Gigantic End of Reason and St. Bernardus Prior 8

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

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

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

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

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

My New Beers

Tuesday I wrote about my new glassware, and since each glass in the fashion show was being worn by a different lovely beer, I thought I'd say a few words about each.

The brutally honest Brewers Union 180 22-ounce pint glass got filled up with Gigantic IPA.  Perhaps it's not the style of beer the glass was intended for, but I liked the idea of putting a Gigantic beer in a gigantic glass.  The IPA is an instant Portland classic: big, full-bodied, with orangey hops.  I fancy that it tastes better on tap, but in a pinch the bombers are available wherever fine beers are sold.

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The stalwart Rogue goblet was shown off by the lovely and talented Widmer Marionberry Hibiscus Gose.  At the 2011 Fruit Beer Festival I declared Widmer's Raspberry Hibiscus Gose my biggest disappointment, despite being easily the prettiest beer served that day.  On the other hand, I really like the 2012 marionberry version, which is probably still out there on the shelves in 12-ounce bottles.  It's not as visually stunning, but it seems maltier and a touch saltier than I remember the raspberry one being.  I didn't get much hibiscus flavor from either of them, which is probably a good thing.  Hibiscus strikes me as a very strong, distinctive flavor which is interesting on its own but doesn't play well with others, though I'm sure it contributes to the gose's beautiful color.

Oddly, one of my complaints about the 2011 was that it wasn't as tart as Cascade's Goses -- which is a surprising thing for me to complain about in the first place -- but one thing I like about the 2012 is that it is less tart than the 2011.  Go figure.  Meanwhile Widmer brewer Ben Dobler told me he liked the tarter raspberry version better.  Isn't beer wonderful?   (Thanks to Widmer for the free bottle.)

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Last but not least, that nutritious-looking potion in the giant grail my Austin friend Brady gave me is a treat that Dave recently stocked in his kegerator next door:  Migration's Luscious Lupulin IPA.  Even though Migration is not more than a mile from my house, I rarely seem to make it over there.  Luckily, they're doing a booming business without me, and a couple years in they seem to be hitting their stride with the beers.  Luscious Lupulin is cloudy, dank, and delicious.  It's bitter for sure, but really it's the floral qualities of the hops that shine through, balanced with enough malt.  I know I've had it in the past, but it seems better to me than it used to, a very well done NW IPA.  I'll be filling my chalice with it as often as I can.

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.