Roots' New Brews

Finally! Delicious and refreshing Calypso is back on tap at Roots. Light but not thin, flavored with Habanero peppers, it's a winner. If you didn't try it at the OBF, grab some now.

At the other end of the spectrum, Younger's Nightmare is on tap now also. Sold in 10 ounce goblets because of its 9% strength, it's a chewy imperial stout aged for a while in bourbon barrels. If that sounds good to you, this one won't disappoint you, it's wonderful. If it doesn't sound good, don't have one, because supposedly there are only two kegs of it.

More of Todd's Beers

Here we go with another installment of beery adventures that took place when my Texas friends were in town a couple weeks ago. In addition to the Isabelle Proximus that we opened July 4th, Todd also brought two more Lost Abbey beers from Port Brewing -- Inferno Ale and Moonlit Sessions Lager -- and a bottle of Russian River Supplication. We had a poker game/beer-tasting the night of July 1st, and those three California beers were supplemented by some Oregon heavy-hitters I'd been saving up to spring on Lee and Todd.

Here's what we passed around that evening:

• Russian River Supplication Batch 003: very sour; not so cherry; dry
• Deschutes Abyss 2008: dry, bitter, and awesome
• Lost Abbey Inferno: sweet like a strong Belgian; tasty
• Lucky Lab Pavlov's Imperial Stout: aged really well (in the fridge); smooth and dark
• Brett's homebrewed 2006 Belgian: delicious candy Belgian
• Hair of the Dog Fred from the Wood 2008: rich; strong alcohol; yeasty bitter edge
• Lost Abbey Moonlit Sessions Lager: black lager; smooth, chocolatey

A lot of work went into Supplication -- a brown ale with four different wild yeasts and bacilli, aged on sour cherries 14 months in pinot noir barrels, then bottle-conditioned -- but sadly all that work is wasted on those of us who haven't caught the sour-beer bug. It reminds me of this anecdote from the liner notes of a CD of Ligeti's Cello Concerto: "A number of the critics present [at the premiere] expressed surprise at the evident disproportion between the enormous difficulty of the work and ... the acoustic result". That's about how I feel about Supplication and Isabelle Proximus -- all that effort for just sourness. But Supplication does have its fans: here's a fresh blog entry (with nice photos) from someone who gets it.

The Lost Abbey beers on poker night were more to my liking. Inferno is in an abbey-style bottle with a champagne cork, but it didn't have that yeasty dubbel/tripel flavor; it seemed to me to be more in the Duvel family tree. The Moonlit Lager was a good poker-game beer; only 5% ABV but with a rich roasty flavor.

It was fun to rotate in the big Oregon beers also. I was happier with the Pavlov's than when I opened my other bottle of it six months ago. Brett's Belgian went over really well, and of course Fred from the Wood and Abyss are slam dunks any time. But the real Oregon success story was Dave's poker game. He was the only native at the table, and he took so much money from the Texans that he decided that Texas Hold'em should be called Oregon Hold'em from now on.

Thanks again to Todd and Andy for the California beers -- Lost Abbey and Russian River are hard for us to get here. And thanks to Brett for the awesome homebrew.

Isabelle Proximus

Our Texas buddy Todd -- well, he was in Portland for a year, now in Cleveland -- is becoming quite the beer geek, despite claiming an allergy to hops. First he goes to Boston and attends the American Craft Beer Fest; then he shows up on my doorstep with an armload of hard-to-find beers from Russian River and Port Brewing's Lost Abbey, courtesy of his friend Andy in LA.

Lindsey and Amy threw their traditional July 4th party, and Brett provided an excellent home-brewed Kolsch. The two five-gallon cans of it were exhausted in record time, which gave us an excuse to crack open Todd's bottle of barrel-aged Isabelle Proximus.

Isabelle Proximus is not simply a Lost Abbey product, but as the label says, an "Allaverdogportrush" ale -- a collaboration between five rock star brewmasters from Allagash, Avery, Dogfish Head, Port Brewing, and Russian River. Rob Tod, Adam Avery, Sam Calagione, Tomme Arthur, and Vinnie Cilurzo, respectively. Whew! That's some lineup. But from the outset there were two things working against this beer for me: first, it's a recently-released bottle-conditioned ale that most aficionados would cellar for awhile before opening; second, with its combination of wild yeasts and other fermenting beasties, it's going to be intensely sour. I reserve the right to one day acquire a taste for sour beers, but it hasn't happened yet.

We shared it around in one or two glasses; it looked right in a Saison Dupont glass that Lindsey had, more or less the same light-golden color as a saison. And, not surprisingly, it was extremely sour, so much so that I can't think of any other description of the flavor. There were no spoiled or medicinal flavors; it wasn't cloying; no hop or fruit flavor... just tartness. It was a big hit with sour-Belgian fans like Corey and Adam, who intoned in solemn Mayor Quimby voices "This is a fine bee-yuh." That is, if intoning is something you do over and over.

One interesting insight was from Tave, who I've known since we were both in the Peace Corps years ago in the West African country of Mali. "It's like dolo," she said -- traditional Malian millet beer. When I've tried to explain millet beer to people, I usually compare it to Bavarian hefeweizens: cloudy and yeasty, a little tart. But Tave is onto something by associating it with sour Belgian-style ale: dolo is fermented in open cauldrons, so at least some of its fermentation is likely due to wild yeasts. You drink it fresh, at room temperature -- which is admittedly somewhat higher than the temperature of a Belgian cellar -- and there are assuredly no hops in it.

So there you go -- some people pay $40 for a bottle of aged sour beer, some people pay a few cents for a fresh gourd of it. If you like a well-made wild ale that is going to age well for many years, Isabelle Proximus is for you. It's not really my cup of tea, but I sure am glad to have gotten a taste of a beer with such an interesting parentage. Salut to Todd and to Andy for generously providing the bottle!

A Visit to Hair of the Dog

Hair of the Dog is less than two miles from my house, but somehow I never make it over to their Earth Day open house events, despite years of good intentions. I didn't even make it to FredFest there a couple weeks ago. But as luck would have it, Carla and I got in on a pizza-and-beer night at Hair of the Dog last Saturday. It was a benefit for our daughter's school -- also attended by owner Alan Sprints' kids -- that our friends David and Beverly were alert enough and thoughtful enough to reserve us a place at.

The pizza was gourmet, prepared in a mobile brick oven by Alan's brother-in-law Mark -- who also does awesome brick oven pita bread and sandwiches at the downtown farmer's market. But I don't want to talk about the pizza, I want to talk about the beer. Look at those taps, is that a thing of beauty or what? It's getting less rare to find Blue Dot around Portland on tap, and Greg is usually on at Higgins, but check out the lineup here (from left to right):

• Jim 2007 (a blend of barrel-aged and fresh HotD beers)
• Fred from the Wood (barrel-aged Fred)
• Adam
• Doggie Claws (this one made with cherry-blossom honey)
• Fred
• Blue Dot
• Greg
  

Any one of these would put a smile on your face. All of them flowing freely made for a very enjoyable evening.

Fred from the Wood was the definite standout. Everyday Fred is already a delicious, strong Belgian-y ale. The barrel-aged Fred just turned it up another notch -- smoother, stronger, with more different flavors swirling around. It was startlingly foamy coming out of the tap, filling most of a small beer flute with head, but the head quickly -- in seconds -- turned into delicious nectar. I was glad to see that there were still some bottles of FftW for sale, $7/bottle or $140/case. There was a bit of mirth as we stood near a pallet of Fred from the Wood cases, and the less beer-fanatical members of our party guessed what a case would sell for: $25? $50? Hmm... $75?

The Doggie Claws made with cherry-blossom honey was another nice surprise, the holiday-season barleywine with extra honey/cherry sweetness. And Alan sampled out a Flemish Brown ale that's so new it hasn't been named yet. A little bit of those sour beers goes a long way with me, but if that's your cup of tea, this is one to keep an eye on: it was crisp and clean, not menacingly sour like some of them are.

For dessert, Alan did his science fair trick of making fast-frozen ice cream with liquid nitrogen. Not the Fred sherbet described recently by John Foyston -- it was chocolate raspberry with a little Adam for flavor. Dramatic, delicious, and a real time-saver.

This gathering was my chance to ask Alan about the variations I sometimes see in the Greg on tap at Higgins. He expressed surprise, saying that in his experience of keeping a keg on tap at the brewery, that it changed very little over time, and that he thought the batches were pretty consistent. He did say that he used a lighter malt this year than last, and indeed the Greg at the brewery was lighter in color and body than most of the pints I've had at Higgins.

It was a great evening; I'm glad I finally made the pilgrimage. Thanks to Alan and Eliana for putting on the event and supporting our beleaguered public schools!

Barleywine Festival 2008

Dave and I beat the rush yesterday and showed up right at the opening of the Lucky Lab's Barleywine and Big Beer Festival. That made it a much more relaxed tasting than last year's -- no waiting in line, no shortages, and a chance to shoot the breeze with the brewers and other diehards. The Quimby Street pub was mostly empty. Many of the patrons were just there for lunch and hardly seemed to notice the treasure trove of gigantic beers available to them.

I had been eagerly anticipating another shot at the Caldera Russian Imperial Stout. It didn't disappoint: the 2005 was delicious, with some kind of nutmeg flavor to it; the 2004 (according to the taps -- the menu said 2003) reminded me in a good way of this year's barrel-aged Top Sail. The texture was really interesting on the 2004 -- lots of tiny bubbles, almost like nitro bubbles, but fizzier -- whereas the 2005 had almost no carbonation. No matter, the 2005 was just beautiful, one of my top 3 for the day. Dave described it as "chocolate steak milkshake". Neither one of us is really ready to write for Wine Spectator. If you ever see this on tap someplace, please leave a comment.

My very favorite beer of the day was Terminal Gravity's 2005 Barleywine. It was unmistakably a barleywine, plus an extra helping of floral hops. The hops were balanced with just the right amount of sweetness, and there was a good wallop of medicine in there too: 13.1% ABV. It was a beautiful thing.

A nice surprise was the Fort George 2007 Sistine Chapel Imperial IPA. This got listed on the "big beer" side of the menu because of its name, but it looked like a barleywine, and smelled like a barleywine, and tasted just exactly like a barleywine, so let's call it a barleywine. I can see the temptation to call it an IPA, because it was very hoppy, but it was hardly alone in that regard. The Chapel has a very beautiful perfumed hop flavor that went well with the strength and sweetness. 2007 was a great year for new breweries in Oregon: Fort George is definitely one to keep an eye on. Makes me want to head out to Astoria.

On the flip-side of the Barleywine/IPA coin, Full Sail's Old Boardhead was definitely more like an IPA than a barleywine. There was something really strange about this beer: at first it was one of the best, but it got worse as it warmed up, which is not the way things usually work for me. First taste, it was very hoppy: flowery hops at first, becoming bitter for a nice long finish. Later, there was only a kind of dry bitterness, and the long finish was more like a bad aftertaste. Moral: drink it fast.

There were quite a few beers that we didn't get around to, and a few that hadn't been tapped yet. Of the ones we tried, here are my notes on the ones I liked, in order of preference (though the Full Sail would have ranked 4th if the flavor had held up):

• Terminal Gravity: 2005 Barleywine: floral, balanced with sweet
• Caldera: 2005 Russian Imperial Stout: nutmeg, delicious, flat
• Fort George: 2007 Sistine Chapel IIPA: barleywine-ish, nice floral hops
• Caldera: 2004 Russian Imperial Stout: lots of tiny bubbles; like Top Sail
• Lucky Lab: 2005 Old Yeller: maple, bitter and good, better and better
• Deschutes: 2005 Mirror-Mirror: stronger? [than listed 9.2%], tasty
• Walking Man: 2007 Old Stumblefoot: good, sweet and bitter
• Sierra Nevada: 2004 Bigfoot: nicely done
• Lucky Lab: 2002 Old Yeller: maple, a little funky
• Rogue: 2004 Old Crustacean: super hoppy, nice
• Great Divide: 2007 Old Ruffian: so-so at first, gets better as it warms, quite nice
• Stone: 2006 Old Guardian: purty good
• Full Sail: 2006 Old Boardhead: hoppy, flower becoming bitter; warming up didn't help
  

I'll mention a couple of oddities that didn't make it into the rankings. New Old Lompoc sent over a 1998 Tavern Rat -- yes, 10 years old. You know, it tasted pretty good for being that old, though it was totally flat. It really looked like a glass of sherried whisky, like a Macallan cask strength. I also tried something from a brewery I'd never heard of before, located in a town I'd never heard of before: Laht Neppur, from Waitsburg, WA. Their 2006 Barleywine wasn't quite up to the competition, but I'll definitely check out their pub if I ever find myself out Walla Walla way.

Incidental Contents Are Not Intended for Consumption

When I conceived my prank, it came with a good blog-post title: "Nobody Wants My Collectible Bottle". But then someone out-pranked me and actually bid on the empty bottle of Abyss that I listed on Ebay for $15 plus $10 shipping and handling.

Like many other beer mavens, I was not pleased to see people scalping bottles of the Abyss on Ebay or craigslist. The scalper hasn't done anything of value, he's just rushed out and bought up something that would be valuable to someone else, but isn't to him. Then, because Ebay doesn't want people selling alcohol, the scalper adds insult to injury with the following boilerplate required by Ebay:

• The value of the item is in the collectible container, not its contents.

• The container has not been opened and any incidental contents are not intended for consumption.

• The item is not available at any retail outlet, and the container has a value that substantially exceeds the current retail price of the alcohol in the container.

There's no way you could believe that was true, especially since the Ebay sellers all proclaim the excellence of the top-ranked Imperial Stout in their descriptions of the bottles for sale. It's a measure of the malaise we've fallen into, that people will tell any lie for convenience, no matter how obviously false it is. As a beer fan, I'm annoyed by beer scalping; you can understand why brewer Tomme Arthur takes it more personally when someone says his beer is worth less than its bottle and is not intended for consumption.

Anyway, when I saw bottles of the Abyss going for $40-$45 under the premise that it was the bottle that was valuable, I decided I would auction the empty bottle pictured above, just to point out the ludicrousness of the "incidental contents" claims. Here's the text of the auction:

You are bidding on an EMPTY bottle!!!

Since Ebay does not permit the sale of alcoholic beverages, I drank the contents of this collectible 2007 Abyss bottle before listing it for auction. If you win the auction, I will ship you the empty collectible bottle, plus the collectible wax-covered bottlecap, plus a couple bits of collectible wax that broke off when I removed the bottlecap.

Other collectible Abyss bottles have sold this year for as much as $45 apiece!!! Of course, those were unopened collectible bottles that contained an alcoholic beverage. When you buy this EMPTY collectible Abyss bottle, you can buy with the confidence that you're buying from someone who plays by the rules, and you get the satisfaction of knowing how much I enjoyed drinking this delicious Imperial Stout.

Good Luck!

I thought it would be good for a laugh, and that I would get a blog article out of it with the title I mentioned. Late Thursday evening, I noticed that the auction had caught someone's eye, because the number of people who had viewed the auction suddenly jumped into the hundreds. Turns out someone had pointed it out in a ratebeer forum, and someone else on Beer Advocate. I started to get questions about the item:

Q: How many bits of wax will you be including? I'm trying to decide if it's really worth it. :) - Bob

A: Hi Bob! There are a two little chunks that broke off when I opened the bottle. One is about the size of a toenail clipping, the other is smaller, maybe fingernail clipping size. Don't forget that there is still a scab-sized chunk of wax adhering to the bottle cap. Enjoy :-)

---

Q: Hi- I'm excited about this item!!! This is less than half price from those other items. My question: It's nice to see someone that plays by the rules, but isn't the S&H a bit over priced as the weight won't include the contents?:-( cheers, john

A: Good point. I just put what Ebay said UPS ground would cost. I'll negotiate something reasonable with the winner.

---

Q: Can you guarantee there's no beer - no bits of yeast sticking to the bottom, no sludgy stuff up the sides? I'd hate for there to be any yukky beer stuff ruining a good looking bottle ;-)

A: Oh, I drank every single drop. Even when the bottle looked empty, I laid down with it on the couch for a couple of hours to make sure every bit went into my mouth.

---

Q: Hi there, I was wondering if you could post a picture of the wax shards. Are all shards still intact or are a few missing? What is the condition of the bottle cap? Did you use a quarter on top while prying it off it ensure it stays in M10+ condition?

A: I understand your concern, since the wax on this bottle was rated the best bottle wax in the world by the Men's Journal. I tried to preserve it all, but there could be some missing molecules. Sadly, I didn't do the quarter trick when opening the bottle. I was in a big hurry to pour myself a glass. So I can't guarantee the excellence of the bottlecap.

Then, horror of horrors, someone actually bid on it. Now I really have to rinse the bottle out, and find a box, and, and -- please, no! -- go to the post office and mail it! My interest was piqued a little to see that the bidder's Ebay ID was "ftommearthur". Wow! It looks like Tomme Arthur liked my little joke and decided to throw some fuel on the fire. Hey, maybe instead of cash, he'll pay me with some "incidental liquids" from his brewery. But what's the "F" for? Is his legal name F. Tomme Arthur? Or is this someone else, the Female Tomme Arthur perhaps? Ah, probably someone just pranking me back -- with no intention of paying -- and yanking Tomme's chain at the same time.

That would be great, I wouldn't have to journey into the scary UPS office. But, no such luck. Paypal "You've got cash!"-ed me the morning after the auction closed. Aha! Some guy in Vermont, definitely not the California brewer. Oh well, the "ftommearthur" moniker at least indicated he was in on the joke, and wasn't some poor sap who thought he was -- wink, wink, nudge, nudge -- bidding on a full bottle. Here's how he explained himself in an email:

Thanks Bill. Just trying to further the entertainment / discussion from the BA "*&^% eBay" thread. Didn't work. In any case I thought your auction deserved a bid for its satirical / comedy value. You made a good point. For the record I too detest the eBay beer profiteering. Looking forward to my wax shards...

/Cedar

Luckily, I had been careful to safely stash away the promised bottlecap and bits of wax, otherwise I'd have to drink another bottle of incidental non-collectible stout.

I don't think I'm cut out for this Ebay thing. UPS charged me $13.59 for shipping (including $2.70 "Rural Surcharge", for the Vermont end), and Ebay invoiced me $1.39. My laziness caused me to pay another $5.65 to UPS to pack it all up for me. Suddenly $15 + $10 shipping looks like quite a bargain! There go my hopes for getting rich by drinking beer... unless... maybe someone wants to buy a set of 3 collectible bottles. Empty, of course.

Set Sail for the Pilsner Room

Since the Hawthorne Bridge is the center of the Pub Night universe, it's about time I got around to writing about the Pilsner Room, the taproom for Full Sail's Portland brewery. After all, you can see the bridge from there, and it's a nice destination if you're on a bicycle, with easy access from Waterfront Park (which also means it's within stumbling distance of the Oregon Brewers Festival). I practically lived there last October because of brewer John Harris' magnificent Lupulin Fresh Hop Ale. So I'll take advantage of writing up Thursday night's tasting of barrel-aged porters and stouts to extol the virtues of the Pilsner Room.

The McCormick and Schmick's restaurant attached to the Pilsner Room provides a menu that's better than the usual pub fare, with good prices at lunch and super-cheap ones at happy hour. There are lots of 2- and 4-seat dining tables -- even more outside in good weather -- and plenty of room at the bar if you're on a solo mission or you just need to be close to the beer. The selection is fabulous: about 10 house brews, 3 cask engines, and another 10 guest taps. Besides the mainstream Full Sail repertoire -- and excellent seasonals like the Slipknot IPA -- there are always three or four rarities from the adjoining brewery, like the doppelbock, or the delicious Belgian dubbel. The guest taps are nicely done, with an interesting variety of quality beers. It always makes me happy to see an out-of-the-ordinary Hale's on tap -- it's the Wee Heavy right now. It's also sporting of them to always keep one of the engines stocked with a guest cask: a Double Mountain Red Ale was on cask Thursday, and I've seen Hopworks and (I think) Ninkasi casks.

Now, about those dark beers. Each year, the brewery takes a portion of their Top Sail Imperial Porter or Black Gold Imperial Stout, whichever they brewed that year, and ages it in bourbon barrels for nine or ten months. Thursday evening they trotted out three different examples: this year's aged Top Sail, a Black Gold from 2006, and a pre-Top Sail Imperial Porter from 2004. The year refers to when they were taken out of the oak, they were brewed the year before.

I don't know who started this scheme of aging stouts in bourbon casks, but it seems to be growing in popularity. My first encounter with it was a bourbon-aged KGB Stout that I had at Widmer's Gasthaus sometime in 2004. This year they're breaking out all over. John Foyston, the beer writer at the Oregonian, pointed out four different barrel-aged releases -- some stouts, some barleywines, some in whiskey barrels, some in wine -- in the space of a couple of weeks. And of course there's Epic and the infamous Abyss. Many of these are blends of aged and fresh beer. As far as I can tell from the Full Sail propaganda, the ones we had Thursday are just the straight-up aged item.

The usual Pub Nighters couldn't make the Full Sail matinee, so I was left on my own for this tasting. Fortunately, there was a friendly and sophisticated crowd sitting at the bar to ooh and ahh over the beers with. These were luscious, tasty brews. The 2004 porter tasted strongly of bourbon -- which could have turned out badly, but didn't. It also had a very strong chocolate taste, again, in a good way. The literature says it's 7.4% ABV; it tasted stronger than that to me, comparable to the 10% of the other two beers. I was pretty sure this was my favorite of the three, but the 2006 stout kept growing on me until I thought maybe that was my favorite. The 2006 was smooth and delicious, with that hint of minty flavor that so many good stouts have. Though the bourbon flavor wasn't as pronounced as with the 2004, it did add a nice touch to a very well-rounded beer. You can't really fault the 2008 porter for coming in third place to its accomplished older siblings. The flavor seemed milder than that of the 2004, and its lighter body made me think "cola". Still a mighty fine porter; I'm going to leave my bottle of it in the fridge for a while to see how it develops.

Barleywine Notes from Last Year

Going through a bunch of paperwork and mail that had piled up on my desk for a year or so, I found the program from 2007's Barleywine and Big Beer Fest at the Lucky Lab. Actually the program calls it a "Tastival". Let's hope people stop using that word this year. I wasn't blogging at the time, but I scribbled my usual short and incoherent notes on the program. It's alarming how many of these huge beers I claim to have tasted -- we must have been sharing sips around the table, which I think consisted of Lindsey, Corey, Brett, and me.

Anyway, since this year's Ta... Festival is about a month away, and since I was just gushing about Old Yeller, it was interesting to look at the old notes. Indeed, Old Yeller seems to have been a favorite, given these remarks:

• Lucky Lab: 2002 Old Yeller: Textbook. Nice.
  
• Lucky Lab: 2004 Old Yeller: Better. Coffee/Chocolate.
• ...
  
• Terminal Gravity: 2005 Barleywine: Best so far. Oops, Lucky Lab better.

But it looks like I changed my mind at least one more time. The only entry I put a star beside was:

• Rogue: 2004 Old Crustacean: Good stuff. Hops & brown sugar.

I'm guessing the star means it was my favorite, but there's no guarantee. In fact, my memory was that the Pelican Grand Cru was the beer that impressed me the most that day. Other beers that made a favorable impression were:

• Anderson Valley: 2006 Beer of the Horn: Yes. But very sweet.
• Raccoon Lodge: 2005 Barrel-Aged Old Yarleywine: Good. [Crossed out: "Textbook."]
• Sierra Nevada: 2004 Bigfoot: Nice hoppy.
• Sierra Nevada: 2005 Bigfoot: Ditto.
• Tuck's: 2005 Glutius Maximus Barleywine: Good.
• Caldera: 2003 Russian Imperial Stout: Good times.
• Caldera: 2005 Russian Imperial Stout: Better times. Spiced.
• Lagunitas: 2005 Brown Shugga: Better than fresh.
• Pelican: 2006 Grand Cru: Very nice. Dark color. Tasty.

Mmmm... Caldera. As we were sipping Abyss last week, Dave and I were reminiscing about Caldera Imperial Stout. Sometime in 2004 we discovered that delicious thing on tap at William's on 12th, a bistro in the neighborhood that has since closed down. It was the first I'd heard of Caldera, but what a great way to get introduced. The imperial stout was so delicious, pitch black, with a big, dark head. Anyway, the other day we were trying to remember how well it would compare with Abyss -- pretty well, I suspect. A couple years of it are on the list for this year's Festival, I can't wait to refresh my memory.

Old Yeller

Since I had some free time this evening, I decided to participate in The Session, which is a kind of synchronized blogging where a bunch of beer bloggers write on the same subject. This month's topic is barleywines, so naturally I strolled down to the Lucky Labrador for a sample of Old Yeller.

When Carla and I were first married, she sometimes made fun of my habit of sleeping with a pillow between my legs. (It's good for your back.) Her enjoyment only increased when she discovered that it wasn't just any pillow that I needed, but the same old dilapidated pillow every night. At some point that pillow had a yellow pillowcase on it that didn't match any of the rest of our linen, and she began to taunt me: "Where's Old Yeller? I haven't seen Old Yeller tonight."

So I would have a soft spot for the Lucky Lab's barleywine just because of the name, even if it wasn't so delicious. This really is a masterful beer, one of their best. Like most barleywines, you get plenty of the strong alcohol bite. Also true to form, it is very sweet, in this case with a serious brown sugar flavor. But it's so chewy, extremely well-balanced, and so long, that it's really something special. You usually want to drink big beers like this pretty close to room temperature to get the most flavor, but even cold out of the tap Old Yeller doesn't disappoint.

To make this session more scientific, I headed over to the Green Dragon to see if they had a barleywine on tap. Turns out they had two of them, Mad River's John Barleycorn, and the classic American barleywine, Anchor's Old Foghorn. These were both strong, tasty, sweet brews, but tonight they lost out to Old Yeller. Neither of them had the complexity of malt flavor that Old Yeller had. I'd say the John Barleycorn was the more flavorful of the two, but the Old Foghorn was a smooth, very well done beer.

That was also a trip down memory lane for me. There was a time when you could go into Austin's Dog and Duck pub on pint night, and they would pour you an imperial pint of Old Foghorn for $2. I'm not sure if it was only some of the bartenders that would do that for you, or if they decided whether a patron could handle it on a case-by-case basis, but I do know I wasn't the only poor slacker to take advantage of that largesse. It's nice to see that the pioneering done by Anchor long ago has inspired a new generation of brewers to come up with their own take on barleywines.

On a final note, it's ironic that I'm writing for the barleywine session on the first Friday in February. The first Friday in March, there will be a Barleywine Festival at the Lucky Lab's Quimby Street location.

The Abyss

Man, this is a good beer. Deschutes' Abyss Imperial Stout has the heartiness you want in a stout, plus some extra flavor and strength, all kept in balance to make it easy to drink. And the flavor just stays on your tongue. The label could scare you away: "Brewed with licorice and molasses". Whatever licorice is in there just gives a nice edge to the bitterness, without becoming the predominant flavor. There's Dave next door busting the myth that light can shine right through the Abyss.

Last year, there seemed to be plenty of this goodness to go around. At least, Dave always seemed to pull one more bottle out of the fridge. This year, the hype got out of control, and if you didn't have cat-like reflexes -- or have a neighbor with cat-like reflexes -- then you didn't get any. It sold out in about three days, despite the $10 price tag per 22 oz. bottle. I would like to think that it was the GABF gold medal that caused all the hype, but my fear is that the hype came from the "Best Stout in the World" label pinned on it by the tastemeisters at the Men's Journal.

It's even appeared on Ebay already -- sorry, not the beer, just the unopened collectible bottles, since Ebay doesn't generally allow sales of alcohol. [Update: the bottle in the link went for $21.50 plus $10 shipping. The most egregious sales were done with Ebay's "Buy it Now" feature: I counted 8 bottles that went for $45-$50 each plus $10 shipping (assuming they needed to be shipped).] Oh, great, is beer going the way of concert tickets? The day it's released you jockey for a few bottles; if you're lucky you pay a "convenience fee" to get the beers you want; otherwise, you pay a king's ransom to a beer broker who was clever enough to snarf up the bottles. I like the wife-proof packaging of Abyss, but it's really a stretch to say that some wax on top of the bottlecap makes it collectible. Laurelwood's Olde Reliable Barleywine has wax on it; Lucky Lab's Pavlov's Russian Imperial Stout has wax on it, are those bottles collectible? They even look cooler than the Abyss bottle. Are they being scalped on Ebay? Nope.

Speaking of Pavlov's, Dave and I cracked a bottle of that right after the Abyss. Of course, that's a tough act to follow, but we found the Pavlov's to be a little too sweet, almost syrupy, and not very long in the finish. On the plus side, there are a lot of interesting flavors. Even though it didn't compare favorably to the wonderfully balanced Abyss, it would probably make a good dessert beer after a hearty meal.

More about Epic

Well, after carping in the last entry about the dart board location at Roots, Dave and I were lucky enough to waltz in for pub night Tuesday evening and get the table under the dartboard. We must be living right. I still wish they had a better location for it.

Dave had the upper hand at darts, but it's hard not to be content with pints of Festivus and a glass of Epic on the table. Turns out the Epic that's on tap right now is not the one brewed and bottled this season, it's the 2006 Epic. I just assumed it would be the new one: thanks to Lindsey for being sharp-eyed enough to figure that one out. Does that mean the Epic they were pouring last year was a year old -- the 2005? We must be living right to have a place like Roots in town.

Carla bought me one of the huge jeroboams of the 2006 last year for my 40th birthday. That's a perfect gift: something I'll open to great fanfare in a few years, but which I never would have bought myself. I remember trying to haggle the price down on the last 2005 Epic jeroboam as it sat on the bar week after week, but they wouldn't budge and I'm too cheap. Interestingly, that 2005 bottle has reappeared on the bar recently, but Jim the bartender says the brewers disagree on whether it was handled carefully enough to still be good. I hope basement storage is careful enough for my 2006. The one that's on tap right now is tasty indeed: smooth and very sweet, with flavors like maple and cherry. I don't really keep mine behind the shovels.

A jeroboam holds 3 liters according to the Internet. The label on this one says 95.4 fluid ounces, which is less than 3 liters, but I'm not complaining. It's still going to take a lot of help to empty that sucker. This year's Epic is bottled in 1.5 liter magnums. That's a good idea, it cuts the price in half (to $40), it's easier to store, it's easier to use up when you eventually open it. Still, the jeroboams were quite a statement -- 10 out of 10 for style, as Zaphod Beeblebrox said. You've got to admire the audacity of it.

Winter Beers at Roots

If the Portland winter weather is getting you down, what better to pick you back up than a Portland winter beer? And why not go for something that's so over-the-top, so je-ne-sais-quoi, so what-the-hell-were-they-thinking that you can only get it at your friendly neighborhood brewpub?

By now you realize I'm talking about Roots' Epic Ale. The malt for this beer is smoked over cherrywood soaked in Glenlivet (in Craig's backyard, if I recall correctly), presumably while the brewers smoke cigars they lit with hundred-dollar bills. Dark, smoky, with tons of malt, tons of hops, tons of alcohol (14%), it still manages to be smooth and drinkable. Aged a little in oak.... Truly one-of-a-kind.

Of course, you're not going to drink more than one Epic at a time, so there are a couple more cold-weather seasonals available. Festivus has the characteristic Roots flavor: if you like Roots Island Red, Festivus is like a bigger, darker version of that. They're also pouring a Milk Stout which doesn't really float my boat, but the Imperial Stout is always a winner.

Rumor has it that the brewers burned out last year on the "Six beers of Christmas" quest, and they won't be repeating it this year. Too bad, the Wee Heavy last year was one of the best beers I've ever had. It wasn't as insane and unique as Epic, but it was a beautiful, well-rounded beer. If I remember correctly, a Belgian Trippel was the 6th beer last year; it was good, but not outstanding (maybe a little out of character for Roots).