Gregwatch: May 2012

A little over four years ago, I wrote a post called Gregwatch: March 2008.  At the time, Hair of the Dog's unusual winter-squash beer Greg was only available at Higgins Restaurant in downtown Portland, and the quality of Greg seemed to swing back and forth between sublimely wonderful and almost undrinkable.  Hence the silly name of the blog post, as though we needed to keep track of when there was good Greg available.

Around that time I asked Alan Sprints why there seemed to be so much variation between the batches, and he seemed genuinely perplexed by the question, basically saying he didn't think there was.  So I was amused last weekend when I asked the bartender at HotD's tasting room if Greg was good right now, and he shot back "It always is!"

There's been a lot of water under the bridge since 2008.  I don't work near Higgins anymore and so I get there a lot less often, though the last few times I was there they didn't even have Greg or any HotD beer on tap (they have various ones in bottles of course).  Meanwhile, Alan has opened a pub of his own, and it does always have Greg on tap.

And it's doing fine.  There was a nice tight head -- oddly gray in color as Greg's head often is -- on top of a cloudy and delicious Belgian golden ale.  It wasn't the best iteration of Greg I've had, but it was perfect for a cloudy evening, chatting with some friends.

I'm looking forward to Fred Fest 2012 at Hair of the Dog this Sunday.  It looks like tickets are still available.  Among the many delights at the festival, apparently the Hair of the Dog/Deschutes collaboration beer will be served.  If you want more convincing that you should buy a ticket, read some of my reports on previous Fred Fests.  You'll have the time of your life.

Gregwatch: March 2008

In the past, I've lauded Greg -- the one-of-a-kind Hair of the Dog ale at Higgins -- and I've panned it. This beer is art: some batches are excellent, some are almost undrinkable.

The batch that was on today was awesome. It has the delicious Belgian yeast flavor, a hearty amber color, and a delightful light carbonation. As Charlie -- the Higgins bistromeister -- says, "the only beer in the world with a gray head".

Today was something of a swan song for me; I'm giving up my downtown office to work from home. Not that I'll never luncheon at Higgins again, but I'll not have an easy stroll there and back from my office.

Some of the other winners on tap at Higgins today are the delicious Hopworks Pale Ale, Ninkasi Soulstice, and Full Sail Slipknot on cask. To top it off, while I was sitting at the bar, a new keg was delivered from Lucky Lab, the Double Alt that John Foyston was just writing about. I'm not sure how they scored one of those. I had a taste. To be honest, there was a little bit of a chemical (disinfectant?) taste to it; I prefer the original Crazy Ludwig's Alt that this is based on. Still, if you want a never-before-never-again beer experience, get to Higgins or the Quimby Street Lucky Lab quickly.

What Happened to Greg?

A couple weeks ago, I was raving about Hair of the Dog's one-off Greg, available only at Higgins. I described it as tasting like a strong Belgian Golden, but amber in color, and had a photo of it to boot.

It was quite a surprise to order one yesterday and have it be so totally different. It's the beer on the right -- luckily our friend Lisa went with the cask Wreck the Halls like the beer on the left. Now, I didn't do a great job taking this photograph, but hopefully you can see that the color is much lighter than in the earlier photo, and there is apparently no carbonation. Those things are not necessarily bad in my book, but there was none of the Belgian-y flavor I was expecting -- not much flavor at all, in fact.

A couple weeks ago, they did make a point of saying that the Greg that was on had been in the keg for several months -- they had switched to Hair of the Dog Blue Dot for awhile, so the Gregs just sat around. The Greg that's on now is from a fresh batch, but the variation seems greater to me than just the age. I do recall that the first time I had it (early 2006?), I didn't care for it, then a few months later I tried it again and was surprised at how good it was. Looks like some batches are better than others.

Still worth a try, if you want a beer that can't be had anywhere else. But you might ask for a sample first, to see which Greg you're getting.