Preview: Lucky Lab Barleywine Festival 2012

[Editor's Note: I'm happy to add Pub Night stalwart Lindsey -- developer of It's Pub Night's Six-Pack Equivalent Calculator Android app -- to our ever-expanding roster of guest writers.  Thanks, Lindsey!]

On Saturday I had the distinct pleasure to represent It's Pub Night at an exclusive event for Portland beer glitterati: taste testing the beers for the Lucky Lab's upcoming Barleywine Festival. Beyonce and Jay Z were there. Jay even had their new baby in one of those front facing slings. True story.

The 2012 Barleywine Festival will be held next Friday and Saturday, March 2nd and 3rd, 2012, at the Quimby Street Lucky Lab, from noon to 10 PM both days.  It's one of the more relaxed festivals in town, and the early Friday opening gives you a great opportunity to beat the crowds if you can make yourself free that day.  Since it's held right in the pub, food, water, and seating are all abundant.

Many of the barleywines at the festival are vintages from previous years, stashed away in the Lab's vaults.  Because the kegs are stored over long periods of time, each one has to be tested to make sure they are still drinkable. That was our job. Unfortunately two or three didn't fare so well and will get dumped.

I recorded 27 different beers and there will likely be a few more vintage editions plus a selection of new beers, which weren't on hand to try.  While no beer is older than '07, each day of the fest will feature a changing set of vertical tastings whenever possible.

Here are a few of my standouts -- you should try them if you attend the festival:

• '11 North Coast Old Stock: very nice and quite sweet
• '10 Ninkasi Critical Hit: mellowing nicely but still hoppy
• '09 Sierra Nevada Bigfoot: aging nicely but still has a nice hop presence
• '10 Anchor Old Foghorn: a longtime favorite of mine didn't disappoint
• '09 Salmon Creek Brother Larry: a nice and mellow trippel
• ?? Terminal Gravity Bucolic: well-balanced hop presence
• ?? Three Creeks Brewdolph: very nice Belgian
• '11 Anchor Old Foghorn: "oh f*** yes"

Hopworks Rise Up Red

[Editor's Note:  Since several of the finer Portland beer blogs are now having guest bloggers, I decided to get with the program and solicit the help of my next-door neighbor and beer buddy Dave.  He was supposed to give me this article a couple weeks ago; by getting it to me so late, he has passed his first test and shown himself to have the right work ethic for beer blogging.  Thanks, Dave!]

Bill was gracious enough to let a scheduling conflict prevent him from attending Hopworks' bottle release party for Rise Up Red, their GABF gold-medal winning red ale, and deputized me to take his place. This is the third seasonal offered in bottles from HUB, preceded by Secession Black Ale and Ace of Spades. Christian outlined HUB's seasonal release strategy as alternating between sessionable offerings and higher alcohol beers.  There was no mention of the recent imperial red, but it sounds like we'll see bottlings of a barley wine and the Abominable winter ale.

Rise Up Red is a solid NW Red; it's not overly malty, letting the bitterness of the hops shine through. I had the cask version today and was blown away by the citrus nose, something I wasn't getting from the bottle and CO2 pours.

Christian gave one the most comprehensive brewery tours I've been on; it was a perfect blend of brewing science and his passion for the craft. Beyond Christian’s animated tour-guiding, the two highlights of the tour were: A) Standing in the cooler getting pours from a pigtail while freezing my ass off, and B) Snuffing crushed Amarillo hop flowers to illustrate how much resin is lost in the pelletizing process. Given Christian’s attention to maintaining a low carbon footprint, I wondered aloud if there was any benefit in shipping the condensed hops: The obvious answer was that weight has more to do with MPG than volume, and the main benefit of pellets is shelf-life. He also brought up that the only organic hops are grown in New Zealand and Germany, and that to brew a truly organic beer would result in a ridiculous carbon footprint.

Another highlight was meeting HUB’s graphic designer, Astrogirl, who was also on hand at the release party. She is the creative genius behind the Hopworks identity (see Beervana’s excellent dissection here).

Thanks to Christian for being a gracious host and putting up with my less-than-intelligent questions. The delay in getting this post to press is entirely my fault (I’ll still find a way to blame my children for it).