Follow Sean Inman to the best in craft beer
I love quirky ideas that grow big, and one of these is the dog friendly Lucky Labrador.
They have taken it a step further by having a IPA made with a bunch of different hop varietals and calling it MUTT. Brilliant in my book. They grow hops at a couple (maybe more now) of their locations and get more from friends of the brewery and it becomes this communal hop pickin’ party that ends up in a brilliant IPA a few months after.
Cigar City. Widely desired by 49 states which normally can’t get any of their products. They have gone and intrigued me mightily with a new version of their popular Jai Alai IPA but aged in white oak.
Some things in life are too short. Three day weekends for one and this charming history of beer in Portland.
Though only 29 minutes, this is an excellent primer on how Oregon got to where it is today beer-wise.
Here is some news for fans of special Full Sail beers. If you are one of those who base your judgement of the Hood River brewery on their regular line-up, this might be a beer that re-connects you with a historic NW brewer…
from the press release…“Full Sail Brewing will release a new beer in their Brewer’s Share line up that is sure to entice the snow gods to bless the season with plenty of powdery snow. Brewed by Full Sail Brewer Adam Bulson, “Adam’s Malty Bomb” is pray for powder porter that’s sure to make our mountain snowy white all season long.
Porters are Adam’s favorite beer after a day on the snow, and he thought releasing his own version preseason would be a good omen for a great winter. Adam’s Malty Bomb is a robust porter with a big body and lots of dark, caramel/toffee flavor, yet it won’t weigh you down like heavy snow. It’s hopped with just enough hops to balance out the malts, and finishes smooth with no sharp edges. Bomb’s away! (ABV 5.3% IBU 41)”
Here is what their website says about themselves:
“Little Brewery, Big Biere
Parish Brewing Co. is a nanobrewery (yes, nano! smaller than micro!) in Lafayette, Louisiana. Parish will be bringing Acadiana and the rest of Louisiana uncompromising, craft brewed beer (or biere in our native cajun french). Using only the finest ingredients, we’d never cut costs at the expense of flavor.
Think of Parish as an upstart local brewery in cajun country doing battle against boring, tasteless swill.”
This biere (the first on their list) really caught my eye:
“Canebrake
Brewed with Louisiana sugarcane! A new Louisiana tradition in the works. Crisp and easy to drink, this sparingly hopped American wheat focuses attention on the understated sweet remnants of sugarcane.”
Moonlight Brewing (like it’s famous, but no less revered neighbor, Russian River) is a bit of mystery to me and a lot of people. They don’t have large distribution circles but they are doing what they want to do, the way they want to. And for that, I applaud them.
Here are some of the brews from their Abbey (“The Abbey de St. Humulus, founded in 2005, is home to the Moonlight Brewery. We believe that Moonlight is the first and perhaps only Abbey brewery in the US. The Moonlight beers are not of European Abbey brewery styles, as we are not a European Abbey, but instead are of the unique California Abbey style range. The mission of the Abbey is to promote good will through good beer. Abbey de St. Humulus is in no way affiliated with the Trappist Monasteries.”) that caught my eye….
Reality Czeck – a 4.8% lager.
Toast – their slightly burned lager.
Greg Beron and Kevin Koenig part of the driving force of the famed Culver City Home Brew Club are creating a new outpost in Eagle Rock. Going eastside is great for me. Now I can have a local home brew shop!
More news and website info and if I am lucky an interview will follow.
Consider this a heads-up.
If you don’t follow the posse of writers over at the the RateBeer HopPress, well then you are missing an interesting viewpoint on the world of beer.
Things like this video …..
from the Beer Goddess, Lisa Morrison
New Belgium and Allagash have collaborated on one beer with what appears to be wildly different main ingredients.
Check out this cool video that they put together…
Everytime I hear about the Great American Beer Festival gold, silver and bronze winners, I think of all the categories that there are now. 79 plus the pro-am winner. That is a wonderful testament to the resurgence of craft beer in this country. I don’t care that 90+ percent of the country drink the industrial water lager because there is a bounty of great beer everywhere you go. And just like people now require better coffee and people refuse to eat individually sliced “American” cheese, soon craft beer will be the default.
So, check out the GABF website to see what beers you should be tracking down. And to get more number crunching check out the excellent Brookston Beer Bulletin.
….and a big congrats to my local, Eagle Rock Brewery for winning the Pro-Am competition with their wonderful Red Velvet.