The Best Things We Drank: Welcoming in October

It may be the first week of October but that doesn't mean we will be seeking out pumpkin beers. We might try one that is offered to us but it's unlikely you'll find one gracing on this list. Instead we have a mix of beers we hope to enjoy throughout the coming dark months and some of our preferred flavors of the season. 

Melvin Uncle Ruckus - Enjoyed at a beer pairing dinner, this double stout has a great cocoa-y profile on its own. This night it was part of the dessert course, paired with a creamy leche flan-topped chocolate cake that was drizzled with a berry puree, all atop a smear of Eliot's Adult Nut Butters espresso nib peanut butter spread. The combination was the perfect ending to an incredible dinner.

Firestone Walker Mocha Merlin - Another stout, but with almost half the ABV, it does seem that they used a bit of "seasonal sorcery" to pack so much coffee and cocoa flavor into the beer. The oatmeal and lactose combine to provide a creaminess and roundness to further elevate the flavors. No surprise it was drank at The BeerMongers but by lucky happenstance, Sean was sharing some soft blue cheese and that combo was fabulous!

Founders Nitro Rubaeus - A favorite from this Midwest brewery, we've enjoyed it in the past but never on nitro. It appears to be popping up around town on nitro taps and after trying it, for good reason! The berry flavor leans even further towards juice when served this way with the bonus of a smooth, creamy head.

Fort George Fresh IPA (2017) - It seems that we're enjoying more fresh hop beers this year (or perhaps we're just being more selective about the ones we're ordering, upping the probability of "success"). Either way this can of tasty Citras is a worthy follow up to our most recent favorite from Fort George, the now-gone-from-shelves-and-taps 3-Way.

Breakside What Rough Beast Fresh Hop - A version of a beer that we've already been smitten with, this might be better. Whether it's the "ground breaking liquid nitrogen hop shattering technique" or just that Mosaics are one of our favorite hops, we're thrilled with it.

Firestone Walker Bravo (2017) - Circling back to the dark beers that hit the highest notes for us, this bourbon barrel aged imperial brown ale starts off full of huge barrel aroma. The balanced booze flavor (13.2%) is rich, toasty and chocolaty with just the right amount of noble hops. 

Thanks for reading, friends! Whatever your favorite styles of the season are we hope you're enjoying them to the fullest.

The Best Things We Drank: September 4 - 10

Hops ruled our week however in this season of fresh hop beers, only one of those made the list. We've found we've become less enamored with fresh hop beers on the whole in the last couple of years but it's still a joy to find ones that hit us just right.

Fremont Field to Ferment Centennial - Field to Ferment is a series of fresh hop beers used with a pale ale base. Being that Centennials are the first that are ready to be harvested, thus they are the feature of the first batch. Yummy, yummy Centennials.

Firestone Walker Propagator Generation 1 - An unfiltered IPA, it runs the line between those popular-right-now NE style IPAs and the typical West Coast IPAs. Whatever the style or un-style, when it comes to hoppy beers Firestone Walker is rock solid.

Three Magnets Big Juice Smoothie - The biggest of the beers this week at 8.5%, it starts with a grapefruit aroma that follows through to the flavor and is accompanied by a bit of lactose to round the edges, all contained within a handy to-go 16oz can.

The last beverage on this week's list is a cider and a simply amazing cider at that. Made by our favorite cidery, Reverend Nat's, and shared by one of our favorite (and generous) beer buddies, Chris, this cider is the result of Revelation Newtown Pippin, fortified with dark Muscovado sugar, being refermented in Elijah Craig bourbon barrels. 17% sounds daunting until one finds it in their glass and must resist the urge to grab the bottle and run. So. Very. Good.

The Best Things We Drank: August 21 - 27

Over the weekend we had friends over to help us break in our new digs and being that our friends tend to be beer geeks, generous beer geeks, many of them showed up with bottles of very delicious, often rare beers. Some of them have yet to be opened but others we enjoyed that night and as expected they were fantastic.

Dionysus Currantly Noir with Vanilla #02 - The first beer we've had from this two year old Bakersfield, CA brewery was an incredible introduction to them. A golden sour ale aged six months in Pinot Noir French oak barrels with black currants and vanilla, it has just the exact right amount of sourness for us. 

The Commons Fishing With Hallet - Listed as a Belgian Strong Dark Ale, on the surface it wouldn't appear to be a beer that would trip our trigger. However, being brewed by The Commons increases the chance that we'll like it and sealing the deal is that the amount of sour character is sufficient to subdue any Belgian characteristics that in other instances might turn us off.

Bruery Terreux Frucht: Lemon & Cherry - The level of sour, especially from the lemon zest, may be a bit much for some but we really enjoyed the combination of lemon and tart cherries in this Berliner Weisse-style sour. Apparently it is the first beer in their Frucht series and we'll be looking forward to seeing what this subsidiary of The Bruery turns out in the future.

Firestone Walker Krieky Bones - Picked up by Mag, it starts with a tart cherry aroma and follows with the best tart cherry cobbler flavor we've ever run across. It was brewed to celebrate David Walker's 50th birthday and is a Flanders Red style beer that was aged for eight months in a French oak foeder with sour cherries that allowed for a secondary fermentation. We suspect that the Vienna malt used is what gave us the feeling of cobbler.

Image courtesy of Founders since ours didn't properly show the awesome can.

The lone beer to make this week's list that was not consumed at our party was enjoyed earlier in the week at The BeerMongers. Cans of Founders Green Zebra sport fun, bright artwork and inside is a take on a gose.

This one won't be for everyone but we enjoyed the heck out of the flavor that is reminiscent of watermelon Jolly Ranchers with just a touch of salt, a primary component setting this style of sour beer apart from others. Considering how many bad (like REALLY bad) watermelon beers we've had this is yet a further achievement. A "limited" beer, according to their website, it's definitely worth grabbing a can before summer transitions into fall. As a bonus, the beer was brewed to benefit ArtPrize, a non-profit international art competition in Grand Rapids, MI. Drink good, do good.

The Best Things We Drank: May 8 - 14

This week's beers are all over the board in terms of style, size of brewery that made them and geographical location. Where they come together is that they all garnered a rating of 4 out of 5. With that, let's look at what made each of them stand out.

Montavilla Brew Works Warren's Big Barrel Porter - The only Portland (or Oregon for that matter) beer to make this week's list comes from one of our favorite breweries to drink at. The captain's chairs at the bar invite one to stay for a good long while, which we did, and as an added bonus to the beer, Flying Pie Pizza is just across the street. (Of course we got some of that as well.) This was tops of all the beers we drank there that night, starting out with a slight aroma and a flavor [especially as it warms] of gentle maple syrup with a touch of barrel. A very drinkable 9%, upon looking back at the check in saw a note that "it would be great with flan," which is particularly interesting since we don't eat much flan. But we'll trust our past self and roll with that idea.

Firestone Walker SLOambic Batch #2 - Firestone Walker does great things when it comes to wild ales and this one, fermented with blackberries, is no exception. Tart, sour and mildly fruity, it has held up well (brewed 1 1/2 years ago) and it was a treat for our tart/sour taste buds to be sure.

New Holland Dragon's Milk Reserve: Mexican Spice Cake - We've had plenty of beers that are designed to have a similar flavor profile to Mexican cake or hot chocolate and they've been done with varying degrees of success. This Midwest-brewed one is definitely one of the best. Starting off with an aroma of coconut (which is somewhat puzzling as there is no coconut in it...perhaps it's the vanilla beans?), the flavor is nice and spicy...eventually. This is a beer you gotta let warm up, so pull it out of the fridge/cooler a beer before you want to drink it but then savor every drop of it.

Other Half Hop Showers - Found in our beer fridge, we apparently forgot to put a note on it so that we could remember who gave it to us. There are two likely subjects but whoever it was needs to be commended. East Coast IPAs (and we don't mean the hazy, NE-style ones that have become so popular recently) have generally failed to wow us, being spoiled with the abundance of and skill used in creating hoppy beers by many West Coast breweries, but this one most certainly did. Thank you, Joe, Kris or whoever is responsible for gifting this to us!

The Best Things We Drank: CA Vacay Edition

This week's best list is dominated by beers we consumed while taking a long weekend vacation to the Orange County, CA area. We drank plenty more than made the list (Portland still wins at beer) but there were definitely some remarkable beers had during the trip as well as some we had before we skipped town to soak up some much needed sun.

Phantom Carriage Broadacres with Passionfruit - We get some Phantom Carriage in the Portland market and knew that they did a great job with sours so finding ourselves in the vicinity (Gardena, CA), we couldn't resist stopping. The brewery is unique, being part café and part haunted cellar (complete with horror movies playing) and overall damn cool. This was the best of the beers consumed there and sour to the max. The passion fruit used in this iteration of Broadacres gives it just enough mouthfeel to take some of the sour bite off.

Barley Forge Wedding Tackle - Somewhat stumbling on this brewery (aka using a "search nearby" map function for breweries), we found ourselves surrounded by really great beer and a hopping taproom on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon. The huckleberries used in this sour blonde ale were present from the start - both in giving it a beautiful color and on the nose - and carried through to the flavor. The lightly, brightly sour flavor was enhanced by the cherry wood it was aged on.

Barley Forge Nom Nom - We'd be hard pressed to pick a favorite between this hefeweizen and the sour, both incredible beers at easy drinking ABVs. A well crafted hefe, its classic characteristics are there and enhanced by the mango that was slightly present on the nose and more prevalent in the flavor. This is a very crushable beer that would be perfect for sunny, summer drinking.

Block 15 Cosmic Cold Brew Double Ristretto - Block 15 does amazing stuff with hops but their coffee game is equally strong. Starting out with an aroma that is all coffee, followed by a smooth mouthfeel and finishes with a lovely lingering milked-coffee flavor.

Firestone Walker Bretta Rose Batch 3 - A beer we'd had a year ago and thoroughly enjoyed, it seemed a great prelude to heading out to celebrate 14 years of wedded bliss. The extra year of age did nothing to diminish, and perhaps even enhanced,  the tart, fruity yum that is so delicious.

Honorable mentions go out to Stone for their Tangerine Express, enjoyed with breakfast on the first day of vacation at a sports bar, Tustin Brewing and Gunwhale Ales. If you find yourself in the area with limited time Barley Forge is definitely the place to hit. Gunwhale, a somewhat sterile feeling taproom, and Tustin, a neighborhood hangout filled with TVs for sports fans, are fine and we wouldn't steer you away from either, just keep in mind Barley Forge is where it's at in the Costa Mesa area.

The Best Things We Drank: Those Below a Four Need Not Apply

The beer bar was definitely raised this week as none of the following beers scored less than a 4 out of 5. And we don't give out 4s lightly.

Les Trois Mousquetaries (LTM) Dixieme - Shared by one of the many generous patrons of Mongers, this imperial black kriek had a beautiful, tart, dark fruit aroma with a less tart, infinitely delicious flavor that was a combination of chocolate and a touch of fruit. According to the kind patron that shared it, when he had a bottle a few months ago, there was more fruit flavor present. Either way, delicious and 10%, really?!? No way does it taste like it.

Founders Brewing Porter - Seeing this in the cooler I was shocked to see that at least according to Untappd I'd never had it before. Rectifying that I found a beer with a beautiful chocolate colored head and an even better chocolately flavor. Nice job, Michigan.

Founders Brewing Azacca IPA - Although I'd had this beer before I was determined for a re-test after hearing from a couple people that it didn't hit high notes for them. For me, it was as good as I remember and Azacca hops are definitely my hops.

Logsdon ZuurPruim - This beer is a mouthful of delicious sour fruit flavor and a fantastic, soft mouthfeel likely coming from the four months it spent on Yummy Beaut plums in Cabernet Sauvignon 

Three Magnets 2nd Anniversary Ale - The aroma of this wine barrel-aged sour red ale makes us happy and the flavor - tart but not sour, fruity but not sweet - even happier.

Three Magnets Chef's Choice No. 1 Rye Porter - Undoubtedly a most bizarre set of ingredients to combine - a rye porter with vanilla and black garlic - it turned out to be incredible and reminiscent of a complex chocolate porter.

Firestone Walker Firestone 20 (XX) Anniversary Ale - Big thanks go out to Chris for sharing this Strong Ale from FW's vintage barrel program (and the pic)! Clocking in at 13.5% one might think a few ounces would be plenty. One would be wrong. Perhaps a few bottles and then we'd reach the "plenty" level.

Thanks for your patience. We're well aware that the list got a little out of hand this week but there was no way to exclude any of these amazing beers. Should the Logsdon or Three Magnets beers intrigue you, head on over to Beer Belly where you might be lucky enough to still find them on tap (and if you go 3-6pm you'd be super lucky as HH prices are $3). While the supply of Founder's is dwindling, Tuesday afternoon both were available in the McMenamin's 23rd Ave Bottle Shop coolers. The Firestone Walker and the LTM? Well, those are going to take some harder searching but if you find them, you'll be a good beer buddy and share with us, right?

The Best Things We Drank: January 9-15

Last week was a challenging one weather-wise and although that meant we spent way more time at home than usual it didn't stop us from getting out, primarily to our Cheers/Winchester to share some beer with our friends. Here's the best of what we drank.

Brouwerij Rodenbach Vintage 2014 (Barrel No. 192) - Shared with us by Chris (congrats on reaching Untappd Uber level!), this is what I refer to as a "SweeTarts" style of sour and it showcases the best of the best in the world of fruity sours. To achieve this level of amazing the Flemish red-brown sour ale spent two years in their 61-year-old foeder no. 192.

Alpine Beer Company Windows Up - A moderate ABV IPA (7%) the stanky goodness from the Citra and Mosaic hops are just up this hophead's alley.

Firestone Walker Sour Opal - Back to the sour well we go with this one. Firestone knows what they're doing with both sours and IPAs, a combination of talents that is quite endearing. An American Gueuze, this sour was another that took time to become what it is, spending two years in Viognier barrels.

Ordnance Brewing Bläckfisk - 'Tis the season for imperial stouts and while we can't drink them all the live long day, this is one that makes us reconsider. Smooth, dark and delicious, this 9.5% beer is the kind that makes one jealously want to take to a quiet corner and keep to one's self.

Sour beers dominated our picks slightly this week in contrast to last week's more hop-heavy best beers. Being our two favorite styles that will probably be a trend it's nice to run across stellar ones of other styles to remind us not to get into a rut.

Remembering #HAF2011

After a five-day run, this year’s Holiday Ale Festival is now just a memory and it’s time for a little reflection. Overall I found the offerings to be a bit weaker than last year or maybe it was that while there were some really outstanding beers, there were some very disappointing beers, something I don’t recall from last year.

Very Tasty Beers

Firestone Walker Velvet Merkin – Yes, I’m hopping on the bandwagon and giving this beer two thumbs up.

Laht Neppur Laughing Boy Stout – This was my second beer of the festival and I was pleased to find it a very well done bourbon barrel aged Russian Imperial Stout.

MacTarnahan’s Barrel Aged Ink Blot Baltic Porter – This beer was on my “skip” list simply because it was from MacTarnahan’s. I was wrong, so very wrong, and I'm super pleased I had the chance to try it.

Stone Ruination IPA DDH Apollo/American – Besides being completely different from most of the beers at the fest, it hit the right notes for me being packed with hoppy grapefruit flavor, very smooth and immensely drinkable.

Disappointing Beers

Upright Provision – While I like some Upright beers and dislike others, this one fell solidly in the disappointment category. My sixth beer of the fest, I don’t think my taste buds were that far gone but I got nothing, just nothing from this beer.

Brew Crew Hallucinator – One of my main reasons for trying it was that it was billed as a Holiday Ale Fest only beer. Lesson: that doesn’t mean it will be good.

Buckman Fruit Cake – Fruit cake has a bad reputation, sometimes undeserved, sometimes rightfully deserved. This proved to be the latter.

Natian HOLLAday Ale – In general I’m a Natian fan (especially after meeting Nat recently) and I was excited to try all of the holiday treats in one glass. I guess sometimes there is such thing as too much of a good thing.

Beyond the beers there were a couple things I hope the festival organizers will take note of and improve upon in the future.

Water Stations: Water, for rinsing and for drinking, is essential at any beer fest. When a fest bars outside food and beverage from being brought in, it’s particularly essential that there are plenty of well stocked water stations available. Besides the hydration factor, it’s impossible to get the true taste of a beer if the last one is still lingering in your glass. One water station near the exit for a multi-level event doesn’t cut it.

Re-entry: Both this year and last year we went to the festival multiple days. Last year there was no issue with coming back, as long as it was the current year’s festival mug in your hand, all you had to do was get ID checked again and buy more tasting tickets. This year however, I feel we came very close to having to pay for a whole new package ($25 for a mug and 8 tasting tickets) because our stamps had worn off and we had taken our wristbands off. I understand that the festival doesn’t want one person buying a glass and then letting buddies use it. But what the festival didn’t seem to understand is that I, and probably a good majority of attendees have jobs, professional jobs, where wearing a bright red “ID checked” wristband and not showering in order for the stamp to stay on is simply not acceptable.

While I may complain about some of the beers, you won't find me dwelling on them. In fact, if you ask me in a couple months which beers those were I will likely have to pull up this post to remember. And for the critiques of the water and re-entry issues, well, I'm an event planner and I can find things that need to be improved upon at nearly any event. So no hard feelings, friends. You win some, you lose some. And there will always be more beer to enjoy.