someplace like Roots or the Lucky Lab, which draw lots of biking patrons and have good connections to bike lanes and bike routes. Or maybe the Quimby Street Lucky Lab -- the first time I biked over there, I was fuming that I had to lock up to a stop sign, only to walk in and find out that the bike rack is indoors.

Of course, there are worse locations than 30th and Powell -- at least it's close in. I've biked to Hopworks a few times and will continue to do so -- the beer is fantastic, as is the moderately-priced organically-grown food. And I'm not alone, either: the bike racks out front are usually so full that I have to lock up to the wheelchair ramp alongside the parking lot. I suspect that HUB's community spirit will be a good influence on future traffic planning for the area, but for now its location alone keeps it from being the "bikiest".

It Must Be Widmer Week

Last weekend I wrote up my ode to the Widmer Gasthaus, not knowing that more news was on the way from John and Jeff about Widmer's brewery expansion and next winter's seasonal. It also came out that Widmer took two golds in the World Beer Cup, for their Hefeweizen and for their Pale Ale -- is that the W'07? Then there was Widmer meet-the-brewer at the Green Dragon on Tuesday, but before I could turn that experience into blogging gold, the Widmer brothers popped up again, announcing that they'll help promote the start of National Bike Month May 1 by racing one another across Portland, Kurt in a car and Rob on a bike. I guess this is just Widmer Week.

The meet-the-brewer was interesting as always. Here's a picture of one of the Widmer brewers, Doug Rehberg (second from left). To his left is Kerry Finsand, a Portland beer writer who's developing the Portland Beer Wiki; on the right are my buddies Corey -- himself a recent meet-the-brewer brewer -- and Matias. Doug told us he's been with the company for fourteen years -- that's job satisfaction for you.

Judging from the color of the beers, I think Doug has Widmer's Belgian Golden, Corey has the KGB Russian Imperial Stout, and Matias has an Old Embalmer Barleywine. It wasn't the barrel-aged KGB that they sometimes have, but it stood on its own and really didn't need the bells and whistles. It was a delicious chewy stout. The Embalmer was fantastic also, not the wildest barleywine at 9.5%, but it had the classic American hoppy barleywine flavor. A fourth keg was on tap also, the Broken Halo IPA. I wish they'd brought a keg of Hefeweizen so that people like me could stop boasting that the Green Dragon had never served it.

Since Lee had asked whether Broken Halo was endangered by the hop shortage, I went ahead and posed that question to Doug. The answer was pretty much what I expected -- they keep everything lined up ahead of time and they're not sweating it. Doug had another tidbit of information for us -- the promotion of the W'06 NW Red to winter seasonal means that Snow Plow won't be bottled this year. It's logical enough, but sometimes you have to hit me over the head with these things. Every now and then I was in just the right mood to enjoy a Snow Plow, but I like the Red better. If you can't wait for winter, the NW Red is on tap at the Gasthaus right now -- so is the Old Embalmer, by the way.

Side note: the Green Dragon never fails to amuse. There was no way I was leaving without trying Fort George's Oatmeal Pale Ale. It was drinkable, kind of tangy with quite a bit of hops on top. They probably aren't going to add OPA to the beer-judging categories, but I'm glad to see brewers push the boundaries like that.

The Widmer Gasthaus

We have an embarrassment of riches in Portland. There's so much excellent beer here, that we get to look down our nose a little bit at any brewery that gets too big, like Widmer, the 11th largest brewery in the U.S. by sales last year. Widmer Hefeweizen is ubiquitous, available in every convenience store, pizza joint and tavern in town. Well, not the Green Dragon -- case in point! -- though Widmer will be featured at this Tuesday's Meet the Brewer.

There are many reasons to rise above our beer snobbishness and open our hearts to Widmer -- not least of which is the fact that the beer they sell in such vast quantities is actually good beer. Furthermore, the Widmer brothers were there at the beginning of the craft brew revolution in Oregon, long before hangers-on such as myself, and they still support the grassroots by offering homebrewers access to their brewing facility through the Collaborator project. Finally, there's the Gasthaus: the restaurant attached to the brewery, where Widmer serves a number of interesting beers that are unavailable anywhere else. Good food, too.

I dropped into the Gasthaus a couple days ago as part of my Alt quest. Turns out that a Dusseldorf Alt was one of the first beers the Widmers brewed, and it is apparently always on tap at the Gasthaus, but nowhere else. The Widmer Alt is a well-done beer, and matches the style guidelines very well: a dark, dry beer, with a bitter edge but almost a nutty flavor to the malt underneath. Compared to other local Alts I've had recently, it's more polished and flavorful than the Collaborator Alt I had at Belmont Station; it's less fruity and more bitter than Corey's Evolution Amber; and it's not a wacky hop-bomb like the Lucky Lab's Crazy Ludwig's Alt. It's not a style I love enough to have every day, but I'll certainly revisit it on future trips to the Gasthaus. I still need to track down a real Dusseldorf Alt to compare these all to.

Of course the restaurant has taps that represent Widmer's bottled-beer lines, but in addition to the Alt they had eight more taps that you can only get there. The Belgian Golden didn't impress me much at the Cheers to Belgian Beers festival, and I wasn't in the mood for a lager or barleywine, but I was happy to see that they had the NW Red on tap. This was the "W '06" special yearly bottling from a couple years ago, a tasty brew indeed. The W '08 Crimson Wheat, while drinkable, is nowhere near as interesting as the previous W's.

Speaking of W's, the first one -- the W '05 IPA -- was so good, that it became a regular offering: Broken Halo. This is what I'm talking about when I say that Widmer's mass quantities of consumables are still really good. Broken Halo's renown has spread across the country, to the point where it was a favorite of my buddy Lee before he even visited Portland. Just last month, another less-beer-obsessed friend in Austin told me -- without being able to remember the brewery name -- that it's the only beer he buys these days. And here's an excellent stunt from the blogosphere: a blind-tasting "tournament" of 32 IPAs, seeded by their ratebeer ranking. Broken Halo won, even though it was ranked 24th by the master beer-raters.

Other delights that the Gasthaus has offered in the past are the KGB Imperial Stout, aged in bourbon barrels; and Noggin Grog, Widmer's entry in last year's Oregon Brewer's Festival. A lot of beer snobs dissed Noggin Grog -- a so-called Imperial Wit -- but I loved it. Sure there's no such thing as an Imperial Wit, but it was a big, tasty beer.

The Gasthaus location, with a nice view of the Fremont Bridge, is right on the edge of a gritty industrial area, though its near neighbors are the trendy 820/Mint and the retro-chic McMenamins' White Eagle. Despite the fact that it's walled in by massive freeway overpasses, a trip to the Gasthaus makes a nice little bike excursion -- the Interstate bike lane connects with the Eastbank Esplanade right by the Steel bridge. You probably wouldn't bicycle the kids there, though -- the car traffic moves fast on Interstate, and the other route along Russell Street is kid-friendly enough on the way down, but will have them cursing you on the way back up the hill, if you're not already cursing yourself.

Help Me Figure Out Alts

My first exposure to Alt beers occurred in 1995 during a dash through Germany. I don't recall the brand or brands we had, but I do remember thinking, "This isn't so great". The dark color belied the bland taste. There are plenty of German beers that I love, like a good Hefeweizen, or that pinnacle of sweet beers, Paulaner Salvator, but the couple of Alts I tried didn't impress me.

I didn't give it much thought until ten years later when I was living in SE Portland, and discovered that one of my favorite beers at my local, the Lucky Labrador, was Crazy Ludwig's Alt. It was rich and very hoppy, much more flavorful than my recollection of German Alts, but with a lighter color, as seen in the picture here. I was able to reconcile these conflicting pieces of information, thinking that the Oregon Alt was an inauthentic version -- and better for it.

Then Corey brought his Evolution Amber to the Green Dragon for Meet-the-Brewer night. He said it was really an Alt, but that -- who knows why -- calling it Amber sells more beer. He pointed to Alaskan Amber, saying it's really an Alt. Sure enough, take a look at the Alaskan Amber label, it says "Alt Style Beer". All of this contradicted my earlier impressions. Evolution was flavorful, in contrast to my German Alt experience, but not as hoppy as Crazy Ludwig's. None of them seemed to have much in common with Alaskan Amber, which is clear and pleasant -- it got me from Juneau to Bellingham on the ferry last year -- but not as interesting as Ludwig's or Evolution.

Clearly this style is not as easy to pin down as, say, an IPA or Barleywine. So what is an Alt? Michael Jackson described it as "brewed with dark malts, and very well hopped... an aromatic, slightly fruity, bitter-sweet taste". So far, my experience tells me that only Ludwig's is very well hopped; only Evolution is remotely fruity; and the German Alts of my recollection only had the dark malt going for them. Technically, an Alt is a top-fermented beer -- like ales -- but aged for a while at cool temperatures, like a lager. Corey has more technical details in his article about the Alt style.

Authenticity is not a big deal for me; it's fun to talk about how close something adheres to a certain style, but at the end of the day it's the taste that matters. On the other hand, I don't want to write off a whole style of beer based on a mistaken impression.

My curiosity led me over to Belmont Station to try and recalibrate with some German Alts. Unfortunately, the only one Belmont had in stock was a Pinkus Alt, from Munster instead of Dusseldorf, the traditional Alt capital. As if I needed more confusion, Pinkus Alt was another curve ball: light in color (see the picture), highly carbonated, but with little hop character. It was very much like a Czech pilsner, like a Pilsner Urquell that hadn't been skunked on the way over to America -- rich and malty with a little bit of clean hops on top. Tasty -- and USDA-certified organic -- but it seems like a different kind of thing than the dark Alts.

There was another Northwest Alt on tap at Belmont Station when I was there, the Collaborator Alt, but it didn't really clarify anything for me. It was dark and smooth, but wasn't hoppy, wasn't particularly malty. Nice drinking, but didn't help me figure out Alts at all. Corey's article mentions finding Diebels Alt at Whole Foods, but they no longer have it. Higgins has Diebels on their antique online beer menu -- I'll have to go down there and see if they still have it.

At some point I will venture into the wilds of Southwest Portland to see what Alts John's Market has for sale. In the meantime, if you have an opinion, tell me what it's about: help me figure out Alts.

Next Stop, Belmont Station

When I first rolled into town, a visit to the Horsebrass was always followed by an obligatory stop at Belmont Station, the beer store next door. In a cramped little room, you would scan the shelves lined with single bottles, until you decided which Northwest or Belgian or British beers you had to have. Then you would go to the clerk and tick them off on your fingers, "I'll have two of the little Tripel Karmeliets, and a Fuller's ESB, and a Dick's Barley Wine". While you perused the glassware or the British foodstuffs -- banana ketchup??? -- the clerk would rummage around in the back and bring out your beers stuffed into a six-pack holder from some other brewery.

It was a quaint ritual, and they had a good beer selection, but the new location on Stark Street -- not that new, since January 2007 -- is far superior. Now you can pull your own beer off the shelf or out of the cooler! No more head-slapping when you get home and realize you forgot the one beer you went there for; no more buyer's remorse when you get tongue-tied and ask for the wrong bottle. The new place is bigger, too. I mean, you could still fit three Belmont Stations into John's Market over in Multnomah Village, but the inventory is comparable. Belmont may be missing some beers that John's carries, especially at the low end. But there are other Portland International Brewfest sorts of choices at Belmont -- Norwegian IPAs, Belgian Stouts -- that I don't see on the John's Market list.

Another benefit of the new location is the attached pub -- the Biercafe -- including a few tables on the sidewalk. They only have four taps, but they keep them tasty -- or, as the cafe boss Wade put it to me today, "No crap on tap". It's not unusual to see less common locals like Double Mountain or Fort George on tap. Today for local flavor they had the Collaborator Altimate, plus some California and Colorado imports: a 10% HeBrew Ale, Avery Maharaja IIPA, and Six Rivers Kona Porter. That's obscure Green Dragon-ish territory. Way to go, guys! According to the Belmont Station beer blog, the cafe has plans to increase the number of taps to at least 10. That will make it an even more attractive hangout.

If you like the selections on tap, you can get a half-gallon growler to go -- prices depend on the beer. They'll sell you a two-quart mason jar for $3 if you forgot to bring your own jug. And, if you don't like the selections on tap, pick a bottle from the store side, pay a little bit of a markup, and drink it in the cafe. Highly civilized. They also have a curious device called a "surger" that purports to turn a bottled Guinness into a draft-like pint with ultrasound waves. I'm not sure what to make of that; probably if I'm dying for a Guinness I'll go find one on tap somewhere, but maybe someday I'll think of some other beer that I want microwaved.

Belmont Station is truly Southeast Portland's beer geek Candy Store. It's also the place to call if you need a keg of something offbeat -- they'll special order you almost anything in the state.