Jubelale Ten-year Vertical (Plus Jubel 2000)

The second post ever on It's Pub Night was a report on a five-year vertical of Deschutes Jubelale.  I fell in love with that beer during our first winter in Portland in 2003, and started a project to build a ladder of Jubelale vintages by stashing a case in the basement each year.  It's a fun idea, but it's not a beer that changes all that much from year to year.  I kind of wore out my friends with a few years of ritualized vertical tastings, so the collection got less and less interesting to me over time.  A couple years ago I cut back to just saving a 12-pack each year, and this year I don't anticipate keeping any.  I still love the beer, I just plan to enjoy it fresh from here on.

This year seemed an appropriate moment to let it go, because I still had two bottles left of that original 2003 case, so I could hold a ten-year vertical as a last hurrah. The good gentlemen at The Beermongers allowed me to cart in my dusty bottles for an afternoon tasting with a posse of Portland beer geeks and random passers-by.  We had a nice time, and it was interesting to get everyone's take on the various years.  Jeff Alworth has already written a very insightful blog post about the tasting, with lots of details it didn't even occur to me to take note of, like the clarity of various vintages, and a quick chemistry lesson on cellaring beer.  Go read his article.

I asked people to vote on their three favorite years.  The results were not exactly what I expected.  For a few years I've been trumpeting the idea that if you're going to age beer, two years is the best amount of time -- long enough to let the flavors mingle and mutate, but not long enough for the beer to spoil.  In the vote at our tasting, the 2- and 3-year-old vintages (2010 and 2009) were well respected, but it was the 4- and 5-year-old 2008 and 2007 bottles that were the big hits.  This was not a blind tasting, so there is probably some bias here based on people's expectations of the various years.  Here are the results of the poll -- for the final score I awarded 3 points for a 1st place vote, 2 points for 2nd place, and 1 point for 3rd.

Year	1st place	2nd place	3rd place	Score
2003	0	1	2	4
2004	0	0	0	0
2005	1	0	1	4
2006	0	1	2	4
2007	5	0	0	15
2008	3	1	3	14
2009	1	3	0	9
2010	1	3	1	10
2011	0	1	0	2
2012	1	0	1	4

The 2008 had more fans -- 7 of us found it a favorite -- but the 2007 had only first-place votes.  Isn't that kind of weird?  People who liked that year really liked it.  Interestingly, that was the new vintage when I wrote up my 5-year vertical, and at the time I wrote that it seemed like the best batch since the 2003.  I cracked a bottle tonight as I'm writing this, and it is perfectly clear, but a little too oxidized for my tastes. The bottles I have from 2004 have never been good, I don't know if that was a bad year or if I just got a damaged case.

One unexpected windfall of the tasting was that three people -- Jeff, Jim, and Wallace -- contributed 12-ounce bottles of Jubel 2000.  Yes, we had three bottles of Jubel 2000 at this tasting.  That's not the 2000 vintage of Jubelale, it's the Double Jubel that Deschutes makes a batch of every year, but only bottles every 10 years.  I did not have very high hopes for 12-year-old bottles of beer, but it was actually in very good shape.  There was of course a little oxidation, and a little rich soy-sauce taste, but it was a very tasty, malty, big beer.  Several people noted differences between the three bottles -- not too surprising given their age -- but I thought they were more alike than different.  (For a better review of the bottles we opened, read Brian's Jubel 2000 review on Beer Advocate.)  A big thank you to those guys for bringing a beer that I never expected to get a taste of, let alone three tastes of.

So we had a 10-year vertical of Jubelale, a 3-bottle horizontal of Jubel 2000, and I also opened a bomber of Jubel 2010 to compare with the Jubel 2000.  To be honest, I liked the Jubel 2010 when it was fresh, but bottles I've opened over the last couple years have disappointed me.  At the tasting, however, it was delicious.  Perhaps it was the good company, or maybe it is now coming into its own.  Given the longevity of J2K, I think I'll hold my last Jubel 2010 bottle for a while.  A few people cast their votes for the big Jubels:  Jubel 2000 got 7 points (1 1st, 2 2nds, 2 3rds), and Jubel 2010 got one 2nd-place vote for 2 points.

I can't think of a better way to end a tradition than to share it with a group of friends. It was a great way to end an era, my thanks to everyone who was there.

Thinning Out the Cellar

It's fun to cellar beer.  You get to buy something cool, and you still have it months or years later.  At some point you can amaze your friends by opening that oldie but goodie.

But there are risks involved.  All beer will eventually be too old to drink, even beers that age very well.  You invested some money and some storage space on that beer -- how long is too long to keep it?  I've been known to say that you should drink beer within two years of its bottling.  Of course that's not a hard and fast rule -- on New Year's Eve I cracked a 3-year-old Roots Epic that was truly delightful -- but I claim that aging beyond two years doesn't add much benefit to most beers, and the things that can go wrong start to have more effect.

After an initial excitement about cellaring beer when I started geeking out a few years ago, I'm now at the point where I'm trying to reduce the amount of beer in the basement -- and I'm not a very big hoarder by any means.  One part of that equation is to not keep as much beer -- hey, those big ones age well, but they can be really good fresh also.  The other part is trying to use up more of the bottles I've got.

It seems like I hear more people talking about thinning out the cellar lately.  Is it just me, or are a lot of people having the same idea?  Are you keeping less and/or drinking more of your collection?

Fred Fest 2011

Fred Fest is always a blast; Saturday's celebration of Fred Eckhardt's 85th birthday at Hair of the Dog was no exception.  Perhaps fittingly, a theme that came up again and again in the beers I tried was "Age has been kind to this beer".  It was especially true of the best beer of the night, a 1998 Bourbon-barrel aged Full Sail Old Boardhead Barleywine, which was amazingly flawless so many years later.  But there were four other beers that I have tried at other times in the past year that were noticeably improved after a few months of aging:

• Ninkasi UnconventionALE Imperial Stout: I liked this a lot at the Holiday Ale Fest in December.  Six months later it was even better, a knockout.
• Hair of the Dog Peach Fred from the Wood Barleywine: On a December visit to the tasting room this was unremarkable, not as good as regular Fred.  Saturday it was fantastic: a beautiful blend of boozy bourbon, earthy peach, funky yeast, and bitter hops.
• Sierra Nevada Charlie, Fred, and Ken's Helles Bock: I'd had this twice before: a small taste when Fred brought a sneak peak of it to Fred Fest 2010, and from the bottle when it was on store shelves.  It was pretty good those times, but after about a year in the keg, it's really something.
• Lompoc Franc'ly Brewdolph barrel-aged Belgian Ale: This was tasty six months ago at the HAF and even better now: nice wine and funky yeast flavors on top of a solid Belgian.

Nicole said that bottles of the Sierra Nevada Helles Bock have improved in her cellar also.  It wouldn't have occurred to me to cellar that, but I was impressed by it Saturday.  If you happen to see any stray bottles on the shelf anywhere, don't hesitate to grab them.

Besides the five beers mentioned above, other highlights for me were:

• Hopworks Kronan the Bourbarian barrel-aged Baltic Porter: big bourbon and dark fruit (bing cherry?) notes on top of a big delicious BP.
• Double Mountain Fine Pimpin' Brown ale with cocoa and chiles: one of the lighter beers of the night, it was smooth, spicy, and beautiful.
• Barley Brown's 2010 Havoc Double American Stout: completely opaque black beer: thick, rich, and bitter.
• Midnight Sun Arctic Devil Barleywine: hot, mapley, and thick. I was a little less happy when Charles pointed out to me the acetone nose that came out when it warmed up, but it was still tasty for a giant barleywine.

If humanly possible, get yourself to Fred Fest next year.  Delicious gigantic beers, nice barbecue and other snacks included in the package, and a small, jolly crowd.  Happy 85th, Fred!

Full Sail Imperial Porter

I've stashed my case in the basement, so now I'm going to share with you one of the best beer bargains in Oregon at this time of year:  Full Sail's Imperial Porter (on the right in the photo -- I'll talk about the beer on the left in a minute).  It's under $5 a bomber ($4.25 at Beermongers), and a nice hearty beer to drink right now, but cellar it for a year or so, and you'll have a great beer for any occasion.  It's on the shelves now -- I highly recommend it.  Fresh, there's an angular bitterness to it; it's pretty dry, with very roasty malts and 60 IBUs of hops.  After mellowing out for a year, it gets a little smoother, the flavors meld together, and the chocolate/coffee flavors of the double porter come to the fore.  $4.25 + 365 days = delicious.

The beer in the glass in the photo is actually not the 2011 Imperial Porter I'm praising in this post.  It's the 2010 Top Sail, which is the 2009 Imperial Porter, aged in bourbon barrels for a year before bottling.  Tonight I cracked open a bottle I had in the basement, and it's a boozy, vanilla-y thing of beauty.  I recall it being ready to drink as soon as it was bottled last year, and I can't say that I think its time in my cellar added anything, though it hasn't suffered either.  Here's the thing: when you buy the foil-topped barrel-aged bottle, it's more than twice the price of the fresh porter -- usually at least $11.  It is a fair amount stronger in alcohol at 9.9% ABV vs. 7.5% -- is that due to evaporation/fermentation in the barrel? added bourbon? -- and definitely gains some interest from the bourbon flavors.  Also recommended, but not twice as recommended as the un-barreled one, especially if you give the cheap one a year to age.

As you may know, Full Sail alternates years between releases of the Brewer's Reserve Imperial Porter and the Imperial Stout.  This allows them to barrel-age part of the batch for a year, so in even-numbered years a barrel-aged porter and fresh stout are bottled; in odd-numbered years a barrel-aged stout and fresh porter are bottled.  When I was buying my case at Beermongers, Josh pointed out to me that's another good reason to stock up on this year's porter -- so you can compare it to the barrel-aged version next year.  The barrel-aged ones get special names:  Top Sail (porter) and Black Gold (stout), though apparently in 2007 (and before?) the unaged porter may have also been called Top Sail, judging from this old Beer Advocate page.

For some reason, Full Sail's Imperial Stout -- aged or no -- doesn't grab me like the porter does.  Oh, it's good, but the porter always seems rounder and more chocolatey to me.  Look for it now, and stock up.

More Old Jubelale

Last month I wrote about a 2008-2010 mini-vertical of Deschutes Jubelale.  I had found the 2008 to be starting to show signs of age, though the oxidation wasn't totally unpleasant.

A couple weeks later I got around to cracking a 2005, 2007, and a 2009 when some friends were over for dinner.  Bucking the trend, the 2005 was the clear taste favorite -- absolutely beautiful.  None of the papery oxidation notes, still nicely carbonated, and full of winter-warmer flavor.  The 2007 was not as flavorful, but probably a little nicer than the 2008.  So maybe this wacky Jubelale aging experiment is worthwhile afterall.

Now, the Jubel 2000 that came out on Thursday at the Holiday Ale Fest had lost all of its oomph.  On the one hand, you never expect the best from a 10-year-old beer; on the other hand, I thought this was a double-batch Super Jubel like the Jubel 2010 that came out early this year, and I would have expected some flavor to survive.  There wasn't even really much alcohol apparent.

Wallace and I were commiserating about the decrepit Jubel 2000 at the fest, and he mentioned that a friend of his also cellars Jubelale and had found that one year's stood out above the others -- by his recollection it was the 2004, but when I told him my bottles of 2004 were undrinkable after a single year, he thought it might have been the 2005 or 2003.  I suspect the 2005, since the bottle we had the other night was so good, but if any of you out there have a tasty 2004, I'd like to hear about it.  Maybe I just have a bad batch.

Old Jubelale

It might be silly to save Deschutes Jubelale in the basement year after year, but it's what I do. I started off putting a case aside every year, but last year I only saved 12 bottles, and I'll do the same this year (oops -- just stole one of this year's to have something to write about; better remember to replace it).

Over the past few days I've been rotating up some 2008 and 2009 bottles into the fridge. After a year or two, the flavors are rounded a bit; hops and spices have faded and the malt really comes out. It seems like the mouthfeel is a little denser, but having just cracked a brand new bottle, I think that's an illusion brought about by the lower bitterness.

The year-old (2009) bottle is a pleasant counterpart to a fresh bottle -- cloudier, flatter, mellower, more subtle; malt and molasses flavors, plus a lingering memory of the hops. The two-year old is more of the same, but the oxidation is starting to creep in, though not in a totally bad way. I once heard someone say that there was a pleasant oxidation in a beer we were tasting -- I think it was something old brought out for a Fred Fest one year -- and I was a little flabbergasted at the thought that someone would appreciate that damp paper taste. Now I understand. The oxidation really dominates the nose on the 2008, but it actually adds something a little interesting to the taste. Now, that case of 2004 Jubelale in my basement that was badly, horribly oxidized after only a year is a different story -- anyone need some bad beer?

The 2010 is a gem. Everyone likes to say of Jubel "It's good this year" or "It was better last year". I'm not sure if this year's is better than the 2009, but it might be: it's a beautiful chorus of roasted malt and piney hops. Lingering in the background is a faint rosewater flavor that ties a lot of Deschutes beers together for me -- I get a similar sensation from Black Butte and especially Cinder Cone. Tasty stuff. I'll have more to say about it about a year from now.

For another twist on Jubel, check out the Jubel Wassail schemed up by Ezra and Jacob for Saturday's "Brewing up Cocktails" event at the Hop and Vine.

Bailey's Cellarfest 2010

It's not often that you can go to a beer festival, and not have a single bad beer.  But that's what I got at Saturday's Cellarfest at Bailey's Taproom: quite a few delicious big beers, and of the dozen that I tasted, not a single dud.  I mean, when the beers that grabbed me the least were 2008 versions of Rogue Glen and Lucky Lab Pavlov's Imperial Stout, then it's a very good day, because those were two really solid beers.

The other thing that was remarkable about the Cellarfest was how few of the usual beer suspects I ran into at Bailey's.  I really like the usual suspects, but it's a very good sign of the breadth of beer appreciation in Portland that the place was packed with more than just the usuals, and really without much publicity for the event. Granted, I was only there from about 4:30 to 6:30, apparently after professionals like the Brewpublic and portlandbeer.org posses had come and gone.  My friends Brian, Bryce, and Cathy had snagged a relatively quiet spot in the back of the bar, so Lindsey and I took it over when they moseyed along; maybe we would have jostled more old acquaintances in the front of the house.

Anyway, about the beer.  Bailey's has only been open for a couple of years, how deep can their cellar be?  In fact, most of the beers on tap -- 10 of 17 -- were from 2008 and 2009.  That's OK by me -- occasionally a beer will keep improving after two years of age, but for the most part two years is enough time, and you get more and more blemishes as the years go by.  I was too late to the Cellarfest to try two of the oldest ales: the Fish Leviathan from 2004 and the Terminal Gravity 2006 Bucolic Plague.  But the 2006 Alaskan Smoked Porter proved my point: still a fine beer, but the papery flavor of oxidation was starting to become a distraction.

Here are some short notes on the beers I tried, more or less in the order of preference, though it's almost as hard to say what my favorites were as it is to say what my least favorites were.  Everything was nice.

• Caldera '09 Old Growth Imperial Stout: bitter, rich, licorice, wonderful
• Lagunitas '08 Olde Gnarleywine Barleywine: nicely fruity, malty, and bitter
• Full Sail '07 Old Boardhead Barleywine: delicious vanilla and hops
  
• Laughing Dog  '08 Dogfather Imperial Stout: deliciously bitter
• North Coast '08 Old Stock Barleywine: fruity and nice
• Butte Creek '07 Train Wreck Barleywine: classic hoppy b-wine
• Flying Dog '09 Gonzo Porter: pretty damn good, bitter and full
• Fort George '09 Coffee Girl Stout: tasty strong coffee and chile flavors
• Barley Brown's '08 Double Whiskey Ale: mellow and smooth; not whiskeyish
• Alaskan '06 Smoked Porter: smoked meat flavors; a little oxidized
• Rogue '08 Glen Strong Ale: solid, thick, balanced
• Lucky Lab '08 Pavlov's Imperial Stout: a little too hoppy; expected more malt
  

Before there was Abyss... there was Caldera Imperial Stout.  Whenever you see it on tap, drink as much of it as you can.

A couple of suggestions for Geoff for next year's Cellarfest.  First, it would have been nice to have the styles of each beer listed on the beer list handouts.  Second, alphabetical order is a beer-drinker's friend.  But don't get me wrong, this event was wonderful as it was, from the well-chosen beers, to the sweet souvenir snifter, to the speedy service despite the big crowd.