Organic Brewers Festival 2009

Beer festivals are hitting Portland right and left now that summer is officially here. Friday I was able to squeeze a trip to the North American Organic Brewers Festival into my lunch hour thanks to the earlier Friday start time of 12 noon. That's not bad: exercise (biking to and from Overlook Park), lunch, a little socializing, and some beer tasting all rolled into one. And if anyone asks, I just say I'm at lunch.

The NAOBF has a lot of things going for it. Good organization, starting with arranging brewery stations in alphabetical order. A venue that has a more open feel than the cramped confines of the PIB or the narrow, dusty half-mile of the OBF. A format that allows breweries to exhibit more than one of their beers.

Last year I was actually complaining about the venue, mainly because the lone tree in Overlook Park provided too little shade on such a hot day. I closed my report by saying "Hopefully next year it won't be 100 degrees out". My wish came true: the weather for the NAOBF was perfect this weekend. Even if it had been hot or rainy, the addition of tables and chairs under a good-sized tent made for a much better setup, and suddenly Overlook Park seems like a great place to hold a festival.

The fact that a brewery can bring more than one beer to the festival may not seem like a huge deal, but I think it makes it possible to please beer snobs and more casual festival-goers at the same time. For example, Hopworks hit three targets at once by bringing their popular IPA, their entry-level Lager, and a new offering: Secession Cascadian Dark Ale. Something for everyone.

My favorites from Friday were:

• Standing Stone Double IPA (cask-conditioned): rich and flowery IPA from the firkin
• Hopworks Secession Cascadian Dark Ale: malty and smoky with flowery hops
• Upright Reggae Junkie Gruit: fabulous lemongrass flavor
  
• Nelson Brewing After Dark Mild: caramelly and satisfying but light
  
• Roots Gruit Kolsch: lovely and yeasty, less citrusy than Upright

My first sample of the Roots gruit had me very confused: the tap lines had been crossed, so for the first couple hours of the festival the Roots Pale Ale was being served as the gruit. It tasted suspiciously bitter for a hop-free beer, and I had to wonder what herb they had used for that: dandelion? quinine? Once the mistake was corrected, the world made a lot more sense, and it was fun to compare the Roots gruit with the Upright gruit, which it inspired. The gravity-dispensed Standing Stone IPA was a real treat. The Cascadian Dark from Hopworks was the only beer I went back for a full cup of: it presses all my hop and malt flavor buttons. I hope it becomes a regular part of the HUB lineup.

Upright and Captured by Porches were at the NAOBF for the first time this year. But what happened to Hair of the Dog -- which won the People's Choice Award last year for Blue Dot -- and Walking Man? Surprising to see those fine breweries drop out of the lineup. Another gripe is the double-token charge for some of the bottled beers. I would certainly have tried the low-alcohol hefeweizen from German brewery Lammsbrau, but I couldn't bear to part with $2 for a tiny taste. Surely the cost of the bottles can be recovered on $1/sample. Or you can consider the festival's charge of $6 for a disposable plastic cup as a way of subsidizing loss-leaders like that.

Last year was my first time to attend the NAOBF, and I was kind of lukewarm towards it. I definitely got a better impression this year. The weather played a role in that, but I think the addition of the tent was a good move, and giving the hard-core snobs an earlier opening time on Friday was nice also. I'll be looking forward to it next year.

[Update: The People's Choice Award winners at the festival were 1. Standing Stone Double IPA; 2. (tie) Crannog Backhand of God Stout / Hopworks Secession; 3. Oakshire Watershed IPA.]

Moon and Sixpence

Six months ago when I was musing about pubs I was more likely to visit now that Oregon bans smoking in bars, the Moon and Sixpence was second only to the Horse Brass on my list. Turns out I have been going to the Brass a lot, but I guess the Moon is just far enough away from my house that Wednesday night was my first visit this year. Lagunitas founder Tony Magee was there to play some music, and some special Lagunitas treats were being served.

Dave and I staked out a dartboard to entertain ourselves while we enjoyed cask-conditioned honest pints of Hop Stoopid and Little Sumpin' Sumpin', as well as a delicious bourbon-barrel Imperial Stout. Charles and Teresa hung out and chatted for a while before heading outside to listen to the music. The Sumpin' seemed an odd choice to have on cask, but the Hop Stoopid IPA worked very well for us -- although Ted over at Brewers Union thinks it's insane to try and serve these big IPAs cask-style.

One thing I hadn't taken note of before was how nice the outside patio at M+6 is. There might be even more seating outside than inside, and with the weather we've had lately, it's a good place to be. Of course now the cigarette smoke that used to be inside the pub has moved to the patio, but it's not a problem outside, where it used to be annoyingly dense inside.

Moon and Sixpence has a good dart setup: one room with two dartboards, and a kind of weird dog run with a single dartboard (but two chalkboards for scoring -- why?). The dart action, combined with a good selection of 15 taps and 2 casks, makes it a good destination in the Hollywood area.

Click here for the Beer Mapping Project's page on Moon and Sixpence

Moon and Sixpence

Information provided by Beer Mapping

Excess Beer Tax Deceased

Last week the news came out that the insane 20X increase in Oregon's beer excise tax, HB 2461, was officially dead. Get ready, in two years the cycle will continue, and there will be another attempt to raise it again, to raise money and stick it to the sinners of the state. Since Oregon's initiative system is so easily gamed and the population will vote against any tax, the Oregon Brewers Guild should pre-empt the next debate by proposing a constitutional amendment that forbids or impedes future beer tax efforts. Why not?

There is no denying that the state's finances are a wreck. But the beer excise tax is the wrong place to start working on that problem. Instead of focusing on such a tiny piece of the puzzle, some legislative actions that would have a much greater effect are:

1. Get rid of the insane kicker.
2. Tax corporations fairly.
3. Consider a sales tax.

I hate the idea of a sales tax, but it makes more sense than a production-side tax like the excise tax, and would do more good in terms of smoothing out revenue during rough economic times. It looks like corporate taxes are going to get some tweaking by HB 3405, it will be interesting to see if that helps rebalance the income tax load -- 95% of which is currently borne by individuals in Oregon. And the kicker -- what madness. No household or business could survive a strategy that forced them to have a $0 bank balance at the end of every year. The kicker has one reason to exist, and that is to bankrupt the state government. Is that a good thing?

Jeff Alworth linked to a very nice article by that beer-tax-raising devil Ben Cannon. In that article Rep. Cannon -- who somehow represents a chunk of Portland devoid of breweries and brewpubs -- admits to several flaws in his legislation. He admits that taxing the production side is a terrible idea, and grudgingly admits that a 15-cent per pint excise increase gets magnified before the consumer pays it, though he still doesn't have a businesslike grasp of how prices are set. He concludes by saying that he continues to support an increase of some kind. Gird yourselves, it's coming back in two years.