The Brewery – Fort George of Oregon The Beer – North V
The Details “This year we took another Holiday Icon, The Fruitcake, and designed our Winter Seasonal in its’ honor.
A mash of barley, oats, wheat, rye, rich caramel and honey malts are mildly spiced with Cascade and Saaz hops, fermented with Fort George House Yeast then allowed to condition on hand-splintered, rum inspired oak. A Glase Fruit concoction that includes cherries, pineapple, orange and lemon peel is dissolved into the finished beer to add the final touches.
While designed and bottled to age, we are sure this version of the Fruitcake will not be passed down for generations, but opened and imbibed at many a cheerful gathering. 7.5% abv. IBU’s Hard To Tell”
The Details “This is Burnside Brewing Co.’s first winter elixir. It’s a big strong ale brewed with 7 different malts and copious amounts of Columbia and Amarillo hops pillowed in the middle to give this warming brew a chewy complex malt body and a unique fruity juicy hoppiness throughout. You wont want to sip this dangerously strong and tasty beer like you should but pound it . 8.3% abv 77.4 IBU”
Coming up next from Paso Robles and Firestone-Walker is a slew of beers, but I want to tease a 2012 beer from the Proprietors Reserve Series, Wookey Jack.
A – The name is great.
B – “an Unfiltered Black Rye IPA weighing in at 8.3% ABV.”
I know. Another craft beer book! There can never be too many, in my opinion.
I have been reading articles in Imbibe magazine by Joshua Bernstein and now he has taken the knowledge gained in talking to brewers to create Brewed Awakening. Best to let him explain the book (in words and video)
“Why Brewed Awakening? Concerning beer, the last decade has witnessed more seismic changes than any time since Prohibition. There are more than 1,700 craft breweries in America, from community-based nanobreweries to the new breed of national brands such as Dogfish Head and Stone. Untethered from stodgy tradition, and driven by unbridled creativity, American and international brewers are leading a boundary-less charge into the global future of beer.
The bitter India pale ale has birthed the burly, super-aromatic double IPA. Alcohol percentages have climbed above ten percent, on par with wine—and now join Pinot noir at dinner tables and on tony restaurants’ drink lists. Wild yeasts have been harnessed and are used to inoculate beers that, in the best way possible, taste like a barnyard. Naturally carbonated cask ales have now achieved cult status. And brewmasters have begun aging their creations in wooden casks that once contained bourbon, brandy, chardonnay, and even tequila, reviving techniques last seen more than a century earlier.
I’ve spent the last six years covering the craft beer industry, traveling from Asheville to Austin, San Francisco to Chicago, Portland to Portland. I’ve hit breweries. Interviewed brewers. And spelunked deep into the people and the trends driving the craft beer revolution. There’s a story in every pint glass. I give voice to them.”
You can order the book HERE and on December 7th there will be a Brewed Awakening event at Eagle Rock Brewery.
I know that I am breaking my own cardinal rule about skipping over major holidays but one week from today the latest Holiday Ale Festival will take place in Pioneer Square in Portland. This is the place to be to sample rare and one-off beers that celebrate the cold time of year.
But don’t take my word for it, read this….. “The popular event will feature four-dozen big, bold ales designed to fend off the cold chill of a long winter night. From IPAs, Belgians and barleywines to winter warmers, porters and stouts, these beers are crafted specifically for the event or are hard-to-fine vintages, helping secure the event’s reputation as one of the nation’s preeminent winter beer festivals.
What makes this festival standout from other similar events is the beer selection; the festival works with every brewery involved to make sure they can send a beer that has either been made specifically for the event, or is a rare or vintage beer that isn’t commonly tapped in the state. According to festival manager Preston Weesner, “It’s about the fans. This is a once-a-year event and these beer lovers are here to support their favorite brewery. When they get up to the taps and find something special, it further solidifies their support of Oregon craft brews and strengthens our reputation in the beer world as THE place to drink beer.”
For more information, visit their website or call 503-252-9899.
I am pretty geeky about craft beer, but I am also geeky about the industry that surrounds it. From specially crafted glasses with nucleation, to mobile canning, I am fascinated by the tech that goes with the beer.
That is why EcoKegs are an interesting development. Coming from Australia, they are plastic kegs that cut down on shipping weight and can also be sent one way and recycled when the last drop of beer has been drained.
I don’t think that they will take over the industry, but I do see this as a great way to import beers to other countries and to maybe cut keg costs (both the initial purchase and replacement of lost kegs).
Sounds like an interesting advance in beer technology.
In a little over a week, one of the new craft beer hot spots in Los Angeles, Sunset Beer, will be hosting a ……
“Kinda-Sorta Holiday Beer Class A.K.A. Our Inaugural Beer Tasting Class!
Here at Sunset Beer Company, we plan to host many beer tasting classes, but we can only have one first! For this one we will be exploring some of our favorite year-round beers along with some of the best for the holidays. And they’ll be paired with cheese!
A little about that whole cheese thing: When most people think about cheese they think about wine. Yet most of the cheese experts I’ve met swear that beer is a much better match. So we’ll be exploring just how great of a match they can be. Hurry up though, as this is already filling-up very quickly!”
Here is part of the line-up Gouden Carolus Noel, Alesmith Yulesmith,
Avec Les Bons Voeux de la Brasserie Dupont and Port Santa’s Little Helper . . . and maybe some rarities from their new and growing cellar.
Here are the details if you want to check and see if there is still room.
Tuesday, November 29th
$35/person or $60/couple
7-9 pm
I find October/November before Thanksgiving to be the perfect time to travel. The crowds have thinned. Kids are usually in school. The prices are a bit cheaper too. So around this time, I usually get the hankering to hit the road.
And when I heard about Beer Trips on Lisa Morrison’s Beer O’Clock show, I really wanted to hop on a plane and visit a brewery in the old country without having to do the planning myself.
You can go to London, Prague, Bamberg or even Northern Italy for a tour. And they seem to be worth the money and they certainly have good recommendations from the press.
Double Bastard from Stone Brewing is next for review…..
This is the word from Stone on Double Bastard…. “This is one lacerative muther of an ale,” the braggadocious bottle warns. “It is unequivocally certain that your feeble palate is grossly inadequate and thus undeserving of this liquid glory… and those around you would have little desire to listen to your resultant whimpering.”
In a world full of glittery pageants and overproduced Hallmark holidays, it has become difficult to isolate what is worth celebrating, while eschewing the insipid propaganda that is spoon-fed to the masses. But rest assured, Double Bastard Ale’s annual unleashing is no such hornswaggle. Nay, it is a moment of gustatory excellence to be met with fervorous revelry and tintinnabulation.
Double Bastard Ale first graced our little blue oblate spheroid in 1998, sanctifying the one-year anniversary of Arrogant Bastard Ale. Nothing less than creating an embiggened version of the already elephantine Arrogant Bastard Ale would befit such an epochal occasion.
Double Bastard Ale is strictly for those with an unfettered predilection for bold unapologetic flavor, and it is for this enlightened minority that this annual tradition carries on today. However, for those who may have been at all frightened by this obstreperous and bombastic admonition, then please, close the dictionary you took out and hit delete now. Forget all you’ve read here of the Double Bastard Ale, and acquiesce into an insufferable purgatory of fizzy yellow nonsense. Remain one of the blissfully nescient, one of the mindless, barefoot sheeple, aimlessly wallowing in a cromulent cesspool of mediocrity. Sleep. Sleeeeeeeeeep…”
I and beer buddy Richard had the opportunity to get a tour of one of the newest breweries to open up in the LA area today, The LAB Brewing Company. Big thanks to Roger Bott for taking the time out of his busy brewing schedule to sit down and chat with us about the brewery.
We got to sample 5 of the beers (primarily 1st batches), including the still not quite done Kona coffee beer. And better than that, we got to hear the stories behind the beer and about Roger himself. He has been homebrewing and dreaming of opening a restaurant for a long time and now he is living the dream and creating a great beer destination in Agoura Hills just a few miles away from Ladyface Brewing.
Roger has been brave enough to put the first batches on display of the initial three brews:
Big Ass Red — Amber Ale
LAB XPA — IPAs baby brother
Take Her Home — Belgian style tripel
And we tasted the Wit and coffee beers too. I liked the XPA which was strongly bitter and vegetal and stronger hop-wise than intended due primarily to mechanical issues and Richard enjoyed the coffee stout the best which had a really great aroma and strong with a velvety taste. Probably due to the whole beans used in the brewing process.
I like the lab concept (water comes in beakers) which meshes well with Roger’s Amgen work background and it will be interesting to see where these beers go and how his other ideas pan out. It is so fun to see the growth of a brewery from the start. I will certainly try the coffee beer again and I am looking forward to the IPA and other creations too.
The Beer – North V
