Imperial IPA Blind Tasting

Imperial IPA is kind of a ridiculous term: it has no historical significance, and Double IPA is a better description of the same thing. Nevertheless, it's probably my favorite beer style if I had to choose one. Lots of hops, lots of malt, and lots of medicine.

Hopworks just released the 2011 version of their IIPA, the Ace of Spades, and since they gifted me a couple bottles of it, I thought I'd try it out alongside a couple of other big IPAs of note: the stalwart Ninkasi Tricerahops, and this winter's price-performer: Pyramid Outburst.  Tuesday night Dave came over from next door, and we did a blind tasting of the three, to see if we could tell which was which, and to see which one we liked the best.  Carla also took a quick taste; she didn't try to identify them, but voted on what she liked.

Sadly, I think the bottle of Tricerahops was a little old, even though I just bought it a couple days ago at New Seasons.  It didn't have the giant, flowery hops that I expected, and there was quite a bit of murky sediment in the bottom of the bottle.  It was so unimpressive that Dave and I both ranked it behind the other two, and we both assumed that our blind sample of Tricerahops was the cheaper Outburst.  Remember when Tricerahops was this startling new style of gigantic, floral IPA?  When you would call your friends if you saw it on tap somewhere?  That was only 3 or 4 years ago.  Now there are dozens of double IPAs, and a bottle of Tricerahops can be something of a letdown.

In second place in our blind tasting -- actually, it was Carla's favorite -- was the Pyramid Outburst.  A new offering this year, Outburst is priced right -- about $2 a bomber, or $6 a six-pack -- but I've had mixed emotions about it.  The first time I tried it, I had already had a beer or two (can't remember which), and I was completely underwhelmed by Outburst.  Then a few days later I popped one open after a long work day, and it really hit the spot.  A couple more good experiences followed, until one day when I followed up a bomber of Firestone Walker Double Jack with an Outburst, and I almost wanted to cry.  It tasted awful that day, like on Thanksgiving when you drink a glass of water after eating your cranberry sauce.  Because of those experiences, I was a little worried about how it would fare alongside Ace of Spades and Tricerahops, but this time it held its own.  Since it's such a bargain, stock up on Outburst while it's out there, just be careful how you use it.

Which brings us to the Ace of Spades:  boozy, malty, flowery -- what's not to like?  Dave and I both picked it out of the lineup, and also found it to be the most satisfying of the three we tasted that night.  Carla said it had an aftertaste she didn't like, but I almost wonder if that aftertaste was alcohol, given how big this beer is.  Enjoy it while it's out -- last year it seemed to disappear almost before I realized it was available.  It's highly recommended.

That's a look at three Double IPAs.  There are lots more out there: for example, we just went through our annual bout of Pliny the Younger madness, and Hop Henge is still pouring at Deschutes (and was $4 a bomber at the Burnside CVS a few days ago).  And do try Double Jack if you run across it -- it's stunning.

Zwickeling and Randaling at Breakside

Saturday I crossed two things off my list that I should have done before, but hadn't.  Killed two birds with one stone actually:  finally made a visit to Breakside Brewing, and took part for the first time in Zwickelmania -- the Oregon Brewers Guild's annual event where breweries offer tours that include tastes of beer which is still in the fermenter.  Thanks to Kerry for inviting me to meet him at Breakside, otherwise I might still be in my benighted pre-Breakside and pre-Zwickelmania condition.

Breakside covers a lot of bases.  For starters, it serves a funky little neighborhood that doesn't have many other good beer choices.  In a town with 40 breweries, there's not one within a mile of Breakside.  The spirit of experimentation is strong there, too.  Instead of looking on the brewery's small 3-barrel system as an impediment, brewer Ben Edmunds turns it to his advantage by turning out small batches of playful experiments that he might not gamble on in larger quantities.  I missed a chance to try Ben's take on the resurrected German Gratzer style, which included apples as a flavoring; Saturday I had a tiny taste of the Aztec Ale, which you can think of as a tincture of cocoa and chile peppers.  Fresh from the Zwickel, Breakside served us a taste of an upcoming experimental release:  the Savory Stout, whose adjuncts include seaweed and miso soup -- sounds scary but judging from the slightly salty creaminess of the young beer, I think it might just work.

Breakside's Randall

The most experimental beers are released on Wednesdays at 3 PM -- the Savory Stout is coming up March 2nd.  The beer for this Wednesday is flavored with chestnuts and fermented with Brettanomyces -- read about it and the Savory Stout in this article on Brewpublic.  Breakside takes the beer taste explorations in another dimension with their Randall, infusing beers with chiles or other flavors.  On Saturday they poured us a taste of their Belgian Royal Brown ale Randallized with vanilla beans and dried cherries.  It was delicious -- cherries seem to go naturally with beer, and the vanilla added a round note to a rich beer that tends a little to the sweet side on its own. "Belgian Royal" -- that's clever.  I guess you can't use "Belgian" and "Imperial" in the same sentence.

I don't have anything to report on the food -- I fled the Zwickelmania crowds -- but the menu looks promising.  Kids are allowed in the pub until a certain hour.  Of the house standard beers, I tried the Hoppy Amber, which was just how I wanted it to be -- pleasantly malty with nice floral hops.  I also tried the one-off hopless Wheat Gruit -- a low-alcohol offering that was refreshing and lemongrassy.  It would be nice to see that come back in the summer as a low-octane, low-priced thirst quencher.

Now that I've taken the plunge, I hope to make it back to Breakside again soon.  Nice little neighborhood pub, in a place that really needed one, with some well-crafted and imaginative beers.  If you're biking there, it's not far off the Williams/Vancouver bike highway, or if you're coming from the Southeast like I was, NE 9th Avenue takes you right to it.

Cheers to Belgian Beers 2010

Had a great time Saturday at Hopworks for the 4th annual Portland Cheers to Belgian Beers festival. The upper parking lot was bustling with jovial beer drinkers, but it wasn't over-crowded like a couple of years ago when the Fresh Hop Festival was held at the same venue. The weather was just right, lines were never long, and as far as I know, there were no beer outages by the time I left about 4 PM. There was a nice variety of mostly good beers, tasty snacks in the $3-$6 range were served at the top of the lot, and alphabetical order was adhered to pretty closely. In short, it was everything you could hope for in a beer festival. Congratulations to Hopworks, the Oregon Brewers Guild, and everyone involved for a job well done.

There were 29 beers that used this year's prescribed Belgian yeast, and were thus eligible for the festival's People's Choice award (Kevin has a nicely formatted list of this year's beers). I got around to tasting fewer than half of the 29. My favorites, roughly in order:

• Big Horse Cuvee de Ferme (Sour Saison/Golden blend): sour balanced well with malt, peachy notes.  Grade: A
• Upright Mingus and Monk (Farmhouse Brown): tart, cherry notes, with bitter finish. Grade: A
• Green Dragon King Ghidorah (Biere de garde): funky and full-bodied with vanilla and banana notes. Grade: A
• Deschutes Portland Sinfully Delicious (Dark Strong Ale): nice Abbey dubbel. Grade: A-
• Widmer Biere de Table (Farmhouse Table Beer): very drinkable with light grassy, lemony flavors. Grade: A-
• Oakshire La Ferme (Farmhouse Ale): nicely dry and citrusy, surprisingly bitter for 15 IBUs. Grade: B+

Pretty near everyone I talked to got the Widmer table beer as their first try, since it was a very tame 3% alcohol.  Lots of people have noted a growing trend of trying to produce flavorful beers with lower alcohol levels.  It's a worthy endeavor, and the Biere de Table was a great example of a light, refreshing, food-oriented beer.  Along those lines, the 4.8% Tropisch Bruin from the Deschutes Bend brewery was also a pretty nice table beer, I'll give it a B grade. Cascade's Frite Galois was a 4.6% sour ale that had some nice flavors, but had a chalky finish that I didn't care for.  It gets a B- from me.

I listed the Big Horse sour in first place above -- I thought it had the best-balanced combination of interesting flavors -- but as I left the festival I cast my ballot for the Upright Farmhouse Brown, partly out of personal loyalty to Corey and Alex, partly out of the calculation that I didn't want to risk sending the festival to Hood River next year.  It wasn't much of a stretch, it was a fine beer.  I also think that aging will make Mingus and Monk into an even nicer beer than it was Saturday, and I suspect that Alex will oblige us by bringing a little out at a time as the months go by.

In fact, a lot of the beers at the festival would probably benefit from a few months' aging: I especially thought that the Oakshire and Green Dragon entries were not yet at their best.  It was kind of a common refrain in talking to people about the beers -- "I'd like to try this again in a few months".  Talking to Derek and Josh at the festival, they had the idea that this year's winner should announce next year's yeast immediately to give brewers more time for experimenting and aging.  One of them even proposed scheduling out the yeast several years ahead of time, but I'm not sure the brewers are taking the event quite as seriously as the rest of us are.

To fill in some of the gaps I left in the list, and for valuable second opinions, check out the writeups by other Portland bloggers: Dr. Wort, Derek, Jeff, Angelo, Brady.

Update: The People's Choice winner has been announced: Block 15 Ferme de Demons Black Saison.  Congratulations, Block 15!  Definitely one of the most creative breweries in the state, though I'll admit that Ferme de Demons was one of my least favorites of the festival.  Now the big question is, where will the CtBB be held in 2011?

Double Alt Smackdown

A couple years ago I became obsessed with Alts. I was confused by the wide variation of different beers called "alt" -- the bland industrial alts I remembered from a trip to Germany had nothing in common with the Lucky Lab's Crazy Ludwig's Alt, which was a far cry from Alaskan Amber. Then I brought home a Pinkus Muenster Alt from Belmont Station, and I didn't know which way was up. It took samplings of Uerige Alt and Widmer Alt to set me on the right path.

Uerige also makes a double alt -- called Doppelsticke Alt -- which is nearly twice as strong. Double alts are catching on around Portland as well: Dave Fleming did one at the Lucky Lab before he left there a couple years ago; Hopworks did one a year or so ago; Widmer -- whose (single) Alt was their original flagship -- released 84/09 Double Alt to commemorate their 25th anniversary last year; and Ninkasi's somewhat counter-intuitive choice for a winter seasonal is a double alt called Sleigh'r.

Back in December I picked up a bottle each of the Sleigh'r, Uerige Doppelsticke, and 84/09, intending to corral some friends to help me blind-taste and compare the three. With one thing and another, I never got around to it, but I finally got motivated last week when my friend Brett ordered a glass of the Green Dragon/Oregon Brew Crew double alt -- yes, another Portland version of the style -- and gave me a taste of it.  That was the final straw: I dragged Brett and Lindsey over to my house to finally do the comparison.

My feelings about these double alts are contradictory.  The couple of times I've had the Uerige in the past, I found it too syrupy.  I recognize that someone could make the same complaint about the Widmer, and yet something about it grabs me: it was one of my favorite new beers last year.  On the other hand, Sleigh'r is a drier, more restrained version, but for some reason it doesn't grab me.

So, going into the blind tasting, I expected to like Widmer the best, Uerige next, and Ninkasi third.  Interestingly, when we compared notes later, that was what the other guys expected their preferences would be, too.  Lindsey won the contest, because he correctly identified all three.  I was able to spot the Ninkasi, but I confused Widmer and Uerige.  Brett amazed us by getting all the beers wrong: he thought Ninkasi was Widmer, Uerige was Ninkasi, and Widmer was Uerige.  I assume it was his first time to try Sleigh'r and -- like Jeff Alworth -- he wouldn't have imagined Ninkasi using a lighter touch than Widmer. With that bit of background, he might have made the same guesses as I did.

The Doppelsticke was my favorite of the three, which surprised me since it had rubbed me the wrong way in the past.  Lindsey said he couldn't pick a favorite between Widmer and Uerige.  Sleigh'r was Brett's favorite.  That's two first-place votes for Uerige, one for Ninkasi.  Widmer seemed to have all-around appeal:  it got Brett's and my second-place votes, and Lindsey's tie-for-first.  Brett and I also agreed that the Green Dragon's version was most like the Uerige, so kudos to the Brew Crew for nailing it.

Too bad I didn't get this tasting done while 84/09 and Sleigh'r were still widely available, but if you're interested in double alts, you still might find a few bottles of them at the usual places.

Resurrected Beer Styles

A few nights ago at Spints Alehouse I noticed that they had a 33 cl bottle of Leipziger Gose from Bayerischer Bahnhof on the menu. I've been trying the Portland-brewed Goses from Upright and Cascade -- actually, all of them at once at Brewpublic's Gose Solstice celebration in December -- but had never tried a German one. Bottles of the Bayerischer seemed to elude me, so I was excited that Spints had them. It was quite nice, thirst-quenching and appetizing.  The slight tartness was balanced by the very slight saltiness, and the coriander enhanced the faintly herbal flavor.  Upright and the lighter Cascade versions mimic this one pretty closely, though of course Upright's farmhouse yeast contributes its own herbal notes.

The story behind this beer is fascinating.  Originally brewed in the German town of Goslar -- a UNESCO World Heritage Site and an interesting place to visit, by the way -- the style really caught on in Leipzig before dying out in the 20th century.  The salt in the recipe is apparently there to mimic the taste of the water from Goslar's wells.  Angelo has a really nice post about the history of the style and the local Goses. More background from Jeff here.  And here's a very comprehensive article by Ron Pattinson.

Originally this post was going to be about last night's Fort George meet-the-brewer at the Green Dragon, except that three other bloggers beat me to the punch and wrote it up better than I would have.  But there is a tie-in to this article, because Fort George's Oyster Stout -- called Murky Pearl -- was one of the attractions last night.  Oyster Stouts are another style that was dead or dying, but is making a comeback.  The two I've had, Fort George's and Upright's -- gee Alex, what style can you resurrect next month? -- are not noticeably fishy at all.  At most, there's a slightly briny aftertaste.  They're both worth seeking out; I give a slight edge to Upright's, which will be out in bottles next week.  For more background, read Ezra's excellent article about Oyster Stouts.  The picture here is of Fort George brewer Chris Nemlowill and his wife Zetty McKay.  Zetty is the Coffee Girl that Chris named Coffee Girl Stout after.

These are the "dead" beer styles I can think of that have been brought back to life in our times:

• Gose
• Oyster Stout
• Adambier (Hair of the Dog Adam)
• Witbier (Pierre Celis resurrected this at Hoegaarden)

Any other ones that you can think of?

Your Thoughts on Cask Ale

If you're a good beer geek -- in the U.S., anyway -- you are always on the lookout for beer "on cask". You hope for a more flavorful experience: warmer, flatter beer that the bartender has to laboriously pump into your glass with the big porcelain handle mounted on the bar.

Two recent internet articles have me pondering the state of cask beer. One is by Ted Sobel -- the brewer/publican of Brewers Union Local 180, an all-cask-ale brewery in remote Oakridge, Oregon -- explaining on his blog why he won't let the beer he brews out of his sight. Shortly after Ted's post, Beer Advocate asked its readers for their opinion on this question: (paraphrasing) is cask beer done right in the U.S., or are those pumps just a gimmick?

In Great Britain, the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) promotes this particularly English way of producing and serving beer. There's special emphasis placed on the condition of the beer: the publican has to cellar it while it finishes fermenting, then let it settle after he jostles it up to the serving area, then make sure it is served at the right temperature, while it's still fresh.

Here in Oregon, there are cask engines in more and more pubs, even places that don't cater exclusively to beer nerds, for example Beulahland and Bar Avignon. Ted's post was skeptical about such cask offerings:

The contents of the kegs are dubiously named cask-conditioned beer, which in many cases simply contain ale destined for keg that has been drawn off from the fermenter and primed in the cask (keg).

Now, to my mind, that's good enough. It would not be good enough if it were just an ordinary keg of beer, not re-fermented in the keg. But if the keg is conditioned, it's legit, right?

Bridgeport immediately came to mind as a place in town that serves cask-conditioned beer, and is probably doing it the right way. So I emailed Karl Ockert to ask him about their process. He replied:

We currently have three engines pulling from firkins at both our brewpub on NW Marshall St and the Alehouse on SE Hawthorne. Our cask ales are my beer of choice when I go down at the end of the day to our pub for my pint. And yes we have the stillage racks, spiles, keystones, cask breathers, etc.

And Bridgeport's cask ales are definitely a treat.

But I'd like to hear from all of you out there, especially if you work at a brewery or a pub that serves cask-conditioned beer. My questions are:

• What places in Portland serve cask ale correctly?
• What places in town are faking us out?
• What places have cask ale, but in poor condition?
  
• Can "ale destined for keg" qualify as cask-conditioned?
• What about Beer Advocate's question: is cask just a gimmick?

Hoppy Holiday Ales

Last week Jeff wrote about blindly tasting three Northwest winter-warmer type ales. I don't know if I'd really count it as a blind tasting, since he was able to identify all three, and while he had good things to say about all of them, he preferred Deschutes Jubelale over Full Sail Wassail and Laurelwood Vinter Varmer.

Now, Jubelale is a special obsession at my house, but this year I find myself drawn more towards hoppy holiday ales instead of the darker spiced winter warmers. Some representatives from the hoppy holiday side of the beer family tree are:

• Widmer Brrr
• Full Sail Wreck the Halls
• Double Mountain Fa La La
• Lompoc C-Son's Greetings
  
• Lagunitas Imperial Red Ale
• Sierra Nevada Celebration
• Bridgeport Ebenezer

That list is more or less in my order of preference. Widmer Brrr is just so darn good. It takes the idea originally set forth by Celebration, and kind of dials up the crispness or the distinctness of the flavors. It's not that it's a hop bomb -- like Fa La La and C-Son's Greetings -- but the hops are much more floral and obvious than in Celebration, without obscuring the nice malt base.

Wreck the Halls is fabulous this year, a burly, heavily-hopped ale, with a strong bitter finish. Fa La La is also a marvel, a solid strong ale, with a big Double Mountain dose of hops. You won't find it in bottles, so if you see it on tap somewhere, you better have a pint. For some reason, the Lagunitas Red Ale isn't grabbing me this year as it has in years past. I almost want to say that it's too balanced -- the caramel malts give it a real heft that keeps the hops in check. Maybe it's just that Brrr has changed my idea of how the hops should be in a holiday ale.

C-Son's greetings, a kind of double C-Note, is a regular New Old Lompoc winter seasonal. This year for the first time, it's available in 22-ounce bottles. If you like C-Note, or big IPAs of any kind, you'll enjoy this malted-up version. Bridgeport's Ebenezer is not as hoppy as most of these holiday ales, but it seems to belong more in this category than the winter warmer one. It's not unpleasant, but it's not really very exciting.

I like this idea of a holiday-ale family tree. I'd say that winter warmers like Jubel are on a branch typified by Anchor's Christmas Ale -- think porters with winter spices. Then there's the Celebration branch of hoppy strong ales, and the closely-related winter barleywine branch, whose archetype is Bigfoot -- another Sierra Nevada brew -- emulated now by bruisers like Hair of the Dog Doggie Claws and Lagunitas Brown Shugga. I can think of one more category: the crazy European big brews -- Samichlaus, Scaldis, and various Belgian Noel beers. Can every holiday beer fit on one of those branches, or does the category need splintering some more?

Happy 100th, Shiner!

This year marks the 25th anniversary of two fine Oregon breweries: Bridgeport and Widmer. It also happens to mark the 100th anniversary of a brewery near and dear to my heart: the Spoetzel Brewery in Shiner, Texas. In the 80's, when I was a college student in Austin, there were two flavors of Shiner beer available: Shiner Premium and Shiner Bock. There may not have been much difference between the two: one time we were in the hospitality room after a tour of the brewery, and a longtime employee told us that the only difference was some caramel coloring added to the Bock. It didn't matter to us: Shiner Bock was better than the fizzy yellow beer you could get during those pre-microbrew times, and miraculously, it was usually cheaper.

Things have changed a lot since then. After Gambrinus -- also Bridgeport's owner -- bought the brewery, they applied some marketing savvy to the brand. For one thing, they attracted a larger customer base by raising the price of Shiner. Shiner Premium was renamed Shiner Blonde, and some new variations started coming out: first a Hefeweizen, then Shiner Light, and a Dunkelweizen at some point. They grew the distribution -- it's surprising to think of now, but pre-Gambrinus Shiner wasn't sold in many grocery or convenience stores in Texas -- to the point where in 2008 Spoetzel Brewery was the 10th-largest in the US by sales. Shiner's push into Oregon a few years ago fizzled out, but it is still distributed in Washington.

In the years leading up to this year's 100th anniversary, Shiner came out with a special edition brew each year, culminating appropriately this year with a doppelbock called Commemorator. The special editions -- numbered 95 - 100 -- have been nicely done, obviously a labor of love by the brewers. I smuggled some of the doppelbock back with me on The Last Trip To Tulsa. It's got that maple sweetness that made me fall in love with Paulaner Salvator years ago -- candy beer. A thinner body than the best doppelbocks, and with a correspondingly weaker finish, but a good solid effort.

I also liked the mesquite-smoked rauchbier -- called Smokehaus -- that Shiner came out with this year. Maybe it's based on the 99 commemorative Helles? Decent body to it, and the smoke flavor is obvious but not distracting. It's been quite a Shinery summer at my house: Po also brought me a mixed six-pack called the Shiner Family Reunion, that included a bottle of the lovely 97 schwarzbier and a good old Shiner Bock.

So, happy birthday, Shiner! You opened my eyes to beer. It's wonderful to see that you can grow a nationwide product from a small town, and also brew up some nice surprises like Commemorator and Smokehaus. For further reading, check out my buddy Lee's interview with the author of Shine On, a coffee-table book commemorating the brewery's 100th anniversary.

Throwdown at Upright

After a full slate of afternoon and evening activities this past Saturday, Carla, Clark and I were still able to make it over to Ezra's excellent Baltic Porter tasting at Upright Brewing. The room was packed with so many local beer mavens that it's tempting to write this up gossip-column style, with names in bold and descriptions of each celebrity's beer T-shirt. I'll resist the temptation and talk about the beers instead.

In addition to bottled porters imported from Baltic nations, the tasting also featured some Portland-brewed imperial porters and stouts, and four of Upright's beers on tap. Because of our late entry and early exit, I didn't really get in on many of the bottled porters. Of note were some very old bottles of Full Sail Imperial Porter donated by John Harris -- from 1997, 1999, and 2001, I think. The 2001 was hanging in there, but the older ones had gone too far around the bend. It reinforces my suspicion that bottled beer should be drunk within a couple of years. On the other hand, a few months ago the Pilsner Room had a keg of the 1998 Imperial Stout which was still in pretty good shape. It wouldn't be too surprising if kegs were safer to age beer in than bottles.

Of the few imports I got to try, the standout was the Limfjords Porter from Thisted Brewery in Denmark. Ezra's friend Jimmy brought it in from New Jersey; I hope it becomes available here. It was thick, rich, and round, just like you'd want a big porter to be. The bottle called it a double brown stout. Speaking of thick and rich, the thickest beer of the night -- and one of my favorites -- was the Lucky Lab Pavlov's Imperial Stout that was on tap. Black and viscous, with little carbonation, it was like a delicious cross between stout and Ovaltine -- very malty. I had high hopes for another Oregon beer on tap, the Block 15 Smoked Porter, but it was a little light, especially up against so many other big beers.

Since it was my first visit to Upright, it was fun to look around the premises, and to see Alex's open fermentation setup. Don't worry, I didn't contaminate it, I just peeked through a window into the fermentation room. I got to try a couple of Upright beers I hadn't had before: the Seven and the Anglo Saison. Seven is a delicious, big biere de garde, a nice, drinkable version of that style. I'd love to try that after it ages a while. The Anglo Saison seems to be Alex's nod to Northwest tastes in hops -- Upright's house saison style done up with an IPA dose of hops. Another winner.

Upright's fabulous Reggae Junkie Gruit was also on tap. I tried it last week at the Green Dragon, but it was definitely worth another try Saturday night. If you've had the Gruit Kolsch at Roots, it will remind you of that, but it has its own character also. I'm a sucker for the flavor of lemongrass, which is one of the herbs in the Upright Gruit. Very drinkable, and under 5% ABV, if I remember correctly. Finally, Alex shared around a small glass of the not-quite-finished summer wheat beer, so I got a tiny taste of that. It's satisfyingly hearty, and will be a big hit this summer.

The tasting was a wonderful event, I only regret that I had such a short time there. Matt has a terrific set of pictures. Thanks a lot to Ezra for putting it together, and to Alex for hosting!

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."

Cheers to Belgian Beers 2009

Smallish beer festivals at the Quimby Street Lucky Lab are always a good time, and last weekend's Cheers to Belgian Beers was no exception. Regrettably, my time there was limited to a couple hours Friday afternoon, so there were a lot of beers I didn't get around to. As an example of what a rush job it was, I forgot to get a pour of my friend Corey's Zen Lunatic -- rated very highly by both Jeff and Dr. Wort in their reviews of the festival. Luckily, I had a small unofficial taste of the Lunatic earlier in the week on a visit to the CPR, so I can pronounce it a nice, dry, light -- but not thin -- Belgian, but since I didn't try it at the festival itself it's hard for me to know exactly where I'd rank it among the ones I tried.

When I arrived at the Lab, Derek from Beer Around Town had already been there a couple hours, so I sat down and picked his brain about which beers to get. Dave is my usual parnter-in-crime for these weekday festival outings, but Jill very inconveniently chose to give birth to a lovely baby girl on Friday instead of letting her husband spend the afternoon drinking a bunch of one-off beers. Some other Pub Night compadres showed up unexpectedly: Davey, Rocco, Bryce, and Jason brazenly plunked down huge pint glasses next to the dainty Belgian samples Derek and I had on the table, as seen in the first picture.

Enough chit-chat, let's talk about beer. Of the 10 that I tried, here are my favorites:

• Deschutes La Fleur: perfectly smooth, gingery
• Double Mountain Barrel-Aged Ingelmonster: beautiful dark candy
• Deschutes (Portland) Streaking the Quad: sweet, smooth, nice
• Lucky Lab Beljamin: nice candy and flower flavor
• Astoria Avant Garde Akloo: big, round, long finish
• Pelican La Fleur Amère: full-bodied, a little floral, long bitter edge

I can see how some people would be put off by the ginger flavor in La Fleur, but I loved it. Apparently both Derek and Dr. Wort disapproved of the Lucky Lab entry, but to me it was just right for a light Belgian. (Yesterday at the Hawthorne Lab they were serving "Ben's Belgian". I'm not sure if it was the same beer -- it was very clear while the festival beer was a little hazy -- but it tasted even better than my sample of Beljamin.) Which just goes to show you, there's no accounting for tastes, no right answer. Another example: Derek was appalled by the Block 15 entry; in Angelo's review he gave it 2nd place; Doc Wort found it so-so; and poor Bill didn't get around to trying it.

Astoria's stinky pun would have been better if the third word was a possible French word. The letter "k" only appears in borrowed words in French, and I'm not sure what sound "oo" would make, but it certainly wouldn't rhyme with "clue". If you guys are keeping that beer around, try "Éclou", which a French speaker would pronounce as "A Clue".

Hats off to Deschutes for landing on this festival with both feet.

Kudos to the organizers for a great time and for putting the beers in alphabetical order. So far, no word on who won the People's Choice Award. I'll update when the news comes out. [Update: Hopworks Dubbel Suplex won the People's Choice Award. I skipped it at the festival, but had it at the pub -- it's a fine winner. Congratulations Hopworks!]

Beer Information Theory

What's the best way to describe a beer to other beer lovers? In the recent Beer Review Generator post, I expressed my skepticism about beer reviews in the current style of "appearance - nose - palate - mouthfeel - finish". Although they are endlessly fun to read, I claim that such reviews convey little information to a reader about whether he or she would like the beer. In the comments to that post, I proposed an experiment to try and prove or disprove my point. I presented two positive reviews of well-known beers -- edited for clarity and brevity, as the officious editors at the Oregonian like to say -- and asked which beers or even which styles were being described. The answers are hidden behind the button below, so if you want to play my guessing game, there's still time to click on over to the reviews.

The reviews are from two prolific reviewers on Beer Advocate, one of whom is one of the BA-founding Alström Brothers. I tried to play fair by picking reviews from knowledgeable sources, who liked the beer they were writing about. I picked the first review thinking that a reasonably sophisticated beer snob could easily call the style; the second review seems more challenging but not impossible. Only two brave readers -- Anónimo and Brett -- published their guesses on the earlier post, and they did pretty well. Ready for the answers?

Since only two people took part, I don't have much evidence whether my skepticism is justified or not. Are wine-talk beer reviews the best way to communicate how good or bad a beer is, and whether a reader will like it or not? How did you do on the quiz?

Hop Henge and Pliny the Younger

Hop bombs. They're not for everyone, but I love them. I borrowed Dave's bottle of Deschutes' Experimental Hop Henge to photograph for this post, and noticed the flavor crystals floating in the bottle (click on the photo for a closer look). Delicious and nutritious. More on Hop Henge below.

Now that Russian River is distributed in Oregon, we have year-round access to Pliny the Elder -- we used to have to wait for the Oregon Brewers Festival to get that wonderful hop infusion. Pliny the Younger gives hopheads a new limited edition to crave: a double IPA that's even bigger and hoppier than its, er, father. Russian River had to find some way to keep the mystique level high. The Younger is a beautiful IPA. Deceptively light in color, it has an intensely floral hop smell and taste. It's bitter, that's for sure, but with the flowery bitterness that makes you feel all cheerful. Or is it the 11% alcohol content that does that?

The keg of Russian River's Pliny the Younger tapped at Belmont Station Tuesday lasted nearly six hours, thanks to the 10-ounce serving size. The place was packed around 7:30 when I got there: the cafe was jammed, and the aisles of the store were full of people also. It's Imperial IPA week at the Station, so I was also able to enjoy a pint of Fort George's XIV Chapel -- I missed it at the recent barleywine festival. XIV is another big IPA that coaxes a perfumey jasmine flavor out of its hops. Wonderful.

Pliny the Younger's hops reminded me a little bit of Hop Henge. Deschutes brewed two batches this year to see how much hop flavor we can take. The second batch comes close to matching the intense hoppiness of Pliny the Younger -- it may be technically hoppier but doesn't balance it as beautifully as the Pliny. If you have a bottle of Hop Henge and don't know which batch it is, look just above the bar code. Batch #2 is marked as such. I can appreciate both, but I prefer the first batch -- it's nearly as hoppy as the second, without leaving a fuzzy coating on your tongue. Dave and I tried them side-by-side at the Portland pub a couple weeks ago, but as of today the website only lists #2 as on tap. Carla is no stranger to IPAs, but when I poured her a glass of batch #2, she took a couple sips and then gave up. Luckily I was able to take up the slack.

If you ever see Pliny the Younger being served, don't even hesitate, have one. At least one. Hop Henge will be much easier to find around Portland. Oh! another hop bomb that's available right now is Lagunitas Hop Stoopid -- $3.29 for bombers at New Seasons recently.

Barleywine Festival 2009

I'm sure glad I made a second trip to the Quimby Street Lucky Lab's Barleywine Festival Saturday night. At least half of the beers were already gone by that time, but I did discover one very pleasant surprise. Beer Valley's Highway to Ale was one I passed over on Friday afternoon, because I didn't care for the Beer Valley brews at last year's Fresh Hop Tastival. But I gave it a whirl Saturday evening, and decided that Highway to Ale was my favorite of the barleywine festival -- the perfect mix of dense malt, tasty hops, and firewater.

When Dave and I showed up at lunchtime Friday, some of the beers I was eager to sample weren't yet on, including Oakshire Sasquatch, Ft. George XVI Chapel (a favorite from last year), and Three Creeks 8 Second. Friday was a beautiful sunny day and the warehouse door at the Lucky Lab was thrown wide open, lowering the temperature to about 40 degrees. Dave had to put his hat and mittens back on. Sunny days in the spring are a time of ecstatic disorientation for Portlanders -- it's as if we've arrived in Valhalla and all rules are suspended. Let's open the doors and windows, we won't get cold! Stop sign, what stop sign? No kidding: on my way to the Lucky Lab, I watched motorists at two intersections drive right through stop signs at full speed. It's just the sun, friends, it's not an archangel come to take you home.

Here are my Not-A-Wine-Guy™ descriptions of my favorite beers from the festival. Remember, some of them are just "big beers" and not technically barleywines.

• Beer Valley Highway to Ale: deliciously well done
• Walking Man Old Stumblefoot: right on (2008); righter on! (2007)
• Terminal Gravity Superfest: barleywine-ish and good
• Oakshire Sasquatch: nice and malty, beautiful carbonation
• Lagunitas Gnarleywine: maple goodness

I got the merest taste of the Three Creeks 8 Second -- it was hooked up just as I was leaving Friday -- but it seemed promising. Dark and hoppy, maybe a little dry? There were a slew of beers that I missed completely, mostly because they came and went between my visits. Hmm... Charles also came and went between my visits. I wonder if he drank up all the beer I wanted to try.

Saturday I did get to try the lovely Oakshire Sasquatch -- not to be confused with Bigfoot -- one of several batches of the late Glen Falconer's strong ale recipe brewed around the state in his honor. The Ninkasi version at the Barleywine Fest was also quite tasty, and last week at the Green Dragon our friend Corey brought some deliciously malty and yeasty dry-hopped Sasquatch he brewed at the Cornelius Pass Roadhouse. But my three Sasquatch sightings can't compare to the five Sasquatches Angelo tried a few weeks ago. I feel like an old stumblefoot for not even getting my hands on the Hopworks Sasquatch yet.

There were some surprising breweries missing this year: no Caldera, no Rogue, no Full Sail? The delicious Caldera imperial stout has been a perennial favorite of mine at this festival. And the only thing Deschutes could come up with was a keg of 2005 Mirror Mirror that hasn't aged gracefully? The Deschutes brewers in the Pearl should have landed with both feet on a barleywine festival in their own backyard.

Despite those omissions, the Barleywine Festival was a great success. Timing is everything, though. Next year I'll try to get there before the kegs run dry, but after they've actually been tapped.

Session Premium Lager

For this first Friday of March, The Beer Nut in Dublin is choreographing the world's beer bloggers in the synchronized blogging experiment known as The Session. The Nut decreed that we write about "cold, fizzy, yellow" light lagers -- challenging us loudmouths who go on and on about the latest Imperial This or Double That to "return to our roots as beer drinkers".

The Lager Session... think, think, think... I've got it! I'll write about Session Lager, the cheaper beer that Full Sail markets to those who refuse to drink craft beer. As part of my research, I picked up a twelve-pack of 11-ounce stubbies for $11. What qualifies for cheap sure has changed over the years: in the mid-90's in Austin my cheap stubbies of choice were $2 six-packs of Pearl. That's not really my roots as a beer drinker -- I consider Shiner Bock to be my early muse -- but it was a reasonable way to stretch the budget at the time.

What can I say about Session Premium Lager? Well, it's cold, fizzy, and yellow. Tastes to me like Pearl or Miller High Life. In the narrow range of lawnmower beers, it's at the more flavorful end. If you absolutely must down something cold, cheap, and mildly alcoholic, you may as well make it a Session, especially if you're here in Oregon and want to drink local.

The little bottles of Pearl back then had entertaining rebus puzzles under the bottle caps; Session's caps have rock-paper-scissors drawings on them. What are those for? It wouldn't make a good drinking game, because both players have to open their bottle to play. Maybe you could use it to decide who buys the next round, but who wins a three- or four-person game?

Even though Session won't be a common choice for me, I'm glad Full Sail took this direction. It gives the cheap beer crowd a local choice, and it might also entice some of them to branch out to better beers. One suggestion to Full Sail: you should make Session even more versatile by selling it in cans.

Laughing Buddha Purple Yam Porter

Rumor has it that Seattle's Laughing Buddha had a hard time rounding up hops for their beers as they started operations right at the height of last year's hop crisis. When life gave them lemons, they made lemonade -- or rather gingerade, mangoade, and yamade. I'm referring to their "Asian-inspired" beers: Ginger Pale Ale, Mango Weizen, and Purple Yam Porter. They also make a lager and a Pandan Leaf Brown.

Last summer Adam brought the Mango Weizen and the Ginger Pale Ale to town for the Portlanders to try. I only had a sip of each, and can't remember much about them. They didn't offend, but didn't excite either. On my recent foray to By the Bottle in Vancouver, I picked up the Porter to give it a try (only to find out Laughing Buddha is now distributed in Oregon also).

The Purple Yam Porter made more of an impression on me than the lighter beers. If porters are your thing, you might be disappointed: if I'd tried this blindfolded I don't think I would have called it a porter. There is a dark malt flavor, but not the kind of round smokiness I associate with porters. It's also pretty big for a porter at 7% ABV. There's a nice bitterness to the beer -- not at all floral, is it the yams? Or maybe the creamy thickness comes from the yams. Other than creaminess or bitterness, I'm not sure what the yams are adding, because nothing else tasted yammy. That's probably a good thing. All in all, PYP is not bad, but not likely to become my favorite beer.

Beer nerds will be either scandalized or underwhelmed by the Laughing Buddha beers, but I don't think that will be a problem for the brewery. They'll do well in the "pair-me-with-Asian-food" niche they are aiming at. As long as they rub the belly of the laughing buddha.

The Sour Wine Craze

There's a new trend in the wine world that might interest you beer drinkers out there. Cutting-edge American vintners are experimenting with ways to overcome the natural sweetness of the grape and produce wines of intense sourness. The inspiration for these sour wines lies in some obscure European styles, but the Americans are adding their own innovations, such as using yogurt bacilli as part of the fermentation process.

Sour wines are admittedly an acquired taste, but sophisticated oenophiles are increasingly willing to pay premium prices for them. Sours are some of the most expensive wines among recent vintages, because of the great technical skill and attention it takes to produce them, and the unpredictable and sometimes lengthy fermentation process.

Only joking. There is no Sour Wine Craze, it's just something I dreamed up as I pondered the sour beer craze. Some tartness is not unusual in a wine, but no one would buy a wine whose sourness stood out over all its other flavors. Can you imagine wine snobs paying, say, $75-$100 -- my attempt to translate $10-$20 beer -- for sour wine? Can you imagine Mt. Tabor Fine Wines holding an event like Puckerfest? I guess those things are imaginable, but in light of the fact that fine wines have a bigger audience to date than fine beers, if it hasn't happened yet it probably won't.

Then why have sour beers caught on? One guess is that a lot of beer connoisseurs are themselves homebrewers, who appreciate the technical finesse and cultural background that goes into sour beers. Or maybe it's simpler to just say there's no accounting for taste -- after all, not everyone shares my enthusiasm for bitter medicinal liqueurs, and I did just recommend that people try the drinking vinegars at Pok Pok.

About a week ago I dutifully went out and tried Deschutes' The Dissident and Roots' Flanders Red on consecutive days. They both are very big beers, 9% or so, and lovely to look at. As you've guessed, I don't particularly like sour beers; that said, I give the edge to Roots, maybe because it was less sour than the Dissident. On the other hand, both breweries have so many beers that are to my liking, that their sour ales are just a curiosity to me.

Respect Beer

There are so many communities of beer lovers in the world, that you can't fully participate in all of them -- I do my best to keep current with beer events I can walk to from my house in Southeast Portland. One worthy community is the group of beer aficionados that has coalesced around the magazine Beer Advocate and its well-organized website. Beer Advocate's motto is "Respect Beer" -- you better not argue with that. The website holds thousands of thoughtful reviews of craft beers from around the world.

The BA community has also spawned a culture of beer trading, allowing a wonderful cross-pollination of zymurgical culture as people ship beer across the artificial boundaries of bureaucracy. My crippling fear of the post office keeps me from participating in such activities, but this past weekend I was lucky enough to go to an imperial stout tasting at Brian and Sharon's house, fueled partially by Brian's impressive beer cellar, partially by contributions from Brian's local acquaintances from Beer Advocate.

Here are some of the amazing stouts opened at Brian's on Saturday (most of them unavailable in Oregon):

• Brooklyn Brewing Black Ops: big and good
• Skagit River Trumpeter: malty goodness
• Avery Mephistopheles: 16% awesome
• Southern Tier Imperial Oat (2007): smooth and malty
• Schlafly (St. Louis) Imperial Stout (2006): flat but rich and tasty
• Voodoo Black Magick: heavy whisky dark stout -- nice but too much
• Goose Island Bourbon County: nice, smooth and strong
• Terrapin Beer Coffee Oatmeal: good and coffeeish
• Bell's Expedition Stout: very nice
• Three Floyd's Dark Lord (2008): big, sweet, minute-long finish
• Dark Lord (2006): same but darker flavor
• Port Brewing Old Viscosity (2007): stouty and delicious -- awesome
  

Forgive my simple-minded descriptions: I'm not a wine guy. Those were some fantastic stouts, but perhaps more impressive was the great camaraderie and friendliness of the Beer Advocates at the tasting. There was a sincere interest in all things beery, and a great generosity in sharing some hard-to-find bottles. I was pleased to meet local blogger dabeers of Beer Around Town, who is active in the Beer Advocate scene. I actually held off a few days on this post, thinking he'd beat me to a writeup. Oh yeah, the Old Rasputin Cheesecake was a thing of beauty also -- nice work, Les!

Now I need to make it to one of Ezra's tastings...

Widmer W'09 Belgian Golden

Widmer is out with this year's entry in the "W" series -- the trial balloon they send up once a year to see how people like it. This time it's a Belgian Golden Ale, and I think they've got a solid entry after a couple of forgettable years.

Not everyone likes the Belgian-beer combination of flowery and sweet, and those who do are often hard to please because they've gotten used to the divinely-inspired output of Belgium's many monastery-breweries. For those of us who like the style, and are willing to drink a beer that's 80% as good as the original but costs only 33% as much, W'09 is right on the money. A beer you could compare it to is New Belgium's Trippel. Years ago in Austin I turned to New Belgium Trippel as my inexpensive big beer of choice after Miller shut down the Celis Brewery and deprived me of the wonderful Celis Grand Cru. If you like NB Trippel, I think you'll like W'09.

Widmer had a few batches of the Belgian Golden out last year, and I was underwhelmed when I tried it at Cheers for Belgian Beers and at a meet-the-brewer event at Green Dragon. Jeff Alworth disagreed with me at the time: he rated it "fantastic" in his write-up of C4BB. I don't know if they've tweaked the recipe a little, or if I'm less snobbish about a six-pack from the supermarket, but my third impression is better than my first two. Jeff's review has a clue that they may have worked on the recipe -- he said its alcohol content was 6.1% at the festival at Roots, whereas the label puts it at 6.5%.

I bought a bottle of Duvel so I could see how the W'09 stacked up with the prototypical Belgian Golden. Interestingly, the Duvel was much lighter in color, as you can see in picture -- it was even lighter than my recollection of it. As you might expect, Duvel had a bigger, bolder flavor. I don't think hops played much of a role in the difference, they were pretty low in both beers. Part of Duvel's big flavor is our beloved alcohol -- it weighs in at 8.5% (for comparison, New Belgium Trippel is 7.8%). But the price difference will have me voting for Widmer more often -- it's really about a third of the price.

It will be interesting to see if the Belgian Golden becomes a permanent part of the Widmer repertoire. After all, the popular Broken Halo IPA was W'05, and this year's delicious winter brew Brrr was W'06. The Pale Ale that was W'07 was so unremarkable that I can't remember anything about it, and the "crimson wheat" W'08 was an interesting idea that just wasn't very good. I think W'09 might make the grade. What's your opinion?

[Correction, 2009/01/14]: Some people -- Jeff, for example -- liked W'07. It is now going to be a year-round Widmer offering, named Drifter.

First Fresh Hops 2008

Since John Harris' Lupulin Ale was my favorite fresh-hop beer last year -- and I wasn't alone in that assessment -- I had to be at the Full Sail Pilsner Room last Wednesday when this year's Lupulin was presented to the public. Actually, this was the first of three single-hop variations of the ale, all with the same malt bill. This first batch was made with Mt. Rainier hops.

It wasn't a madhouse at the Pilsner Room, like it was a few months ago when John presented some barrel-aged stouts and porters. So I was able to walk right up and say hello, and snag a seat at the bar so I could eavesdrop as John Foyston interrogated him about the beer. Brett showed up later and had a couple Lupulins with me.

On Friday evening, however, it was a madhouse at Bridgeport when Dave and I went over for the Hop Harvest opening night. I was glad we went, because in addition to this year's offering, they also served up the 2006 and 2007 incarnations of Hop Harvest. That vertical tasting confirmed my opinion that the 2007 Hop Harvest -- while an excellent strong IPA -- overplayed the hops and drowned out the fresh-hop goodness. The 2006 was more to my liking.

On to this year's beers. My first impression is that this batch of Full Sail's Lupulin doesn't have that green, green flavor that last year's had, that was so fantastic. John said that last year's was made with a last-minute windfall of fresh Amarillo hops from Hop Union. He was unable to get any Amarillos this year, but he says that apart from the hops the recipe is the same. That surprised me because the color is quite a bit darker than last year's. Dark but also clear -- wasn't the 2007 Lupulin kind of cloudy?

The 2008 Lupulin reminds me of Deschutes' Green Lakes Organic Ale, which I like a lot. It's got that roasty-sweet richness, plus a lot of hops, naturally. The very bitter finish calls to mind Sierra Nevada's Southern Hemisphere Harvest Ale, though the SNSHHA didn't have that rich Green Lakes flavor backing it up. So, I'm a little disappointed in this first taste, but I will be very interested to try the other variants. [Update (2008/10/21): The Nugget- and Cascade-hopped versions are awesome.] And there should be plenty of it to go around: John said he'll brew seven times as much Lupulin this year as last -- 140 barrels vs. 20.

Bridgeport's 2008 brew -- also darker in color than previous years -- seems a little more on target than Full Sail's. You get a little more of the grassy fresh flavor, though the bitterness still is more predominant than I'm looking for. I give a "B" grade to each of the three harvest beers I've had this year -- the third one being Rock Bottom -- but so far my favorite is Bridgeport's.

Stay tuned: the season is just getting started.