Fresh Hop Frenzy

It was the night the lights went out in Portland. When the Pub Nighters moved from Bridgeport to the Rogue Public House last night, we found a startlingly dark bar, the result of a blown transformer somewhere in the Pearl. Probably not what Rogue had in mind for the Portland debut of their Chateau Wet Hop fresh-hop ale. Due to the darkness, I didn't have to show my Rogue identification papers to receive a 75-cent discount on my shaker pint. It still cost me $5 -- Pow! That hurt after the $4.25 imperial pints of Hop Harvest at Bridgeport. That's an SPE of $16.11 for Bridgeport vs. $24 for Rogue -- but not as bad as the $27.60 SPE that Rogue would charge to undocumented drinkers in its territory.

But the best SPE for us last night was at Deschutes, where some lucky timing and mistaken identity got us our beers on the house (we did tip the bartenders handsomely). Deschutes had the same power outage as Rogue. The lights came back on just as we arrived, but they had already decided to close for the night and make sure everything was back on track after the outage. We blurted out that we were there for the Hop Trip, and for some reason that got us ushered into the bar with a company sales rep, who told the bartenders to set us up. The Hop Trip was quite good, but it turned out they also had fresh-hopped Mirror Pond and fresh-hopped Hop Henge (!) both on cask. Oh my goodness. The fresh-hopped Mirror Pond is as good as it was last year; I have to proclaim it the new Fresh Hop Champion. Amazingly fresh flowery flavor, on top of the just right pale ale body. The fresh Hop Henge was also fabulously good, big and chewy, and hoppy of course, but without the almost gritty hoppiness of some of the Hop Henge experiments.

No one I talked to last night -- the Pub Night gang, plus Beer Advocates Josh and Sean that I ran into -- was very impressed with the 2009 Bridgeport Hop Harvest, but for me it was exactly what I'm looking for in a fresh-hop ale. I'd compare it to this year's Full Sail Lupulin, which I consider to be one of the best. There's kind of a honeyed quality to the best fresh-hop beers, that isn't entirely due to the malt. Contrast that with the Rogue Chateau Wet Hop, where the fresh hops didn't really bring anything noticeable to the flavor.

I've got to hand it to Charles and his iPhone. I was totally unprepared for a Pearl pub crawl, and I didn't have the Beer Mapping Project codes in my phone for anyplace but Deschutes. Thanks, buddy. My obsessive need to update my twitter map would have driven me insane.

Don't miss out on the fresh-hop Mirror Pond and Hop Henge at Deschutes. It's a wonderful experience.

Your Thoughts on Beer Prices?

I'd like your input on an idea I've been kicking around for a little over a year. After I published the map of Portland growler prices, Jeff Alworth suggested the notion of the Growler Price Index, or GPI. He figured that the average cost of a growler around town was $10, so if you saw one cheaper than that, it was a good deal.

Taking Jeff's idea one step further, I'd like to compute quarterly price indexes for beer in Portland, so that we can watch price trends over time. It seems like the following indexes would be interesting:

• Retail six-pack index
• Retail bomber index
• Pub pint index
• Pub happy-hour pint index
• Pub pitcher index
  
• And, yes, growler price index

The retail prices will be the average of non-sale prices of a collection of year-round Oregon beers, at a few representative Portland outlets. Similarly, the pub prices will be taken from a few beer bars, based on the usual price of a pint. For instance, an imperial pint is usually $4.50 at Bailey's Taproom, though of course some selections cost more. Pub prices will be normalized to six-pack equivalents, using either the fill line on the bar's glassware, or by taking the volume of the glass and subtracting two ounces for head/air.

Ideally I would gather these prices 4 times a year, on the solstices and equinoxes -- the upcoming equinox is what motivated me to finally ask for help. With the caveat that this has to be a doable chunk of work for me, and it can't be all things to all people, I would like your advice on the following matters:

1. Which beers go into the retail six-pack index and bomber index?
2. Which retail outlets do I gather the prices from?
3. Which bars do I gather the prices from?
4. Do brewpubs go into a separate category than non-brewing pubs?
5. Is the happy hour price the lowest pint price at the place (e.g. Roots $2.50 Tuesday) or the daily happy hour price (Roots $3.50 happy hour)?
   

Here are my proposed answers, please comment and let me know what you think:

1. Six-packs: Bridgeport IPA, Deschutes Black Butte, Full Sail Amber, Terminal Gravity IPA, Widmer Broken Halo. Bombers: Hopworks IPA, Laurelwood Red, Lompoc C-Note, Ninkasi Total Domination, Rogue Brutal Bitter.
2. Retail stores: Beermongers, Belmont Station, Fred Meyers, New Seasons.
3. Bars: Bailey's Taproom, Belmont Station, Green Dragon, Horse Brass, Vincente's Pizza.
4. Brewpubs: Barley Mill, Bridgeport, Deschutes, Hopworks, Laurelwood, Lucky Lab, New Old Lompoc, Roots, Widmer Gasthaus

What changes would you make, either to the details or to the whole scheme?

Breweries in Mirror Appear Closer than They Are

The trouble with taking a beer blogger on a family road trip, is that he maps out all the potential breweries and pubs along the route -- many more than it would be possible to actually visit. It's a pretty easy task, thanks to the Beer Mapping Project, and the handy proximity maps on beermapping.com make the problem worse, because when you look at some of the things inside the circle, you start imagining different itineraries than what has already been planned out.

But, as I said, it was a family vacation, so many beery destinations were left off, either because we passed them at the wrong time of day, or they were too far out of the way, or they didn't have food or weren't family friendly. No regrets: the vacation was a great success. It was the first visit to Yellowstone for all of us -- I would say it's the quintessential all-American vacation, except that about 60% of the visitors there were from other countries -- and a lovely drive through some amazing Western scenery.

Of course we accomplished a few beer tasks, like a visit to the smashing Barley Brown's pub in Baker City. But here are some of the breweries and brewpubs that we passed by along the way (in some cases, I mean we saw the whites of the brewers' eyes, but still couldn't or didn't stop):

• Laht Neppur, Waitsburg, WA
• Skye Book and Brew, Dayton, WA
• MJ Barleyhoppers, Lewiston, ID
• Kettlehouse Brewing, Missoula, MT
• Bayern Brewing, Missoula, MT
• Bozeman Brewing, Bozeman, MT
• Snake River Brewing, Jackson, WY
• Grand Teton Brewing, Victor, ID
• Wild Life Pizzeria, Victor, ID
• Portneuf Valley Brewing, Pocatello, ID
• Beer Valley Brewing, Ontario, OR
• Mt. Emily Ale House, La Grande, OR

We even walked into Portneuf in Pocatello, but it didn't feel right to take the girls into such a boisterous bar on a Friday night, so we sheepishly walked back out. No problem, compensation was had the next day, when we hit Table Rock in Boise and Barley Brown's in Baker City.

Again, no regrets, but if ignorance is your bliss, then stay away from beermapping.com.