Jubel 2010

Originally published on It's Pub Night, a Portland Beer blog. Visit the original post here.

Deschutes Jubelale is a traditional wintertime favorite on our block of Main Street. We all feel like we're on a first name basis with the beer, and we tend to just call it "Jubel". But in the Deschutes pantheon, that name is reserved for their once-a-decade doubled version of Jubelale, bottled ten years ago as Jubel 2000, and again this year as Jubel 2010. I went down to the Portland pub Friday for the release, and met Ritch and Brian there. They're showing off their commemorative glasses of 2010 with Cam O'Connor, the head brewer here in Portland.

Chalk up another win for Deschutes' double-recipe trick, also used to great success with Mirror Mirror, Double Black Butte, and Double Cinder Cone. This 10% beer is amazingly smooth and balanced. Swirl it in your glass and you get a great whiff of malt. The taste is indeed something like a concentrated Jubelale, but the Christmas spice flavors are replaced in this version with a soft cherry note. The taste was very familiar to me, so I asked Brian what beer it reminded him of, and he instantly responded "Hair of the Dog Adam". I think he hit it right on the head: this has the darkness and strength of Adam, and the hint of cherry calls to mind last year's wonderful Cherry Adam.

I remember having Super Jubel last winter ('08-'09) at the Portland pub, and finding it a bit harsh. Jubel 2010 has been aged in Pinot Noir barrels for 13 months, so perhaps what I had a year ago was just too green (or if last year's was also aged for a year, then Deschutes really hit a home run with this year's batch).

Cam reported that they made 500 barrels of Jubel 2010 -- for comparison, this year's run of Abyss was 700 barrels -- so you'll want to grab a couple of the 22-ounce wife-proofed wax-dipped bottles as soon as you can. They're $12 at the Portland pub. Your next chance will be in 2020.

Pyramid Fling Pale Ale

Originally published on It's Pub Night, a Portland Beer blog. Visit the original post here.

Pyramid's new spring seasonal pale ale, Fling, is now out on the shelves. It splashed into the Portland blogosphere a couple of weeks ago: Angelo used the occasion to lament Pyramid/MacTarnahan's listless lineup and kooky marketing, then Jeff sang Fling's praises, reviewing it alongside Deschutes Red Chair. Shortly after that I was at the Green Dragon and happened to run into Rick Nickerson, a Pyramid marketing guy, who gave me a bottle of Fling to try. I cracked it open last night.

It's quite a nice beer, refreshing and drinkable. I find it odd that Jeff lumped it in with Red Chair -- Fling has much more in common with Deschutes Mirror Pond. In the glass, Fling has a very light golden color with a quickly dissipating head. There's a nice citrus-hop aroma. It's smooth and easy-drinking, and the hops contribute a distinctly lemony taste -- maybe due in part to an experimental hop variety that is part of the recipe. The hop bitterness stays on the tongue just long enough.

Comparing Fling with Mirror Pond is a big compliment in my book. With a constant stream of new beers and new brewers bombarding us in Oregon, it's easy to forget what a well-made classic MP is (the fresh-hopped versions of the last couple years are what re-opened my eyes to it). So is there room on the supermarket shelf for two similar pale ales? I think so, especially with the different hop characters. It's also puzzling to me that a lighter beer like this would be released as a spring seasonal -- the website says it will be available in February and March. It seems much more like a summer beer to me; moreover, it's good enough that I think it would pick up a following if it was available year-round.

Full Sail 2010 Top Sail Release

Originally published on It's Pub Night, a Portland Beer blog. Visit the original post here.

Every February something special happens at the Full Sail Pilsner Room at the Portland harbor. In even-numbered years Full Sail rolls out a barrel-aged version of their Top Sail Imperial Porter; the odd-numbered years see the release of barrel-aged Black Gold Imperial Stout (though for some reason 2006 also got the stout and not the porter). Last night I sat at a table full of beer bloggers -- Charles (in the photo), Derek, Ezra and SNOB poster boy Ritch -- to sample this year's batch.

Usually the release party includes a vertical tasting of previous vintages. Brewmaster John Harris said that they've drained so many of those earlier kegs, that there wasn't enough old beer available for this year's release. So they hit on a wonderful idea: instead of a vertical tasting, have a horizontal tasting of single-barrel versions of this year's Top Sail, alongside the final product, which is a blend of beer aged in Maker's Mark, Stranahan's, and Four Roses barrels. Most of us at the table agreed that the blend was the best of all, capturing just the right balance between beer, wood, and bourbon. But it was wonderful to try the individual constituents side-by-side. Great idea.

I'm not a bourbon expert at all, and it would have been nice to have some experience of the three whiskeys to orient myself.  Nevertheless, it was interesting to note the differences in the individual barrels.  The Maker's Mark version seemed to contribute the strongest vanilla and alcohol flavors to the chocolatey porter.  That barrel seemed to most closely resemble the final blend.  The vanilla notes were much more subdued in the other two barrel; I'm guessing that the Stranahan's version was closest to the original brew, and the Four Roses barrel added what to me was a dry and dusty character -- Derek described it as "spicy".  The blend is a delicious strong porter with a drinkable non-syrupy consistency; it has a satisfying chocolate malt flavor, with bourbon and vanilla highlights added by the barrels.  Everything is very well-balanced -- you get a taste of the bourbon, but it doesn't overwhelm as it does in some bourbon porters and stouts.

Even though there were no kegs of older vintages available, John opened one bottle each of the 2004 and 2008 barrel-aged Top Sail.  He passed small glasses of each around our table.  The 2004 was still drinkable but is starting to lose its way (not surprising after 6 years).  The 2008 was lovely, quite similar to this year's, but a little mellower.  It's interesting, when I wrote up the 2008 Top Sail release, I found the 2008 a little disappointing compared to the 2004 -- age seemed to help out.  But last night I decided the 2010 is plenty good enough to drink right now, easily a match for the cellared-two-years 2008.  Who knows, maybe a year or two in the cellar will make it even more brilliant, but you won't be disappointed if you crack open a fresh bottle of it.

Dragon Stout vs. Dragonstooth Stout

Originally published on It's Pub Night, a Portland Beer blog. Visit the original post here.

Usually when I travel I find some excuse for a beer-blog post along the way. Our family vacation to Jamaica earlier this month was an exception. In the places we were, the only beers I saw were Red Stripe, Guinness, and Dragon Stout. For the final three days of our trip, we were imprisoned at a cheap beach resort and the only beer choice was Red Stripe. But during the week we spent roaming the country before that, local Dragon Stout was my occasional beer of choice.

Dragon -- from the same company as Red Stripe -- seemed like a decent stout, not unlike Guinness, so I brought a few bottles home for further study. Wasn't Dragon Stout available in the US in the pre-microbrew days? I'm pretty sure I remember being able to get it in Austin in the mid- to late-eighties.

Today when I was at Beermongers looking for a stout to compare Dragon against, I noticed a bottle of the lovely Dragonstooth Stout from Seattle's Elysian Brewing. Suddenly the world started spinning, and in an attack of deja vu, I found myself back in 1986 standing in front of the beer cooler at Wheatsville Food Co-op in Austin. I want a nice big beer tonight -- I can't afford the $6 for a 750 of Chimay, so should I get a Steinlager, a Dragon Stout, or a Tooth's Sheaf Stout? Something dark... Dragon? Tooth? Dragon? Tooth? Dragonstooth?

Did Elysian name Dragonstooth after that pair of international stouts? Whatever the case, I didn't need a flashback to convince me to pick up a bottle of Dragonstooth. It's good stuff. (And speaking of Tooth's, last year Jeff Alworth "rediscovered" Sheaf Stout, much to his delight).

Now let's compare Dragon and Dragonstooth. As you can see from the picture above, the Dragonstooth is pitch black; the Dragon is dark but reddish when the light shines through. They both weight in with nearly the same strength, 7.5% for the Jamaican vs. 7.45% for the Washingtonian. Let's see which is the champion.

Dragon Stout: very sweet, like Malta or cola, moderately thin mouthfeel, but lots of syrupy legs on the glass, little hops. As it warms, a little of stouty roastiness and a hint of molasses come in to join the original cola flavor.

Dragonstooth Stout: roasty almost charcoaly aroma, creamy mouthfeel, delicious toasted-grain flavor with a nice bitter wallop that lingers on the tongue. Also very leggy, but not nearly as sweet (a good thing).

Really there's no contest. Dragonstooth is a much more flavorful and polished beer than Dragon, which is too cloyingly sweet. But to give Dragon some credit, I later popped open a Guinness Extra Stout and found it much closer in flavor to the Dragon Stout than to Elysian's beer, though not nearly as sweet. And of course, if you find yourself on a tropical vacation where your drink choices are Red Stripe, rum punch, or vitamin-enhanced wine, Dragon Stout sounds just fine.

By the way, we had an excellent time on our vacation. We timed it to attend the annual Maroon Celebration in the town of Accompong in the interior of Jamaica. The Maroons were a group of escaped slaves that waged an 80-year insurgency against the British colonial powers, until the British relented and signed a treaty granting them self-rule in 1739 (the rest of Jamaica belonged to Britain until 1962). They celebrate the occasion of the treaty in Accompong every year on January 6th. This year's was the 272nd annual celebration -- the Maroons have been independent from England for longer than we have. It's a fascinating bit of living history, and also a great party.

Bailey's Cellarfest 2010

Originally published on It's Pub Night, a Portland Beer blog. Visit the original post here.

It's not often that you can go to a beer festival, and not have a single bad beer.  But that's what I got at Saturday's Cellarfest at Bailey's Taproom: quite a few delicious big beers, and of the dozen that I tasted, not a single dud.  I mean, when the beers that grabbed me the least were 2008 versions of Rogue Glen and Lucky Lab Pavlov's Imperial Stout, then it's a very good day, because those were two really solid beers.

The other thing that was remarkable about the Cellarfest was how few of the usual beer suspects I ran into at Bailey's.  I really like the usual suspects, but it's a very good sign of the breadth of beer appreciation in Portland that the place was packed with more than just the usuals, and really without much publicity for the event. Granted, I was only there from about 4:30 to 6:30, apparently after professionals like the Brewpublic and portlandbeer.org posses had come and gone.  My friends Brian, Bryce, and Cathy had snagged a relatively quiet spot in the back of the bar, so Lindsey and I took it over when they moseyed along; maybe we would have jostled more old acquaintances in the front of the house.

Anyway, about the beer.  Bailey's has only been open for a couple of years, how deep can their cellar be?  In fact, most of the beers on tap -- 10 of 17 -- were from 2008 and 2009.  That's OK by me -- occasionally a beer will keep improving after two years of age, but for the most part two years is enough time, and you get more and more blemishes as the years go by.  I was too late to the Cellarfest to try two of the oldest ales: the Fish Leviathan from 2004 and the Terminal Gravity 2006 Bucolic Plague.  But the 2006 Alaskan Smoked Porter proved my point: still a fine beer, but the papery flavor of oxidation was starting to become a distraction.

Here are some short notes on the beers I tried, more or less in the order of preference, though it's almost as hard to say what my favorites were as it is to say what my least favorites were.  Everything was nice.

• Caldera '09 Old Growth Imperial Stout: bitter, rich, licorice, wonderful
• Lagunitas '08 Olde Gnarleywine Barleywine: nicely fruity, malty, and bitter
• Full Sail '07 Old Boardhead Barleywine: delicious vanilla and hops
  
• Laughing Dog  '08 Dogfather Imperial Stout: deliciously bitter
• North Coast '08 Old Stock Barleywine: fruity and nice
• Butte Creek '07 Train Wreck Barleywine: classic hoppy b-wine
• Flying Dog '09 Gonzo Porter: pretty damn good, bitter and full
• Fort George '09 Coffee Girl Stout: tasty strong coffee and chile flavors
• Barley Brown's '08 Double Whiskey Ale: mellow and smooth; not whiskeyish
• Alaskan '06 Smoked Porter: smoked meat flavors; a little oxidized
• Rogue '08 Glen Strong Ale: solid, thick, balanced
• Lucky Lab '08 Pavlov's Imperial Stout: a little too hoppy; expected more malt
  

Before there was Abyss... there was Caldera Imperial Stout.  Whenever you see it on tap, drink as much of it as you can.

A couple of suggestions for Geoff for next year's Cellarfest.  First, it would have been nice to have the styles of each beer listed on the beer list handouts.  Second, alphabetical order is a beer-drinker's friend.  But don't get me wrong, this event was wonderful as it was, from the well-chosen beers, to the sweet souvenir snifter, to the speedy service despite the big crowd.

Beulahland Strikes Out

Originally published on It's Pub Night, a Portland Beer blog. Visit the original post here.

During the fall I became infatuated with Beulahland, the "Coffee and Alehouse" at 28th and Couch. I biked my daughter to soccer practice Thursdays at DaVinci Middle School, and noticed that I could take refuge at the happy hour just down the street. On my first visit I was impressed by the beer choices -- one of the ten taps was a Lompoc fresh-hop ale, and the place even had a nitro tap and a cask engine. They also have about a dozen house-infused vodkas and bourbons; I've yet to try any of them, but they have some interesting-sounding flavors like habanero whiskey and watermelon vodka.

But I have to say, when our Pub Night crawled over there this week after a visit to Spints Alehouse, Beulahland struck out:

• Strike one: The cask engine is gone.
• Strike two: The chalkboard and bartender both concealed the best beer tap from me.
  
• Strike three: My beer was served in a cheater pint glass!

It wasn't until our second round that we noticed the telltale Terminal Gravity tap handle and found out that the delicious TG Festivale was on tap. It wasn't on the chalkboard, and the bartender didn't bother to point it out to a crowd of obvious beer geeks. That's the kind of action I expect from Henry's, not from the divey local.

Those first two strikes are no big deal. But cheater pints? Now you're adding injury to insult. Check out the picture above, and you'll see the giant boot in the bottom of the glass of Festivale on the left. That's as thick as the glasses I wore in fifth grade! I'm glad that the Honest Pint Project is starting to move the finer pubs to use glassware with fill lines on them. Cheater pints are a fraud that must be stopped.

On the plus side, the city has installed one of the new bike-parking corrals on 28th right by Beulahland, so there's plenty of two-wheeled parking. And the jukebox has a brilliant variety: Black Sabbath's first album, Duke Ellington's Money Jungle, and -- stroke of genius -- Hasil Adkins.

I still enjoy the atmosphere at Beulahland, and I would like to check out those infused boozes. This last visit cooled my ardor somewhat, but I still consider it a little-known gem in that area.

Captured by Porches Friday Rye Ale

Originally published on It's Pub Night, a Portland Beer blog. Visit the original post here.

Hats off to Captured by Porches Brewing Company for entering the retail market with returnable bottles. I picked up a bottle of CBP's Friday Rye Ale at Beermongers a couple days ago; their flagship Invasive Species IPA is also on the shelves. It's a nice bottle, a 750 ml swing-top; the deposit is $1.00 per bottle. According to CBP's blog, making bottles out of recycled glass is only 30% more energy efficient than making them from raw materials. So the effort to reuse bottles is a welcome return to common sense.

That's all well and good, but if the beer isn't any good, then who cares? I'm happy to report that the bottle-conditioned Friday Rye Ale is really well done. It's tangy and hoppy, with a dry bitterness that lingers on the tongue. The bottle I had was super effervescent at first -- it didn't pour with a huge head, but the bottle opened with a loud pop, and the first sips filled my mouth with very fizzy fine bubbles. The night before I had a Wry Pale Ale at Laurelwood -- very tasty, by the way -- and the Friday was at least as good as that, maybe even a little better.

The bottles are priced near the low end of the bomber range -- $3.80 at Beermongers -- but because they are a little bigger than 22-ounce bombers, they have a cheaper SPE of $10.79 compared to $12.44 for a bomber of the same price. I'd be happier if the price was closer to six-pack price, but it's a start.

Now I'm eager to try a bottle of the IPA. In the past I wasn't very impressed with Captured by Porches, but it had been awhile since I had their beer, so this delicious bottle of Friday Rye gives me hope that they're moving onward and upward.