Gigantic End of Reason and St. Bernardus Prior 8

We're nearly at the end of Gigantic Beer Week, and I have been out of town for all of it so far.  But to commemorate the last few days of it, I want to say a couple words about one of the most brilliant Gigantic seasonals to date:  The End of Reason.

This is a medium-strong dark Belgian, along the lines of Westmalle Dubbel -- in fact End of Reason uses the Westmalle yeast -- or those Watou masterpieces, Westvleteren 8 and St. Bernardus Prior 8.  It's easy to find St. Bernardus Abt 12 around town, but less common to see bottles of Prior 8, so I was excited to notice one in the cooler at the Beermongers a few weeks ago.  I highly recommend it if you see a bottle for sale.

The End of Reason has that same floral Belgian yeast flavor as the native Belgians, on top of a large, sweetish malt body.  A reasonable helping of hops helps to bring it nearly into balance.  The Prior 8 was noticeably drier than the Gigantic offering, but EoR is definitely worth your time if you can still find any bottles or taps of it around town (like my Gigantic Beer Week coverage, I'm a little late in announcing a beer that may not appear more than once, but you can probably still find a few straggling bottles in the usual places).

There wasn't room to mention this in the headline, but Laurelwood also has a Watou-ish dubbel on tap right now, aptly called St. Bernard.  I had one at the airport on the way out of town, and was quite pleased with it.  I think it was toward the Gigantic end of the sweet/dry spectrum, though it would be difficult to distinguish these three beers in a blind tasting, even harder if you through in a Westmalle.  You can't go wrong with any of those beers.

Three cheers to Gigantic for a great first year!  Click the link above to see Mr. Foyston's list of the remaining events, including Gigantic's First Anniversary party at the brewery itself tonight (Thursday, May 9, 2013, 3 PM to 9 PM).

Pfriem Family Brewers

You will soon start to see taphandles around town from a new brewery in Hood River: Pfriem Family Brewers.  Brewer/owner Josh Pfriem (pronounced "Freem"), was at Bazi Bierbrasserie Friday with his wife Annie and some more of the Pfriem crew to promote his new Belgian-styled beers.  Those in attendance got to try the five beers on the current roster -- Pfriem calls them the "2012 varietals", implying that 2013 might offer a different lineup.

The beers don't have clever names, at least not so far:  they're just called by whatever style they are.  Here's what we tried on Friday:

• Wit: Noticeably more bitter than most wits (this is intentional), but a nice take on the style, with the usual herbal/yeasty flavors.
• Blonde IPA: Josh said he thinks of this as a "Pilsner IPA" -- it is brewed with pilsner malts -- but also intends it as an homage to Westvleteren Blonde (a surprisingly hoppy light Belgian beer).  It is very crisp and dry.  Interesting and not bad, though I think IPA is not quite the right word for it.
• Belgian Strong Blonde: I loved this beer. It has that nice clovey flavor like Duvel (though it's always dangerous to compare something to Duvel).  Like the other Pfriem beers, it's pretty dry and light-bodied, and it is a beautiful-looking beer: impossibly light in color, almost clear, but with a golden sparkle.
• IPA: This is intended to be the NW style house offering.  Again, surprisingly dry and light on the tongue, but with nice floral hops.  Pretty strong at 7.2%.  Not bad, but probably not going to become your go-to IPA.
• Belgian Strong Dark: A 10% sipper, with the kinds of dark fruit, chocolatey, almost leathery flavors you want in big beers like this, but still drier than a lot of beers this size.  Josh wouldn't call it a Quadrupel, but he does want you to think of beers like St. Bernardus when you're drinking this. 

All the beers were clean and well-made.  At a point in time where saisons and related "farmhouse" styles seem to be all the rage, it's interesting that Pfriem didn't go down that road.  Nor are they selling any wild or sour ales, though Josh did say that a wild-ale program is in the works for future releases.  I predict that the Strong Blonde and Strong Dark are going to be the most popular Pfriem beers.  It's great to have an Oregon brewery focus on those kind of Abbey-inspired Belgians -- I can't think of another brewery in the region that has those as their flagships, though Hopworks comes out with some great strong Belgians from time to time.

Except for the Wit, all the beers we tried were filtered, which gave them a really pretty clarity in the glass.  If there's a common theme in my tasting notes, it's "dry" -- there was nothing anywhere near cloying in any of the beers, and even the stronger ones were surprisingly light-bodied and drinkable.

Look for Pfriem beers on draft in Portland at finer establishments.  The brewery has ordered equipment to produce corked-and-caged 750 ml bottles.  The tasting room at the brewery in Hood River will hold a grand opening Saturday August 4th, and it looks like the hours after that will be 11:30 to 9 Wednesday thru Sunday.

Further reading: Ezra has a very detailed interview with Josh over at the New School.

De Struise Meet the Brewer at Hair of the Dog

Urbain Coutteau (photo: Teresa Culp)

I haven't been paying very close attention to the beer events happening around me lately, so I was glad to get an email from Brian Thursday morning that there would be a meet-the-brewer that evening at Hair of the Dog with Urbain Coutteau of Belgium's De Struise brewery.  The event featured a tap takeover with eight De Struise beers seldom tapped in these parts, and since Hair of the Dog lies directly between my office and home, it was an easy call.

This was the most fun I've had at a meet-the-brewer in a long time.  The beers were great, and Hair of the Dog's wide open space made things very comfortable.  Urbain was orbiting the bar area, stopping to chat with clusters of people who dragged him over to talk about beer.  He told us he's been here about a week, but that HotD brewer Alan Sprints kept him busy brewing much of the time.  He'll have to return another time to see more of Portland.

Belgian beer is held in such reverence here that we sometimes miss some of the fun in their brewery names.  "De Struise Brouwers" means "The Sturdy Brewers" -- already a lighthearted name along the lines of "Gigantic" -- but there is also a pun involved because "struise" can mean "ostrich".  (The brewery that brought this situation to light for me was De Proef, whose self-deprecating name means something like "The Test Brewery".)

The beers that were on were:

• Witte
• Svea IPA
• Elliot Brew (Mikkeller collaboration double IPA)
• XXX Rye Tripel
• Tsjeesus Tripel
• Pannepot Quadrupel
• Pannepot Reserva (barrel-aged)
• Pannepeut Quadrupel

My favorite of the bunch was the regular Pannepot, which the brewer himself described as "a punch in the face".  It does have tons of dark roast and esthery Belgian flavors, which I felt like were diminished too much in the barrel-aged version.  Pannepeut -- a drier, lighter-bodied version of Pannepot originally brewed as Pannepøt for a festival in Copenhagen -- was a subtler version that was still very interesting.  Urbain said he thinks of it as a more traditional abbey ale than the heavy-handed Pannepot. 

The Svea IPA seemed to me to have a lot in common with Hair of the Dog Fred -- both of them being quite hoppy but nicely balanced beers on the sweet end of the spectrum -- even though it's only about 75% the strength.  On the other hand, I thought the Elliot Brew -- I can't believe I'm about to type this -- overdid the hops.  It wasn't terrible, but a little more balance would have made it better.

Urbain seemed uncomfortable at first when I asked him what he and Alan brewed this week, so I asked if the beers were clones of De Struise recipes, and he said, "Well, pretty close, but with Hair of the Dog's hopping schedule".  Alan was more direct in proclaiming their lineage, telling me they brewed Pannepot and Pannepeut, and that he plans to barrel age some of the Pannepot to recreate De Struise's Pannepot Reserva.

This was a nice low-key event that I'm glad I didn't miss out on.  Now if we can only convince De Struise to send us a keg of their 26% ABV Double Black...

Oakland Beer Getaway

Last month I had to spend a week in the Silicon Valley on business.  I took the opportunity to spend the preceding weekend in Oakland and check out the growing beer scene there.  It's a good way to have a cheap Bay Area getaway -- I pricelined a hotel right downtown for $42 a night -- and San Francisco is just a $6 round-trip away on BART.

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My first stop was a couple of blocks from the hotel, a Belgian-heavy place called The Trappist.  A cozy, narrow space that they call The Front Bar calls to mind Dutch or Belgian beer bars, but opens onto a back patio that is perfect for sunny California days.  There are fifteen taps at the front bar, and ten more in a bigger room called The Back Bar -- an assortment of off-the-beaten track Belgian and Belgian-inspired beers, some nice California offerings, and some surprises from Mikkeller and Evil Twin, including an Evil Twin coffee porter specially brewed for The Trappist.

The food is reasonably-priced and not too fancy, and there is a good assortment of special bottled beers if you need to show off.  Compared to the similarly-named and -themed La Trappe across the bay in North Beach, there are more taps here, though La Trappe seems to have a longer bottle list.  Both are fine establishments, but The Trappist is less crowded, less expensive, and seems a little more laidback than its counterpart in the City.

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A few blocks toward the bay from The Trappist is the new beer-geek darling of Oakland:  Beer Revolution.  It's easy to see why people are so enamored of Beer Revolution:  over 40 taps of well-chosen beer, plus several coolers full of bottles for takeaway or drinking there ($1 corkage fee), and the easy-going taproom/bottleshop system of bringing in your own food.  It's like a less crowded, less expensive, more laidback version of SF's City Beer Store (a theme is developing here).  There's even a small but sunny patio area out front.  I had a great time at Beer Revolution, enjoyed a delicious glass of barrel-aged stout from Drake's before wading in to the LA brewery tap takeover that was going on that weekend.

One big gripe about Beer Revolution:  the pint glasses there are cheater pints, those big-booted bastardizations that only hold about 13 ounces of beer.  It wasn't just one that slipped into the mix -- after I noticed that I was served one, I started watching and all the pint glasses that came across the bar were cheaters.  C'mon guys, it's the year 2012, please get with the Honest Pint program.  Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I'll still say that the selection and atmosphere make Beer Rev a must-stop in Oakland despite the glassware, and many of the big beers they'll tempt you with will be in smaller glasses anyway.

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On the advice of Beer Revolution's co-owner Rebecca, I went from there right down to the waterfront to check out Heinhold's First and Last Chance. Something of a tourist trap which claims an association to Call of the Wild author Jack London, it is nevertheless worth a visit.  They have a couple of sessionable local beers on tap, and they also serve -- another hat tip to Rebecca -- a very nutritious and delicious Bloody Mary.  The floor and bar slope noticeably downward towards the back of the building -- a little remodeling done by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.  Heinhold's cleverly straddles the line between cheesy and authentic, and it would be better to say you'd been there than to say you'd missed it.

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There are a couple of breweries in downtown Oakland:  Linden Street Brewery, which I didn't get around to visiting but which had some tasty beers on tap at Heinhold's; and Pacific Coast Brewing around the corner from the Trappist, which is friendly and comfortable enough but doesn't make very good beer (luckily they have about a dozen guest taps). If you're looking for a good meal with good beer to accompany it, head up Broadway away from the bay to Luka's Taproom. The 16-tap beer list won't blow you away, but it's serviceable enough, and it's fun to watch the hip locals come and go while you fill up on good food.

Oakland has a lot going on beer-wise, and offers easy access to San Francisco while being much cheaper, quieter, and easier to navigate. Next time you're headed to the Bay Area, consider setting up camp in Oakland.

Moeder Lambic Fontainas, Brussels

It was the last night of our European vacation, and we were in Brussels for less than 24 hours.  We took a family stroll around the Grand-Place, and once the girls had been nourished by bland cheap pizza slices, they announced they had no intention of hanging around with Carla and I as we sat around enjoying some Belgian beers on the last night of our trip.

That turned out to be a good thing: with the girls in tow we probably would have just hunkered down at someplace like the Delirium Café in one of the crowded alleys off the main square.  Instead, we dumped them off at the hotel, and wandered over to the stellar beer bar Moeder Lambic Fontainas, around the corner from the famous statue of the little peeing boy.  It's just off a fairly busy boulevard, but separated from it by the sleepy Fontainas square.  The interior was rustic and comforting, but since the weather was finally beautiful for the last day of our trip, we sat outside on the airy patio with most of the other patrons.

As you might have guessed by the name, Moeder Lambic has quite a selection of sour Belgian ales in the Lambic and Gueze categories.  I'm far from expert in those kinds of beers, so it seemed novel and exciting to see on the menu that not only do they have a fair number of those wild ales on tap, they also have several of them served on cask, like the Drie Fonteinen Kriek in the picture here.  If you know what you're after, the bottle list evidently has a lot of good choices also.  A party of serious gueze lovers at the next table from us had a couple of vintage bottles brought out in wicker baskets.

Even if you aren't attracted by the sour selection, there are plenty of taps of other Belgian styles, plus 15 rotating guest taps.  When we were there, the guest taps included a hefeweizen, a rauchbier, and a pilsner all from Germany, a Dutch tripel, an Italian cask ale, and even something from France.  Carla doesn't care for most Belgian beer, and certainly not sour beer, but she lived happily off the rotating taps, first with a Viven Imperial IPA, and then with a Mikkeller Citra single-hop.  Viven is an impressive brewery -- we had really liked the porter when we tried it at Cambrinus in Brugge, and the IIPA was very solid, leaving Carla a little disappointed in her Mikkeller.

Service was very friendly; our waitress replied smoothly to Carla's English, the Flemish of our gueze-drinking neighbors, and my rusty French.  A small bowl of roasted barley appeared on the table as something to crunch on as we drank our beer, but we also ordered a salad and a cheese plate from the menu, and both were excellent and reasonably priced.  Decent portions:  I'm usually a clean plate guy, but I had to leave some cheese behind.

There is obviously a lot more going on in Brussels than just this one place.  I had been hoping to get there early enough to take the fabled self-guided tour of Cantillon, but it didn't work out that way.  There is another, older Moeder Lambic location, but the Beer Advocate reviews seem to favor the Fontainas location we went to.  I recommend it, especially if you're a sour ale fan, but even if you're not.

In De Vrede, Westvleteren

One of the most sought-after beers in the world is Westvleteren 12, the quadrupel ale brewed by the Trappist monks of Saint Sixtus Abbey in Westvleteren, Belgium.  Adding to the mystique is the fact that the brothers do not distribute their beers through wholesalers or exporters.  The abbey has a cumbersome system where individuals can call the brewery during certain hours to reserve a maximum of two cases of beer for pickup on a different date.  Phone numbers and license plates are tracked to restrict each buyer to one such purchase per month.

This limited distribution not only makes beer from Saint Sixtus taste better, it practically guarantees that a tourist won't be able to stuff his suitcase with a case of Westy.  A few bottles of Westvleteren -- the aforementioned 12, a dubbel called Westvleteren 8, and a hoppy golden ale called Westvleteren Blond -- make their way via the black market into bottleshops and bars in Belgium and Holland at a premium price. I shelled out about 20 bucks for a 33 cl bottle of the quad at Gollem's Proeflokaal in Amsterdam.  The other way you can sample these beers is to visit the Abbey, where the cafeteria -- In De Vrede -- will serve you the quad, dubbel, or blond for the reasonable tariffs of €4.7, €4.2, and €3.7 respectively (about $6.60, $5.90, and $5.20).  It's bottled beer, not draft, but poured into the official goblet.  An attached gift shop apparently used to sell six-packs -- limit one per customer -- but on the day we visited there were only "tasting kits" for sale:  €23 for two bottles of the Blond, one 8, one 12, and a goblet.  Sheesh.

We visited In De Vrede ("Vrede" means "peace" in Dutch) on the way from Brugge to Brussels.  It was a little bit of a detour, but well worth it for the chance to try all the Westvleterens at a reasonable price.  It's an odd place, nothing like a bar or pub  I called it a cafeteria above, and that's truly what it is.  At 1:30 on a weekday afternoon, the place was packed, and it seemed to me to be largely a local crowd, demographically on the older side.  The food is very simple and inexpensive, basically cheese sandwich, ham and cheese sandwich, or house-made paté sandwich, to which you could add a side green salad.  I loved the paté; the salad was fresh and good.  The girls got ice cream sundaes that were kind of lame, but the ice-cream made with Westvleteren Blond served to neighboring tables looked much more interesting. The servers all seemed to speak English well, and were very polite and helpful.

Westvleteren 12 is a dense, complex quad, with the usual Abbey ale yeast flavors, a nice balance of bitterness, not too sweet, and with no sharp edges to any of the flavors.  The 8 is recognizable as 12's little brother -- much of the same flavor in a less boozy package.  The Blond is a nice surprise -- a fairly light-bodied ale, 6% alcohol, with lots and lots of hop bitterness.  It reminded me of some of Hair of the Dog's Little Dog small beers -- which also combine light brews with tons of hops -- though of course it's about twice as strong as the Little Dogs.

There is a small museum behind the cafeteria called "The Claustrum". As with the beer sales, its hours are idiosyncratic, and all of the information is printed in Flemish, but it's worth a quick gander if you're there when it's open. The picture at the top is from the brewery exhibit at the Claustrum.

Since we were driving through Belgium twice during our trip, I did actually try to call from Paris and order a case of the Westvleteren, even though the abbey's website showed that they were only only accepting orders at that time for the not-as-collectible Blond. But I gave it up when the abbey's beer line rejected my phone call placed through Skype. We didn't have a phone in our Paris flat and our rental car was already completely full with no room for a crate of beer, so I decided not to flagellate myself any further with Saint Sixtus' convoluted procedures.  The owner of the hotel we stayed at in Brugge confided to me that later this year the monks will begin limited distribution in Belgian grocery stores, but BeerNews.org reported the same rumor last year, so readers in Belgium should not break their piggybanks just yet.

I don't know if Westvleteren 12 is really the best beer in the world. But it certainly is a fine abbey ale, and if you have the chance, you should try it. In Amsterdam we tasted it alongside the fairly similar St. Bernardus Abt, and the Westvleteren was indeed the more complex and refined beer. Get it if you can, and certainly pay a visit to In De Vrede next time you're in Flanders.

Further reading:  Check out this excellent tale of walking around the Westvleteren area on Jeff's blog The Beer Cave!

De Bier Tempel and More Brugge Beer

Last week I told you about the fabulous Bierbrasserie Cambrinus in Brugge, Belgium.  There are a number of good beer places in Brugge -- it is located in the beer-obsessed region of Flanders, after all -- so this time I'll expound on a few of them we visited during our short stay there.

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De Bier Tempel

First I want to relate to you a story about the miraculous power of beer, and the shrine to fermented grain known as De Bier Tempel (no translation needed).  How's your attention span?  Got room for more than 140 characters?  Here goes...

Driving into Brugge from Amsterdam, of course we took a wrong turn just as we got into town.  Actually, we do this everywhere we go: it's my superpower.  In the small French town of Bléré we were lucky enough to spot a roadside tourist map that set us straight.  Driving into Paris, our wrong turn led us into a nerve-wracking ninety-minute waking-life stress dream meandering through the suburbs before we got back on track.  Amsterdam was a cinch: we went the wrong way on the ring road around the city, but since it's so compact, we just completed the circle and it only took us about 20 minutes longer to get where we were going.

We didn't have a map of Brugge, but I thought the town was small enough that eventually we would run into a street that looked familiar from the driving directions I printed out. We never did. When Carla accidentally drove right out onto the no-cars-allowed main square, she carefully backed out of it and informed me in no uncertain terms that we were going to take the desperate measure of asking a fellow human being for help.  "I'm parking this [inaudible] car right here, and you're asking directions from the first person who looks nice."  Yes, dear.

There happened to be a man standing in the doorway of the shop we had just parked in front of.  I smiled at him and nodded good day through the car window, and he nodded back before going inside.  That must be the nice person Carla was talking about, I thought to myself.  When I got out of the car, I looked up at the sign above the shop: De Bier Tempel.

My jaw dropped, because before we left on our trip, Pub Night buddy and soon-to-be contributor msubulldog put me in email contact with his friend Regnier who does Belgian beer tours and who also works in a Brugges beer shop -- none other than the aforementioned Bier Tempel.  I dashed into the store.  "Are you Regnier?!?" "No, I'm Serge, but Regnier is in the back." Long story short, we accidentally landed on the doorstep of the one person we had a connection with in town, it was five minutes to quitting time, and he was kind enough to squeeze into the car with us and navigate us to our hotel.  That is the power of beer.

De Bier Tempel is a nice little bottleshop.  A great selection of bottled beer is on the shelves, and they sell glassware from nearly any Belgian brewery you can think of.  You can drink a bottle in the store, though I was kind of surprised that we weren't offered a glass.  I suppose they would have to insist on it being exactly the right glass, and a small shop can't keep one from every brewery in circulation.  That, or they don't like doing dishes.  So we swigged right out of our bottles as we browsed the store.  There are a few kept cool in a refrigerator, but the shelves full of unknown-to-us beers were what drew us in.

De Bier Tempel also stocks various beer-related souvenirs and snacks.  We were tempted by the autobiography of Pierre Celis, but found that the English title "My Life" belied the fact that the book was written in Flemish, so instead I walked out with a cheesy deck of playing cards, each with a different Belgian beer on it.  Check out De Bier Tempel for some of your Brugge beer shopping, though I can't guarantee that they'll escort you to your hotel.

Staminee de Garre

The historic main square in Brugge is lined with brasseries, but none of them looked appealing enough for us to get over our resistance to their high prices.  Instead we sought out the tavern called Staminee de Garre, which is located down an alley whose entrance looks like a doorway into an adjacent building.  I looked for De Garre all day on our first day in town, and finally found the place on the second day.  Beer Nerds has some good pictures of both the entrance to the alleyway and the inside of the tavern towards the bottom of this post.

It's a cool looking old tavern, and pretty small.  When my daughter and I popped our heads in, the barman shooed us out sternly.  "No.  No.  We're full."  This is not unusual for customer service in Brugge.  Don't take it personally, the place is overrun with tourists from around the world, and I'm sure they -- we -- become a nuisance after a while.  The two of us went and brought Carla and our other daughter over, just to show them the cool hidden alleyway.  About that time a party of five or six walked out of the Staminee, so when Carla peeked inside the barman gloomily indicated to her a table where we could sit.

De Garre has four or five nice things on tap -- including the "house" tripel brewed by Van Steenberge served in a satisfyingly hefty snifter -- and a nice bottle selection.  We were amused at the little dish of cheese cubes with toothpicks that arrived with the beers.  A certain amount of food was available, though it seemed to be more of a drinking bar than a restaurant.  They also have a large rack of ceramic bottles of aged genever on the wall which we weren't brave enough to dabble in.  Great atmosphere; it's a nice place to have a beer or two.

't Brugs Beertje

I've been a little critical of customer service when talking about De Garre and Cambrinus, but I don't mean to single them out.  In Brugge you're just as likely to be brought to tears by the waffle lady or the clerk in the chocolate shop as by your waitress or bartender.  For example, as we tugged for a few minutes at the locked door of one shop -- well within the posted opening hours -- a worker inches away behind the glass grimly continued her shelf tidying task while studiously avoiding any acknowledgment of our presence.

Of course, every stereotype has exceptions, and I found a notable one in this case during my all-too-brief visit to the classic beer bar 't Brugs Beertje.  The folks behind the bar at the "Little Brugge Bear" were smiling, patient, and joking around with the patrons. I was only able to stay for a quick Straffe Hendrik tripel before my hungry and cranky womenfolk came to fetch me off to dinner, but I can see why this place is on everyone's list of must-visit bars in Brugge. The friendly staff and cozy, pubby atmosphere make it a place where you could stay for hours.

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We were only in Brugge for less than 48 hours, and not specifically on a beer mission. Even so, I enjoyed what I saw of the beer there, and wouldn't mind spending more time exploring it.

Cheers to Belgian Beers 2011

Cheers to Belgian Beers has been one of the most interesting Portland festivals during the last few years.  A great example of the friendly rivalry of Oregon brewers, most of the beers at the festival are brewed with the same yeast, chosen by the brewer who won the peoples' choice vote at the previous year's festival.  The beers are usually one-offs that might never be seen again, and give the brewers a chance to step outside of their usual lineup, or to flex their muscles with styles they particularly enjoy.  Proceeds from the festival are donated to charity.

Saturday's Cheers to Belgian Beers 2011 had even more advantages going for it.  Since the 2010 contest was won not by a Portland brewer but by Corvallis' Block 15, the venue for this year's festival was brewery equipment manufacturer Metalcraft Fabrication, and the yeast that Block 15 chose for the competition was the versatile and flowery Westmalle Abbey yeast.  Holding the event at Metalcraft turned out to be an inspired choice:  the big, airy warehouse comfortably held the crowd, and there was even more room in the fenced yard outside, along with mobile food from Philadelphia's and Koi Fusion.  There is a yellow-line MAX stop not far away, and the warehouse is right beside the Interstate bike lane.

This had to be the biggest CtBB yet, and I didn't get a chance to try even half of the beers.  Of the ones I tried, my favorites were:

• Double Mountain | Wooden Nipel | Oak-aged tripel | amber color, dry and not hot for 9%, balanced but not very tripelly, mild hints of oak
• Beetje | Eleanor | Tripel "sort of" | definitely a tripel though on the hoppy end, flowery yeast comes in at the end
• Alameda | Say What? | Strong Dark Belgian | sweet and dubbel-ish Abbey-style ale
• Lompoc | Alpha Blonde | Belgian Golden | light and drinkable, nice flowery taste, with plenty of hops
• Logsdon | Seizoen Bretta | Farmhouse Ale with Brett | amber color, nice grainy saison, with a little barnyard funk, not very hot for 8%
• Flat Tail | White Heat Wit | Wit with peppercorns | very tasty wit, just right
• Cascade | Chugg it Pucker | NW sour | classic Cascade lactic cherry beer (really Westmalle?)
• Silver Moon | Andre le Geant | Tripel | pretty hot 9.4%, nice tripel-yeast flower flavor
• Coalition | Trifecta | Belgian Dark soured with Brett | nice balanced ale, like to try it with a little more age on it

[Update: 2011/05/04] The People's Choice award was a tie this year:  Logsdon and Hopworks.  Unfortunately, I didn't get around to trying the Hopworks, but the Logsdon was certainly worthy.  Here's the official announcement from the Oregon Brewers Guild:

PORTLAND, Ore. (May 4, 2011) More than 1,500 beer fans attended the 2011 Portland’s Cheers to Belgian Beers festival at Metalcraft Fabrication on Saturday, April 30 and selected Hopworks Urban Brewery’s Muscles from Brussels and Logsdon Organic Farmhouse Ales’ Seizoen Bretta as the People’s Choice champions. As the winners of the 2011 competition, Hopworks Urban Brewery and Logsdon Organic Farmhouse Ales earn the right to select the yeast strain for the 2012 event.

“This is the first year we’ve had a tie in the People’s Choice voting,” says Oregon Brewers Guild Executive Director, Brian Butenschoen. “It’s incredible to see how this festival has grown as public appreciation for Belgian styles and flavor profiles increases."

The 2011 Portland's Cheers to Belgian Beers festival marked the world debut of Logsdon Organic Farmhouse Ales. This is the second time Hopworks Urban Brewery has tasted People's Choice victory, the brewery also took home the coveted prize at the 2009 festival. The top five spots (including two ties) in the voting went to: Ambacht Brewing Honey Triple, Big Horse Brew Pub Bear's Choice, Block 15 Brewing Co. St. Macarius, Breakside Brewery Brewers Bramble, Cascade Brewing Co. Chuggeté Pucker, Hopworks Urban Brewery Muscles from Brussels and Logsdon Organic Farmhouse Ales Seizoen Bretta.

Hold on just a second: as Charles noted in the comments, Cascade's entry was not brewed with the contest yeast.  So how can they be in the running?  I only had a taste of Block 15's chocolatey entry, and while neither it nor Breakside's Bramble really rung my bell, they were tasty and I can see how people would vote for them.  I didn't try the Big Horse entry, so I don't know how it was, but I'm kind of confused that so many people liked the Ambacht Tripel, which wasn't flawed, but wasn't all that great, and not really much like a tripel, either.

Anyway, congrats to Hopworks and Logsdon!

Blue Moon Grand Cru

The mere concept of a double version of Coors' Blue Moon piqued my interest as a ridiculous novelty as soon as I heard of Blue Moon Grand Cru, but the $10+ price tag ($28.39 SPE) was more than I was willing to pay for a laugh. A few months ago Brady tweeted that he'd seen it on sale for 5 or 6 bucks at a Fred Meyers, but it wasn't until a couple weeks ago that I saw such a deal myself, at the Hawthorne Fred's. When I did, I plunked down my $6 with a sigh, and stuck the bottle in the refrigerator, thinking I'd at least get a blog post out of it.

Well, I'll probably get a headache out of it too. My impression of it is that it's too sweet, kind of like the cheap champagne that there was too much of at our New Year's Eve party, and alcohol is the most prominent flavor component, despite the relatively reasonable 8.2% proclaimed on the label. There is a pleasant flowery Belgian yeast flavor to it, and a hint of Belgian Wit spices. But the sweetness and the surprising booziness have hangover written all over them. I'm losing interest. It's not better than I expected it to be, but I suppose it's not really worse than I expected, so let's give it a grade of C. If you want a big Belgiany beer, spend your money on a Unibroue or a 4-pack of Duvel or North Coast Pranqster. You'll be much better off. But you knew that already.

If you're bored, part of the Blue Moon marketing materials includes a "Tasting Journal" (pdf). Really it's just a marketing brochure for the beer, but it contains some real howlers. "Traditional Belgian Wits tend to be tart or sour. They’re garnished with a lemon to help accent these flavors. ... We were the first brewery to garnish a Belgian-style wheat ale with an orange. And right away, we knew we discovered something special, because other brewers latched on to the idea." Mm-hmm, right.

I guess the biggest question for me is this: who is this beer aimed at? Blue Moon drinkers won't like it; non-Blue Moon drinkers won't like it enough? What's the purpose?

Cheers to Belgian Beers 2010

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
• Deschutes Portland Sinfully Delicious (Dark Strong Ale): nice Abbey dubbel. 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?