This is the second installment of this type of oral history of a Portland beer that would go onto help shape not only the Portland beer scene, but impact the national beer climate as well. Crazy to think that before this beer debuted in 1996, most beer drinkers in America had no clue what an India Pale Ale was.
Image courtesy BridgePort
Wherein I review the following new releases on shelves or on tap:
Flat Tail: Cider Wit (Jan. ’12)
Philadelphia’s: Barrel-aged Betsy Ross Golden Ale (Feb. ’12)
Everybody’s Brewing: Little Sister ISA (Mar. ’12)
Lompoc: Batch 69 Baltic Porter (Apr. ’12)
Fort George: Roses on Roses (May ’12)
Hopworks Urban Brewery: Abbey Ale (June ’12)
Double Mountain: Devil’s Kriek (July ’12)
Base Camp: In Tents IPL (Nov. ’12)
Salmon Creek: Märzen (Dec. ’12)
Caldera: Mogli Bourbon-oaked Imp. Chocolate Porter (Jan. ’13)
Agrarian: Espelette chili beer (Apr. ’13)
Flat Tail: Lemon Diesel (Aug. ’13)
Lucky Labrador: Black Sheep bourbon-aged CDA (Sep. ’13)
Finally, well, most recently, this review of Rogue’s Brutal IPA…per the editor’s request to review it particularly as it tastes having traveled to Amsterdam. (Jan. ’14)
BeerAdvcoate, the online forum turned magazine, doesn’t republish the print zine’s content online, but if you have #84, there’s a story on some of the best of the Class of 2013 for which I contributed the following blurb on Ecliptic (Portland) and De Garde (Tillamook):
Ecliptic Brewing
825 N. Cook St., Portland, OR 97227; EclipticBrewing.com
Oregon brewing legend John Harris got his professional start at McMenamins, the first brewpub in Oregon, in 1985. Then a brewpub in Bend opened called Deschutes, where Harris created Black Butte Porter and Mirror Pond Pale Ale in 1988. Up next: Full Sail in Hood River where he became a co-owner. His stellar (or interstellar) new creation is Ecliptic, a 15-barrel brewpub named for our astral and perhaps his occupational journey around the sun. “No other brewery’s name is based on astronomy,” said amateur astronomer Harris, who didn’t stop there. “We will be naming beers after stars, nebula, galaxies, and other astronomical themes.” Arcturus is an orange giant some 36.7 light years away but it’s also Ecliptic’s first IPA exploding like a supernova of C-hops (Cascade, Centennial, Chinook, and Columbus). It’s a given that the celestial sphere and earthly beer are both heavenly, but for this veteran brewmaster, they hold much in common. “Creating a new beer is a cosmic thing, really” said Harris. “(You’re) combining ingredients and bringing it to life.”
De Garde Brewing
1909 2nd St., Tillamook, OR 97141; twitter.com/DeGardeBrewing
Brewer Trevor Rogers is keenly aware that the fan base for his beers is primarily Portland beer geeks, not locals in coastal Tillamook…yet. De Garde is making waves with their Belgianesque beers starting with the infinitely sessionable Bu Weisse. (The name is both a nod to the Morrocan word for “my” and owner Linsey Hamacher’s cat, although Rogers successfully proposed to Hamacher at De Garde’s debut so Bu is their cat). It’s a 2.1% tart ale akin to a Berliner Weisse. From there, Rogers goes in every direction including Chanin Blanc Regards, a Double IPA with wild yeast, wine grapes, and finished in gin barrels. But while this wine-loving brewer makes ample use of fruit, ultimately Trevor said, “I just try to get out of the way of the yeast. I wanna let wild ale be wild.”
In the span of traversing the state of Oregon researching veteran as well as rookie breweries, it stands to reason some soldiers will fall on the battlefield. But are they squeezed out of the marketplace or does their ticker simply stop…ticking? I found myself in Salem anyway, so I took the time to pop across the street from one that was still under construction to visit the not-young owner of one that was in the midst of selling off parts. Here’s that story for The New School on Pale Horse Brewing and the intriguing discussion about what leads a brewery to fail in the comments section.
The Big Island Brewhaus, tucked into previously-existing Tako Taco Taqueria, has a lineup of beers that’s amazing, and I was surprised to discover a beer called Red Sea — brewed in collaboration with none other than Caldera Brewing from Ashland in Southern Oregon.
On top of a delectable imperial red ale — think hoppy IPA but with red-hued caramel malts for added body — chocolate, molasses, pink peppercorns and Himalayan pink salt were added for richness and spice. The end flavor is not unlike a sweet-and-savory molé
I don’t like reading any listicles of Best Of… The 14 Greatest… etc, so I really don’t like writing them. Having said that, sometimes I like the spending money and I cave and write them. With that set up, welcome to the Six Absolute Best West Coast IPAs In the World According to Science.
I’m not re-posting every single story I did for Willy Week’s blog in the Oregon Beer News column, but this one, in hindsight, is something of a gem. It talks about a PDX Beer Week event, “Billed as “Meet the new faces of 10 Barrel Brewing,” Apex hosts Bend’s 10 Barrel and all five of its brewers: Jimmy Seifrit, Tonya Cornett, Shawn Kelso, Bobby Jackson and Ben Shirley.” Then goes on to mention that, “Mellow Mushroom, the pizzeria chain headquartered in Savannah, Georgia, “officially” opened in the Pearl last week, although it has actually been operating for eight months. The Portland franchise has 51 taps—mostly brewed in the PacNW.”
The retroactive irony is that 10 Barrel Brewing would go onto make big “OBN” when it sold to AB-InBev (Bud) and that its once-long-awaited-now-meh impending Portland outcrop is going into the now-vacated Mellow Mushroom!
http://www.wweek.com/portland/blog-28715-oregon_beer_news_roll_out_the_10_barrels.html
In Portland, IPAs sell themselves. Over one in four beers we consume locally is a hop-tastic IPA, and in terms of sales growth, they’re speeding up over 30 percent. While we don’t have fancy sales stats for stouts, suffice it to say, people around here mostly shy away from them, possibly for fear they’re “too heavy.”
That bias doesn’t take into account the fact that a dry Irish stout is one of the lightest classic beer styles, or that boisterous Russian Imperial Stouts completely dominate user-generated best lists on RateBeer and BeerAdvocate. Where does that leave a style that is essentially a hybrid of the two? Black IPAs are recognized formally as American-style black ales by the Brewers Association, but are known locally and colloquially as Cascadian Dark Ales.
In this era of ever-hybridized India Pale Ales, only the dark version — in which recipes call for the hop additions of an IPA with the roasted malt bill of a stout or porter — has really taken off at the races. It’s safe to say Turmoil CDA from Eastern Oregon’s Barley Brown’s is the odds-on favorite.
The beauty of an India Session Ale? The brew retains the hop-powered IBUs (international bitterness units) of an IPA while you retain more of your wits with lower ABV. In time for summer in the May, 2013 issue of Portland Monthly, I delved into five ISAs for the “Wallet Guide.”
Edit: This story was awarded 2nd place in the “Brewspaper” category at the inaugural North American Guild of Beer Writers (NAGBW) awards in October 2013)
When Willy Week resurrected the Beer Guide, I was tasked with writing the oral history, as it were, of one of this city’s most seminal beer offerings: Widmer Brothers’ Hefeweizen. It has protagonists, controversy, some romance, and pretty much everything needed for a Hollywood blockbuster save for a rando choreographed fight or homecoming dance scene. Oh, this story also netted me a 2nd place finish in the inaugural award ceremony of the North American Guild of Beer Writers!
Image courtesy Widmer Bros.
Brian Yaeger: Beer Writer 