Gowanus Brooklyn Brewpub Crawl

Every year for the last 10 or so, Carla and I would say "Let's go to New York City this year".  Somehow we never did, until recent events taught us that you shouldn't keep putting these things off.  So we spent about 9 days in Brooklyn in October.  It was only my second visit to New York, and the first was only for 36 hours in Manhattan about 30 years ago, so this was long overdue.

 

We had a great time.  The vacation was not primarily a beer mission:  we skipped many of the important Brooklyn beer stops; we only found a couple of worthwhile beer options in Manhattan; we didn't set foot in Queens or the Bronx, which have some interesting-looking breweries.

 

Even though beer wasn't the main focus, we did find a short and sweet Brooklyn pub crawl in the Gowanus neighborhood.  All four pubs are open 7 days a week, which isn't true of a pub crawl in, say, Red Hook (as of October 2021 anyway).  You can start the pub crawl at either end, but I put Threes Brewing first because it arguably has the best food options.  It's also easier to leave at the Strong Rope end.  The Union Street subway station is right there, as well as a couple of Citi Bike racks which are usually full of bikes you could leave on, but devoid of empty slots to park a bike in if you try to start at that end.

 

Threes Brewing

 

Threes Brewing is a comfortable and convivial pub with lots of distinct spaces.  The main bar is cozy but has a surprising amount of seating, and there is more seating in a front vestibule near the food window.  We didn't go upstairs because there was a private event, but there is also a sweet looking back patio.

 

The draft selection was diverse, with a number of lagers, a lovely dark mild called Little Did We Know, and an interesting barrel-aged tart table beer.  Don't worry, they also had on the requisite half-dozen IPAs.  If I had taken care to re-read Jeff Alworth's 2019 Brooklyn trip report I would have known to order the Vliet pilsner.  Next time.

 

The food is handled by a pop-up called The Meat Hook, which serves burgers and other pub fare.  There are a fair number of vegetarian options, despite the name.  Threes does a good job canning their wares, and there is a large selection available to go.  I also found their beers to be among the most affordable and widely available local beers in area grocery stores, so keep that option in mind.

 

 

Wild East Brewing

A couple blocks south of Threes is Wild East Brewing.  It's a much smaller operation, but has the same ethos of brewing a wide variety of styles instead of dozens of IPAs.  The picture shows the DDH anniversary IPA that Carla required, as well as an outstanding mixed-culture saison, and of course I couldn't not order the 3% dark mild. All of them were well-made and tasty.

 

The interior is a roomy, high-ceilinged warehouse, which gave it a much more open feel than most places in such a high-rent city.  Like most places, it also had a nice chunk of outside seating along the curb.  It was a really comfortable place to hang out, and I had a hard time elbowing Carla out the door for the next stops.  I regret not taking more photos there; check their website for a better look.  There were lots of outlets for recharging cell phones, and I think I remember some people bringing their dogs right in.

They don't serve food, but of course you can bring your own.  They have a limited selection of beer to go, mostly fancy expensive things in bottles.

Finback Brewery

 

The next stop on our pub crawl was Finback,   Like Wild East, it is an open, warehousey space, but I think the space is a work in progress.  Some of the walls were still exposed particle board when we were there, and the lighting and seating were not altogether comfortable.  Don't hold those things against it, because I suspect it will improve over time.  The staff was very friendly and engaging.  There was some outdoor seating also. 

Finback was the most IPA-centric pub on this crawl, with 13 IPAs of varying strength and hop variety on tap.  They get creative with the hops -- Belma or Lotus anyone? -- and we really enjoyed the flavors in the couple of IPAs we tried there.  But the star for us that day was a beer called Another World -- a very unique witbier barrel-aged on yuzu and spices.  As you might expect for something going into a barrel, it was a little stronger than your usual wit at 6.5%, but all the flavors blended well, and it was a great change of pace.

One of the IPAs also had yuzu in it, and that also worked well.  They might have chosen yuzu to go with the gyoza and other Japanese snacks on the small plates menu.

Strong Rope Brewery

 

 

I suspect Strong Rope might be my most frequent hangout if I lived in the area.  It has a slightly ramshackle, disorganized feel to the place, perfect for hanging out and chatting.  The house style tends towards English pub ales, though they throw in a few saisons and I even had a smoked beer called Timber Phantoms -- too smoky for my taste actually, and that is something you'll rarely hear me say.  The Pale Ale I chased it with was much more drinkable.  They're not fools, of course there is also an IPA available.

Strong Rope's angle is that they brew only with New York-grown malt and hops.  The lighter character of the local hops is one reason the beer styles skew Brittanic.  It's a cool idea to use only local ingredients, and if the logical conclusion is lighter, easier-drinking beers, I'm all for it.  There isn't a cask beer on full time, but they do celebrate Cask Fridays with a firkin on the counter.  No kitchen, bring your own food. 

Sample Tray Stunt 2017

One of the early hits here on It's Pub Night was 2008's Portland Sample Tray Marathon, where Dave and I got hall passes on Father's Day and sampled 78 or so beers that afternoon by biking around and getting the sample trays at 11 breweries. The goal was to only partake of beers brewed at the very places we visited.

Remember 2008?  That year the Oregon Brewers Guild put out a press release (duly posted by portlandbeer.org -- where ya been, Matt?!?) touting the 32 microbreweries in Portland.  So Dave and I were pretty proud to have visited 1/3 of them in one day.  We didn't skip any along our path (Tugboat was closed), and we went to two Lucky Labs.  Ah, those were the days, when we hadn't yet heard of Facebook.  I had only joined Twitter two months before, and I thought since no one followed me on there I would mostly use it to make a note of times I bumped into things so that later I could figure out where I had gotten this or that bruise.

I've always wanted to repeat some variation of the sample tray stunt ("stunt" is a more fitting description than "marathon", though like a marathon it did require a certain amount of mental toughness).  This year Dave and I finally resolved to take another stab at it.  Like the original ride, it would be on Father's Day and we would only sample beers brewed on premises, but this time we would only visit places which had opened since our last adventure.

It wasn't difficult to pick new breweries, since OBG's 2017 press release counts 70 breweries in Portland, more than double the number in 2008.  In fact, this time we would be skipping over a dozen breweries near the route, only a few of which had been on our original tour.  On the other side of that coin:  two of the original stunt's breweries -- Roots and Clinton Street -- had gone out of business, and the beer served at the Lompoc Tavern on 23rd is no longer brewed there.  Here is a map of this year's route:



The other thing we did differently this time was to invite more people along. In fact, we opened it up to the public at large by adding it to the 2017 Pedalpalooza calendar. That could have gone spectacularly wrong if, say, 50 people showed up and we had to order 10 sample trays at every stop.  As it happens, it's a very small Venn diagram of people who are free on Father's Day and want to take 7 hours to bike 7 miles while sipping beer from 100 tiny glasses.  In the end, no one joined us that we didn't already know, so we could have skipped the Pedalpalooza bit entirely.  You bike people don't know what you missed.

Our core group of six biker/tasters hit 8 breweries on a 10-mile ride over the course of 6 hours, sampling 93 beers, for a velocity of 15.5 Beers per Hour (BPH).  Several of us made it to the 9th brewery to notch our 105th beer.  Of the original 6, Tim and I got in 111 beers in 7.5 hours by tacking on Hair of the Dog, with an assist from Lindsey who had joined us at Baerlic.  And though that sounds like a dangerous amount of drinking, let me say that 111 samples shared by 6 people is much more sensible than the 78 beers shared by Dave and me back in 2008.

Here is a diary of our exploits, including the beer at each place that got the most votes as the group favorite (which was rarely my personal favorite):

1. Ecliptic Brewing: 13 samples. Favorite: Lupulin Nebula IPA.
2. Ex Novo: 12 samples.  Favorite:  Best Budz Hazy Sour Pale (Great Notion collab).
3. Back Pedal: 8 samples.  Favorite:  Kumulus Chamomile IPA (Fat Heads collab).
4. Breakside NW:  7 samples.  Favorite: (tie) Big Ern Texas Pilsner/Precious Snowflake DIPA.
5. PINTS: 10 samples.  Favorite: Single Hop Pale (oops, forgot to note which hop it was).
6. Burnside: 19 samples.  Favorite:  Sweet Heat (!).
7. Commons: 12 samples.  Favorite:  Nocino Brady-barrel aged Pumpernickel Rye Saison.
8. Baerlic: 12 samples.  Favorite:  Fancy Umbrella Drink Guava Gose.
9. Grixsen: 12 samples.  Favorite (difficult to choose something we liked here):  IPA.
10. Hair of the Dog:  6 samples.  Favorite:  Peach Adam from the Wood.

What a thing of beauty, if I do say so myself.  How cool is it that we went from the latest Breakside jam straight to PINTS, whose first head brewer Zach Beckwith conceived of it as the anti-Breakside?  Not to mention the fact that as we sat at Breakside debating whether to hit PINTS or Fat Heads, our server chimed in to say what a hidden treasure he thought PINTS was.  And though the Roots Brewing that we visited in 2008 is justly lamented, it was a delight to sample almost 20 beers at Jason McAdam's Burnside, which shines far brighter than Roots.  Burnside's Sweet Heat -- which was the crowd favorite -- was born as Calypso at Roots, as their 2008 OBF entry.  I can vividly remember the first few times I tried Calypso:  it was so different, wonderful, refreshing, and complete.  Another beautiful connection with the 2008 ride:  the Full Sail beers we had at the harbor that year were brewed by John Harris, who struck out on his own in 2013 to start Ecliptic, which was a brilliant opener for us in 2017.

Thanks to my co-conspirators on this ride!  Stay tuned for more excessive beer adventures.

Beer Book Gift Ideas

For you last-minute holiday shoppers, here are a few books you might consider for the beer lover on your list.  Or for yourself.

Hop in the Saddle

• Audience: Portland beer fans who want to bike more, or Portland bicyclists with a new interest in beer.

My friend Lucy Burningham has co-authored a book of five Portland bike pub crawls, called Hop in the Saddle: A Guide to Portland's Craft Beer Scene, by Bike. Let's just call it Hop in the Saddle for short.  Beer and bicycling are two subjects near and dear to my heart -- I like mapping out bike pub crawls myself -- so I was excited to hear about Lucy's project.  This is a nice collection of easy bike routes in Portland neighborhoods, annotated with beer destinations, with longer optional bike rides for more advanced riders.

If you're a Portland beer geek who already goes everywhere by bike, none of the routes or destinations will be news to you, and if you think you don't need this book, you're probably right.  But if your bike has been gathering dust and a pub crawl could entice you out for a ride, this book will get you started.  On the other hand, if you are a regular rider but haven't yet become a beer obsessive, Hop in the Saddle hits the high points of what each neighborhood has to offer. Click these links to buy it online from Powell's or from Amazon.

Craft Beers of the Pacific Northwest

• Audience: Visitors to the Northwest, or locals planning to travel to other parts of the region. 

I reviewed Lisa Morrison's Craft Beers of the Pacific Northwest almost two years ago when it came out, but the similarities with Hop in the Saddle are so great that I feel like I have to mention it in the same article (the two books would make a great gift set).  On a small world level, I remember locking my bicycle next to Lucy's bike at the press briefing Lisa held when CBPN was published.

Similarly to Hop in the Saddle, you probably wouldn't buy this book in order to learn more about your own neighborhood.  But what you would find useful are the walkable pub crawls it maps out in other Northwest cities, and the information about other local scenes you might be planning on visiting.  Click these links to buy it online from Powell's or from Amazon.

Brewed Awakening

• Audience: Anyone with a new interest in good beer, who wants a good overview of breweries and beer styles.

Lest anyone think I only review books written by women who are friends of mine, here's a book by a male stranger that the publisher sent me a copy of about a year ago: Brewed Awakening: Behind the Beers and Brewers Leading the World's Craft Brewing Revolution.

As the word "awakening" suggests, the book is something of a primer on beer styles and well-regarded breweries. Brewed Awakening addresses various beery topics in a breezy, lighthearted style.  But by far the best feature of the book are its dozens of single-page sections called "Four to Try" (or some other number), offering lists of representative beers from around the country.  A few of those sections call out a specific style like Saisons or Pre-prohibition Lagers, but most focus more on some other aspect of the beer -- for example, there are sections on barrel-aged beers, session beers, organic beers, and ancient recipes.

If you're already the kind of beer geek who reads a dozen blogs and trades bottles back and forth across the country, this book will not cover much new ground for you.  However, if you or someone you know is just getting started with good beer, Brewed Awakening is a readable, entertaining overview. Click these links to buy it online from Powell's or from Amazon.
 

New Belgium Sour Blending Symposium

Last month I was invited to New Belgium's Sour Beer Blending Symposium at Saraveza.  The event was a fine Monday night offering during PDX Beer Week: for some background, here is the press release for it over on the New School; here is Jeff Alworth's excellent recap of the session.  It was a really interesting and fun experience which my brain has been digesting about as quickly as brettanomyces digests sugar, and now I'm ready to give you my point of view.

Symposium.  I like it.  It's not a meet-the-brewer, it's not even a seminar, it's a symposium.  I was going to make fun of the snootiness of that word, until I looked up the etymology:  holy crap, in Latin it meant "drinking party", with Greek roots:

syn- "together" + posis "a drinking,"

Say what you will about Fat Tire -- go ahead, I dare you -- New Belgium has a boldness that you have to admire: hiring a brewmaster from Rodenbach, promoting bicycling with the Tour de Fat, and putting on Sour Beer Symposia and/or Drinking Parties around the country.  The Symposium in Portland was headed by the husband and wife team of Eric and Lauren Salazar.  Eric is a brewer at New Belgium, and Lauren is NB's Sensory Specialist, in charge of the blending program that produces the sour beers in the Lips of Faith Series.

The Symposium started off with an hour-long slide show about the brewery, including a virtual tour of the warehouse where they age beer in giant wooden casks called foeders.  All the sour Lips of Faith beers are based on some combination of an Odd Couple of beers called Oscar and Felix.  Oscar is a dark ale that has almost the same components of NB's 1554 Black Ale, minus the black malt; Felix is a lighter-colored strong Belgian.  If you've had Eric's Ale or Le Terroir, those are 100% Felix beers, so you might get an idea of what Felix is about.  The beers are fermented out to be pretty dry -- they don't want a lot of residual sugars in these beers.

New Belgium has some wooden barrels for aging beer, but their real workhorses are the foeders. When a new foeder arrives at the brewery, a certain amount of the wood inside is shaved off, but there may be some residual critters.  Once filled with beer, they are inoculated with the house blend of... well, of what we aren't exactly sure.  Lauren said that they started off with all the stuff that sounds like childhood diseases:  pediococcus, brettanomyces, lactobacillus.  But now she says that what's growing in those foeders is its own little world, and New Belgium doesn't care so much what it is, as how it is.  When people asked her what was growing in the foeders, she said (I'm paraphrasing) "I don't know exactly, but it's a bunch of organisms that love where they're living".

And so the NB blending program doesn't rely on any microbial analysis, the blending is done entirely on sensory perception.  Because there is no particular schedule to the Lips of Faith releases, the brewery has the luxury of waiting until they think they have something worth bottling before they pull it out of the casks.  As the foeders are sampled, they are grouped into three rough categories:  Users (ready to use), Blenders (ready to extend Users), and Waiters (not ready yet).  Every now and then, a beer tastes so good out of the foeder that it is deemed suitable to be bottled without any blending.  These are the beers that occasionally appear as "NBB Love" beers -- if you ever see a New Belgium beer with the word "Love" in its name, it's a single-barrel beer that you should not pass up.

Lauren boasted that she could train anyone to be on her sensory panel; that seemed overly idealistic to me so when I followed up with her by email she said "No one panelist is perfect, we all are going to be more or less sensitive to families of compounds (sulfurs, organic acids, esters, etc). Your panel is your strength and that strength comes from a number of trained and validated panelists that you know their strengths and weaknesses."

After the slide show and infomercial came the audience participation part of the Drinking Pa-, er, Symposium.  New Belgium had brought five firkins to Saraveza, four of which contained beer from various foeders at the brewery; the fifth contained La Folie (an expertly blended sour -- the 2010 vintage if I remember correctly).  Participants were given samples of the five beers -- in plastic cups, sorry Jim -- and asked to sample them and come up with a ratio that they would want to take home in a growler as their own personal blend.

For the record, in Portland our samples were from Foeders 2, 7, 8, and 14, plus La Folie of course.  It was a little bit suboptimal in that the pure items were uncarbonated -- if you wanted a little fizz in your mix, you had to add in the La Folie training wheels.  I've lost my notes on the different samples, but there was definitely a range of funk there, from sweet tart to "did you step in something?".  At our table we were pretty much in agreement as to the nastiest beer -- not that it was totally irredeemable -- and that tended to occupy a smaller part in most of our blends.  Interestingly, one of the NB marketing guys told me that the foeder we eschewed was the most popular in the earlier session.  Where's my tasting panel?

I was pretty happy with the beer I took home, though like Jeff, I think that this blending thing is pretty difficult.  My hat's off to people that do it for a living.  My blend was 8 parts firkin 2, 18 parts firkin 7, 14 parts firkin 8, 16 parts firkin 14, and 8 parts La Folie.  Needless to say, it was flat as a pancake, especially after riding home on the front rack of my bike.  But tasty -- funky, and not too tart.

If you are a fan of sour beers, especially if you are a fan of La Folie or any of the New Belgium Lips of Faith beers, you should absolutely attend one of these Sour Beer Symposia if you get the chance. 

Further reading: Here's an excellent long interview with Lauren on a blog called Embrace the Funk.

Preview: Portland Fruit Beer Festival 2012

Last year's "first annual" Portland Fruit Beer Festival had about twice the attendance that organizer Ezra Johnson-Greenough expected it to have -- with most of that coming on the busy Saturday opening despite parking and traffic disruptions by the Portland Rose Festival parade a few blocks away.  There were some shortages of the mostly one-off beers, but for the most part the festival went off pretty smoothly.  The preponderance of beers brewed specifically for the festival made for a very enjoyable time; to jog your memory, read my recap of last year's festival.

This year's festival should be even better, with:

• More space (NE 7th Ave. closed off)
• More beer in stock
• Draft trucks for faster keg replacement
• Four rare taps on at once, instead of last year's two
• Several ciders on tap for your beer-challenged loved ones

On the down side, the entry price is a little higher this year:  in order to get a wristband for drinking, you must purchase a $20 package that includes a nice glass and 12 tickets for samples (the glass was only $6 last year).  Additional tickets are $1.  Minors and other non-drinkers get in free.

It's always fun to look over a festival's beer list before you get there, to make a plan for what you're going to attack first.  Here is the PFBF's main list; there is also a rotating rare tap list.  I have a few recommendations for you, some of which I have tried, others that caught my eye on the list for one reason or another (alphabetical by brewery):

• Alameda Huckleberry Hound IPA: Not my favorite, but one of the quickest to run out last year, so get it fast.
• Bend Brewing Ching Ching Berliner Weisse: A GABF medal winner from the talented Tonya Cornett.
• Breakside Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Golden Ale: Made with whole pies!
• Burnside Red Light District Imperial Stout: A little sweet, and over 10%, but one of the few beers I've had where strawberries make a good addition.
• Gigantic Hot Town, Summer in the City Imperial Black Saison: Gigantic's already tasty IBS, with Ben Love's sarcastic addition of the fruit of the chile pepper plant.
• Laurelwood Cascara Obscura Belgian Dubbel: A delicious abbey ale, with a slight rose-hip tartness from the addition of the coffee berries -- excellent off-the-wall fruit choice.
• Ninkasi Cherry Bourbon Renewale Porter: Last year the Cherry Oatis was my unexpected favorite of the festival, so I have to check this one out.
• Upright Levinator Bock: The picture above doesn't do justice to the pretty beet-juice color that black currants add to this full-bodied, slightly tart bock.  Delicious.
• Widmer Marionberry Hibiscus Gose: Last year I was underwhelmed by Widmer's very pretty Raspberry Hibiscus Gose, though lots of people loved it.  I like this year's much better, it seems a little maltier and a little saltier.  Check it out.

I'm not even going to go into the rare beers list, but do keep an eye out for Burnside's International Incident, a news-making strong wheat ale with mangos, hot peppers, and Indian spices.  There are also rare kegs from breweries seldom or never seen in Portland:  Short Snout Brewing, a new Kickstarter-funded nanobrewery in town; California's Almanac (founded by a beer blogger!); and Naked City and Schooner Exact from Washington.

Some things to keep in mind for the festival:

• Where: 701 E. Burnside (Note: The Burnside Bridge is closed Saturday morning for the Rose Parade.)
• When:
  
  • Saturday June 9, 2012, 11 AM - 9 PM
  • Sunday June 10, 2012, 11 AM - 6 PM
• Cost: free entry; 16-ounce tasting glass plus 12 tastes $20; 4-ounce taste $1
• All ages are admitted.
• Car parking: good luck. The Rose Parade will further complicate matters early Saturday.  Bike or take the bus.
• Bike parking:  not much at the festival.  There are big bike corrals just off East Burnside at 6th, 8th, and 9th, and there's another one at 9th and Ash.

Portland Pub Crawl: NW 17th and 16th

This is the second in our series of Portland pub crawls (the first one was a mile-long classic SE Portland pub crawl).  This isn't a total beer geek-out -- the only place on the main list that really has a beer focus is Caps and Corks -- it's a sociable and short stroll through a few interesting places that you might not have heard of before.  The pub crawl centers on a growing bar scene that sits in the shadow of the I-405 flyovers heading up to the Fremont Bridge.  It's easy to get there via the Portland Streetcar or the #77 bus, and if you stay too late to catch the train or bus home, the Radio Cab garage is right there.  If you're biking there, the best east-west through streets are Overton and Johnson.

Click on the pins of the map for more details like opening hours:


View Portland Pub Crawl: NW 17th and 16th in a larger map

The green pins represent the main route on the pub crawl starting at NW 17th and Marshall; the yellow pins are optional but interesting places nearby.

Main route:

• Bent Brick: A somewhat upscale "tavern" spin-off of Park Kitchen. Five carefully-chosen beer taps.
• Moonshine Kitchen and Lounge (aka Paymaster): Homey bar with a few nice beers, a cider tap, and a burger-and-fries menu.
• Caps and Corks: Fun little bottleshop with 400 bottled beer choices, 7 taps (soon to be more), and imperial pints.
• Slabtown: Ostentatiously seedy dive that focuses on live music at night. A few drinkable beer taps along the lines of Lagunitas, Deschutes, and Ninkasi.

Optional add-ons:

• Yur's: Comfortable and friendly dive bar with excellent greasy-spoon menu and a few good beers on tap, a couple blocks down from Slabtown on 16th.
• Bridgeport Brewpub: If your pub crawl must visit a brewery, you can start off at Bridgeport, a couple blocks east of the Bent Brick on Marshall.
• Lucky Lab: A bit further afield, a classic Portland brewpub at NW 20th and Quimby.
• Le Happy: A late-night French cafe and creperie in the same block as Slabtown.  No beer to speak of, but a cozy atmosphere and full bar.

The impetus for writing up this overlooked corner of town is that I'm about to move out of my office at 18th and Lovejoy, so I wanted to document the neighborhood's drinking opportunities while they are still part of my regular beat.  You get both ends of the spectrum by starting at the fancy-pants Bent Brick and ending up at gritty Slabtown, but each place has its own charm.  For instance, not only does Slabtown have several pinball machines and a Ms. PacMan, but it also has air hockey, pop-a-shot, skeeball, and some weird coin-operated punching bag.  Just don't eat there unless the recent management change has improved the kitchen.

I also highly recommend a visit to Yur's, which is my favorite dive bar in Portland.  It always feels like nighttime in there, which makes it a nice break in the middle of the day.  And even though it's got plenty of atmosphere, you won't get that "Yeh ain't from around here, ere yeh?" attitude that some dives drape themselves in (Slabtown is a little bit like that, though it's far from the worst offender in town).  Yur's is by no means a beer-geek paradise, but they always have something workable, and they usually have one or two choices that are a little off the beaten path like Coalition or Migration.

Portland vs. Austin: Beer Festival Edition

Wow!  Word out of Austin is that the bad feelings left by a botched beer festival last weekend is partly to blame for the cancellation of another festival there that was scheduled for later in the month.

Don't take what follows as gloating -- I swear it's not.  But reading about the failed Austin Beer Festival -- described on a Beer Advocate thread as a complete disaster -- is a surprising reminder to me of how good we've got it in so many ways in Portland.  I lived in Austin for almost 20 years, and I while I still love that town, I can say confidently that moving to Portland 9 years ago was the best thing that our family ever did.  I love returning to Austin for visits, but it's a place I could never live again.  Naturally there are more reasons for that than the beer festival situation, although reading the links above underlined some other differences between the two towns:

• It was 90 degrees there Saturday (Portland's high was in the low 50's)
• Everyone attending a Texas beer festival drives there in a car.  OK, 99%.
• The organizers of the ABF aren't really plugged in to the beer community -- it's just another business to them

On the last two points, think of the central locations of Portland's big beer festivals, all well-served by multiple forms of public transit and easy to reach on a bicycle (granted, I used to occasionally bike out to Decker Lake where the ABF was held, but even then it wasn't a particularly nice ride).  Think also of the grassroots origins of all of the Portland festivals, and how they are staffed in large part by volunteers (which it sounds like was not the case in Austin).  And how about the 2 ounce sample size at the ABF?  I guess bike lanes are not the only proof that not everything is bigger in Texas.

This seems like a good place to mention that Portland's red-headed stepchild of beer festivals, the Spring Beer and Wine Fest, is happening this Friday and Saturday.  In the past I've been somewhat critical of the SBWF, though I attend almost every year, as I will this year.  This time, though, I'll think how bad it could be, and I'll consider my taster glass half-full instead of half-empty.

If you share my interest in watching train wrecks and you didn't yet click on the ABF stories above, they are interesting reading.  Glad I didn't get wind of it on April 1st or I would have thought it was a prank.

Portland Pub Crawl: SE 9th to SE 12th

Not long ago I claimed to have invented the Portland pub crawl.  But looking back through the pub crawls I've written up over the years, every single one of them is out of date.  The other day when I asked your advice on where to send tourists drinking in Portland, a common theme was that a pub crawl is the best way to experience Portland's beer scene. I heartily concur, so I propose to outline a few easy-to-walk Portland pub crawls.  The audience for these posts is more likely to be visitors than natives, though of course I welcome your input if there's something you would change about the routes.

First up:  a no-brainer through my own zip code of 97214:


View Portland Pub Crawl: SE 9th to 12th in a larger map

The green pins represent the main points on the pub crawl.  I recommend that you go from north to south, since Apex and the Firkin are open far later in the night than anywhere else, though if you're hoping to visit the worthy Beermongers, keep in mind that they close at 11 on weekdays and midnight on Friday and Saturday. The yellow pins are optional (except for Commons Brewery:  don't miss it if your pub crawl happens during the few hours they are open).  Here's the green-pin plan:

• Cascade Barrel House: Nice patio, Crazy wild beers, but also more accessible beers available in honest pints
• Green Dragon: Great taproom.  Maybe the least Rogue-ish Rogue establishment.
• Lucky Labrador: A Portland classic.  The patio isn't very scenic, but it's a convivial hangout if the weather is good.  Great setup for darts.
• The Firkin: New place with 14 rotating taps, midway between Lucky Lab and Beermongers.
• The Beermongers: Super casual bottleshop, with great prices, and 8 well-curated beers on tap.
• Apex: Portland's answer to Toronado.  No frills, just reasonable prices on excellent beers.

Now, this is a pretty serious itinerary, and although it's only 1 mile from beginning to end, it would probably take you an entire day to finish it. Maybe it's better to think of this map as describing two separate pub crawls:  one north of Hawthorne Blvd., the other one south of Hawthorne.  Clicking on the pins will tell you the opening hours of each place -- most of them are open between 11 am and at least 11 pm every day -- as well as a short description of the pub.

Clicking on the bus icons will tell you the last departing times for the main buses to and from downtown Portland, and also gives you the Trimet stop IDs so you can check bus arrivals in real time.  If you click the "View larger map" link, the Google map lets you select the Transit overlay to see more bus routes in the area.

I added the optional yellow pins to give you more choices if you decide on one of the smaller routes, or if you need to stick close to TVs for some kind of sporting event, or if you want some different food options.  As I said, even though its pin is yellow, don't miss the Commons Brewery if your pub crawl is early on a Friday or Saturday evening -- it's a small brewery that makes high-quality, approachable beers in a variety of interesting styles.  There are many other optional places I could have added, but I didn't want to clutter the map too much.  If you crave more variety, click to the larger Google map and search nearby for "bar".

Enjoy your pub crawl!

Caps and Corks

It's not often that I pick up a beer scoop around here, but the other day I stumbled on a newly opened bottleshop/taproom in NW Portland:  Caps and Corks at 17th and Lovejoy.  As Jason and Nicole pointed out last year, the NW quadrant is hurting for just such a business.  The location had for years been the Emanon Cafe -- the name was "No Name" backwards -- but has started a rebranding this week.

There are currently 7 beers on draft and 400 bottled beers, with plans to add more taps and a few more bottles.  20-ounce pints are $5 and shaker pints are $4, both 50 cents off during happy hour.  When I stopped in Wednesday at lunchtime, the taplist was pretty good, about evenly split between widely accessible and more esoteric regional beers:

• Occidental Alt
• Anchor Steam
• Fearless Porter
• Widmer Hef
• Klamath Basin Lager
• Goodlife Stout
• Boneyard Notorious IIPA

Beer and wine bottles are available to go:  the corkage fee on beers is $1, whereas the price tag on a wine bottle is discounted by $5 if you get it to go.  The bottled and canned beer selection had some interesting choices but will hopefully evolve further; I'm not a wine guy but the wine selection seemed a little paltry to me.  They have a good selection of mainstream lagers in tall-boy cans if someone in your party can't drink the good stuff.

Caps and Corks is a welcome addition to the neighborhood for me:  it's kitty-corner from my office, and open for lunch.  Most food items are in the $4-$10 range, and the menu includes such Portland favorites as poutine, house-made pickles, and meat and cheese boards. Nice to see the 20-ounce beer option at a reasonable enough price; in a perfect world every new beer bar in Portland would start off immediately using glassware with a marked fill line, but we're not there yet.

There's quite a little tavern district popping up along NW 17th in the last year:  the Bent Brick at Marshall, Moonshine Tavern mid-block, and now Caps and Corks at Lovejoy.  Along 16th are some colorful bars that have been there a while: Slabtown (supposedly due to re-open soon), Le Happy, and my personal favorite dive bar in the area, Yur's.  Caps and Corks is the only one to focus heavily on beer, let's wish them luck.  They're already open for business, but they will have a Grand Opening celebration on January 27th.

Scattered Thoughts about the Bridgeport Pubs

Yesterday I took advantage of Bridgeport's Monday beer special at their Pearl District pub while watching the Rose Bowl -- $3 imperial pints is about as good a deal as it gets in Portland these days.  As I was leaving, I happened to walk directly in front of the bar, and noticed that Bridgeport's new "black pale ale" Dark Rain was on tap.  Funny, I'd been there for hours, and it wasn't listed on the sign above the bar, nor was it on the printed menus, nor did anyone bother to tell me about it.  Talk about hiding your candle under a bushel.

It points to an issue at that pub: the employees do not seem very happy. The service is rarely great but usually OK there, but sometimes it's really bad. Unhappy employees are unmotivated employees -- you know this yourself from whatever bad work experience you might have had in the past. Somewhere on the management side is something keeping these people gloomy. If the wheels were running smoothly, someone would have read me as a beer geek -- first question: "What's on cask?" -- and alerted me to the new beer.

Something else was odd yesterday.  Looking up at the bar chalkboard, I ordered a pint of Ebeneezer -- the winter warmer -- but was told, "Oh, that's only in bottles".  Reasonable enough, it's a seasonal release, they ran through the kegs, but some bottles remain.  But the next bit of information was more surprising: "That, and Blue Heron.  The brewers have been on vacation."  Out of kegs of Blue Heron?  It's no longer the flagship beer, but it has a following and its low alcohol makes it a great choice for a few pints watching a football game.

In case you missed it, the coffee porter Bridgeport released last year, Cafe Negro, is out of the lineup at least temporarily.  No surprise, it was due to be replaced by Ebeneezer when that rolled out.  A straight-up Bridgeport Porter -- the previous recipe, last seen a little over a year ago? -- is on tap right now.  A cask version of Kingpin double red was on yesterday. It was darker than I remember it being, and a little smoother and richer than the non-cask version, but still not as malty as many of its local competitors.

Finally, if you've been to the "remodeled" Bridgeport location on Hawthorne, what do you think about it?  I'm disappointed that it's no longer open for lunch, only dinner.  And the changes to the interior were very minor.  Was the whole thing just a tactical maneuver to be able to lay off all the staff -- some of whom I remember seeing there even before I moved to Portland eight years ago -- without calling it a layoff?

Sierra Nevada Celebration Vertical Tasting 2011

Saturday my friend Lindsey and I took advantage of a break in the rain and biked over to Woodstock Wine and Deli for WWD's annual vertical tasting of Sierra Nevada Celebration.  I had always been intrigued by the event but never attended, so I was happy to get in on that. Every table in the place was full, but it was never more crowded than that during the time we were there, so the atmosphere was busy and exciting without being uncomfortable.

Celebration is a wonderful beer, the progenitor of the Hoppy Holiday Ale category, though it ticks me off that Sierra Nevada put the misleading tag "Fresh Hop Ale" on Celebration's label again this year when the beer only contains dried hops.  Remember, dried hops are NOT fresh hops, despite SN's wacky definition of "fresh" as dried and shipped within 7 days.  Nevertheless, it is a delicious beer if you like lots of hops and lots of malt, and this year's batch really hit the spot with me.

It seems slightly odd to age a beer known mainly for its hop character, but you'd be surprised how well the hop flavor held up in some of the older batches, and it does give you a glimpse of the year-to-year variation in the hops, since the beer's recipe is the same every year.  WWD tapped kegs from seven consecutive years:  2005-2011.  For the most part, I preferred the newer batches in the tasting, though for some reason the odd-numbered years stood out over the even-numbered ones (Lindsey called this "reverse Star Trek movie ranking"):

• 2011: hoppy and clean
• 2009: hoppy with some oxidation
• 2005: hoppy and surprisingly flowery still
• 2010: hoppy and piney
• 2007: hoppy and a hint of maple
• 2008: hoppy and malty with more oxidation than '09
• 2006: hoppy but it's gone around the bend

I was surprised at how much I liked the oldest beer in the bunch, the 2005, which still had more floral hop notes than I got from the other years.  The 2006 was a dog:  interestingly, way back at the 2007 tasting Dave Selden also panned the '06; reporting on last year's tasting, Lisa Morrison found that the 2005 was off but she enjoyed the 2006.  Go figure.  Among people I talked to at the tasting Saturday, there was a lot of love for the 2008 and 2007 vintages, though they were pretty low on my list.  That's one reason I've been cutting back on my cellaring activities -- you can't go wrong with fresh beer, and there is definitely a tipping point after which even the biggest beer is too old, though the tasty 2005 Celebration shows that it's still a worthwhile experiment to age a few old favorites.

By the way, Woodstock Wine and Deli is an interesting place to shop for bottled beer.  They hide a few beers away and shelve the vintages later at random times.  Saturday there were bottles of Celebration as far back as 1996 for sale; on previous visits I've seen bottles of Bridgeport's Old Knucklehead from the 90's as well.  Even if you don't find that special bottle, they always have three or four decent beers on tap.

2011 Fresh Hop Tastival Checklist

Fresh hops, click, fresh hops, click, fresh hops... Yes, I am a broken record at this time of year.  It's just that the beers are so good, so special, and so fleeting, that it becomes something of an obsession.

The Oregon Brewer's Guild/Oregon Bounty Portland Fresh Hop Tastival takes place tomorrow (Saturday, October 8, 2011) at Oaks Park, noon to 8 PM.  Scroll past the confusing east-is-up map on this page to see the beer list.  Kids are allowed, and if the weather is nice -- unlike last year -- the picnic area just outside the festival building is a great place to mingle in the fresh air.  As with any beer festival, the earlier you can arrive, the happier you'll be.  There is usually drinking water available, but the most convenient option is usually to bring your own.

There are still some entries on the Tastival list that I haven't tried yet, even after the Hood River Hops Fest and several weeks of trying an average of one new fresh hop beer a day.  So I'll be out there trying to fill in those blanks.  Meanwhile, here's my updated list of 2011 fresh hop beers, divided into these four categories:  fresh-hop beers you must try; beers that show off fresh hops well enough; beers that are really good but where I didn't really notice much fresh hop flavor; finally, beers to avoid.  The ones that will be available at Oaks Park this weekend are marked with "(Oaks)". [Update 2011/10/08: and new ones I tried at Oaks Park are marked with italic "(Oaks)".]

Must-try:

• Deschutes Fresh Hop Mirror Pond (Oaks)
• Deschutes Fresh Hop Twilight Ale
• Full Sail Lupulin (with Tettnanger hops) (Oaks)
• Breakside Fresh Hop IPA
• Laurelwood Cavalry IPA
• The Commons Fresh Hop Farmhouse (Oaks)
• Big Horse Vernon the Rabbit Slayer
• Elysian Kama Citra
• Logsdon Fresh Hop Sezoen (Oaks)
• Two Beers The Fresh Hop
• Alameda Citronix (Oaks)
• Double Mountain Killer Red
• New Belgium Fresh Hop IPA
• Bridgeport Hop Harvest (Oaks)
• Laurelwood Laurelfest Vienna Lager (Oaks)
• Deschutes Hop Trip (Oaks)
• MacTarnahan's Fresh Hop Mac's Amber (Oaks)
• Coalition Green Pig (Oaks)
• Laurelwood Fresh Hop Free Range Red (Oaks) 
• Green Dragon (OBC) Sophie Harvest Ale (Oaks)  
• Ft. George CoHoporative Ale
• Terminal Gravity Wild Wild Wet 

Good fresh hop beers:

• Full Sail Lupulin (with Magnum hops) (Oaks)
• Sierra Nevada Northern Hemisphere Harvest
• Rogue Chatoe Wet Hop (Oaks)
• Ninkasi Tricerarillo (Oaks)
• Hopworks Fest of Fury (Oaks)
• Widmer Liberty Fresh Hop Lager (Oaks)
• Deschutes Fresh Hop Inversion IPA
• Pelican Elemental Ale (Oaks)
• Migration 69 Pound Perle (Oaks)
• Fremont Brewing Cowiche Canyon Fresh Hop Pale
• Oakshire Triune Wet Hop Pale Ale (Oaks)
• Everybody's Brewing Head Stash Pale Ale
• Iron Horse Fresh Hop Loco Red 
• Schooner Exact Fresh Hop IPA
• Full Sail Hopenfrisch Pilsner (Oaks)
• Great Divide Fresh Hop Pale
• Lucky Lab The Mutt (Oaks)
• Rock Bottom Hop Harvest (Oaks)
• McMenamin's Thundercone (Oaks)
• Cascade Lakes Harvest Ale (Oaks)

Tasty beers, not much fresh-hop flavor:

• Full Sail Lupulin (with Centennial hops) (Oaks)
• Breakside Fresh Hop CDA
• Long Brewing Fresh Hop IPA #1
• Port Brewing High Tide IPA
• Double Mountain Killer Green (Oaks)
• Hopworks Give me Liberty... (Oaks)
• Lompoc Crystal Missile (Oaks)
• Cascade Fresh Hop Porter (Oaks)
• Old Market Nugget IPA (Oaks)
• Snipes Mountain The Hooch 
• Ninkasi Total Crystallization (Oaks)
• Upright Hits from the Vine (Oaks)
• Gilgamesh Fresh Prince 
• Big Horse Red Fang
• Seven Seas Hop Prophet
• Seven Brides Fresh Hop Emily's Ember (Oaks)
• Coalition Liquid Sterling (Oaks)
• Beer Valley Fresh Hop Leafer Madness (Oaks) 
• Gilgamesh Fresh Hop Double IPA

Avoid:

• Ft. George Fresh Hop Vortex IPA (Oaks)
• Burnside Nuggets with Attitude (Oaks)
• Deschutes Fresh Hop Chainbreaker White IPA
• Lucky Lab Reaperweizen (Oaks)
• Portland U-Brew King Harvest (Oaks) 
• Philadelphia's Willamette in the Rye (Oaks) 

Of course, those are just my opinions, and your mileage may vary. But if you see something in the top two categories that ordinarily you would have skipped, give it a try at the Tastival or around town. A good example is the Fresh Hop Mac's Amber. The last couple years it hasn't been too exciting, and I had low expectations this time since Mac's excellent head brewer Vasili Gletsos jumped to Laurelwood earlier in the year, but the 2011 batch of Fresh Hop Mac's is really outstanding.

Hopworks BikeToBeerFest 2011

I had a nice time Saturday at Hopworks Urban Brewery's bike-in version of Oktoberfest, the BikeToBeerFest  -- the third annual.  They always roll out some special beers for the festival, and this year was no exception, with two fresh hop beers, several barrel-aged monsters, and a few other rarities pouring alongside the brewery's standards.  The gigantic glass that Hopworks founder Christian Ettinger is drinking from contains a special pale ale called Lover Brau, an homage to head brewer Ben Love, who is leaving HUB to help found Gigantic Brewing.  To keep it a surprise, Lover Brau was actually brewed at Golden Valley in McMinnville.

Last year I made a big stink about Hopworks labeling beers "fresh hop" when they contained only dried hops.  This year I'm told that the fresh hop beers really do have some "wet hops" (I hate that silly term) in them.  Perhaps my whining paid off -- I just hope that one day it will be heard in Chico, California.  I thought the true fresh hops really made this year's Fest of Fury Märzen the best batch I can remember.  The Give Me Liberty fresh-hop Pale Ale was also very hoppy and bitter, very good stuff though I didn't pick up much of the fresh-hop flavor.  Hats off to Hopworks for going fresh this year.

At the 2010 festival, the most noteworthy big beer was Piledriver -- Hopworks' dubbel, barrel-aged with cherries and brettanomyces.  It was back again this year, and people were saying it was the same batch, though that seemed strange to me since it didn't look nearly as dark as I remember it -- look at these pictures of it last year over on the New School.  Whichever batch it was, it was at least as good as before -- nice cherries and a little drying funk on top of what was already a nice beer.  I also liked the bourbon barrel-aged Ace of Spades, though several people told me it was too over-the-top for them.  And Kronan the Bourbarian was another fine use of bourbon barrels -- adding a little extra kick to HUB's already potent Baltic Porter.

The beer price scheme has changed every year of BikeToBeerFest.  This year's was the most sensible system yet, so I hope it sticks.  Normal-strength pints were $4, or $2 for a half pour.  Strong beers were $3 for a half pour.  If you remember last year, the choices were either a full pint for $4 or $6, or a four-ounce pour for $1 (even for the $6 bruisers).  The half-pint option this year is a much better option all around.  Also this year there was no charge to get in to the festival, just the cost of a glass and your tickets.

Attendance seemed to be down from 2010.  Just a week ago, we were talking about how the hot weather might have kept people away from the Beermongers 2nd Anniversary Brewfest; Saturday the intermittent rain might have similarly dampened the BikeToBeerFest crowds.  Can we blame the weather, or are we really starting to have beer event fatigue in Portland?  Whatever it was, the bike racks in the lower parking lot were mostly empty during the time I was there, and there was never much of a line for any beer -- not that I'm complaining about that.  Maybe there was more of a crowd after I left.

Bikes and beer -- a great Portland combination, and a great thing to make a tradition of.

Sanjay has a post about the event, including some nice video, over on the Not So Professional Beer Blog.

Beermongers 2nd Anniversary Fest

There were lots of good beers pouring at the Beermongers 2nd Anniversary Brewfest this weekend, and lots of space to drink them in, at least during the few hours I was there on Sunday.  Everyone had a great time, but it was a little surprising how sparse the attendance was.  I was musing about it with festival organizer Josh Grgas yesterday, so before I go on to talk about the beer, let me ask your opinion on why there weren't more people at the festival.  Was it:

• Unseasonably hot weather?
• Not enough publicity?
• Beer event fatigue?
• Competing events?
• No minors allowed?
• Car parking issues?
• Something else?

It did get pretty darn hot outside on Sunday.  I was pouring beer under the tent in the parking lot from noon to 4 PM, and there were not many people out there braving the heat.  Most people stayed inside the shop, where there was more room than at previous Beermongers events because they rearranged the floorplan recently to make better use of the space.  I understand that attendance was bigger on Saturday, the first day of the festival.

I didn't try everything at the festival, but some highlights for me were:

• Boneyard Hop Venom: very fresh-tasting, floral Double IPA in the Pliny branch of the family tree
• Upright Gunslinger: a Helles lager using Upright's hand-smoked malt
• Beetje En Vat: light Belgian ale aged in wine barrels
• Astoria Solar Dog: a tongue-scraping IPA that was all hops, in a good way
• Stone Belgo Guardian: barleywine brewed with Belgian yeast

Keep an eye on Upright's lagers.  They don't get as much play as the farmhouse lineup, but they fill a gap in town for crisp but tasty German-style lagers.  The smoked ones have the typical off-the-wall Upright creativity -- they smoke the malt themselves.  Alex told me yesterday that the malt for Gunslinger was smoked over maple and fir, and some of the maple was from leftovers from construction of the bar at his joint venture Grain and Gristle.  That would be cool, to sit at the bar and drink the wood from it at the same time.

Beetje turned in another simple but effective winner with En Vat.  It's recognizable to fans of farmhouse ales, but still approachable to novices.  The wine-barrel aging added a nice fruit touch to the palate.  And speaking of Belgian styles, the Stone Belgian Barleywine surprised me in the way it was able to combine the best flavors of the yeast with a muscular, hoppy barleywine.  I wasn't crazy about their Belgo Imperial Stout -- though I know a lot of people who loved it -- but the b-wine worked really well.

Angelo has some pictures up from Saturday at the Brewfest.

Kegs weren't emptying out much at the festival, so keep an eye on the Beermongers taplist for the next couple weeks.  A lot of impressive beer that was left waiting in the wings is sure to be showing up.

Bikes and Beers in Amsterdam

For a person who has been wedded to bicycle transportation for about 25 years, it's a wonder that it took me so long to visit Amsterdam, where nearly every resident of every age rides a bike in every kind of weather, without making too big of a deal about it. Well, I finally made my pilgrimage, and had a great time biking the canalside streets and parks of the central area on a clunky rented one-speed girl's bike with a flowered seatcover and chopper handlebars that let me lean back until I was almost horizontal.

The icing on the cake is that Amsterdam is also a fabulous beer destination, as I noted in previous posts about 't Arendsnest (my favorite place in Amsterdam) and Gollem's Proeflokaal.  I had a great beer time there even though I missed several of the "must-visit" beer establishments: bars In De Wildeman and Café Belgique, and bottleshop De Bierkoning.

I did make it into one excellent bottleshop -- De Gekraakte Ketel (the Cracked Kettle) -- across the alleyway from the original (and currently closed) Gollem's location. The picture above of the bicycle with the crate of Westvleteren empties is the Cracked Kettle's sandwich-board -- it would make a better picture if the front tire had air in it. The rambling split-level shop had a good selection of Dutch and Belgian beers -- I grabbed a bottle of Columbus strong pale ale from 't IJ brewery, and a bargain-priced 750 ml Cantillon Iris ($10.50). I inquired about Westvleteren based on the crate out front, but all they had in stock were a few 1996 bottles of the 12, priced (if I remember right) at €50 ($70) each.  Other geek-worthy beers were to be found there also, including some American offerings, and BrewDog's viagra-laced Royal Virility Performance.

Seeing as how Gollem's was closed, a clerk at the Gekraakte Ketel recommended a replacement bar for us: De Zotte Belgisch Bierproeflokaal. The jawbreaker "Proeflokaal" that you see in these bar names means "tasting room". It was a nice place on a quiet side street just outside the canal district. At a little after 4 PM on a weekday, we were alone in the place with the bartender, the pub cat, and some kids from across the street that came in to use the restroom. The cat became quite interested in the block of cheese that was coming out of the refrigerator below the bar, and hopped right up there for a taste. There was a good selection of Belgian bottles, and a few taps (6-10 if I remember right).

Another place worth mentioning is The Beer Temple, which bills itself as an American beer bar.  It's owned by the Arend family that runs the fabulous Arendsnest.  There are an impressive number of American beers on tap, from the likes of Great Divide, Rogue, Left Hand, Anchor, and other quality brewers.  In addition, there are a few Dutch and Belgian taps, and some lighter fare like Beck's and Hoegaarden.  Nice pubby atmosphere like 't Arendsnest, but the beer selection is wasted on an Oregon beer snob -- too much focus on stuff I can get cheaper and fresher at home.  One interesting thing is that the Beer Temple was offering 20 ml -- about two-thirds of an ounce -- of BrewDog's Sink the Bismarck for €8.50, or Tactical Nuclear Penguin for €7.50 ($12 and $10.50). The British gents in the picture had ordered shots of TNP in tiny beer steins and were generously sharing it with the other patrons.  We decided it had an herbal character, kind of like an Italian Amaro.  Whoa, that's an SPE of $1277.58 for Sink the Bismarck!  It's just a lucky accident that the picture shows a BrewDog "Beer for Punks" banner reflected in the window behind them.

The proeflokaals and bottle shops will keep you busy and well-beered in Amsterdam.  Supermarkets also had a few drinkable options on the shelf -- some La Trappe varieties and some widely-distributed Belgians like Duvel.  On our first night in town, I grabbed a couple of "lentebocks" off the shelf, since we wouldn't be leaving the apartment that night.  Grolsch's was sickly-sweet, a real struggle to get through, but a brewery called Hertog Jan had made a very nice, copper-colored maibock with the right balance of malt richness and lagered crispness.  It was packaged like a cheap supermarket brand with a few different beer styles, but it was a solid choice for the refrigerator shelf.

I'm glad I finally made it to Amsterdam.  Now I've got to find a way to get back there again.

't Arendsnest, Amsterdam

On our recent trip to Europe, I expected excellent beer during our 3 days in Belgium, but the most pleasant surprise to me was what a wonderful beer town Amsterdam is. I already wrote about Gollem's Proeflokaal, but my favorite pub of the whole trip was  't Arendsnest, a beer bar in the western canal district of Amsterdam that only serves beer brewed in the Netherlands.  It's not just the selection of 30 Dutch taps and scores of bottles that makes it a great place, but the cozy, comfortable digs and the relaxed atmosphere.

On our first visit, Carla and I had very little idea what to order.  The only familiar names to me on the taplist were La Trappe, which I figured is readily enough available in Portland, and Jan Hertog, which I had seen alongside Grolsch at the supermarket in the Jordaan neighborhood where we were staying.  Luckily in scanning the taphandles I noticed that the "Rook & Vuur" on the chalkboard was actually a smoked doppelbock ("Smoke & Fire") from De Molen -- possibly also available in Portland, but never on tap, and pretty pricey in the bottle.  Now we had to figure out something for Carla -- treading around the abbey-style ales that she doesn't usually like -- but a quick consultation with the bartender led to an excellent choice: Jopen Extra Stout.  The Rook & Vuur had just the right touch of smoke on top of a deep, complex beer.  The Jopen was a delicious, dark, roasty, creamy stout that arrived with a thick, tan head that stood up over the top of Carla's goblet.

In the picture at the top you can see a sink of soap suds and a sink full of clean water.  When you order a draft beer, the glass is washed and rinsed before being filled, then carefully submerged first in the soapy basin and then in the clean basin before being handed to you, to keep you from having any sticky beer on the outside of your glass.  Is this outside rinse after the pour the usual Low Country ritual?  Maybe we tended to order bottles more often at other places, but 't Arendsnest is the only place I noticed the rinsing ritual.

Carla went bigger with her next beer, a fantastic 2009 Imperial Stout from Dutch brewing collective SNAB called Czaar Peter; I went for something lighter with a satisfying malty amber called Roodborst (Redbreast) from De Snaterende Arend, which is the house label of 't Arendsnest.  In trying to pin down the parentage of those two beers for this post, I see that both of them were likely contract brewed at De Proef Brouwerij, whose distinguished-sounding name completely obscures the Dutch joke that it is merely The "Test" Brewery.  (While we're doing a Dutch lesson, I'll reveal that 't Arendsnest means "the Eagle's nest", and is a pun on the owner's last name -- Peter van der Arend.  The 't is a contraction of het, which is the definite article for neuter-gender nouns, though it beats me when you use het and when 't.  "De Snaterende Arend" means "the clucking eagle", according to this very detailed history of the place on the White Beer Travels website, and is a pun on the names of Arend and a brewer named Snater.)

More good beers were had on a second visit.  I pressed the light and hoppy Jopen Gerstebier into service as the beer side of a kopstootje, somewhat to the amusement of the Arendsnest bartenders, but I was a little disappointed that the shot of genever wasn't served in the tiny glass that gets filled up past the rim.  Carla continued her imperial stout mission with an Emelisse on tap.  I wasn't all that happy with my next beer, a low-gravity De Molen rauchbier called Geboren & Getogen ("born and raised").  I was hoping for something like Rook & Vuur's little brother, but they seemed to be totally unrelated; Geboren had some "band-aid" phenols that I didn't care for, and a tiny bit of sourness that didn't go well with the smoke for me.

I consoled myself for that beer disappointment with a taste of barrel-aged 3-year-old genever from Zuidam; as luck would have it the bar didn't have enough for a full shot, so I was compensated with a half shot of 5-year-old genever from the same distiller.  It was more along the lines of a whisky than a gin, but still pretty dry and with nice aromatics.  The 5 was much smoother than the 3, and that's what I'd get if I were having it again.  (By the way, It's Pub Night sponsor Master of Malt sells Zuidam 5 Jaar Zeer Oude Genever, including small samples.)  The evening was capped off with the Java Tripel from Holland's De Halve Maan brewery (not the one in Brugge).  Don't worry, it wasn't a coffee tripel, just a straightforward, decent abbey-style ale.

A little bit of snack food is available at 't Arendsnest, cheese or sausage trays and a few variations on the peanut -- I liked the crunchy corn-battered borrelnoten.  The pub is not terribly large, so I imagine it might get a little crowded, though we easily found spots at the bar on both of our visits.  If you have a large group and you want an introductory lesson on Dutch beer, 't Arendsnest takes reservations for guided tasting sessions that are held in a separate area in the basement, though you'll miss the ambiance and camaraderie of the ground floor.

'T Arendsnest is a knockout.  Don't miss it if you're in Amsterdam.

Oregon Brewers Festival 2011 Recommendations

For those of you who haven't yet plunged in and plunged out of the OBF this year, Dave and I have put together a list of recommendations, based on a visit yesterday before the whooping crowds got too thick. I apologize that it's heavy on the South tent, especially now that I see that Charles already covered the South really well. [Update 2011/07/31: I've added a few more picks and pans from the North after a visit Saturday.] As always, your mileage may vary.

Picks:

• Boundary Bay Double Dry Hopped Pale: Dave's best in show, beautiful layering of hops
• Laughing Dog Anubis Imperial Coffee Porter: Bill's best in show, not boozy, just a creamy melange of coffee, chocolate malt, and vanilla flavors
• Laht Neppur Peach Hefe: light, subtly peachy, wheaty and refreshing
• Upright Offen Weisse: light and refreshing with lots of banana flavor
• Ale Industries Orange Kush: chamomile gives a nice coconutty flavor, with light citrus
• Mt. Emily Wildfire Red: nice red, not too malty
• Caldera Hop Hash: well done, restrained use of concentrated lupulin
• Widmer Foggy Bog Cranberry Ale: nice wheat-beer flavor with a little cranberry tartness and astringency; beautiful to look at
• Amnesia Imperial IPA: nice imperial, well balanced malt/hop
• Hazel Dell Imperial IPA: less balanced, but nice bitterness
• Hop Valley Alpha Centauri: awesome double IPA, perfect balance, smooth and creamy
• Columbia River Brewing Nyctophobia CDA: dark, malty, hoppy, tasty stuff
• Elysian Idiot Sauvin: great use of the Neslson hops, strong citrus flavor
• Firestone Walker Double Jack: a ringer, must try if you have never had it

Pans:

• Gilgamesh Mint Kölsch: way too minty, like mouthwash
• Dogfish Head Black & Red: another mint failure, plus nasty acetone kick
• Natian CDA: flavors don't combine well, also a little solvent note sticks out
• Riverport Blonde Moment: oddly tart, something's wrong
• 10 Barrel Zitrone Kölsch: too lemony, like a lemon drop candy
• Collaborator Hopfinium: the one guy Dave heard hyping this was an idiot
• Salmon Creek Oatus the Red: okay red, creamy body but not much malt
• Coatlition WU Cream: one dimensional... not creamy
• Fire Mountain Tan Line: eeeewww... had to dump it. nasty bitterness, kinda soapy

I was surprised how much I liked the light fruit beers from Laht Neppur and Widmer -- coincidentally both have added lactose for the yeast to nurse on.  They are both nice lighter choices for the heat of the day, as is Upright's dandy German-style hefeweizen, Ale Industries' (Concord, CA) Orange Kush, and of course Burnside's lightly smoked Grätzer.  A beer that I don't understand the long lines for is Ninkasi's Helles Belles.  Yesterday the lines for that were 20 or 30 deep early in the fest when you could walk right up to almost any other beer, but it's too sweet for a Helles and lacks the malty-yet-crisp finish you'd expect.

One bummer:  the one-off Buzz Tent beers went so fast the first two days, that the Buzz Tent is finished.  I missed it completely, since my time yesterday was limited.

Some other eyewitness accounts:

• An Ear for Beer
• Beervana
• Not So Professional Beer Blog 
• PortlandBeer.org
• Brewpublic
• Brew Site

The weather seems perfect this year: sunny but not too hot. The crowds are thicker and earlier than usual, but I still love the OBF: its mix of snobs and newbies, the view of the river, the good vibe, and of course 85 beers to try.

Gollem's Proeflokaal, Amsterdam

Our family vacation to Europe has not been, by and large, a beer vacation.  That's OK, I didn't expect it to be, and in fact family vacations always give short shrift to beer.  But the last few days in Amsterdam have been something of a beery reprieve for the man of the house, with several good beer bars, a couple of top-notch bottle shops, and even a surprisingly good cheap supermarket brand.

That gives me material for several blog posts, but let me start off by tipping you off to the -- as of this writing -- last surviving member of the Gollem family of Amsterdam beer bars.  Gollem's Proeflokaal, which wasn't on beermapping.com or Beer Advocate's BeerFly before my visit, is a charming and well-stocked pub, well off the beaten path at 160 Overtoom, but just a short walk from the Van Gogh Museum.  We ended up there for lunch Saturday by accident -- no, really, the South Indian dosa place at the corner was closed -- and were very pleased with our burgers, vegetarian croquettes, and salads.  Oh yeah, and by the bottle of Westvleteren 12 ($20).

I was glad to get to a Gollem location, since the famed original Café Gollem in central Amsterdam has been closed for nearly a year because of some hangup with its license, and so has the Biercafé Gollem in the De Pijp neighborhood.  The Netherlands has a lot going for it, government-wise, but it sounds like it is still possible to get crosswise with officious bureaucrats.  Rumor has it that some kind of deal might allow the reopening of the other Gollem locations this fall, but meanwhile your only option is the Proeflokaal.

It may not have the dark, cozy atmosphere of the original Café Gollem, but the Proeflokaal has a spacious, relaxed vibe, good food, and an excellent beer selection.  Definitely check it out if you're in Amsterdam.