Fresh Hop Rankings 2013

Each year I sort the fresh hop beers I've tried into 4 tiers:  1. those that are very special, brilliant examples of why we love this time of year; 2. those that capture the green fresh hop flavor nicely but are not quite as exciting as the first group; 3. beers that don't really show fresh hop character, but are tasty nonetheless; and 4. beers to avoid for one reason or another.

Within the tiers, I try to rank them approximately in order of how well I liked the beer, though with so many -- 44 so far -- I might switch the order of any two or three beers on any given day.  That also means that I might actually like some of the top beers in tier 3 better than the bottom beers in tier 2.  I would have liked to put 12 beers in the Must Try category, but that seemed ridiculous, so I chopped it at 5.  Of course it's just one man's opinion, and your mileage may vary.  For reference, here's last year's list.

About half the beers on the list are ones I tasted at the Hood River Hops Fest this past Saturday.  Don't forget, the Portland Fresh Hops Festival is at Oaks Park this Friday and Saturday, October 4th and 5th, 2013.  Enjoy!


Must Try:

• Deschutes Fresh-Hopped Mirror Pond
• Laurelwood Fresh-Hopped Free Range Red
• Gigantic F'n Legit Fresh Hop
• Solera Chubby Bunny
• Double Mountain Killer Green

Good Fresh Hop Flavor:

• Ninkasi Total Crystallation
• Oakshire Bout a Hunerd
• Barley Brown's Fresh Hop Pallet Jack
• Deschutes Hop Trip
• Burnside Prime Meridian
• Big Horse Strictly Rude #6
• Breakside If It's Wet and Not Yours, Don't Touch It
• Bridgeport Hop Harvest
  
• Double Mountain Killer Red
• Hopworks Powell Estate Fresh Hop
• Lucky Labrador The Mutt
• Deschutes Fresh Hop Crystal Cream Ale
• Widmer Bring The Broom
• Worthy Fresh Hop Session
• Laurelwood Shane's Pale
• Coalition Green Pig
• Ninkasi Hop Fraiche
• Deschutes Fresh Hop Pine Drops
• Social Kitchen Wet Hop American Summer
• McMenamin's Thundercone
• Sierra Nevada Northern Hemisphere Harvest
• Commons Fresh Hop Myrtle
• Stickmen Fresh Hop Cascade SMaSH
• Old Town Brewing Cents and Centsability Fresh Hop Pale 
• Base Camp Hopularity Contest
• Humble Brewing Larch Creek Harvest Ale
• Deschutes Chasin' Freshies
• Vertigo Hop Harvest IPA

Good Beer, Can't Taste the Fresh Hops:

• Rogue Wet Hop Ale
• PINTS Seismic Upgrade
• Lucky Labrador Fresh Hop Pilsner
• Three Creeks Cone Lick'r
• Upright Hop and the Abstract Truth
• Sierra Nevada DevESTATEtion Black IPA
• Elysian Kama Citra
• Full Sail Fresh Hop Pilsner
• Deschutes King Cone
• Pfriem Fresh Hop Mosaic Belgian Wheat
• Portland Brewing Fresh Hop Mactarnahan's
• Burnside Fresh Hop Oatmeal Pale Ale
• Alameda Cascadia Fresh Hop Pale
• Deschutes Fresh Hop Bitter
• Backwoods Fresh Hop Logyard IPA
• Logsdon Fresh Hop Seizoen
• Good Life A Different Season
• Sasquatch Celilo CDA
• Two Kilts Fresh Hop IPA
• Old Town Brewing Fresh Hop Oktoberfest
• Deschutes Fresh Hop Saison

Avoid:

• 10 Barrel Goodin' Fresh -- diacetyl at Hood River
• Migration Wild Style -- too wild, and couldn't find the fresh hops

Portland Beer Price Index: Autumn 2013

Kind of a quiet installment of the Portland Beer Price Index (PBPI).  Prices are all within a nickel of last quarter's prices (after adjusting for a change I made to the stores in the index).  Sale prices were slightly less generous than in the summer, though the shelf-tag price on six-packs went down slightly.  An insider that frequents these posts hints that we are going to see a serious price rise next quarter -- I'm not looking forward to that, but it won't be a big surprise.  You can see from the graph that there was a big jump in Q4 of 2011 that sort of set the level for our current prices.

Here are the Portland Beer Price Index numbers for the autumn quarter of 2013:

• 6-packs: $9.50, down 3 cents
• 22-ounce bombers: $5.22, up 5 cents
• 6-packs (sale price): $8.65, up 2 cents
• 22-ounce bombers (sale price): $4.82, up 2 cents
• 16 oz. draft: $4.52 unchanged
• 16 oz. draft (happy hour): $3.65, unchanged

I made a switch this quarter, and subbed in the Hawthorne Safeway for the Division New Seasons.  Not finding HUB IPA bombers at New Seasons was the final straw for me.  A few years ago their beer selection seemed amazing for a grocery store, but nowadays it is a little sparse.  Still a good selection, for sure, but other stores have expanded their beer space, whereas New Seasons has shrunk theirs a little by trying to add in a bunch of ciders.  The switch was pretty smooth, since I actually gathered the Safeway prices last quarter, so I was able to make an apples-to-apples comparison against the same bucket of data.  If you try to compare the actual numbers reported last time, it looks like the non-sale prices are way up this time, but the sale prices aren't so different.  That may be because New Seasons touts an "Everyday Low Price" on a lot of common beers, instead of pulling the usual grocery store stunt of showing an inflated shelf price that is marked down every day of the year.

If you require more information on the makeup of the PBPI, read the page which describes the composition of the index.  Check back around Christmas to see the final numbers of 2013.

Help Keep the Portland Growler Price Map Up-to-Date!

The Portland Growler Price Map has been touted in the sidebar of It's Pub Night for years. Personally, I haven't been taking home that many growlers recently, so the map is woefully -- ridiculously -- out of date. Therefore, I'm going to ask for your help to start whipping it back into shape, so that it becomes a useful resource again.



View Larger Map

Considering the great upswing in interest in growlers lately, this map really needs a reboot. In the past year we have seen places open up which focus heavily on growlers -- the Tin Bucket, the Imperial Bottleshop -- and even grocery stores like Zupan's and Local Choice are getting in on the act. Heck, one of the best growler deals in town right now is at a convenience store -- the 39th Mini Mart on Cesar Chavez has $10 fills and a fairly interesting selection of 12 taps. As I write this, none of those places have yet been added to the map.  Not even fairly well established breweries like Gigantic or the Commons are on the map.  It's embarrassing.

Here is my plea for your help.  Would your business like its growler offerings to show up on the map?  Email me the details (see below).  Are you a beer fanatic who is always coming home with a growler or two?  Next time you have a growler filled, take some notes and send them to me (see below).  Are you an insanely dedicated growler aficionado, who knows how to update a Google Map, who would like access to the map, so you don't even have to go through me to update it?  Please email me, I'd love to hear from you.

Details

When the map first came out, I would get comments on the blog like "I think Amnesia has growlers for $13 or $14, but I don't remember exactly, can you add that to the map?"  Short answer:  NO.  I need at least the following information before I can add your information to the map:

• Price (range) to fill 64 ounce growler.
• Price to buy the growler itself (if available).
• Whether they'll only fill their own labeled growler.
• Whether they'll fill 2-quart mason jars.
• The date of your information.
• Special sale prices or happy hours (if any).

The growler price map was one of the first cool things that happened on this blog, and it spawned a couple of even better ideas like the Six-Pack Equivalent Calculator and the Portland Beer Price Index.  It's too bad I let it fall into such disrepair.  I hope to recapture some of the glory days with your help.  Thanks in advance!