Extreme Kitchen Kegs

January 30, 2007 By Jay Brooks

My friend and fellow beer writer Lisa Morrison’s new kitchen remodel, along with its new built-in keg system was the subject of a piece in the local paper. There was no link to it, but luckily the Portland Beer Blog re-printed it under the title Liquid Assets. Her and husband Mark Campbell’s new kitchen will also be part of a feature article I did recently for an upcoming issue of Beer Advocate magazine.

Lisa with fellow Portland beer writer Fred Eckhardt.

Lisa and Mark’s built-in keg system. The kegs are housed in the basement.

Ember Ale Collaborator Beer

January 14, 2007 By Jay Brooks

Oregon Brew Crew member Jamie Dull, whose homebrew, Ember Ale, was made using roasted grain that was smoked on his barbecue. It was then brewed commercially as a Collaborator beer with Widmer Bros. Brewing. Fox Channel 12, KPTV Portland, did a nice three-minute segment on his Collaborator Ember Ale. You can watch it on YouTube.

Portland’s New Name

January 13, 2007 By Jay Brooks

Portland has had many nicknames. While the “City of Roses” is perhaps the most well-known, it’s also been called Beervana, Bridgetown, PDX, Puddletown, Rip City, River City and Stumptown. And apparently President George I used to refer to Portland as “Little Beirut” because protesters dogged his visits there, but so far that one hasn’t really stuck.

But now add one more to the list. Yesterday, Mayor Tom Potter officially declared Portland “Beertown.” He kicked off the naming ceremony by pouring the first pint of BridgePort Brewing’s new seasonal, Beertown Brown. Whether the whole event was one elaborate publicity stunt certainly seems possible, even probable, but even so what a great coup for them. Unlike Seattle, Portland’s official tourism website features quite a lot of positive information about beer and Portland’s beer scene.

Also, no word as to how the Brewers Association feels about Portland appropriating their domain name. Their website address is beertown.org.

Widmer & Redhook Discuss Possible Merger

January 4, 2007 By Jay Brooks

The Oregonian is reporting today that merger talks between Portland’s Widmer Bros. Brewing, the largest craft brewer in Oregon, and Seattle’s Redhook Ale Brewery were disclosed on Wednesday through a mandatory regulatory filing by both Redhook and Anheuser-Busch — who owns almost 40% of Widmer and just over one-third of Redhook.

Although Widmer is probably the healthier company, Redhook (because it is traded on NASDAQ) will likely be the buyer in the deal. Rob Widmer reportedly has said that because it involves a public company that much more will be in the open due to regulatory disclosure requirements. He also stated that it is much too early in the negotiations to say when or even if anything will come of the talks.

The Seattle Times also has a more in-depth article on the talks.

From the Field: Lisa Morrison at the Portland Holiday Ale Fest

December 18, 2006 By Jay Brooks

A couple of weeks ago the Portland Holiday Ale festival was held in the Rose City and award-winning beer writer — and Portland resident — Lisa Morrison was on hand to sample the holiday beers. Lisa filed this report along with a few pictures from the festival. Thanks, Lisa, for sharing the festival with us!

I don’t have a lot of detail on how well the fest was attended or anything, but I do know the “buzz” beer was called Jim, named after Jim Kennedy, one of the patriarchs of Portland beer and, really, one of the founding fathers of the good beer movement nationally. It was created by Preston Weesner and Alan Sprints (Hair of the Dog). It was conceptualized one day when the two were sitting around talking and enjoying some beer and cheese. Preston said Maredsous 8 was always a “Jim beer” for him in that he thought of Jim whenever he enjoyed it. They worked on a blend of some Hair of the Dog beers with a keg of M8 and Alan painstakingly aged it in oak barrels until the fest. Truly a one-time, one-of-a-kind beer that was appreciated and celebrated by all. A fitting tribute to a really great guy.

Fest-goer Eric Bressman shows off a T-shirt from recent travels while enjoying a beer at the fest.

Having some fun at the Holiday Ale Festival.

Chris Crabb, who does PR and is an organizer for the event, keeping chaos under control. With a smile, even!

King of Swill

November 13, 2006 By Jay Brooks

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.

Black Strap Stout, Black Strap Cookies

November 4, 2006 By Jay Brooks

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.”

The stout is inky black with a thick tan head and subtle aromas of ginger, molasses and milk chocolate. The beer slides smoothly on the tongue with flavors of bitter chocolate, molasses and malt and just a touch of sweetness. The cookies are dry, soft and chewy with bursts of chocolate in the chunks. The chocolate notes and molasses in the beer perfectly compliments the cookies and even dipping them in the beer works nicely. The interplay of dry and wet, not surprisingly, leaves you wanting one and then the other almost as a tonic, but it has the effect of making the combination highly addictive.

From the combined press release:

The cocoa-based cookie with chocolate chunks accentuates the flavor profile found in BridgePort’s Black Strap Stout, specifically chocolate, molasses, and coffee. The alcohol bakes out of the cookie, but the flavors found in the beer remain, adding considerable interest to an already tasty cookie.
The combination is not as odd as it might seem. For years, beer lovers have explored the extraordinary flavors that come from combining malty, craft-brewed beers with fine chocolates and decadent desserts. Stout floats are dessert mainstay in brewpubs across the nation.

Beer Chips

October 23, 2006 By Jay Brooks

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

August 4, 2006 By Jay Brooks

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

July 30, 2006 By Jay Brooks

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.