You’ve got to love Portland, one of the few cities where Budweiser is not the best-selling beer in town. On a painted wall advertisement at the corner of Third and West Burnside was the sign below, happily captured on film before it was taken down. Whether by an act of defiance or a happy accident, the new sign captured the rising spirit of dissent for people who love full-flavored beer. Reminiscent of the art of Ron English, it’s a simple piece of popaganda with a provocative message. Too funny. Of course, it’s no longer there, having been recently painted over.
Oregon’s Ninkasi Brewing Profiled
Jamie Floyd’s new brewery, Ninkasi Brewing, had a nice profile in the Eugene, Oregon local newspaper, the Register-Guardian. It was in today’s business section and titled, “Brewers Tap Into Trends.” It includes an overview of Oregon’s recent brewing history along with interviews with Jamie Floyd, Teri Fahrendorf and Jack Joyce. The paper also has an interesting article about the likelihood of Oregon raising the tax on beer called “Uncap Beer Tax?”
Jamie Floyd inside his new Ninkasi Brewery in Eugene, Oregon.
Black Strap Stout, Black Strap Cookies
Today is BridgePort Brewing’s 22nd anniversary so I thought it was time to pull out the cookies they sent me that are made using their Black Strap Stout. This is the second year that Cougar Mountain cookies has made the “cocoa-based cookie with chocolate chunks” for their “flavor of the month.”
More from the press release
According to David Saulnier, president of Cougar Mountain Baking Co., the subtleties and complexities of the cookie’s flavor appeal to an adult audience. “Last year when we first introduced the Double Chocolate Stout, we had quadruple the normal number of customer comments, nearly all of those being positive. People were wowed by such an original flavor, and they thought the resulting cookie was great!”
Saulnier, who founded Cougar Mountain Baking Co. in 1988, enjoys collaborating with other Northwest companies who share his philosophy of producing high-quality, handcrafted products. He has been a fan of BridgePort Ales for some time, and the alliance between the two companies seemed a natural fit.
As Oregon’s oldest craft brewery, BridgePort has evolved over the past 22 years from a microbrewery to a regional leader in the craft brewing market, while remaining faithful to its commitment to producing high-quality, innovative craft ales that are true to their heritage. Its Black Strap Stout features a malty, caramel flavor up front with a distinctive dry-roasted bitterness in the finish. A generous dose of Northwest hops mingles with the sweetness of black strap molasses to yield a full-bodied ale that pours with a rich, creamy head.
Cougar Mountain’s Flavor of the Month item has been in existence for 15 years, and the company uses it as a way to experiment with flavors, take advantage of seasonal ingredients, and have fun. Like all of Cougar Mountain’s cookies, Double Chocolate Stout does not contain any hydrogenated oils or trans fats. Cougar Mountain Gourmet Cookies come eight cookies to a box, which is made from 100% recycled paper. Each of the regular varieties is named for Seattle-area neighborhoods, parks or landmarks. The cookies may also be purchased individually at select locations.
Here We Go a-WASSAIL-ing
Today is the 18th anniversary of the first release of Full Sail Brewing’s holiday beer, Wassail.
Full Sail’s holiday favorite was inspired by the traditional English wassail, which is a “spiced ale or mulled wine drunk during celebrations for Twelfth Night and Christmas Eve.” The word itself’s origin is Old Norse and is a contraction of the Old English toast “wæs þu hæl,” or “be thou hale!” (“be in good health“).
The Wassail Page has some great history and information about wassailing. Their aim is to “seek the true revelry and rant so absent from modern celebration. [They] seek an older time when the human spirit shouted for joy in the winter creating a festive gift which could not be purchased and could hardly be wrapped.”
Traditional Wassail celebrations were most commonly associated with Twelfth Night Eve and Twelfth Night celebrations, though in modern times is has been expanded to include the entire holiday season. In addition to the wassail drink, there are numerous customs surrounding Wassail, including “singing, mumming, guessing games and begging to enter a house.” Three distinct celebrations involving the Wassail are known. In the first, the wassail is used like a loving cup and passed around inside a house while singing carols. Secondly, you can take the wassail from house to house in a group. And the third, though less common, method involves the blessing of nature.
Here’s an old wassail song from around 1833:
The nut-brown ale, the nut-brown ale,
Puts downe all drinke when it is stale,
The toast, the nut-meg, and the ginger,
Will make a sighing man a singer,
Ale gives a buffet in the head,
“But ginger under proppes the brayne;
When ale would strike a strong man dead,
Then nut-megge temperes it againe,
The nut-brown ale, the nut-brown ale,
Puts downe all drinke when it is stale-
From the press release:
“We have brewed Wassail every holiday season since 1988 and it’s now as much a part of the festivities as sharing a roaring fire with our closest family and friends,” reminisced Jamie Emmerson, Full Sail’s brewmaster. “Deep mahogany in color, Wassail is brewed with four different malts and a blend of imported hops, giving it a malty full body and a pleasantly hoppy finish that appeals to both hop and malt lovers alike. In other words, a Christmas miracle!”
Wassail was recently awarded another medal and was rated “Exceptional” at the 2006 World Beer Championships (WBC). It was described as, “Tremendously rich and dry – yet fruity and balanced – with rich roasted malt dry caramel, nuts and light spice… Perfectly balanced. Not too sweet; not too dry. Excellent!” Wassail previously won a platinum medal and a “superlative” rating at the 2005 WBC, a gold medal at the 2004 WBC, and three silver medals in 1999, 2000 and 2001.
Beer Chips
Also at the Anchor event for Maureen’s book, Ambitious Brew, I had my second encounter with Beer Chips, a new snack food on the market.
| I first noticed them at their own booth next to the Sierra Nevada Brewing tent at GABF last month where, at $1 a bag, they were selling like hot cakes. Now I should make yet another confession here from the start. There are few foods I like more than potato chips. I am quite passionate about my potato chips. I can still get worked up about chips that have been off the market for decades; brands like Tommy Dale’s or Uncle Don’s. Where I grew up in southeastern Pennsylvania, the average grocery store carried at least a dozen local brands of potato chips, and some had many more. My favorite chips growing up were a brand called “Good’s Original Chips,” or “Good’s in the Blue” to distinguish them from a rival brand, “Good’s in the Red.” My “Good’s Potato Chips” could be bought only one day a week and, except for visiting the farm, at only one place on Earth, the Shillington Farmer’s Market, which was open every Friday less than a mile from my childhood home. They were made by Mennonite farmers who appeared to make just enough to sell each week (they never made more for the rush during various holidays) and when they sold out, packed up and went home. You could buy them in bags, but the best way was in a returnable can. Every Friday, I’d pick up a 5-lb. can, pay for the chips and a deposit on the can. The following week, I’d return the empty can and get a new one, this time paying just for the chips inside. It was a beautifully simple system, ecologically as well economically sound. |
Sadly, they don’t do the cans anymore, not since the company was taken over by a nephew and moved from the farm to an actual plant. Happily, they still taste as good but I must say some of the magic in them is gone. But I bring this up only to illustrate that potato chips are one of the other things I know something about. So when someone makes chips with beer — combining two of my great loves — then attention must be paid.
The creator of Beer Chips, Brett Stern, who’s a native New Yorker, flew down from Portland, Oregon (where he makes his chips) with boxes of his chips in tow. That gave me a better chance to try the chips, and I must say my first reaction is that they’re very tasty and highly addictive. Of course, that may be the added sugar, itself an unusual ingredient in potato chips. Generally, there are only three ingredients in what I’ll refer to as “craft chips” — let’s call it the spudheitsgebot — which are potatoes cooked in oil (either a vegetable oil or lard, most commonly) with salt added. I’m told the beer used is a bock style that is reduced to a powder and sprinkled on the chips during the cooking phase. And for the most part it works. They do seem to have just a hint of beer flavor and happily it’s not overpowering the way it is in barbecue or some other strongly flavored chip. I brought some home for my wife to try and she loves them, as well, and has become quite addicted. Now if I can only get BevMo to get off their bureaucratic arses and carry them in my neighborhod …
Here’s another review of Beer Chips from Chipworld.
These potato chips had a kettle-cooked texture and were crisp with varying levels of crunch. They earned praise around the chip bowl for being quite tasty. Most of our tasters thought that the chips did taste like beer, though some thought the beer taste was most noticeable on first bite and faded away after that. The chips were generally smallish with wiggly, irregular shapes, some folded over.
The Beer Chips table at GABF.
The Beers of OBF
While seeing friends in Portland is probably the best reason I love OBF, the beers there rank a close second. Seventy-two beers (73 including the Collaborator that the Oregon Brew Crew does) are poured at the festival and each brewery is allowed only one beer. Here are some interesting facts about the festival from the press kit I received:
- 72 beers
- 25 beer styles
- 13 states represented
- IPAs are the most popular style (12 IPAs, 7 Imperial IPAs)
Another unique feature of the OBF is that there is no judging. But that doesn’t mean some beers don’t stand out more than others. For example, at least among brewers and the people I talked to, there was no doubt about the buzz beer of the festival.
Buzz Beer: Ned Flanders (Rock Bottom — Portland)
Portland’s Rock Bottom brewer, Van Havig, wanted to create something very different went he set out over a year ago to make this year’s buzz beer of the festival. Ned Flanders Ale is, like its namesake, quite sour and has been aged in five different kinds of wooden barrels including oak wine barrels, a barrel with marionberries, one with Brettanomyces, one with lactobacillic and a Jack Daniels barrel. After aging for one year, the various barrels were then blended back together to create one amazingly complex Belgian-inspired sour ale. I don’t think it was very popular with the general attendees, but for those of us in the minority that love sour beers it was a rare treat, with some of the most extreme, complex flavors I’ve tasted in a beer outside Belgium. At least one prominent blog I read called it the worst beer of the festival and thought the sour flavors meant the beer was defective. They must not have read the program notes or been very familiar with this type of beer, but I wish they wouldn’t have been so quick to judge something they clearly didn’t understand. Sour beers, especially the ones that embrace Brettanomyces and lactobacillic elements, are undoubtedly an acquired taste. The word play should have offered a clue, since it’s a Flanders Red Ale and the Flanders area of Belgium is where this type of beer originated. Some prominent examples of the style include Rodenbach Red, Duchesse De Bourgogne and New Belgium’s La Folie. The number of attendees to the festival with blogs who simply dismissed this beer without doing any follow up or research into it is quite surprising. But it was an excellent beer and I suspect with further aging will even continue to improve. I ran into Van at the BridgePort brunch Saturday morning, and he told me that it’s not even on draft at his brewpub because he hasn’t figured out how to deal with cleaning the draft lines of Brettanomyces. So the festival was really the only way you could taste this fantastic beer.
Other Stand-Out Beers:
Every year I tend to ignore the California and other beers that I’ve already tried and concentrate on the unique beers made just for the festival and the other ones that I haven’t had an opportunity to taste. So my list of favorites is necessarily skewed and doesn’t include beers I’ve tried and liked before. My notes were a bit scattered and hard to read, but here goes.
Bell’s Hell Hath No Fury Ale
Larry Bell’s Hell Hath No Fury Ale is a dark Belgian strong ale at 8% abv. Deep mahogany in color with a rich yeasty nose with hints of raisins and herbs. With complex flavors of fruit and spices, and chewy chocolate notes, this is delightfully rich beer. It changes with every sip and there’s a lot going on in this beer. The finish is clean and a little sweet.
Big Time Powderfinger Rye
I have a thing for rye beers. I’ve always liked the character that a little rye adds to beer. To me, it’s what it does to the mouthfeel that I like. In Big Time’s case, an English-style pale ale was given just a hint of spiciness that was not from the hops. It was quite refreshing and although the floral hopping was evident, it was very much in balance.
Flying Fish 10th Anniversary Farmhouse Summer Ale
Saisons are another style that I gravitate toward because the tend to all be so different. No two Saisons are alike, because it’s the individual spice and yeast ingredients that can be used are all over the map. There were two of this style at the festival, the other being the delightful Jack Russell Farmhouse Ale. The Flying Fish example was also very refreshing with restrained spicing with hints of herbs and fruity esters. It wasn’t the best I’d ever had, but it wasn’t bad, either.
Full Sail Vesuvius
John Harris has created another excellet beer with Vesuvius. This one, at 8.5% abv, is a strong Belgian-style golden ale. It boasts a signature yeasty Belgian nose with fruity notes and a bright golden color. Big strong flavors erupt in your mouth — sorry — with rich, complex notes. The finish is tarty dry and lingers pleasantly.
Laurelwood Organic Green Mammoth
Mammoth is certainly the right name for this big Imperial IPA, which weighs in at 8.5% abv. The IBUs are listed at an impressive 100, but once you get above a certain amount it’s very hard to predict the actual number so in reality it’s anybody’s guess. It is a huge hop monster though mostly in balance. I presume this is one of Chad’s beers, since Christian has been gone now for a couple of months. If so, I’d say he’s off to a good start. If it is organic, it certainly doesn’t have that telltale something that is often evident in many organic beers which make it easy to identify that they are in fact organic. And that’s a good thing, too.
Standing Stone Double IPA
A great Imperial IPA, and quite well-balanced. The finish is extremely long and very bitter, though pleasantly so — at least if you love hops.
Walking Man Knuckle Dragger
This strong pale ale — at 6.5% abv — is a nice variation on pale ales. A pale ale on steroids? The Barry Bonds of pale ales? So far I’ve liked everything I’ve had from this small brewery, even the beer they were pouring on Hole 1 at the Brew Am was delightful. Big exagerated flavors but always in balance made this a fun beer to experience. This would be excellent with the right food rather than as a quaffing beer on a hot day.
Widmer Hooligan Pale Ale
This beer I mention primarily because it’s a gluten-free beer, and I’ve been researching these beers for an upcoming story I’m doing. My interest in these beers comes originally from my son, Porter, who is autistic. In reading about Autism Spectrum Disorder, I’ve discovered that a common symptom among the constellation of autistic indicators is stomach problems and often times a gluten-free diet helps immensely. Like much about autism, scientists and doctors aren’t exactly sure why this happens but I’m glad so far Porter doesn’t show signs of having this problem. But there are also millions of Celiac sufferers worldwide, and the number is growing. People with celiac, likewise, must also abstain from gluten, a part of most grains like barley and wheat. When Widmer Brothers discovered an employee had celiac, they set about to make a gluten-free beer, a Hooligan is the result. It’s probably the best-tasting gluten-free beer I’ve had, but to be fair I’ve only sampled two or three others. The flavor is very sweet, undoubtedly from he sorghum and tapioca that was substituted for barley. They also used the new Summit hop and the grapefruit tang from that hop is definitely present. You can tell this beer has been made with slightly different ingredients but all in all if it was this or nothing, I think I could make do.
Other Beers Worth Mentioning:
This is a list of a few of the beers that I didn’t focus on because I’ve had them before, but which I thought were excellent.
- Bear Republic Hop Rod Rye
- Deschutes Inversion IPA
- Elysian Bifrost Winter Ale
- Great Divide Titan IPA
- Green Flash West Coast IPA
- Iron Springs Epiphany Ale
- Jack Russell Farmhouse Ale
- Lagunitas Sirius
- Magnolia Proving Ground IPA
- North Coast Old Rasputin
- Pelican Pub Kiwanda Cream Ale
- Pike IPA
- Russian River Pliny the Elder
- Silver City Whoop Ass Double IPA
- Skagit River Scullers
- 21st Amendment Watermelon Wheat
21st Amendment’s Watermelon Wheat was again the most popular beer of the festival. Despite having sent more kegs than any other brewery, the beer ran out at Noon on Sunday. But not everyone liked it, apparently. On the flight home to Oakland, Shaun O’Sullivan was in a seat in the row behind me. When we landed we were talking about the festival and he was telling me about the beer running out at Noon, when another passenger in my row (who had apparently been to the festival) asked Shaun which beer was his. When he told her it was the Watermelon Wheat, she replied matter of factly. “Oh, I didn’t like that one. I liked an IPA from some Stone brewery.” (I think she meant Standing Stone’s Double IPA.) It was all I could do not to laugh. The lack of tact was truly amazing. It was the equivalent of telling a mother to her face that her kid was ugly and she didn’t even seem to realize how insensitive and rude she was. Shaun took it all in stride, but it bugged me. C’est la vie.
Rogue Rum
Saturday after the Oregon Brewers Festival, Tom Dalldorf, Stephen Beaumont and I went to the Rogue Brewpub on NW Flanders. Stephen wanted to try Rogue’s new rums and Tom and I were game to come along.
The Rogue Distillery sits above the brewpub.
Where they make two kinds of rum, a white rum and a dark rum.
John Couchot, who runs the new Rogue House of Spirits in Newport which opened June 10, shows us the still and gives us a little tour.
While Stephen Beaumont and Tom Dalldorf listen. Barrels along the walls age rum.
Tom gets a snoot full. We did have a barrel tasting of the white rum, which was excellent.
My friend Adam Lambert works for Rogue and his palatial office is above the distillery.
Saturday at OBF
With so many evens going on Saturday, I didn ‘t make it to the festival itself until almost five.
The third day of the evolution of Chris Crabb in photographs.
Christian Ettinger, who recently left Laurelwood to open his own place. Construction is coming along nicely he told me, but he’s still struggling with finding that perfect name for the brewery.
Relaxing behind the Celebrator/Oregon Brewers Guild booth, Christian takes his son on a flying trip.
Chris Crabb and Celebrator publisher Tom Dalldorf.
Full Sail Smoker
Full Sail Brewing has been hosting a smoker at the Pilsner Room, their pilot brewery at Riverplace in McCormick & Schmick’s for many years. Our host, brewer John Harris, opens his brewery/laboratory to the brewing world: brewers, media and those in the know with great beer and cigars. It’s always a great time and a chance to talk with friends and colleagues away from noise of the crowded festival.
The Willamette River at Riverplace.
Full Sail employee/owners Autumn and Barney, with their newborn daughter.
Autumn and Barney’s five-month old.
Alan Sprintz, from Hair of the Dog, and Full Sail brewer — and our host — John Harris.
Jim Parker and me.
Fellow beer writer Abe Armstrong-Goldman and Jeff Smiley, owner of Baron Brewing.
Mark Campbell and me.
Larry Bell, from Kalamazoo Brewing, and Alan Sprintz.
Rose & Raindrop IPA Festival
After the Horse Brass, we stopped briefly at the IPA Festival the Rose and Raindrop was having in the parking out back from the pub.
We arrived early so there weren’t too many people there. They had about a dozen beers, a few of which I hadn’t tried.
One of our servers, wearing Jamie Floyd’s new Ninkasi Brewing t-shirt, which was the shirt of the festival. The back reads “Jesus Was a Homebrewer.”
The barbecue guy had a six-week old dog with one brown and one blue eye. He was very cute.