De Struise Meet the Brewer at Hair of the Dog

Urbain Coutteau (photo: Teresa Culp)

I haven't been paying very close attention to the beer events happening around me lately, so I was glad to get an email from Brian Thursday morning that there would be a meet-the-brewer that evening at Hair of the Dog with Urbain Coutteau of Belgium's De Struise brewery.  The event featured a tap takeover with eight De Struise beers seldom tapped in these parts, and since Hair of the Dog lies directly between my office and home, it was an easy call.

This was the most fun I've had at a meet-the-brewer in a long time.  The beers were great, and Hair of the Dog's wide open space made things very comfortable.  Urbain was orbiting the bar area, stopping to chat with clusters of people who dragged him over to talk about beer.  He told us he's been here about a week, but that HotD brewer Alan Sprints kept him busy brewing much of the time.  He'll have to return another time to see more of Portland.

Belgian beer is held in such reverence here that we sometimes miss some of the fun in their brewery names.  "De Struise Brouwers" means "The Sturdy Brewers" -- already a lighthearted name along the lines of "Gigantic" -- but there is also a pun involved because "struise" can mean "ostrich".  (The brewery that brought this situation to light for me was De Proef, whose self-deprecating name means something like "The Test Brewery".)

The beers that were on were:

• Witte
• Svea IPA
• Elliot Brew (Mikkeller collaboration double IPA)
• XXX Rye Tripel
• Tsjeesus Tripel
• Pannepot Quadrupel
• Pannepot Reserva (barrel-aged)
• Pannepeut Quadrupel

My favorite of the bunch was the regular Pannepot, which the brewer himself described as "a punch in the face".  It does have tons of dark roast and esthery Belgian flavors, which I felt like were diminished too much in the barrel-aged version.  Pannepeut -- a drier, lighter-bodied version of Pannepot originally brewed as Pannepøt for a festival in Copenhagen -- was a subtler version that was still very interesting.  Urbain said he thinks of it as a more traditional abbey ale than the heavy-handed Pannepot. 

The Svea IPA seemed to me to have a lot in common with Hair of the Dog Fred -- both of them being quite hoppy but nicely balanced beers on the sweet end of the spectrum -- even though it's only about 75% the strength.  On the other hand, I thought the Elliot Brew -- I can't believe I'm about to type this -- overdid the hops.  It wasn't terrible, but a little more balance would have made it better.

Urbain seemed uncomfortable at first when I asked him what he and Alan brewed this week, so I asked if the beers were clones of De Struise recipes, and he said, "Well, pretty close, but with Hair of the Dog's hopping schedule".  Alan was more direct in proclaiming their lineage, telling me they brewed Pannepot and Pannepeut, and that he plans to barrel age some of the Pannepot to recreate De Struise's Pannepot Reserva.

This was a nice low-key event that I'm glad I didn't miss out on.  Now if we can only convince De Struise to send us a keg of their 26% ABV Double Black...

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.

Don't Cook with Expensive Beer!!!

Cooking with beer is nothing new, but the trend does seem to be taking flight as of late.  I have occasionally cringed to see recipes that use a beer that would be better put to use by drinking it -- say, making an ice cream sauce from Deschutes Abyss.   But the recent event that made today's rant inevitable was Beer Advocate's Thanksgiving installment of the Homebrew Chef, which counseled readers to brine their turkeys with 4 (four) 750 ml bottles of Allagash Tripel, and serve it up with cranberry sauce made from an even rarer Deschutes beer than Abyss:  The Dissident.

Beer can chicken is one thing, but soaking a turkey in $40-$50 worth of beer which then has to be dumped down the drain is just sick.  And no matter what your opinion is on extremely sour American takes on Belgian ales, can you see opening a bottle which is nearly impossible to get hold of right now, and pouring it into cranberry sauce?

Look, if you find that beer adds a flavorful dimension to your cooking, that's great.  But suppose a recipe calls for red wine.  Are you going to add 2 cups of Châteauneuf-du-Pape to it?  No, because it's an insult to a wine of that quality, not to mention a silly waste of money.  You'll use a good-enough table wine, and your food won't be any worse for it.

I suppose a Deschutes chef cooking with Abyss is just using what he has on hand, though I don't think the dish would have suffered any from the use of the less costly Obsidian Stout instead.  Here's a picture of Alan Sprints whipping up some chocolate-raspberry sorbet that includes some Hair of the Dog Adam.  It's not a cheap beer, but he's the brewer and it's what he's got.  Even so, I doubt he would pull out some of his barrel-aged creations and give them the same treatment.  [Oops! Matt points out in a comment below that Alan has made cheesecakes and ice creams with Cherry Adam from the Wood.  Now I don't have to feel so bad for making him the expensive-beer-cooking poster boy.]

I'm not the first person to inveigh against the evils of cooking with rare beer  Here's a year-old blog post from across the pond that gets it about right:  "Sometimes, it seems the point is to impress with big beer names. Regardless of the impact it actually has on the dish’s flavour."   There are also a couple of quasi-sensible comments about it on the Beer Advocate turkey-brining fiasco mentioned above.

Respect beer: don't cook with the rare stuff!

Hair of the Dog Bottle Share at the Commons

As a sort of pre-func for Hair of the Dog's dock sale last weekend, there was a well-attended beer-geek bottle share Friday night at the new Commons Brewery (née Beetje) facility at SE 10th and Stephens.  The dock sales have traditionally inspired impromptu breakfasts and sharing of rare beers as people waited in line, but it's just not possible to do that at the new place at Water and Yamhill.  So HotD owner Alan Sprints looked around for a place to hold a party the night before, and Mike Wright generously opened the doors at Commons.

There were probably a couple hundred bottles opened and shared around: various Hair of the Dog vintages, unmarked homebrews, rare imports, and cult favorites like 3 Floyds Dark Lord Imperial Stout.  If you were standing in the right place at the right time, you might get a little pour of Dark Lord, or some 4-year-old Fred from the Wood, or something sour from Drie Fonteinen.  I brought the Rogue/Voodoo Doughnut Bacon Maple beer that I won a couple weeks ago -- a good thing to share since no one wants a big glass of that but most people would like to say they've tried it.  It was a little too sweet, but wasn't as bad as I'd heard and feared it would be -- actually it tasted a lot like a doughnut.  Definitely worth a try just for the fun of it.  To compensate for that somewhat whimsical entry, I also brought a Rahr and Sons bourbon-aged Winter Warmer that Portland Beer and Music founder Jason Wallace brought me from Texas.  Not that they need winter warmers down there, but it was a solid holiday ale with a nice whiskey/oak touch to it.

For most of us, it was our first look at the Commons.  I don't think the tasting room has regular hours yet, but a few taps were already hooked up, and barrels full of beer were scattered through the room.  There's a nice feeling to the place, and while I wish Mike had kept the funky, unpronounceable Beetje name, it's great to have a new brewery in the neighborhood.  His Belgian-inspired beers have all been very well-made so far, usually on the lower-alcohol end of the scale, and while there are some similarities with Upright's farmhouse line, there are enough differences to keep it interesting. Weekend tasting-room hours should begin before the end of the year.

I didn't have an extra $90 burning a hole in the pocket that made me want to stand in line for a six-pack of Adam from the Wood the next day at Hair of the Dog, though I might have been tempted by sub-$6 bottles of Bourbon Fred from the Wood if I'd known about them. There was a lot of grumbling on Beer Advocate about the poor organization of the sale.  While that's not a big surprise for a sale at Hair of the Dog, I do sympathize with people who were effectively punished for trying to pay with cash instead of plastic: apparently the credit card orders were collected up first, which had the effect that some platinum-plus people further back in line were able to buy Adam FTW ahead of those waving greenbacks around.  That's rather perverse, since card fees take a bite out of the brewery's haul.  But you should also read Jim Bonomo's hilarious rant -- complete with crybaby graphic -- that shows no sympathy for people complaining about the first-world problem of not being able to buy a few bottles of a rare and highly-prized beer.

Mighty Mites 2011

The Mighty Mites small beer festival that was held Saturday at Coalition Brewing was a phenomenal success, at least from the perspective of the festival-goers. There could have been a little more shade, but the beers were fantastic, they didn't give you a hangover, and there were no lines to speak of. I expected a bigger attendance than there was -- hopefully Coalition at least broke even for their effort.

The collection of 18 beers, half of which clocked in at under 4% ABV, was curated by Beervana's Jeff Alworth. Note that 4% ABV is 3.2% ABW -- yes, that 3.2%, the reviled number that is still the limit for grocery store beer sales in several states.  The Mighty Mites beers were a far cry from those blander-than-usual industrial lagers.  I restricted my sampling to the sub-4% brews on the list -- with one exception for the lovely 4.4% Stone Levitation Ale -- and there wasn't a bad one in the lot.  Some favorites:

• Brewers Union Local 180 Little Sir John Ordinary Bitter: smooth, light roasted malt flavor, pretty hoppy
• Hair of the Dog Little Dog (Fred and non-smoked Adam) Small Beers: light body but plenty of flavor, and tons of hops
• Lompoc Brewing Voodoo Mild: perfectly dark and bitter
• Beetje Brewing The Knoll American Pale Ale: light body, very nice bitterness
• Block 15 Berliner Weisse: refreshing and tart, but not too tart

As I said, I didn't have a bad beer at the festival, but those stood out for me.  I was mostly doing one-ticket samples, though I did venture back for a full -- well, almost full -- pint of Little Sir John pulled from Ted Sobel's mobile beer engine.  That was some good drinking.

The atmosphere at Mighty Mites contributed to the good time.  Everything was very casual:  no wristbands, bring your own mug or get handed a compostable cup, generous pours, no lines and no silly festival whooping.  There was no entry fee or penalty, just buy as many or as few tickets as you wanted.  Interestingly, many of the pourers were the brewers themselves, as in the photo at the right where you have (from left) Ted from Brewers Union, Alan from Hair of the Dog, Mike from Beetje, and Krister, one of the brewers from soon-to-open SE Portland brewery Base Camp.  There were three people from Base Camp pouring at once during the early afternoon: Justin and Faye joined Krister.  Nice community service, guys.

It's worth talking about the Little Dogs.  As you may already know, they are small beers made from the second runnings of the malt used in Hair of the Dog's giant flagship beers.  Great way to reuse and recycle, and it lets Alan squeeze another dollar out of his malt bill.  They're also very tasty beers, thanks in part to the lavish dose of hops administered to them.  The two on tap at Mighty Mites were Little Fred -- made from a batch of Fred, of course -- and Little Adam, but not the smoky Little Adam that has been served in the past at the HotD tasting room.  Alan explained that his runs of Adam consist of five parts smoked malt to one part dark (not smoked) malt.  The Little Adam at Mighty Mites -- also currently on tap at the tasting room -- is a small beer made with the unsmoked part.  I love the smoked version, but there was also something special about this unsmoked one -- you got more of the beer and hops flavor instead of the smoke gimmick.

There were a few breweries that I was surprised were not represented at the fest.  Hopworks has a wonderful hoppy session ale called Cool Grand that would have fit in perfectly; the Lucky Lab has been known to dabble in the light arts also.  Surely big boys like Deschutes, Widmer, and Laurelwood would also jump at the chance to do something special for a fest like this.  Not that there wasn't enough good beer, but if small is beautiful, the more the merrier.

With all the recent attention on "session beers", it's high time Portland had a festival of this kind.  It's fitting that Jeff had a hand in it: he first evidenced a desire to throw a small beer fest in Portland over two years ago at the bottom of this post.  By that time Lew Bryson had already instigated session beer festivals in Philadelphia in 2007 and 2009.  Of course Lew has been a vocal proponent of lower-alcohol beers for a long time, but it's nice to see that Portland has now jumped on the bandwagon in a serious way.  Kudos to Jeff and Coalition for making Mighty Mites happen, and let's hope it will become an annual event.

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!

Hair of the Dog Food

Back in December when I finally phoned in a review of Hair of the Dog's tasting room on Water Avenue, I was kind of dismissive about the food, saying that it was generally a little overpriced, and that it looked like there was a lot more bustle in the kitchen than was called for by the menu.  Granted, it was just an early impression offered with the caveat that I hadn't done a lot of dining there.

Well, I still haven't dined there much, but last Saturday I was in there for a double date, and we were all extremely pleased with the food.  Carla and I were not all that hungry, so we split two small items from the menu: the $6 slab of beef brisket, and a $4 plate of carmelized brussels sprouts.  Already from previous visits I had decided that the brisket was the best deal on the menu, and Saturday it was served with a simple green salad on the side, which makes it an even better deal.  So what, cheapskate?:  the price doesn't matter if the food is bad.  Saturday the food was a home run -- deliciously moist and flavorful brisket, an interesting citrusy dressing on the lettuce, and the sprouts cooked exactly the right amount.  Our friends Joe and Lisa were also quite happy with their respective orders of macaroni and pork spareribs.  So, I take back my earlier grousing about the menu and the prices.

Unfortunately we missed the bourbon-barrel version of Fred from the Wood that had been on tap earlier last week.  But I finally got to try the Adam version of HotD's Little Dog small beer.  It was smashing.  They bill it as "smoky", and while there's a little of that Adam smokiness, it doesn't seem to me to be the dominant flavor.  I get more of a plummy, dark fruit flavor, though since this is a very light 3.5% brew, it's not plummy the way you think of darker dessert beers.  It reminded me of Anchor Bock, but with more flavor and less alcohol.  I've really liked all the Little Dogs I've tried -- including the Fred version which was also on tap Saturday -- but the Adam variant is really something not to be missed.  It's also fun to taste it alongside the big dog Adam.

Now I've got to figure out how to get by there more often Wednesday through Saturday after 2 PM but before 8 PM.  Oh, and sorry about the headline, I couldn't help myself.

Hair of the Dog Tasting Room

Yikes!  I finally sit down to grind out this ridiculously late post on Hair of the Dog's new tasting room -- well, it opened in mid-August -- only to discover that Dr. Wort came along just yesterday and turned in an uncharacteristically coherent report on the same subject.  (Uncharacteristically ass-kissing, also.  Geez, Doc, were you visited by three ghosts Saturday night?  Wasn't there anything you can fault Alan on?  That sweatshirt he's wearing in your picture isn't exactly Haute Couture -- are you sure that guy's really a high-class chef?)

Anyway, since I can't outdo Dr. Wort this time -- nor these earlier reports from The Beer Cave and Beervana --  I'll just get a few scattered observations out of my brain and then move on.

Location, location, location. Buying his own place, very centrally located, with a beautiful view of downtown across the river, was an ingenious move on Alan's part.  Remember how hard it was to figure out how to get to the old place, beneath an underpass and behind the railroad tracks?  Parking may be an issue, but it's also a place that's very accessible by bicycle, so maybe putting up a bunch of bike racks could help alleviate that.  He's also right across the street from the new, improved sidewalk across the Morrison Bridge -- in good weather it would be a nice stroll for downtown hotel guests.

Bankers' hours.  2 to 8 PM?  Not sure if I've ever heard of a business with those opening hours, and it's especially weird for a pub -- you're not open for lunch, not open for night owls, and barely open for dinner.  Closed Monday and Tuesday.

Big Dog, Little Dog.  It looks like there will almost always be a 3-4% ABV small beer on tap, made from the second runnings of one of HOTD's bigger beers.  I've had the Doggie Claws Little Dog a couple of times, and it's something really unique and wonderful.  It's light, but hoppy, not sweet at all, but satisfying.  I can't think of any other beer I've had with the same flavors.  Besides allowing you to pace yourself, the Little Dogs are also significantly cheaper than the regular lineup -- $2.50 a glass vs. $4.50 and up.  Word is that there is currently a Matt Little Dog on tap, with the somewhat smoky flavor of the Adam/Matt brew.

Look busy.  I haven't been there enough, but I don't really understand the kitchen situation.  It always looks like Alan and someone else are working really hard with big open flames in the open kitchen, but the menu consists mostly of prefab stuff like charcuterie or hummus plates.  The food seems a little overpriced to me for what it is, with the exception of the beef-brisket appetizer, which seems like quite a bargain for $6 if you share it around.  [Update 2011/04/16: alright, now I've had an excellent, moderately-priced meal there.  I take it all back.]

The best of beers.  In 2009 Hair of the Dog made an exclusive beer for Bottleworks in Seattle called Matt. It wasn't sold in Portland, but I was lucky enough to try it at the old brewery during a private party that was held as a school fundraiser.  It was amazing.  It's a strong, dark, smoky beer along the lines of Adam -- same basic recipe? -- that is then aged in apple brandy barrels from Clear Creek Distillery.  This year Alan made a new batch, that was sold in 12-ounce bottles for $15.  That's a pretty hefty price tag, but it really is a stellar beer -- I've already shared a couple of bottles, and it's delicious.

The worst of beers.  Now, on the other hand, there were a couple of very questionable beers on tap at the tasting room the weekend that Matt was released last month:  two versions of Fred from the Wood, one aged on peaches, and one on apricots.  The peach one was tolerable -- though not as good as plain ol' Fred from the Wood -- but the apricot one was very vinegary, with the added insult of acetone.  Not just a little vinegar, and a little acetone, but copious, sinus-clenching quantities.  Debbie caught Brett's first taste of it on this video: you can tell it's not a minor flaw in the beer, but something overwhelming. 
Frankly, it should not have been served, and I have to wonder why Alan let it out the door.  If you wanted to offer free tastes to adventure seekers, maybe.  But charging $3 for small tasters of a bad mistake is not a very good move.


So, from one of the veterans of Portland's beer scene, a promising new start, despite the apricot-vinegar misfire. The tasting room is sure to be a prominent fixture for years to come, especially if it can start staying open past 8.

Cherry Beers

We interrupt the barrage of fresh-hop posts with a question that's been on my mind for a while. What is it that makes cherries work so well in beer?

The first fruit beers I became aware of years ago were made with raspberries -- I'm sure Celis Raspberry is the first I tried, and from that I learned that there existed this "frambozen" category of Belgian beers. Raspberries are still the most common fruit adjunct -- an unscientific search for raspberry on Beer Advocate came up with 357 matches -- but cherries seem to be the second-most common, and for my money they're the best.

Last night I took a couple of cherry beers over to the neighbors' house: Upright's Four Play and Bridgeport's 2009 Stumptown Tart. It seemed a little risky keeping that bottle of Tart in the basement for a year, but that's what Karl Ockert told me to do, so I did it. It held up very well -- it is about 7% ABV -- and even a fruit-beer skeptic like Dave was impressed. Of the three years of Stumptown Tart, the cherry one is my favorite, hands down. Not really sour, with a nice cherry-pie flavor over the mild Belgian ale.

Very similar in flavor was the Upright Four Play that's been sitting in my fridge for about six months. It's not as strong at 5%, but had the same level of cherry taste, and I liked it even more than the Bridgeport. It was just slightly tarter, and had a more interesting balance of flavors. That's the Four Play in the glass in the picture; really the two beers looked remarkably alike in the glass.

The other cherry beers that have been on my mind are the Cascade Kriek and Hair of the Dog Cherry Adam. I'm glad to be able to get the Kriek in $6 doses now that the Barrel House is open, instead of having to plunk down $16 for a bottle of it. Sours are definitely an acquired taste, but I've acquired a taste for that one. It's a work of art. As for the Cherry Adam, I had a fabulous bottle of it about a year ago; more recently there was a less inspiring undercarbonated version on tap at the new Hair of the Dog bistro. I love the smoky taste of Adam, and the cherries bring a beautiful new dimension to that, so I'm going to keep hoping for a repeat of that first batch I tried.

What else is out there? Got any cherry beers I should try? [Update 2010/12/20: Oh yeah, also the Hopworks Piledriver that was at BikeToBeerFest. Awesome!] [Update 2011/04/15: Widmer Cherry Doppelbock from 2009 is another good example. Wouldn't mind if they brought that back.]

Hair of the Dog Inventory Running Low?

John had a nice article in the Oregonian the other day about two eagerly awaited Southeast pubs: Hair of the Dog and Cascade's Barrel House.  As is always the case, the opening date for both of them has been pushed back repeatedly, and they are both going to miss their revised-revised-revised deadlines of July 2010.  Too bad:  it surely crossed their minds that it would be great to be open by OBF weekend.

A few months ago when it soaked in to my brain that Hair of the Dog would stop brewing for a while during the move, I rubbed a couple of pennies together and put a few bottles of Adam in my basement.  Mostly I was thinking it would be interesting to compare pre- and post-move Adam, but I'll admit that I also was hedging against some kind of disaster.  A late opening date isn't the end of the world, but I'm feeling pretty clever as I notice that HotD bottles are starting to thin out on store shelves around town.  The other day at Belmont Station there were only a few bottles in the cooler; at Fred Meyers down the street they were out of Fred (irony!) but still seemed pretty well stocked with Adam.

Cascade doesn't have the same problem, since they have two baskets to put their eggs in, and anyway they are already making use of the Barrel House to age beers, they just can't serve anything there yet.  If Alan isn't able to open Hair of the Dog until later this year, will we get to a point where there's no more left on the shelves?

Fred Fest 2010

About 11 months from now, when you're asking yourself, "Self, should I pony up the $X to go to Fred Fest this year?", make sure that you do whatever it takes to make yourself answer in the affirmative.  This is the kind of right-place, right-time beer festival that you should absolutely attend if at all possible.  I'll remind you of a few of the good reasons:

• It's your chance to chat with craft beer legend Fred Eckhardt, and pick up some of his off-the-cuff homespun wisdom.
• You get to taste several one-off or otherwise rare beers, limited only by the laws of supply and demand.
• There is copious excellent food prepared and served under the supervision of Hair of the Dog brewer Alan Sprints.
• You'll be surrounded by a jovial and convivial crowd that is dense with Oregon brewers, publicans, retailers, beer experts, and beer scenesters of all stripes.
• All proceeds go to charity.

Last year I was on-the-ball enough to jot down a couple of the witticisms that Fred tossed my way; this year I failed to take notes of that kind, but just talking to the man for a minute or two put a smile on my face and put a new perspective on whatever mundane worries were in the back of my mind.   Go to Fred Fest, be patient, and at some point you'll get a minute to talk to Fred.  He doesn't have a halo, but he's something of a saint, or maybe a Zen master, but not the kind of Zen master that cuts your fingers off.

One of the most ridiculously rare beers this year was a keg of Wild Duck Barleywine brewed in 2003 by the late, lamented Glen Falconer.  As if that wasn't enough backstory, the keg had been stashed away by the similarly late and lamented Toby Day.  With no disrespect intended at all, Brian pointed out that this beer was really a Double Dead Guy Ale.  It was the first beer that many people headed for at the festival, and it was worth it -- a classic strong barleywine, with lots of hops, a brown-sugar palate, and a little bit of papery oxidation.

Another once-in-a-lifetime beer was brought by Fred himself, and if you were standing in the right place, at the right time, you got a taste of it.  Here's Fred's description of it:

I have two big gallons of Sierra Nevada pilot brew on their Thirtieth Anniv.... Charlie Papazian and I were s'pozed to have designed this beer for Ken, but Charlies plan was way beyond mine. This is a magnificant, but very dark, Helles-bock lager. 16.8Plato, 7%abv, 35ibu.

As you can imagine, once Fred's growler was opened, it went fast, but most of the people who got their tasting glass underneath it were generous and poured it around for other folks.  In fact, that's how I got a taste, and I am forever grateful to the young fellow -- a complete stranger to me -- who kindly slopped half his glass into mine.  It was an interesting brew: grainy (like you'd expect a Helles-bock to be) with mildly citrusy hops.

I foolishly missed the Firestone Walker Parabola and the Rock Bottom 3-5 year old Maude Flanders, but here were a few other noteworthy beers:

• Deschutes Wood-Aged Double Black: strong, slightly tart, and malty
• Barley Brown's Cherrywood-Smoked Rye Whiskey Beer: mesquite smoke, like candied BBQ pork
• Cascade The Vine 2010: smooth delicious winey sour (Sharon said it was like a stronger Berliner Weiss)
• Bridgeport 2008 Fallen Friar: sour wine notes, smooth, floral yeast (2 years aging has helped this a lot)
• Bend Brewing Rocksy Stein Lager: bitter, caramelly lager -- I'd been wanting to try this lager brewed with hot stones for a long time.

This was also a first glance at Hair of the Dog's new location at Water and Yamhill.  There's definitely still work to be done there, but there are at least three exciting things about the new place:  1. Alan is no longer renting: he owns the building; 2. There will be a Hair of the Dog pub for the first time; 3. It's a lot easier to get to than the old super-secret location.  It looks like there's quite a bit more space there also.  Very exciting.

For further reading: check out Angelo's writeup at Brewpublic, Jeff's at the Beer Cave, and Lisa's at the Hop Press.  And remember:  next year when faced with the question of whether to go to Fred Fest, don't even hesitate.

No Relation

The Fred Meyers on Hawthorne seems to think that Blue Dot and Blue Moon have something in common. They shelved them right next to each other. I'm as big a fan of alphabetical order as anyone, but this is taking it too far.

At the top level, Fred's beer taxonomy is:

• Organic
• Foreign
• U.S. Micro
• Industrial Lager

I suppose those are somewhat interesting categories -- I can't think of another store that separates the organic beers -- but within those categories there doesn't seem to be any order.

So you end up with Blue Dot next to Blue Moon (no relation).

That Was a Busy Week

Last week was a blur of beer activities. Throughout the week, I was on my October mission to sample as many fresh-hop beers as I could, ramping up to the Fresh Hop Tastival at Oaks Park on Saturday. It was a beautiful day to hang out with friends and neighbors and all their ankle-biters. And here's a big "Happy Birthday" to the blog Brewpublic -- the Killer Beer Fest at Bailey's Saturday night to celebrate one year of Brewpublicanism was a blast.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The madness really started on Wednesday, when Alan Sprints brought some big Hair of the Dog brews to the Green Dragon for meet the brewer. This year's Cherry Adam from the Wood and Doggie Claws were probably too young to drink by HotD standards, but it was nice to try them. It was my first taste of the Cherry Adam, though thanks to Brian G. I have a bottle from last year stashed in the basement. The Green Dragon bungled the event, only announcing it the day before, but the usual suspects made it out, as covered by Brewpublic.

Thursday I finally made it to Belmont Station for their Fresh Hop Week. It's great to see so many fresh-hop beers on tap at once, and Belmont is a nice, relaxed place to do some experimenting. I think the only beers they had that didn't show up at the Tastival were Oakshire's Conundrum (Cascadian Dark) and the Crystal Hop variant of Full Sail Lupulin. They also had the Cascade Hop Lupulin, and I believe they're still on, so if you want to try them side-by-side, get on in there.

I already mentioned the Saturday Tastival. There were no astonishing new beers to displace fresh-hopped Mirror Pond from the throne as the best fresh-hop beer of 2009. I thought the Santiam Hop Harvest from Three Creeks was nicely done -- a light ale that let the freshness shine through. Astoria's Hoptimus Prime 2.0 was a nice hop bomb, one of those like Double Mountain's Killer Green that is an awesome beer that clobbers the fresh-hop flavor. Pelican's Elemental Ale was bitter and tasty, though Lindsey was put off by what he called a "coconut" flavor. Caldera was a no-show in Portland: I would have liked to try their Alpha Beta.

One interesting thing was to note the similarly cabbagey taste of the two beers brewed with Mt. Hood hops: Rock Bottom Hoodwinked and Golden Valley Mt. Hood Fresh Hop. That's the flavor that turns some people away from fresh-hopped beers: it made our group wonder if that particular hop might be a bad choice.

The Brewpublic party at Bailey's Taproom Saturday night gave me a chance to try a couple of hard-to-find fresh hop beers -- Vertigo's Midnight Harvest, and the fabulous Wet-Hop Amber from Standing Stone. But as impressive as the beer list was, it was the crowd that really made the party. Portland's beer-obsessed turned out in droves to congratulate Angelo and Margaret on a terrific first year. Brewpublic does an excellent job reporting on Oregon beer, including some nice in-depth interviews with brewers and other beer characters. It's become such a fixture in Portland's blogosphere that someone I was talking to said "It seems like it's always been there", and it's really true. Happy First, Brewpublic, and keep up the good work!

Fred Fest 2009

"Technical doesn't taste good." Thus was I rebuked Saturday at Hair of the Dog's Fred Fest, when I asked Fred Eckhardt if the 15-year-old Saxer doppelbock being served had technically missed the mark. Burn! The author of The Essentials of Beer Style went on to say, "I don't care so much about style, but about what I like." As we learned in the Life of Brian, only the true Messiah denies his divinity. That settles it for me: from here on out I'm following Fred. If I like a beer, I'll drink it, even if it misses a particular style by a mile. Wait, I was doing that anyway. Whew! I didn't want to put that kind of pressure on Fred.

To be honest, that old doppelbock wasn't so bad, and the more I tasted it, the more I picked up the "liquid bread" flavor I would expect from a doppelbock, despite the lighter color and cloudy appearance. More sophisticated palates pronounced it oxidized, and counseled me to smell it. You could indeed pick up that slightly metallic odor of too-old beer. Still, now and then you give a really old beer a try, out of nostalgia or simply to celebrate the forbearance required to keep a beer that long without drinking it.

The other rather old beer at Fred Fest was an 11-year-old Full Sail Old Boilermaker barleywine. It also held up well for its age: deliciously bourbony; sweet and smooth, with a nice vanilla flavor. I didn't try a bad beer at the festival, but some other highlights were:

• Firestone Walker Abacus: very malty and dark, like a delicious malt-o-meal
• Lucky Lab Pennsylvania Swanky: full flavor, like a Cascadian Dark Ale
• Cascade Bain de Brugge: delicious rich, dark Abbey ale
  
• New Belgium/Elysian Tripel: nice and full, surprisingly hoppy
• Astoria Imperial Wit: sweetly nice, wheaty
• Midnight Sun Brewtality: perfectly smooth dark coffee stout

I only got a sip of the Brewtality because Lisa Morrison's husband Mark was kind enough to pour me a drop out of his own glass -- it ran out very quickly. Mark's generosity was just one example of the beer-loving camaraderie of Fred Fest -- like Hopworks brewer Ben Love sharing tastes from his bottle of Firestone Walker XII. The beers were marvelous, as was the food, but the best part of the day was the spirit of conviviality among the attendees. And really, there's no better tribute to Fred than that.

Here are more accounts of Fred Fest from Jeff, Derek (who has a nice picture of most of Portland's bloggers clustered around Fred), Charles, and the ever-evasive Dr. Wort. I had a great time at the fest, and I offer a heartfelt thanks to everyone involved. The ones I know to call out by name are: Alan Sprints for providing the venue and atmosphere, Lisa Morrison and Preston Weesner for organizing the fest, Sean for grilling the meat and garlic to perfection, and Fred himself for inspiring such a community. Happy Birthday, Fred!

I'll leave you with a couple more thoughts from Fred:

"My palate isn't what it was last week."

That's OK, Fred. Care to name any highlights of Fred Fest 2009?

"No."

Doggie Claws and Jubel Vertical 2008

A few of us got together Saturday at Brett and Debbie's house, where Brett put together a vertical tasting of 6 years of Hair of the Dog's Doggie Claws -- 2002 to 2008, missing only 2007. The 2002 seemed to use a different recipe than the other years: from 2003 on the color was a beautiful mahogany, while the 2002 had a lighter --but still beautiful -- orange-gold color. A little grassier hop flavor in the 2002 than the later years, even though the labels for all had the same text about Simcoe and Amarillo hops.

All of the years were mighty fine barleywines, with plenty of power and maple/brown-sugar flavor. The 2008 was quite drinkable but will clearly benefit from more time in the bottle. My favorite was the 2006, it had smoothed out just enough, but not too much. I know a lot of people age big beers for many years, but I'm starting to form the opinion that two years is about the right amount. Like the Doggie Claws, the 2-year-old Roots Epic we had last month was just right; by contrast, the 3-year-old Deschutes Mirror Mirror at the Portland Holiday Ale Fest was past its prime. There are always exceptions: Matias opened a dark Belgian that he said was undrinkable right after he brewed it 6 years ago, but which was lovely Saturday.

Since we were already vertical, I dragged five years of Deschutes Jubel Ale up from the basement to take to Brett's. To be honest, we didn't detect much difference between the various years, except for the always terrible 2004 -- I got a bad case -- and the obviously fresh 2008. Even so, I'll take the 2006 as my favorite, since I've decided two years is the proper amount of time to age beer.

I could only find one six-pack holder to transport my Jubels in, but I discovered some beer geometry that I didn't know about before. You can put a six-pack holder into a grocery bag so that each corner touches a side of the bag, and it blocks off the corners of the bag so that you can put four more bottles in without the bottles clinking together. That's how you can carry 10 delicate beers with a single six-pack holder. To carry 12 delicate beers, arrange 10 of the bottles as above. Then open the other two bottles and drink the contents.

Here's an account of our Jubel vertical from last year. Coincidentally, that was the first real entry on this blog, and this post, about a year later, is the 100th entry. Cheers! to all of you: the friends who shared these beery adventures; the brewers and servers that kept us awash in good beer; and the readers and commenters who flattered me with your attention to this slightly silly project.

A Visit to Hair of the Dog

Hair of the Dog is less than two miles from my house, but somehow I never make it over to their Earth Day open house events, despite years of good intentions. I didn't even make it to FredFest there a couple weeks ago. But as luck would have it, Carla and I got in on a pizza-and-beer night at Hair of the Dog last Saturday. It was a benefit for our daughter's school -- also attended by owner Alan Sprints' kids -- that our friends David and Beverly were alert enough and thoughtful enough to reserve us a place at.

The pizza was gourmet, prepared in a mobile brick oven by Alan's brother-in-law Mark -- who also does awesome brick oven pita bread and sandwiches at the downtown farmer's market. But I don't want to talk about the pizza, I want to talk about the beer. Look at those taps, is that a thing of beauty or what? It's getting less rare to find Blue Dot around Portland on tap, and Greg is usually on at Higgins, but check out the lineup here (from left to right):

• Jim 2007 (a blend of barrel-aged and fresh HotD beers)
• Fred from the Wood (barrel-aged Fred)
• Adam
• Doggie Claws (this one made with cherry-blossom honey)
• Fred
• Blue Dot
• Greg
  

Any one of these would put a smile on your face. All of them flowing freely made for a very enjoyable evening.

Fred from the Wood was the definite standout. Everyday Fred is already a delicious, strong Belgian-y ale. The barrel-aged Fred just turned it up another notch -- smoother, stronger, with more different flavors swirling around. It was startlingly foamy coming out of the tap, filling most of a small beer flute with head, but the head quickly -- in seconds -- turned into delicious nectar. I was glad to see that there were still some bottles of FftW for sale, $7/bottle or $140/case. There was a bit of mirth as we stood near a pallet of Fred from the Wood cases, and the less beer-fanatical members of our party guessed what a case would sell for: $25? $50? Hmm... $75?

The Doggie Claws made with cherry-blossom honey was another nice surprise, the holiday-season barleywine with extra honey/cherry sweetness. And Alan sampled out a Flemish Brown ale that's so new it hasn't been named yet. A little bit of those sour beers goes a long way with me, but if that's your cup of tea, this is one to keep an eye on: it was crisp and clean, not menacingly sour like some of them are.

For dessert, Alan did his science fair trick of making fast-frozen ice cream with liquid nitrogen. Not the Fred sherbet described recently by John Foyston -- it was chocolate raspberry with a little Adam for flavor. Dramatic, delicious, and a real time-saver.

This gathering was my chance to ask Alan about the variations I sometimes see in the Greg on tap at Higgins. He expressed surprise, saying that in his experience of keeping a keg on tap at the brewery, that it changed very little over time, and that he thought the batches were pretty consistent. He did say that he used a lighter malt this year than last, and indeed the Greg at the brewery was lighter in color and body than most of the pints I've had at Higgins.

It was a great evening; I'm glad I finally made the pilgrimage. Thanks to Alan and Eliana for putting on the event and supporting our beleaguered public schools!

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.