8 Malty Nights from Lompoc Brewing

One of the Portland places that I miss because I am in Los Angeles is Hedge House, part of the mini-empire of the Lompoc Brewing maestros. Partially because of their awesome line-up of Holiday beers.

Where most breweries have one or two Christmas ales, Lompoc goes out and includes Hanukkah in the mix too…
“Portland’s first Hannukah seasonal, 8 Malty Nights is a Chocolate Rye that features a roasted chocolate flavor and a sweet finish. It is dark brown in color and lightly hopped with English style hops (6.5% ABV). Bourbon Barrel Aged 8 Malty Nights was brewed for Hannukah 2009 and aged in bourbon barrels for nine months. It features a roasted chocolate flavor with hints of bourbon and oak (6.5% ABV).”

Portland Holiday Ale Festival

The holiday seasonals seem to come earlier and earlier but to me, it is only winter warmer time when the Holiday Ale Festival arrives.

And not only can you get a wide variety of regular snowy offerings, there is an awesome amount of rare beers!

Check out some of last year’s rarities:
Brauerei Schloss Eggenberg • Samichlaus Bier (2005)
BridgePort Brewing Company • Old Knucklehead Batch #11 (2003)
Holiday Ale / Hair of the Dog Commemorative • JIM (2008)
Brasserie Dubuisson Freres • Scaldis Noel (2007)
Cascade Brewing Company • Barrel-Select Baltic Porter (2007)
Kona Brewing Company • Da Grind Buzz Kona Coffee Imperial Stout
Walking Man Brewing • Ho Ho Homo Erectus (2006)
Lompoc Brewery • Bourbon Barrel-Aged Pagan Porter
Widmer Brothers Brewing Company • Babushka’s Secret

Food Carts + Craft Beer =

In my usual better late than never style, I ran across this interesting bit of news from the New School Beer Blog.

Portland already has Prost! which is a lovely German beer bar located right next to a food cart pod so this next evolution sounds promising. Maybe the LA area can try this too! Verdugo and Eagle Rock invite trucks in but if you don’t care for that particular truck that night then you are out of luck (plus the lines can get enormous). A group of carts would minimize both problems.

Visit all 12

Lists are very handy. Especially in places like Portland, where the beer is flowing seemingly on every corner.

That’s why this list of 12 from John Foyston and the Oregonian is sooo helpful.

How many of these fine establishments have you been to? I have been to exactly 1.

I better get cracking when I visit in December.

Plew’s Brews

Colorado is the focus of this month’s posts but you can’t forget the other big craft beer mecca, that would be Oregon.

Here is another great place to drop in and sample some eclectic brews. Plew’s Brews is in the St. John’s neighborhood of North Portland.

Eco Growlers

These look really cool and nobody would know you have great tasting craft beer in your hand! Good at >Bailey’s Taproom in Portland only but if you have seen their beer list then you would not care.

“We have new growlers available for sale. Wait, isn’t that a stainless steel water bottle? Sure, but why can’t it be both? These 40 ounce bottles are perfect for filling up any of your favorite liquids. We’ll fill them up with our standard price beers for $7.50. Take it home and enjoy. Clean it and then fill it up with water and take it to the next beer festival. Come back and we will fill it up with other great beer. These bad boys are selling for $22. It looks like you have some drinking to do.”

5 Questions with Geoff Phillips of Bailey’s Taproom

1. What is your approach to recommending beers to people who ask, “What do you think is good?” or the other variations on the “you choose for me” theme?
That is usually one of the more frustrating questions, because there isn’t one beer that everyone will like (I might think it’s great, you might think it’s great, but they might not think it’s great). I really try to get some feedback from them as to what flavors or styles they like. We try to keep a wide variety of styles, and we have the opportunity to turn people on to these styles they may have never heard of.

2. What did you learn about running a craft beer bar that took you by surprise?
That we were really able to just sell beer and pretty much nothing else. We were going to do sandwiches, and we had chocolate and cheese going for a while too, but the beer sales were going so well that we were able to cut out all food and focus on what we wanted to do, bring in really good beers.

3. What beer style do you think is under appreciated at the moment?
Not sure. I would probably say some kind of German lager. Most breweries seem to skip almost all German styles, especially Lagers. There are definitely economic reasons for why brewers decide not to do lagers, but it would be nice to see more of them.

4. What beer has really found an audience that you thought might not? And conversely, which sure thing didn’t pan out like you thought it would?
I’m pretty sure all beer will have an audience, as long is it is made well. I’ve had a couple of mint beers on recently, the flavor isn’t working for me, but there have been plenty of people that have been really enjoying them.
4b. Not positive I know what the question is, but I’ll give it a go. There have been a couple of beers that we’ll put on and I’ll think is amazing, but it doesn’t sell well. Usually I think it is because it came from one of the larger craft breweries. There are definitely a lot of people that think New Belgium, Sierra Nevada, Widmer and the like, can’t produce a good beer, and that is very frustrating.

5. What do you think of the recent surge in brewery openings? (Migration, Coalition, Mt. Tabor)
I think it is great. I don’t think there is a saturation point yet. I think most of these brewpubs are just setup as your local tavern, that just so happens to also make their own beer, seems good to me. If I had a small brewpub or a regular bar, with the same beers that every other bar in town has, right next to my house, I’m going to the small brewpub.

Blackbeery Sour

I posted a few weeks back about the opening of the eastside and sour Cascade Barrel House. Now they have “Facebooked” this info: “Beck Berry has been released! This blend of tripels and strong blondes were lacticly fermented and aged more than a year with blackberries in oak. We then did a secondary inoculation with a recently isolated plumbers strain of Brett called Beckamoyces Aasskraquii. Some sour cherries were blended in to give this beer some pucker.”

Untitled with no style

Upright Brewing of Portland is really following their own path. First they numbered their beers and now they are making “style-less” beers.

They say it better, “Upright specializes in farmhouse-inspired brews which are historically working man’s beers and so in the vein of the Punk Rock Warlords who wrote and played music for the poor and disenfranchised, we have decided to leave this brew both nameless and style-less and open to the interpretation of the thinking mans yob’s.”

Saraveza beertenders + Upright Brewing =

One day I will have a beer named after me!

“Saraveza beertender, Tyler Vickers, and beertender turned manager, Jonathan Carmean, are well loved among their patrons and fellow industry pals…(really, what’s not to love?!?) Recently, they’ve received the ultimate props from local favorite, Upright Brewing. Named Tyler the Elder and Jonathan the Younger, these tribute beers will be found at Saraveza on Wed. Oct. 13th, with the man at Upright, Alex Ganum himself!”