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.

Terminal Gravity Single-Hop Horizontal

A few weeks ago at the Cheese Bar I got to try Terminal Gravity's single-hopped double IPA (Chinook). It seemed obvious from the parenthesized name that there must be other varieties out there, but it's a pretty stealthy project: I hadn't heard any publicity about it before noticing it that evening, and had no idea what other hops they had experimented with.

So hats off to Belmont Station for offering a horizontal tasting of three versions of TG single-hopped brews. Thursday night Lindsey and I dropped in for a quick flight. Here are my impressions:

• Chinook: most stereotypically "hoppy": resinous, orangey hops
• Columbus: mildest up front, but with a long aspirin finish (in a good way)
• Centennial: mildest overall, light citrus hop flavor

The underlying beer was a big, malty ale that clocked in at 6.8% -- think big Rogue ales and you'll have the idea.  A taster of Terminal Gravity's regular IPA was thrown into the flight, which was kind of a mistake -- it didn't stand up well against the heavier double IPA, even though it's a fine beer in its own right.  Scanning the internet for more information about the project, I notice that Bailey's Taproom served the same three single-hopped varieties at various times during February and March.  Anyone know if there are other hop varieties in the series?

By the way, uber-geeky Danish brewer Mikkeller has done a single-hopped IPA series with at least 10 different hop varieties.  Derek at Beer Around Town recently tasted a couple of them: one with East Kent Goldings, another with Tomahawk hops, which he says are the same as Columbus.  Interestingly, Tomahawk had the same effect in the Mikkeller as Columbus did in the Terminal Gravity, with the malt dominating at first, but a "sharp dry bitterness in the finish".  I'm glad Derek wrote about that, I had been pondering a similar experiment, but haven't tried any of the Mikkeller IPAs. Beernews.org has more information on the Mikkeller single-hop series.

If you see the Terminal Gravity single-hop brews on tap, they're definitely worth a try, especially the Chinook and Columbus flavors.

Full Sail 2010 Top Sail Release

Every February something special happens at the Full Sail Pilsner Room at the Portland harbor. In even-numbered years Full Sail rolls out a barrel-aged version of their Top Sail Imperial Porter; the odd-numbered years see the release of barrel-aged Black Gold Imperial Stout (though for some reason 2006 also got the stout and not the porter). Last night I sat at a table full of beer bloggers -- Charles (in the photo), Derek, Ezra and SNOB poster boy Ritch -- to sample this year's batch.

Usually the release party includes a vertical tasting of previous vintages. Brewmaster John Harris said that they've drained so many of those earlier kegs, that there wasn't enough old beer available for this year's release. So they hit on a wonderful idea: instead of a vertical tasting, have a horizontal tasting of single-barrel versions of this year's Top Sail, alongside the final product, which is a blend of beer aged in Maker's Mark, Stranahan's, and Four Roses barrels. Most of us at the table agreed that the blend was the best of all, capturing just the right balance between beer, wood, and bourbon. But it was wonderful to try the individual constituents side-by-side. Great idea.

I'm not a bourbon expert at all, and it would have been nice to have some experience of the three whiskeys to orient myself.  Nevertheless, it was interesting to note the differences in the individual barrels.  The Maker's Mark version seemed to contribute the strongest vanilla and alcohol flavors to the chocolatey porter.  That barrel seemed to most closely resemble the final blend.  The vanilla notes were much more subdued in the other two barrel; I'm guessing that the Stranahan's version was closest to the original brew, and the Four Roses barrel added what to me was a dry and dusty character -- Derek described it as "spicy".  The blend is a delicious strong porter with a drinkable non-syrupy consistency; it has a satisfying chocolate malt flavor, with bourbon and vanilla highlights added by the barrels.  Everything is very well-balanced -- you get a taste of the bourbon, but it doesn't overwhelm as it does in some bourbon porters and stouts.

Even though there were no kegs of older vintages available, John opened one bottle each of the 2004 and 2008 barrel-aged Top Sail.  He passed small glasses of each around our table.  The 2004 was still drinkable but is starting to lose its way (not surprising after 6 years).  The 2008 was lovely, quite similar to this year's, but a little mellower.  It's interesting, when I wrote up the 2008 Top Sail release, I found the 2008 a little disappointing compared to the 2004 -- age seemed to help out.  But last night I decided the 2010 is plenty good enough to drink right now, easily a match for the cellared-two-years 2008.  Who knows, maybe a year or two in the cellar will make it even more brilliant, but you won't be disappointed if you crack open a fresh bottle of it.