Caldera Old Growth Imperial Stout

Before there was The Abyss, there was Caldera Imperial Stout.  Well, there were other big stouts too, like Widmer's KGB, but in my early days in Portland in 2003 and 2004, I remember discovering Caldera's pitch-black licoricey stout at a lively little neighborhood place called the Buckman Bistro, connected to a fancier restaurant called William's on 12th.  The bistro was decorated with the clever conceit of dozens of picture frames containing only mirrors, and in the winter of 2003-2004 they were pouring an opaque stout with a thick, muddy head, from a brewery in Ashland that had only recently started distributing to Portland.

Caldera Imperial Stout was a revelation: complex, sticky, bitter yet smooth.  After that winter, it would occasionally pop up at the Horse Brass, but it was pretty hard to come by.  I almost wonder if they stopped making it for a few years:  at the Lucky Lab's 2008 Barleywine Festival, there were only older vintages: 2004 and 2005.  Then in the last couple of years the brewery started releasing Old Growth Imperial Stout, and it made a splash at a few big-beer festivals at Bailey's Taproom.  I don't know if it was always called Old Growth or if this is a new recipe, but whereas the main whispered-about adjunct in the early years was brewer's licorice -- remind you of any other imperial stouts? -- the rumor about Old Growth is that it is flavored with peppercorns.

I was excited to see that the brewery bottled Old Growth this year, in bombers that go for $9-$10 around Portland.  It doesn't quite live up to my grandiose memories of it as Abyss' big brother -- a caldera is a kind of abyss, if you think about it -- but it's still a beer I would recommend that you try if you get a chance.  It's less of a dessert beer than older vintages, and I feel like the 8.8% strength is lower than it was back in the day.  From the bottle, it pours with a dark tan head, not too thick, and not as dark as my recollections.  The nose is very malty, but the beer isn't overly sweet.  It has a nice dark chocolate flavor, with a long, moderately bitter finish. I said it wasn't a dessert beer; another way to express that is it's a better beer with a meal than if it was a bigger and richer stout.

Quantities may be limited, so grab it while you can.  Beermongers only had a case last week, though Belmont Station seemed to be well-supplied.

Buckman Village Brewery

The Green Dragon saga continues... After three years and two ownership changes, the pub is finally serving its own house-brewed beers, under the somewhat silly name of Buckman Village Brewery.  Last week they debuted three beers: an IPA (natch) and two lighter ales, one flavored with ginger and one with chamomile.

Carla and I made it over there last Thursday to try the beers (the on-street bike corral is a nice addition -- when did that happen?).  The chamomile beer, Chamomellow -- as far as I can tell the only Buckman beer that has its own name -- was fabulous. As Frank James noted on Brewpublic, it has a touch of honey-like sweetness, and a lovely floral flavor that is right up front but doesn't overwhelm. After being underwhelmed by the IPA and displeased by the ginger beer, Carla and I were bowled over by Chamomellow, all the more so because Carla usually doesn't care for chamomile tea. That's it in the picture above, charmingly served to us in a MacTarnahan's glass.

As I said, the IPA was not impressive. It didn't offend, but it's not one of those cases where you say "This beer has balance", because it's not very hard to balance small quantities of flavor. The Buckman Ginger was interesting, but I'm one of the few people I can think of who would persevere to the end of a pint of it. The fresh ginger flavor was nice enough, but there was also a strange, chalky bitterness -- powdered ginger or turmeric? -- in the finish that wasn't very appealing. I'm kind of surprised that Frank referred to it as "surprisingly and enjoyably subtle". I found it to be anything but subtle, and a couple of tweets I read about it also commented on its brashness.

The beers were brewed on the Green Dragon's newly-approved 15-barrel system, not the 1-barrel nano rig that the Oregon Brew Crew was providing cheap labor on. From what I can gather, the brewer was John Couchot, who has been Rogue's chief distiller -- he's the second John on the John-John ales.  Does anyone know if he is going to be the permanent Green Dragon brewer?  That would certainly stoke the paranoia of the Integrity Spirits guys who share the building.

Hopefully Rogue will drop this "Buckman Village" pretense and just call the brewery the Green Dragon.  I do want to point out a previous instance of a Buckman beverage, though.  In 2007, our vineyard-owning friends bottled Buckman wine as a benefit for Buckman Elementary school -- that's the TTB-approved label for the red in the picture.  The label for the white wine was even cooler, with two skulls entwined with a Buckman banner, but I couldn't find a bottle or label in my archives. Anyway, the word "village" sounds phony applied to an edgy tavern in the middle of a warehouse district less than a mile from downtown.  On the other hand, "Green Dragon" does fit the place just right.  Is there a lawyer behind this, or is it just some inscrutable Rogue marketing ploy?