Manchester Craft Brewery Crawl

If you've spent any time with me, you've heard my lecture along the lines of "Well you know, for us cask ale is an especially good kind of craft beer, but in England the cask ale lovers hate 'craft beer'".  It's true.  The CAMRA crowd consider craft beer to be too expensive, too strong, too gassy, and too pretentious.  When I'm travelling there, I fall in with the real ale crowd and spend almost all of my time in real ale pubs.  That's my own pretentiousness showing, though I sincerely love the pub atmosphere and the lower-alcohol beer.  And I appreciate a bargain.

On a trip to Manchester this month with Pub Night charter member Lindsey, we mostly focused on cask places, but we did set aside a day for a craft beer crawl.  We started at the venerable Northern Monk Refectory in the Northern Quarter, continuing on to Cloudwater, Track, and Sureshot in the industrial area on the wrong side of the tracks behind Piccadilly train station.  Balance Brewing a few doors down from Sureshot was closed for our crawl so we visited it a few days later.

Tip: Google Maps gives horrible walking directions in Manchester.  It will never tell you to take the scenic canal walk from Northern Monk to Cloudwater shown on this map.  Instead it will march you along 4-lane thoroughfares the whole way.  And the canal path is such a cool walk!  See how the map shows the canal going under Store St?  When you walk it, you discover that the canal is lifted up over Store St.  It's delightful.  One way to get better walking hints is to turn on the bicycle layer in Google Maps -- it will show nicer streets or paths to walk on.  Maybe Google's deficiency isn't Manchester-specific -- I was also mystified by some of its choices in Liverpool and a small town in Wales.

Northern Monk

I first learned about Northern Monk on a visit to Leeds -- where they are based -- a few years ago.  Then on my last pre-Covid trip abroad in December 2019 I checked out the Manchester location which wasn't far from my hotel.  Rare among craft beer taprooms in England, NM has a guest kitchen serving hot food like Lindsey's meatball sandwich there.  On our visit they had a number of good hoppy ales on tap, along with a pastry stout and a couple of lagers.  There were a handful of guest taps, and three cask engines were on.  As a general principle, don't order cask ale at craft brewery taprooms in England -- it is not their strong suit and you will get better cask at pubs that know what to serve and how to handle it.  That principle held mostly true on this pub crawl:  we were usually disappointed in the cask offerings, here included.

One interesting recent development at Northern Monk is their commitment to make more non-alcoholic beers and hop waters.  For example, the two smaller glasses in the picture here are the flagship hazy pale ale Faith at 5.4% -- delicious -- and Holy Faith at 0.5%.  I didn't try A Little Faith (4.0%), but Holy Faith was a really good AF beer, one of the best I've tried.  They use the Holy prefix on their alcohol-free beers.

Cloudwater Brewery

Cloudwater is one of the most respected craft brewers in the UK, so popular that you sometimes see it distributed in the US.  The taproom atmosphere is pretty basic, but the tap list offers a lot of variety.  There are a couple of cask engines (as I said above, probably not the best play) and 20 keg beers including a nitro tap and an AF IPA.  Some pretty creative offerings when we visited -- I enjoyed the perry-barrel-aged saison, but I wasn't crazy about the hopfenweisse.  Imperial Gose?  I wonder what royal family needed sturdy export beer from Goslar.  And of course plenty of hoppy offerings.

There is also a refrigerator full of cans from Cloudwater and guests, if the taps don't cover you.  There's not a kitchen as such, but the £6 cheese plate was generous enough to power us on to three more bars that evening.

Track Brewing

Right across the street from Cloudwater is the taproom for Track Brewing (warning -- McAfee doesn't like this website, and in my desktop Chrome there is an annoying news popup that won't go away).  On my previous visit it was even closer, since Track was renting the space underneath Cloudwater's taproom.  It looks like they moved into their permanent location in mid-2021, and it's a spacious and comfortable industrial space that opens onto the brewhouse.  Twenty kegs and two casks.

The beers at Track were my favorite of the crawl, and that is high praise indeed because Northern Monk and Cloudwater are nothing to sneeze at.  That includes the cask ale we tried -- I wasn't taking good notes, so while I think it was the flagship Sonoma, it might have been the barrel-aged helles.  It was the only craft cask that night that I thought was up to the mark.  The staff on duty were unable to tell me if the "wet-hopped" pilsner was what is more correctly called "fresh-hopped", but I kind of doubt it.  The local terminology is usually "green-hopped", and it didn't seem to have the fresh hop notes I would expect, though it was pleasant enough for a 7.2% monster.  The smoked helles was tastefully done, and I loved the barrel-aged Vienna lager.

Sureshot Brewing

For the last decade or so, the Victorian-era brick railway arches behind Piccadilly station have provided cheap digs for a number of Manchester craft breweries.  Track started in a railway arch, and relative newcomers Sureshot and Balance (see below) have made very pleasant taprooms under the arches.  I really enjoyed our visit to Sureshot, but somehow I came away without a single photograph of the place, maybe because we struck up a conversation with a dapper young fellow who turned out to be a delegate to the Conservative Party convention that was taking place that week in Manchester.

"Hey, you're wearing a suit, are you with the Tories?"

[Looking around]  "shh, shhhh.  As a matter of fact, I am."

"Next round's on you!"

"Please turn your phone off."

The beer at Sureshot is not bad, but I would say it isn't yet up to the caliber of the other places on the crawl.  Nevertheless, it is well worth a visit, because the place is fun, even when you are talking politics.  Since I don't have a picture of the taproom, I can offer up a picture of the souvenir cans I went back and bought later.  Clever packaging that someone put a lot of thought into.  Pictured here are We'll Burn that Bridge when We Come to It Pale Ale, Let Me Tell You about My Mother DDH Pale Ale, I've Started so I'll Finish DDH IPA, and Double Dipped Chip Double IPA (not pictured: I Cannae Change the Laws of Physics American Pale Ale, with the image of Starfleet Lt. Cmdr. Montgomery Scott).  Double Dipped Chip was a big hit when I sampled it out to Austin friends.

Balance Brewing & Blending

A few doors down from Sureshot is Balance Brewing & Blending, which is well worth a visit if you have any interest at all in sour beers.  They've filled the back of their railway arch with barrels and foeders containing their mixed-culture concoctions.  In the front is a laid-back tasting room, where the 6 taps have a combination of house and guest beers, all of the wild variety.  When we were there, they had three of their own on, two tasty fruit beers from Crossover which is improbably located between Luton and Cambridge, and a nice table beer from Burning Sky, more believably situated just outside of Brighton.  My favorite when we visited was Balance's Apricot Wild Ale, but if I remember right, Lindsey favored their Saison de Maison.  I also liked one of the Crossover beers a lot -- I think it was the Raspberry-Plum one called Purple Bell, but it might have been the Cuckoo flavored with Cherry and Blackcurrant.  They have some cans and bottles for sale to go, but they were out of my price range.

Brewers Union Local 180 - Oakridge, Oregon

Finally! Only four years after the one-of-a-kind Brewers Union Local 180 opened in the out-of-the way location of Oakridge, Oregon, I finally paid a visit this week and was able to sample a range of brewer Ted Sobel's cask-conditioned beers in their native habitat.

In case you're not familiar with Brewers Union, it's a pub which brews and serves "real ale" in the sense of England's Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA).  Ted brews beer in 2-barrel batches -- that's British imperial barrels, about 2.8 Yankee barrels -- conditions them in firkins, and serves them at cellar temperature in 20-ounce imperial pints.  The small batches are open-fermented, typically between 4% and 5% ABV, and drawn from the firkin with hand pumps.  So, the proprietor must be a homesick British expat, right?  Er, no, but he did learn the trade during a stint a few years ago at a Lake District pub called the Woolpack Inn.

There were only four house-made beers on the pumps Monday when Carla and I were in Oakridge, all delightful:

• Wotcha Best Bitter - 4.3%: smooth and honeyed, balanced with a touch of earthy hops.
• Good With Bacon Special Bitter -  4.9%: light caramel flavor, nice balance of bitterness.
• 3 Sigma Out IPA - 5.3%: beautiful floral aroma, light body, long hop finish.
• Cumbrian Moor Porter - 4.8%: smooth and roasty without being charred; full-bodied but not cloying.

I enjoyed all the beers, but Wotcha -- this batch made with Mt. Hood hops -- was the standout and I came back to it again and again.  It might have an alcohol content lower than Budweiser, but it was packed with flavor.  Ted credits the Maris Otter malt from Thomas Fawcett with the great taste.  Northwest aroma hops in most of the beers provide a nice counterpoint to the otherwise studiously English recipes and presentation.  The food menu, too, is more Oregon than England, though there is an obligatory fish and chips plate (I got mine with sweet potato fries).

The usual IPA -- Union Dew -- was out when we were there, but a fifth pump had on a nice malty cask of Block 15's Ridgeback Red -- at 6.3%, pretty potent compared to the BU180 beers.  There are always a few guest kegs of "regular beer" on tap for non-believers. Monday's guests were Oakshire Domaine du Lane Saison, Oakshire Watershed IPA, Seven Brides Chocolate Stout, and Hale's El Jefe Hefeweizen. There was also a cider on tap from Wandering Aengus, and a mead from Eugene's Blue Dog Meadery.

A lot of attention goes into the brewing, storage, and serving of the ales, but Ted says the important thing about Brewers Union is that it provides a space where people can get together and socialize.  He is a very hands-on publican, mingling with the customers, and getting to know them by name.  I once needled him for setting up such an idiosyncratic pub pretty much in the middle of nowhere -- Oakridge (pop. 3220) is the only incorporated city in Oregon that lies entirely within a national forest -- but his response was simple:  "Every town needs a pub".  It is a cute little town, surrounded by miles of beautiful scenery, and now that I've seen it, I do think it's a great place for a pub. If you ever have the time, take the hour's drive out from Eugene and experience it for yourself.

Changes to Hopworks Cask Ales?

[Editor's Note: Another excellent guest post by Dave.]

Please excuse this interjection, but I felt the need to sic the blogosphere on Hopworks. This evening we were at the mothership with our children and in-laws (HUB is first on our list with out-of-towners when the kids are in tow) and I ordered one of my favorite cask-conditioned ales, their IPA. The CO2 version never does much for me, but the cask version is perfect...floral nose, bitterness, and the malt comes out shining. Tonight, the pour seemed like a flat, cold CO2 pour.

I was almost embarrassed describing it to the waitress...I felt like a noob complaining about my first cask-conditioned pour. After some well-tipped commiseration, she brought a replacement CO2 pint and relayed that the pub was experimenting with a new method: Lower gas pressure for the cask taps. Huh? Why is there any pressure, isn't it pumped out by hand?  My suspicion is that they are trying to cheat the cask, and I'd like to get informed opinions to confirm. I had a tried-and-true cask IPA before Christmas that was just fine; has anyone experienced the new method?

Firkin Fest 2010

Saturday's Firkin Fest at the Green Dragon was something of a letdown.  Writing about last year's Firkin Fest, I singled out four of the fifteen beers as especially noteworthy, those from Rock Bottom, Hopworks, Brewers Union, and Full Sail.  This year, Rock Bottom and Full Sail didn't participate; Hopworks' offering had such a hellishly sulfurous taste that I dumped it; and the Brewers Union offering was solid but completely out of character for the cask-only brewery.  The fest was supposed to have 20 different casks this year, but ended up with only 17 -- Full Sail, Calapooia, and Hop Valley were on the program but not at the fest.

Oops, did I say "program"?  I mean the list of participants posted online; actually there was no program handed out at the festival, and no list of beers printed anywhere.  How hard could that be?  At the Lucky Lab Barleywine Festivals, they often update the program as the event proceeds, to correct mistakes or last-minute changes.  A simple printout of each brewery/beer/style would have been helpful, instead of having to wander around scanning the casks to remember which ale you wanted to try next.  A further firkin fest failure this year was the tasting glass.  Last year's was a giant tulip-shaped imperial pint glass, which I'm pretty sure holds about 22 ounces.  This year's was a wee little thing, holding perhaps 8 ounces.

Let's talk about beer.  The format of the festival is a little frustrating to completist fiends like myself: you get eight 6-ounce tastes and that's it.  Thanks to the kindness of strangers and friends I got to taste a couple things beyond my eight samples, but there were still a few worthy candidates that I just didn't get around to.  Here are my favorites from the selection I tried:

• Deschutes Twilight: surprisingly full-bodied, flowery with a hint of citrus
• Green Dragon Bitter: lightly roasted caramel flavor, gentle hops
• Beer Valley Black Flag/Leafer Madness Blend: CDA-like hoppy/roasty flavors, non-bitter flowery hops
• Pelican IPA: nice flowery IPA

My two favorites were two of the lower-alcohol, less-hoppy ales of the bunch: Twilight and Green Dragon's volunteer-brewed bitter.  Maybe I came in with a preconceived bias that that's how cask ales should be, although by no means am I above drinking a cask double IPA if it sounds good.  I did veer away from the ridiculous number of IPAs at this event, didn't even try the cask IPAs or hoppy reds from Lucky Lab, Oakshire, Eugene City Brewery, Double Mountain, or Laurelwood.  Lompoc's dry-hopped C-Note tasted OK, but looked like a truck-stop cappuccino -- that's John's glass of C-Note in the picture above -- and I heard that Lucky Lab's Super Dog was similarly turbid.  It would be nice if there was a way to let the casks settle for a reasonable amount of time before the beginning of the festival.

Even though I was a little disappointed by the Firkin Fest, I'll give it another try next year.  Each year more breweries participate -- though this year 3 of the 17 were Rogue breweries.  Another thing the Firkin Fest has going for it is a relaxed atmosphere:  with limited attendance, and the tables cleared out of the Green Dragon bar area, there is plenty of elbow room and no wait for beer.  Some changes I hope to see in next year's festival:  1. Allow people to buy additional beer and food tickets; 2. Hand out a program or list of beers at the door; 3. Bring back the big pint glasses instead of the throwaway 8-ouncers; 4. Set up the firkins the night before to give them more time to sit still before serving. [Update: turns out they were set up the night before this time, thanks to Ted from Brewers Union!]

Jeff Alworth also covered the fest at Beervana.

Beulahland Strikes Out

During the fall I became infatuated with Beulahland, the "Coffee and Alehouse" at 28th and Couch. I biked my daughter to soccer practice Thursdays at DaVinci Middle School, and noticed that I could take refuge at the happy hour just down the street. On my first visit I was impressed by the beer choices -- one of the ten taps was a Lompoc fresh-hop ale, and the place even had a nitro tap and a cask engine. They also have about a dozen house-infused vodkas and bourbons; I've yet to try any of them, but they have some interesting-sounding flavors like habanero whiskey and watermelon vodka.

But I have to say, when our Pub Night crawled over there this week after a visit to Spints Alehouse, Beulahland struck out:

• Strike one: The cask engine is gone.
• Strike two: The chalkboard and bartender both concealed the best beer tap from me.
  
• Strike three: My beer was served in a cheater pint glass!

It wasn't until our second round that we noticed the telltale Terminal Gravity tap handle and found out that the delicious TG Festivale was on tap. It wasn't on the chalkboard, and the bartender didn't bother to point it out to a crowd of obvious beer geeks. That's the kind of action I expect from Henry's, not from the divey local.

Those first two strikes are no big deal. But cheater pints? Now you're adding injury to insult. Check out the picture above, and you'll see the giant boot in the bottom of the glass of Festivale on the left. That's as thick as the glasses I wore in fifth grade! I'm glad that the Honest Pint Project is starting to move the finer pubs to use glassware with fill lines on them. Cheater pints are a fraud that must be stopped.

On the plus side, the city has installed one of the new bike-parking corrals on 28th right by Beulahland, so there's plenty of two-wheeled parking. And the jukebox has a brilliant variety: Black Sabbath's first album, Duke Ellington's Money Jungle, and -- stroke of genius -- Hasil Adkins.

I still enjoy the atmosphere at Beulahland, and I would like to check out those infused boozes. This last visit cooled my ardor somewhat, but I still consider it a little-known gem in that area.

The Cask Saga Continues

As part of my obsession about the correctness of cask ale in Portland, I resolved to go sample some of the cask nectar at Rock Bottom. If you're skeptical of chain pubs, I understand, but Van Havig brews brilliant beer at the Portland RB branch, very worthy of your patronage. In particular, the cask-conditioned ales are treated with appropriate care at Rock Bottom. Just make sure you sit at the bar when you visit -- most of the waitstaff is in an extreme state of blissful ignorance about the beer, but the folks behind the bar will keep you informed.

Charles was good enough to meet me there for lunch yesterday. Unfortunately, only one cask was pouring -- the Amber Ale -- and Charles and I got the last two pints of that. I asked, "Oh, are you going to throw another one on?", a trick question that was correctly answered "No". I should have followed up to find out how long they do let the casks settle before serving, but I can only think of one trick question at a time. The Amber Ale was lovely, a little nutty and sweet, like an ESB with a little more floral hops. Quite a head on it for a cask ale, maybe because it was pulled through a sparkler.

As you can see from the picture, the Rock Bottom setup is with real firkins, with filtered air coming in the top, as opposed to pumping beer out of a standard-issue keg. What got me jonesing for a Rock Bottom cask ale was this article on the Brewers Union 180 Blog, about the first firkins Ted has allowed to be served by someone other than himself. Block 15 in Corvallis has met his stringent handling requirements, so he sold them some of his ale after they sold out of their own cask-conditioned offering. The Block 15 blog itself has a very nice writeup of their cask system. Give it a read. Kudos to both pubs -- I've got to hit the road soon and visit them in person.

Back to Rock Bottom: they are serving a fabulous barrel-aged version of last year's Anniversary Ale (an Imperial IPA). Aged in Woodford Reserve barrels, tons of vanilla and bourbon flavor on top of a very lovely beer. This year's Anniversary Ale is also on tap, but wasn't very impressive. However, the Black Peter -- labeled as a Belgian Porter -- is wonderful. It's got the delicious Belgian floral-yeast flavor on top of a dark, strong, smooth porter.

A Keg of Cask Ale

Last week I was asking for your opinions on the state of cask ale in Portland. Here's some evidence in support of Ted Sobel's gripe about "cask-conditioned" beer: a pony keg of cask Wreck the Halls that Dave picked up for the Main Street solstice gathering. Definitely just a regular-'ol keg, of a very burly Full Sail beer that wasn't brewed with cask ale as the first thought.

Over the weekend I wasn't tsk-tsking it, I was glug-glugging it, because it was mighty tasty, even if it wasn't culturally authentic. The biggest problem Dave had was, how do you get the beer out of the keg? It didn't have a blowhole like a firkin does, so he couldn't just somehow tap it and drain it. On the other hand, forcing it out with a keg tap or CO2 seemed risky.

Dave is always up for some kind of project, so he made his own cask engine, using some kind of RV water-pump gadget and the fitting from a regular keg pump. By unscrewing the central cylinder of the keg pump, the keg was able to breathe in air to make up for the lost volume of ale. It wasn't as eye-catching as English pub-style cask handles, but it got the job done for the party. And, yes, that's too much ice cooling it off -- we had to let the beer warm up after dispensing it.

On the earlier post about cask ales, I was hoping people would name more names of places with good or bad cask ale. There wasn't much response, but here's what I got, plus I'll add a bit of my own opinion.

Good places for cask ale:

• Deschutes - even Ted approves
• Moon and Sixpence
• County Cork
  
• Rock Bottom - from firkins at the right temperature
• Bridgeport - especially the Pearl location

Places where you might avoid the cask ale:

• New Old Lompoc - one commenter reports multiple fails
• Horse Brass - same commenter says "hit or miss"; I agree
• Lucky Lab - pains me to say it, but that two-week old Black Lab Stout has its tongue hanging out.
  

Your Thoughts on Cask Ale

If you're a good beer geek -- in the U.S., anyway -- you are always on the lookout for beer "on cask". You hope for a more flavorful experience: warmer, flatter beer that the bartender has to laboriously pump into your glass with the big porcelain handle mounted on the bar.

Two recent internet articles have me pondering the state of cask beer. One is by Ted Sobel -- the brewer/publican of Brewers Union Local 180, an all-cask-ale brewery in remote Oakridge, Oregon -- explaining on his blog why he won't let the beer he brews out of his sight. Shortly after Ted's post, Beer Advocate asked its readers for their opinion on this question: (paraphrasing) is cask beer done right in the U.S., or are those pumps just a gimmick?

In Great Britain, the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) promotes this particularly English way of producing and serving beer. There's special emphasis placed on the condition of the beer: the publican has to cellar it while it finishes fermenting, then let it settle after he jostles it up to the serving area, then make sure it is served at the right temperature, while it's still fresh.

Here in Oregon, there are cask engines in more and more pubs, even places that don't cater exclusively to beer nerds, for example Beulahland and Bar Avignon. Ted's post was skeptical about such cask offerings:

The contents of the kegs are dubiously named cask-conditioned beer, which in many cases simply contain ale destined for keg that has been drawn off from the fermenter and primed in the cask (keg).

Now, to my mind, that's good enough. It would not be good enough if it were just an ordinary keg of beer, not re-fermented in the keg. But if the keg is conditioned, it's legit, right?

Bridgeport immediately came to mind as a place in town that serves cask-conditioned beer, and is probably doing it the right way. So I emailed Karl Ockert to ask him about their process. He replied:

We currently have three engines pulling from firkins at both our brewpub on NW Marshall St and the Alehouse on SE Hawthorne. Our cask ales are my beer of choice when I go down at the end of the day to our pub for my pint. And yes we have the stillage racks, spiles, keystones, cask breathers, etc.

And Bridgeport's cask ales are definitely a treat.

But I'd like to hear from all of you out there, especially if you work at a brewery or a pub that serves cask-conditioned beer. My questions are:

• What places in Portland serve cask ale correctly?
• What places in town are faking us out?
• What places have cask ale, but in poor condition?
  
• Can "ale destined for keg" qualify as cask-conditioned?
• What about Beer Advocate's question: is cask just a gimmick?

Moon and Sixpence

Six months ago when I was musing about pubs I was more likely to visit now that Oregon bans smoking in bars, the Moon and Sixpence was second only to the Horse Brass on my list. Turns out I have been going to the Brass a lot, but I guess the Moon is just far enough away from my house that Wednesday night was my first visit this year. Lagunitas founder Tony Magee was there to play some music, and some special Lagunitas treats were being served.

Dave and I staked out a dartboard to entertain ourselves while we enjoyed cask-conditioned honest pints of Hop Stoopid and Little Sumpin' Sumpin', as well as a delicious bourbon-barrel Imperial Stout. Charles and Teresa hung out and chatted for a while before heading outside to listen to the music. The Sumpin' seemed an odd choice to have on cask, but the Hop Stoopid IPA worked very well for us -- although Ted over at Brewers Union thinks it's insane to try and serve these big IPAs cask-style.

One thing I hadn't taken note of before was how nice the outside patio at M+6 is. There might be even more seating outside than inside, and with the weather we've had lately, it's a good place to be. Of course now the cigarette smoke that used to be inside the pub has moved to the patio, but it's not a problem outside, where it used to be annoyingly dense inside.

Moon and Sixpence has a good dart setup: one room with two dartboards, and a kind of weird dog run with a single dartboard (but two chalkboards for scoring -- why?). The dart action, combined with a good selection of 15 taps and 2 casks, makes it a good destination in the Hollywood area.

Click here for the Beer Mapping Project's page on Moon and Sixpence

Moon and Sixpence

Information provided by Beer Mapping

OBG Firkin Fest 2009

Carla and I had a nice time at the Oregon Brewers Guild Firkin Fest Saturday at the Green Dragon. Thirteen cask-conditioned beers poured by gravity from the keg; two more beers pulled through sparklers on Brewers Union proprietor Ted Sobel's nifty mobile beer engine. I had missed Portland's first firkin fest last year, glad I got in on the second annual this year. We went to the first of the two limited-attendance sessions. It didn't look like all 200 spots in our session were filled, which made for a very relaxing event: no lines, no waiting, no jockeying for tables. What was the second session like?

There wasn't a bad beer in the house, but some of them were positively beautiful. My favorites were the Rock Bottom Maltnomah Porter, the HUB 150 IPA from Hopworks, the Brewers Union North Fork Ordinary Bitter, and the Broken Paddle India Black Ale from Full Sail. It kind of pains me to single those out; as I type the names I keep thinking of others I could add to the list. That's how nice the selection was.

Rock Bottom is a place I rarely go, but I really need to make the effort: Van Havig turns out some brilliant beers. My favorite beer of the fest, Maltnomah Porter is one of the standards at Havig's Portland branch of the chain; this cask version was perfectly smooth, a little sweet but not cloyingly so, dark and satisfying with no burnt flavors and little bitterness. Opinions vary, however, and through the magic of Twitter I got instant feedback from someone who found it was his least favorite.

Brewers Union didn't have to do anything special for the firkin fest. All of the beers Ted brews there are cask-conditioned English-style ales. He's been open in Oakridge, Oregon for over half a year now, but this was my first chance to sample his wares, since I'm such a walking-distance-only pub-goer and Ted doesn't easily let his kegs out of his sight -- "they're like gold to me", he said. A stickler for correct handling of his ales, he set up his two firkins at the Green Dragon a day ahead of time to allow them to settle after the ride to Portland, and he served them at the fest himself. The North Fork bitter was fantastic: malty and a little fruity with an Oklahoma-friendly alcohol content of 3.5%. His molasses stout -- called That Dark Beer -- was delicious also, dark and roasty.

Being an unrepentant meddler, I assured Ted that Geoff at Bailey's Taproom would undoubtedly work with him to offer the beer to Portlanders in the right condition. That backfired later when I introduced the two and questions came up of stillage and how to serve the ale at 50° at Bailey's. Keep your fingers crossed that Geoff or someone in town will jump through the hoops to get BU brews to Portland. Meanwhile, it's definitely worth a detour if you find yourself in that part of the state. You can also check out Ted's entertaining blog about the hazards of peddling real ale in a small town.

Coincidentally, I had tried both the HUB 150 and the Broken Paddle IBA earlier in the week in their non-cask incarnations, which are on tap right now at Hopworks and the Pilsner Room, respectively. Both are very tasty, but the cask versions added a depth of flavor that made them all the more satisfying. In another coincidence, beer writer Abe Goldman-Armstrong was serving the Broken Paddle during the first session. Abe is on a mission to get people to use the term "Cascadian Dark Ale" instead of India Black Ale, since the style originated in the Pacific Northwest and has nothing to do with other ales traditionally called Black Ales, and certainly nothing to do with India. Hail Cascadia!

Big thanks to Brian Butenschoen of the OBG for organizing the firkin fest. And for giving my own petty name crusade a victory by not calling it a Tastival this year.

Cask Beers at the Horsebrass

Carla makes me take my clothes off and leave them on the side porch whenever I come home from the Horsebrass. Then I dash naked to the shower, and scrub myself from head to toe. I don't even take off my glasses, because if I don't wash them with soap, I spend the next couple days sniffing around trying to figure out what part of my body or clothing I failed to purge of cigarette smoke.

Despite the unbreathable air, the Horsebrass is a national treasure. A beautiful standing beer list, plus a dozen or so well-chosen rotating taps, usually including three cask conditioned ales. Five dartboards, authentic pub grub, a Rogue beer named after the proprietor's brother (Younger's Special Bitter).... It's worth an occasional brush with lung cancer to bask in such pub glory. This weekend's cask festival was a great excuse to brave the smoke at the Horsebrass. Dave and I headed down there Friday evening; we sat down with Brian, a mustachioed chap that I seem to run into at all of these festivals nowadays. Matias joined us a little later.

The Horsebrass published a list of 21 cask beers, so it was a little disappointing to arrive and find that only 6 of them were available at a time. Not that we were going to run the table with 10-ounce sample sizes, but six cask-conditioned beers felt a little paltry considering that any day of the week you can walk in and find three cask selections. Oh well. The ones we were able to try were tasty indeed:

• Walking Man: Big Phat Homo Erectus Double IPA: awesome, sweet, hoppy
• Double Mountain: Oak-Aged India Red Ale: sweet and nice, honey-flavored
• Laurelwood: Deranger Imperial Red Ale: sweet, thick, hoppy
• Hopworks: Deluxe Old Ale: very nice, nicer than CO2
• Bridgeport: Hop Harvest Imperial IPA: good, but still too much dry hops
• Deschutes: Jubel Ale: subdued, caramely

A word of explanation on Hopworks and Bridgeport. I've had the Hopworks DOA on regular draft at Higgins a couple of times: it's a nice strong ale, much more malty than hoppy. It's always good, but this cask version was even better. As for the Bridgeport, it's really a fine brew, but I can't suppress my disappointment that the fresh hops are completely dominated by the dry hops in the flavor. This goes back to my fresh hop obsession from last fall. The Bridgeport was served firkin-style -- that is, the beer wasn't pumped out, it just poured out from a spigot. The Walking Man may have been done the same way. I didn't see a huge difference between them and the hand-pumped ales; I'm not sure firkins are something to get especially worked up about.

What about the beers we missed? It was quite a blow not to get to try Lagunitas Maximus or Hairy Eyeball on cask (especially for Dave), and I wanted to get a taste of Ft. George's Cavatica Bourbon Barrel Stout, which I've had on CO2 at the Green Dragon. The promised Ninkasi selections were part of the attraction for me, but at least I've been fortunate enough to have Tricerahops and Believer on cask at the Horsebrass in the past. Even so, I'm sad to have missed them, especially since the Tricerahops lined up for the fest appears to be a special dry-hopped version. I also would have liked to try Dick's Porter or Barley Wine on cask, and the Mt. Hood Pittock Wee Heavy. Mt. Hood Brewing always surprises me with the quality of their beers, though the last time I tried their Wee Heavy -- at the Horsebrass, of course -- it wasn't exactly what I hoped for.

All in all, another great pub night with some one-of-a-kind beers. Don your oxygen masks, and go forth to the Horsebrass!

Set Sail for the Pilsner Room

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

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

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

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

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