The other day Dave invited me over to help out with a growler of delicious Omegatex IPA he'd brought back from a visit to Fort George. "We also checked out this new brewpub in Astoria called Buoy." In my Omegatex-addled bliss I was hearing that as "Bowie", like how Texans pronounce "Bowie knife", or how George Clinton pronounces "David Bowie" at about 3:00 in Make My Funk the P. Funk, until he showed me the logo with an ocean buoy on it. I used to be so good at keeping up with new breweries, but I had never heard of this one.
A couple days later I was reading about the OBG's Malt Ball, which included a beer from another Oregon brewery I had never heard of: Claim 52 in Eugene. It made me think that there is almost an A-Z of Oregon breweries that are so new that I haven't tried their beer yet. That's a bit of a stretch, but let's try and come up with an alphabet of Oregon breweries that have opened in... oh, the last three years (so that we can at least get through the letter G).
I'll get it started, please help me out with the rest, since I'm obviously no longer keeping up with current events, or even past events [Thanks to commenters for J-O, R-U. And for telling us that apparently Yachats and Zigzag are on the way!]:
Wow, that list is very Eugene-heavy. Is Eugene the next Bend? Is Ninkasi the beer that made Eugene famous?
One-day only special: If you happen to be reading this today, March 13, 2014, you can meet the brewers from letters A and P tonight at the White Owl Social Club (SE 8th and Main Street, just down the street from my house).
[Editor's Note: I'm still out of town, but my neighbor Dave was kind enough to reconnoiter the NAOBF at Overlook Park for me yesterday. Thanks, Dave! These are his notes from the festival.]
2011 NAOBF...not alphabetized! No discernable order, either; some breweries' offerings were yards from each other. All of the beers were served cold: some benefited from this, others needed significant time to warm up to be properly enjoyed. Warmer weather will hopefully shorten the wait. The venue was identical to previous years. Perfect weather Friday; no rain and nice sun breaks without getting too hot. Our favorite aspect of this festival is the amount of space for the crowd -- there is always some open grass for the kids to run around and get their ya-yas out.
Picks:
AmbachtGolden Rye Farmhouse - Very nice; the rye adds a malty body to carry the spice flavors
American BrewingHop, Skip, and Go Natural Pale Ale - This was my first exposure to this new brewery and I was pleasantly surprised. While billed as a Pale Ale, my notes categorized it as an IPA. It appears that the brewmaster comes to ABC via Boundary Bay and Water Street Brewing...it all makes sense now.
Elliot BayBlack Ops CDA - Nice representation of a CDA, though I'm still working towards a full understanding of the style. This one reminded me of HUB's Secession Ale; somewhat dry with some coffee flavors floating around.
Elliot BayDemolition Strong Pale Ale - Nice beer...lots of complexity that borders on muddiness. With 6 malts and 6 hops in the ingredients list and some additional dry-hopping, makes me wonder if they were cleaning house or going for a record of some sort. Nonetheless, a tasty beer.
Fort GeorgeQuick Wit - Nice sessionable Wit, perfect for a sunny day.
Fort GeorgeSpruce Budd Ale - Well done non-hopped beer! I can't say I picked up on the spruce flavors...another summery sessionable beer from Fort George...I'd guess that both will be quite popular at the fest if the weather gets warmer.
HopworksGalactic Imperial Red - Had to get it (twice), even though I've already consumed a gallon or two from the pub and bottles. I'm disqualifying it as a ringer...and making plans to get more.
LogsdonSeizoen Bretta - Co-winner of the CTBBF; working towards giving sour beers a good name.
LompocNotorious IPA - Nice clean IPA after the wall-of-sound from Elliot Bay. Good floral hoppiness with crisp bitter finish...could have used a touch more malt to balance it out.
WidmerCrunchy Dude Pale - tasty; the fruit in the granola contributes to the nose but stays in the backgound on the tongue. Nice creamy body from the oats.
Pans:
BeetjeTonic 42 Saison - Just okay; a little bland for a Saison. The description states a 5 liter/day allocation...4 ounces was plenty.
BisonHoney Basil Ale - I didn't actually taste this, but heard it described as "drinking pickles"
Fish BrewingIPA - Reinforced my general ambivilance towards Fish...drinkable, but nothing to set it apart from the Alameda or Eel River IPA's.
McMenaminsOak Hills Kolsch - Bad example of a Kolsch...thin and watery, no spice.
Terminal GravityPale Ale- "a lot of malt flavor" must be a relative term...not one of my favorites from a very competent brewery.
Other notes:
AlamedaEl Torero IPA - Heard some buzz in the crowd, and have heard some raves around town about Alameda...I just don't see it. My scale might be off, but it's hard to believe this hits 110 IBU's.
Captured By Porches - Another brewery that I didn't sample, though not for lack of sort of trying. By the time I decided to take one for the team I couldn't find any of their offerings in the main tent. The program only described four different kombuchas, and none of them sounded very enticing.
Eel RiverIPA - Another indication that I may not be clued into what IBU's define...I found this to be a bit underwhelming for clocking in at 95.
Laht NeppurStrawberry Cream Ale - no direct experience; Jill snuck a taste and declared it to have a nice beer flavor and to not be scared by the name...the fruit is subtle and well-managed.
NatianCoDA CDA - This one is worth warming up a bit to bring the malt forward.
OakshireSubtext PNWR - Another one served too cold; gotta say it didn't open up like I thought it would. Overall, a nice balanced red with a dry finish.
OakshireTriple Bottom Line Belgian - NOT a Triple...just a Belgian Pale. I probably would have liked it more if I'd clued into that sooner.
UprightReggae Junkie Gruit - Another hopless beer; not bad, but the no-hop win goes to Fort George.
By most accounts this weekend's Portland Fruit Beer Festival was a raging success -- I'll address some of the gripes later in the post. Hats off to beer impresario Ezra Johnson-Greenough and the Burnside Brewing crew for hitting the ground running. I've been referring to this year's festival as the "first ever", since there was no telling whether it would succeed well enough to be repeated next year, but I guess I was too timid, because even the T-shirts at the festival proclaimed it to be the First Annual, and the tasting glasses staked out the territory of the 2nd weekend in June. Plans for next year involve closing the stretch of NE 7th adjacent to Burnside, doubling the square footage of the festival.
The beer highlights for me were:
Ninkasi Pinot Barrel-Aged Oatis with Cherries: beautiful taste of cherries, chocolate, and oak
Lompoc Cherry Fechter: classic cherry pie taste in a light ale; reminded me of Bridgeport's cherry Stumptown Tart or Upright's 2009 Four Play, high praise for me
Laurelwood Mango Mint Pale Ale: nicely balanced with a tiny hint of mint and a little whiff of mango
Hopworks Chupacabra Chile Stout: an instant classic, rich coffee stout with dark dried-chile notes but not too much heat
Breakside Brewer's Bramble: uniquely flavored amber ale, an homage to the gin cocktail called the Bramble
Block 15 Psidium Guava Farmhouse Ale: I went on and on about this tasty little number in my festival preview; brewer Nick Arzner was pouring his own brew Saturday afternoon
There were plenty of other enjoyable beers at the fest. Probably my biggest disappointment was the Widmer Raspberry-Hibiscus Gose. It wasn't bad -- and it was hands down the prettiest beer served -- but it wasn't quite what I wanted. I was thinking along the lines of the tarter Goses from Upright and Cascade, and I would have liked a little more grain backing up the giant dose of raspberries. Several people told me it was one of their favorites though, so take my review with a grain of salt.
The PFBF was also my first experience with pouring beer at a festival since I got my OLCC card a couple months ago. I had a great time pouring at the rare beer taps on Saturday during the quiet early hours, before passing the torch to Angelo and Margaret when the going got tough.
Some people who arrived late Saturday afternoon had a few complaints about the festival. It was very crowded by that time, and several of the beers had already run out: Alameda, Ninkasi, Breakside, Upright, and Fort George were early casualties. There was also some confusion about the rare-beer taps; the system was explained in the festival program, but apparently it could have been explained more clearly, or in bold-faced type or with better signage. Many people didn't understand that the beers rolled out two or three at a time, some on Saturday and some on Sunday, in a particular order but with no set schedule.
But these were minor hitches, and things were surprisingly well-organized -- including alphabetical order at the beer taps and a nice pint glass for samples -- for a first-time festival. It was better for the festival to run out of some beers than for it to lose a ton of money on its first outing, which was by no means an impossibility. Saturday's attendance of 2,600 people was higher than what the organizers expected for the entire weekend; Sunday's 1,200 people were just icing on the cake. Even though the lines got a little long the first day, it was nothing like, say, OBF lines, and they flowed pretty quickly, especially in the rare beer area. While I'm comparing the PFBF to other beer festivals, consider that all but one of the rare beers went for only $2 a sample -- compare that to the Portland International Brewfest, where you have a tough time finding something interesting for $2, and $5-$7 samples is not uncommon.
All in all, it was a very promising start for an exciting new festival. Check it out next year.
Had a great time Saturday at Hopworks for the 4th annual Portland Cheers to Belgian Beers festival. The upper parking lot was bustling with jovial beer drinkers, but it wasn't over-crowded like a couple of years ago when the Fresh Hop Festival was held at the same venue. The weather was just right, lines were never long, and as far as I know, there were no beer outages by the time I left about 4 PM. There was a nice variety of mostly good beers, tasty snacks in the $3-$6 range were served at the top of the lot, and alphabetical order was adhered to pretty closely. In short, it was everything you could hope for in a beer festival. Congratulations to Hopworks, the Oregon Brewers Guild, and everyone involved for a job well done.
There were 29 beers that used this year's prescribed Belgian yeast, and were thus eligible for the festival's People's Choice award (Kevin has a nicely formatted list of this year's beers). I got around to tasting fewer than half of the 29. My favorites, roughly in order:
Big Horse Cuvee de Ferme (Sour Saison/Golden blend): sour balanced well with malt, peachy notes. Grade: A
Upright Mingus and Monk (Farmhouse Brown): tart, cherry notes, with bitter finish. Grade: A
Green Dragon King Ghidorah (Biere de garde): funky and full-bodied with vanilla and banana notes. Grade: A
Widmer Biere de Table (Farmhouse Table Beer): very drinkable with light grassy, lemony flavors. Grade: A-
Oakshire La Ferme (Farmhouse Ale): nicely dry and citrusy, surprisingly bitter for 15 IBUs. Grade: B+
Pretty near everyone I talked to got the Widmer table beer as their first try, since it was a very tame 3% alcohol. Lots of people have noted a growing trend of trying to produce flavorful beers with lower alcohol levels. It's a worthy endeavor, and the Biere de Table was a great example of a light, refreshing, food-oriented beer. Along those lines, the 4.8% Tropisch Bruin from the Deschutes Bend brewery was also a pretty nice table beer, I'll give it a B grade. Cascade's Frite Galois was a 4.6% sour ale that had some nice flavors, but had a chalky finish that I didn't care for. It gets a B- from me.
I listed the Big Horse sour in first place above -- I thought it had the best-balanced combination of interesting flavors -- but as I left the festival I cast my ballot for the Upright Farmhouse Brown, partly out of personal loyalty to Corey and Alex, partly out of the calculation that I didn't want to risk sending the festival to Hood River next year. It wasn't much of a stretch, it was a fine beer. I also think that aging will make Mingus and Monk into an even nicer beer than it was Saturday, and I suspect that Alex will oblige us by bringing a little out at a time as the months go by.
In fact, a lot of the beers at the festival would probably benefit from a few months' aging: I especially thought that the Oakshire and Green Dragon entries were not yet at their best. It was kind of a common refrain in talking to people about the beers -- "I'd like to try this again in a few months". Talking to Derek and Josh at the festival, they had the idea that this year's winner should announce next year's yeast immediately to give brewers more time for experimenting and aging. One of them even proposed scheduling out the yeast several years ahead of time, but I'm not sure the brewers are taking the event quite as seriously as the rest of us are.
To fill in some of the gaps I left in the list, and for valuable second opinions, check out the writeups by other Portland bloggers: Dr. Wort, Derek, Jeff, Angelo, Brady.
Update: The People's Choice winner has been announced: Block 15 Ferme de Demons Black Saison. Congratulations, Block 15! Definitely one of the most creative breweries in the state, though I'll admit that Ferme de Demons was one of my least favorites of the festival. Now the big question is, where will the CtBB be held in 2011?
Friday evening Carla and I made an accidental stop at the Cheese Bar, a new, uh, cheese bar at about 60th and Belmont. I had heard about the place, and we happened to pass it after two different moviegoing plans fell through. It filled the bill perfectly for us: we needed a light dinner, and I needed another taste of Upright's Oyster Stout since I had given away the first bottle I bought and Beermongers was sold out when I checked there. Actually, that's kind of funny: in addition to beer bars and cheesemongers, Portland also has a cheese bar and a beermonger.
As the name indicates, the main attraction of the Cheese Bar is its dairy case, with a hand-picked selection of artisan cheeses from around the world. You can buy cheese to go, or sit at the bar or one of the five or six tables and enjoy a small snack. But the Cheese Bar also has a nice selection of beers -- 6 taps and about 30 bottles. The space is nice, it's a comfortable place to hang out in, especially if you can get a table (it's a little hectic to sit at the bar). After our oyster stout, we split a pint of the nice Chinook Single-Hopped IPA from Terminal Gravity. There's a lower "take-home" price on the beer bottles, though I'm pretty sure the prices are higher than those at most bottle shops and groceries in the area.
Let's talk about those prices. Some of them are a little high -- $4.30 for a 12-ounce Terminal Gravity ESG?!? -- but some of them are almost charitable: $2.70 for a Firestone Walker Pale Ale. Hold on a second, on further reflection the problem is that the beer prices are just weird. Take a look at the "here" prices on the menu below. There are 25 beers on that side of the menu, and 19 different prices! That's pretty delicate bookkeeping. The take-home discount also varies from beer to beer, it's either $1, $1.50, or $2; that doesn't make a damn bit of sense. Some order to the listing would be nice also, if not by style, then good old American alphabetical order.
The food prices are on the high side, for example $8 for the daily cheese plate with three small tranches of cheese, or $9 for the charcuterie sampler, but those are kind of typical for Portland, and not unreasonable considering the quality and uniqueness of the meats and cheeses. On the other hand, the menu also has a $6 sandwich and a $4 salad (exact ingredients change day by day), so there is a way to economize. That is, unless you're an unfortunate wine drinker: wine bottles are mostly about $35, within a range from $20 to $80. And the only by-the-glass price on the printed menu is $10, though maybe they have some daily specials.
I have two gripes about the food at the Cheese Bar. First, the sample plates come with 4 little coins of dried-up bread -- excuse me, crostini -- which is not really enough to do the job. Each additional order of 4 crostini is $1, which is quite simply a laughable price for something so small, hard, and flavorless. A better option would be to offer a couple of choices of baguette or roll; heck, if you want people to buy more $30/pound cheese or meat snacks, just give them some bread for free, and don't bother drying it out first.
My second issue with the food sounds a little silly, but it will be familiar to beer fans: the cheese is served too cold. Like good beer, you want to taste the flavors in your good cheese, but that means it can't be right out of the fridge. You could sit there a while and let it warm up, but that kind of goes against the owner's stated goal of a place to have a quick bite, shop for some cheese, and be on your way. I don't know if there's really a solution to that problem: of course they need to keep their perishable wares cold. Maybe some portions of the daily special could be kept out at room temperature during busy times, or the cheese could be served on a warm plate.
The place is pretty new, so maybe some of the pricing issues will get tweaked as they go. It is a nice place, and definitely worth a visit, especially if you get a hankering for some cheesy comestibles. By the way, I was hoping to be the first to report the factoid that it's a favorite hangout of Oregon Brewers Guild CEO Brian Butenschoen, but Portland Monthly stole my scoop in their review.
The Fred Meyers on Hawthorne seems to think that Blue Dot and Blue Moon have something in common. They shelved them right next to each other. I'm as big a fan of alphabetical order as anyone, but this is taking it too far.
At the top level, Fred's beer taxonomy is:
Organic
Foreign
U.S. Micro
Industrial Lager
I suppose those are somewhat interesting categories -- I can't think of another store that separates the organic beers -- but within those categories there doesn't seem to be any order.
So you end up with Blue Dot next to Blue Moon (no relation).
Pretty soon you'll be able to do an alphabetical pub crawl up 28th. Coalition at Ankeny, Holman's at Burnside, Beulahland at Couch, we need stuff at Davis and Everett, then there's Spints at Flanders and Migration at Glisan. By the way, Beulahland escaped my attention until a few weeks ago, but it's a worthy bar for us snobby types -- ten decent taps and even a cask engine (!). They also do their own house-infused vodkas and bourbons, if you're sometimes tempted by the hard stuff.
The Linked-In page for Migration mentions a couple connections with the Lucky Lab, which gives me a good feeling about the place. They're hoping to open in January. I'll put up more information if it comes to me.
Beer festivals are hitting Portland right and left now that summer is officially here. Friday I was able to squeeze a trip to the North American Organic Brewers Festival into my lunch hour thanks to the earlier Friday start time of 12 noon. That's not bad: exercise (biking to and from Overlook Park), lunch, a little socializing, and some beer tasting all rolled into one. And if anyone asks, I just say I'm at lunch.
The NAOBF has a lot of things going for it. Good organization, starting with arranging brewery stations in alphabetical order. A venue that has a more open feel than the cramped confines of the PIB or the narrow, dusty half-mile of the OBF. A format that allows breweries to exhibit more than one of their beers.
Last year I was actually complaining about the venue, mainly because the lone tree in Overlook Park provided too little shade on such a hot day. I closed my report by saying "Hopefully next year it won't be 100 degrees out". My wish came true: the weather for the NAOBF was perfect this weekend. Even if it had been hot or rainy, the addition of tables and chairs under a good-sized tent made for a much better setup, and suddenly Overlook Park seems like a great place to hold a festival.
The fact that a brewery can bring more than one beer to the festival may not seem like a huge deal, but I think it makes it possible to please beer snobs and more casual festival-goers at the same time. For example, Hopworks hit three targets at once by bringing their popular IPA, their entry-level Lager, and a new offering: Secession Cascadian Dark Ale. Something for everyone.
My favorites from Friday were:
Standing StoneDouble IPA (cask-conditioned): rich and flowery IPA from the firkin
HopworksSecession Cascadian Dark Ale: malty and smoky with flowery hops
Nelson BrewingAfter Dark Mild: caramelly and satisfying but light
RootsGruit Kolsch: lovely and yeasty, less citrusy than Upright
My first sample of the Roots gruit had me very confused: the tap lines had been crossed, so for the first couple hours of the festival the Roots Pale Ale was being served as the gruit. It tasted suspiciously bitter for a hop-free beer, and I had to wonder what herb they had used for that: dandelion? quinine? Once the mistake was corrected, the world made a lot more sense, and it was fun to compare the Roots gruit with the Upright gruit, which it inspired. The gravity-dispensed Standing Stone IPA was a real treat. The Cascadian Dark from Hopworks was the only beer I went back for a full cup of: it presses all my hop and malt flavor buttons. I hope it becomes a regular part of the HUB lineup.
Upright and Captured by Porches were at the NAOBF for the first time this year. But what happened to Hair of the Dog -- which won the People's Choice Award last year for Blue Dot -- and Walking Man? Surprising to see those fine breweries drop out of the lineup. Another gripe is the double-token charge for some of the bottled beers. I would certainly have tried the low-alcohol hefeweizen from German brewery Lammsbrau, but I couldn't bear to part with $2 for a tiny taste. Surely the cost of the bottles can be recovered on $1/sample. Or you can consider the festival's charge of $6 for a disposable plastic cup as a way of subsidizing loss-leaders like that.
Last year was my first time to attend the NAOBF, and I was kind of lukewarm towards it. I definitely got a better impression this year. The weather played a role in that, but I think the addition of the tent was a good move, and giving the hard-core snobs an earlier opening time on Friday was nice also. I'll be looking forward to it next year.
[Update: The People's Choice Award winners at the festival were 1. Standing Stone Double IPA; 2. (tie) Crannog Backhand of God Stout / Hopworks Secession; 3. Oakshire Watershed IPA.]
Smallish beer festivals at the Quimby Street Lucky Lab are always a good time, and last weekend's Cheers to Belgian Beers was no exception. Regrettably, my time there was limited to a couple hours Friday afternoon, so there were a lot of beers I didn't get around to. As an example of what a rush job it was, I forgot to get a pour of my friend Corey's Zen Lunatic -- rated very highly by both Jeff and Dr. Wort in their reviews of the festival. Luckily, I had a small unofficial taste of the Lunatic earlier in the week on a visit to the CPR, so I can pronounce it a nice, dry, light -- but not thin -- Belgian, but since I didn't try it at the festival itself it's hard for me to know exactly where I'd rank it among the ones I tried.
When I arrived at the Lab, Derek from Beer Around Town had already been there a couple hours, so I sat down and picked his brain about which beers to get. Dave is my usual parnter-in-crime for these weekday festival outings, but Jill very inconveniently chose to give birth to a lovely baby girl on Friday instead of letting her husband spend the afternoon drinking a bunch of one-off beers. Some other Pub Night compadres showed up unexpectedly: Davey, Rocco, Bryce, and Jason brazenly plunked down huge pint glasses next to the dainty Belgian samples Derek and I had on the table, as seen in the first picture.
Enough chit-chat, let's talk about beer. Of the 10 that I tried, here are my favorites:
Deschutes La Fleur: perfectly smooth, gingery
Double Mountain Barrel-Aged Ingelmonster: beautiful dark candy
Deschutes (Portland) Streaking the Quad: sweet, smooth, nice
Lucky Lab Beljamin: nice candy and flower flavor
Astoria Avant Garde Akloo: big, round, long finish
Pelican La Fleur Amère: full-bodied, a little floral, long bitter edge
I can see how some people would be put off by the ginger flavor in La Fleur, but I loved it. Apparently both Derek and Dr. Wort disapproved of the Lucky Lab entry, but to me it was just right for a light Belgian. (Yesterday at the Hawthorne Lab they were serving "Ben's Belgian". I'm not sure if it was the same beer -- it was very clear while the festival beer was a little hazy -- but it tasted even better than my sample of Beljamin.) Which just goes to show you, there's no accounting for tastes, no right answer. Another example: Derek was appalled by the Block 15 entry; in Angelo's review he gave it 2nd place; Doc Wort found it so-so; and poor Bill didn't get around to trying it.
Astoria's stinky pun would have been better if the third word was a possible French word. The letter "k" only appears in borrowed words in French, and I'm not sure what sound "oo" would make, but it certainly wouldn't rhyme with "clue". If you guys are keeping that beer around, try "Éclou", which a French speaker would pronounce as "A Clue".
Hats off to Deschutes for landing on this festival with both feet.
Kudos to the organizers for a great time and for putting the beers in alphabetical order. So far, no word on who won the People's Choice Award. I'll update when the news comes out. [Update: Hopworks Dubbel Suplex won the People's Choice Award. I skipped it at the festival, but had it at the pub -- it's a fine winner. Congratulations Hopworks!]
My cellphone -- hardly the latest model -- knows a lot about my beer-drinking habits.
It usually takes me awhile to adopt new technology, even though I work in a technical field. First CD player: 1995. First laptop: 2005. Maybe by 2015 I'll get my computer's MP3s and my daughter's ipod tunes hooked up to the stereo.
So instead of using a cellphone that has a qwerty keyboard or touchscreen, I still use my 10-digit phone keypad for any text messaging, live-blogging, or twittering I need to do. As a result, the iTap predictive text system on my phone now shares my beer obsession. When you enter a word that's not in its dictionary, it silently remembers it. Now it offers to complete a lot of beer-related words for me after just a few keystrokes:
bar: barleywine
des : deschutes
hopw : hopworks
laur : laurelwood
nink: ninkasi
grow : growler
higgi: higgins
lupul : lupulin
The phone has a great memory for beer, but never seems to predict the right word for simple things like go vs. in or on vs. no. My phone has become my drinking buddy, but I probably shouldn't count on it to loan me any money or remind me about birthdays or romantic holidays.
Speaking of twittering, Steve Novick's robotic minion is still roaming the internet, even though last year's U.S. Senate primary is long in the past. I accidentally discovered that if I put his name in a blog post, the robot tweets a link to the post (Update: the robot's tweet for this very post beat my own Twitterfeed announcement). Very useful for the 36 diehard followers that haven't given up hope that he may yet defeat that hot-dog chomping Jeff Merkley. Go Steve!
There are a couple other eyewitness reports on Saturday's Fresh Hop festival at Hopworks, so I'm a little late getting my opinion out there. Angelo is really ticked off that most of the taps were dry by the time he arrived at the exact midpoint of the event. The scan of his program with the empty kegs marked is hilarious.
The consolation for those who arrived late is the fact that Hopworks rolled out for them the barrel-aged version of their fresh-hop Parsec Pale -- pumped through a filter of fresh hops(!), as seen in some of John Foyston's excellent photos of the festival. Those of us that arrived on time were told that the barrel-aged Parsec would not be served.
Despite the large crowd -- which actually wasn't so bad if you got there early -- there were several ways that this year's Tastival was better than the 2007 one at Edgefield:
Alphabetical order!
Location near my house.
Nicer looking pint glasses.
All advertised beers were served, at least for a while.
Since I had already scoured Portland for about half of the beers at the Tastival, I got almost everything covered. My favorite of the year is still the Nugget-hop variant of Full Sail's Lupulin, and there were certainly some failures at the festival, but here are some of the ones I hadn't yet tried that made a good impression:
Foyston reports that the Portland Deschutes pub is still serving that Fresh Hop Mirror Pond -- and two more fresh-hop ales not at the festival. It's worth checking out. You might find the Ninkasi around town also, it's far better than the fresh-hop light lager they made last year.
There's nothing like a trip to the Silicon Valley to make you appreciate Portland's pub culture. The intrepid West Coast Good Beer Guide doesn't get any further south in the Bay Area than Burlingame; there are a few brewpubs in the valley, but by and large the most interesting place to pick up local beers turns out to be the grocery store. My best beer experience so far on this trip is that I found a tasty beer from North Coast Brewing that I don't recall seeing in Portland: Cru D'Or, a certified organic Belgian-style ale.
Despite the name, Cru D'Or isn't a golden ale -- pardon my inappropriate hotel plasticware -- it's a darker Abbey ale, like a dubble. It's rather sweet, with that delicious flowery Belgian yeast taste. A winner.
Now that Russian River is even distributed in Oregon, I was hoping to pick some up in the stores here, but I haven't seen any yet. Oh well. Give credit to the Mountain View Whole Foods for stocking the Cru D'Or. BevMo didn't have it [Update: Corey points out that Cru D'Or is a Whole Foods exclusive -- how does he learn these things?!?], but listen to the awesome thing BevMo does have: alphabetical order. That's right, beers are shelved alphabetically by brewery. Why does anyone do it any other way?
Hot! That's my main impression of Saturday's session of the North American Organic Brewers Festival, and of the bike ride back home. It doesn't hit 100° very often in Portland: lucky thing there is one tree remaining in Overlook Park. It was pretty big, too, I don't know how the woodmen missed it. It provided enough shade for every single festival goer to cower beneath it between trips to the beer tent.
This was the first year I've attended the NAOBF, despite years of good intentions. I noticed that a couple of Portland bloggers list the Organic Festival as their favorite -- well, the word Jeff used was "premier" -- and although I had a good time, I can't say I feel the same way. Maybe without the crippling heat; or in a more scenic location. I should be careful what I wish for... Brett was telling me that they had the opposite weather problem last year -- too rainy.
I did totally approve of the alphabetical ordering of the brewery stations. A friend of mine taught me this useful saying: "There are exactly two kinds of order in the world: alphabetical order and random order." Please remember that next time you organize a beer festival! Dave noticed it right away, and it was certainly a big help in navigating the festival.
Dave and Brett and I were swapping tastes around, but we still kept the samples to a relatively small number. There were quite a few beers that I wanted to try but ended up skipping, plus a couple on my wish-list that were out by the time I got around to them. I kept my usual inarticulate notes on the beers I tasted, but didn't try to rank them like I occasionally do. Here are a few highlights (in random order):
Eel River Triple Exultation Old Ale: "awesome". The brewery calls this the "Ozzy Osbourne of Old Ales" -- they should cross-market with Off the Rail.
Eel River IPA: "good... no, bad... no, good!". There was so much flavor in this beer that it sometimes rubbed me the wrong way. I need to try a whole pint.
Laurelwood Green Mammoth IPA: "very tasty". Laurelwood is at their best when they go big.
Willamette Dunkel: "very nice". This was a spot-on dark hefeweizen. Cloudy, fruity, and delicious.
Sasquatch Legacy Project Imperial Vienna: "nice". Very refreshing, which is amazing for an 8.7% lager.
Crannog Ales Hell's Kitchen: "nice". British Columbia brewery. They say this is an "Irish Red Ale made with organic potatoes". It was smooth and tasty.
I mentioned a few months ago that I had seen Willamette Brewing's unfiltered Amber on tap at the Pizzicato Pizza at the airport, but I didn't get a chance to try it then. The Dunkel was wonderful, and the IPA they had at the NAOBF was also good; keep an eye out for their beer around town. Belmont Station has bottles of some Eel River offerings -- I know I've picked up Triple Exultation before -- and it I think I've seen rotating taps for them in Portland a couple times, but nothing steady that I know of.
Overlook Park actually wasn't too bad of a bike ride from the east side. Just connect up with the Interstate bike lane from the Esplanade near the Rose Garden. Hopefully next year it won't be 100 degrees out.
