Today is the grand opening for Von Ebert's second location, located next to the Pro Shop of the Glendoveer Golf Course at NE 140th and Glisan. The space housed the RingSide Grill up until last August and has been re-imagined by Von Ebert with lodge-style decor. The large bar dominates the main room inside, with additional seating in a second room and on two patios for a total of nearly 250 seats.
We had a chance to check it out over the weekend and even with as warm at it was, sitting on the covered patio with a view of the 10th hole the golf course was very pleasant. For those that have been to the downtown location the food menu will look very similar, with a couple of location-exclusive additions. The beer menu is currently similar as well, but will become more distinctive once brewing starts on the JVNW built 3.5bbl system this fall. The plan is to focus on German lagers, Saisons, Belgian-inspired beers and spontaneous, mixed culture and sour beers. Utilizing space that isn't available at the downtown location they will be able to have multiple foudres, wine puncheons, a coolship and barrels also.
Having enjoyed the food downtown previously, this time we made sure to choose items we hadn't tried before. In an effort not to avoid over order, we went with the sausage and peppers pizza and an order of onion rings. As it turned out we would have had plenty if we had only ordered the onion rings, a huge basket containing some of the largest onion rings we've seen. Perfectly cooked with a breading that didn't flake off, accompanied by a chipotle BBQ sauce and ranch, and in no way greasy, this is the standard all future onion rings will be judged against. The thin crust pizza popped with color from the peppers and got a hearty flavor from the sausage. Enough for two people to split, or one hungry person on their own, it makes for a great combo with the beer.
On the beer side, we also tried to order new-to-us beers although we did end up with one we'd tried before. The 12 beers available ranged from Pilsner to IPAs, all the way to an imperial barrel aged stout. Das Dom, the "repeat beer," is a Kolsch-style, session beer that starts with a bit of a sweet aroma but drinks less so and tasted particularly fine on the patio. We were split on which beer was our favorite with the tie being between Sabrage and Chapter 3. Sabrage is a Brut IPA, a style that seems to be popping up all over as a bit of a correction from the [over] abundance of hazy IPAs that have recently come into favor. The light aroma was followed by a juicy and refreshing flavor and clocked in at a moderate 6.1% ABV. Chapter 3, a West Coast IPA, showcased the deliciousness of Simcoe, Mosaic and Azacca hops, again with a moderate ABV of 6.4%. Had we not been so full from the food we may well have enjoyed an extended patio session alternating between these two.
While this new location is a bit further out, for those who tend to focus on inner Portland, the trade off is a relaxed golf course setting that can be enjoyed year round with ample, free parking. Plus, once the brewing system cranks up later this year, they'll be putting out sour and mixed culture beers. With head brewer Sean Burke's background at The Commons we expect to see some outstanding beers being produced and are excited for many return visits.
Von Ebert Brewing (East)
14021 NE Glisan
11 am - 11 pm Monday - Thursday
11 am - midnight Friday & Saturday
11 am - 1o pm Sunday
Family friendly
On this Independence Day we hope you have the pleasure of enjoying an extra day of independence from the regular work grind. And perhaps you'll indulge in some day (morning?) enjoyment of delicious beer. Not sure of where to start? Lucky you, we have some suggestions to make today great.
Whether you're starting off with morning drinking or looking at a long, lazy session for today, starting out on the lower end of the ABV spectrum might be the way to go (but hey, if a barley wine is calling your name first thing who are we to disagree?).
Off Color Spots - Our exploration of Off Color beers hailing from Chicago has produced very delicious results, including this great Berliner Weisse. The passion fruit flavor is balanced by the grapefruit and it has a killer label to boot. At 3.8% it's closer to juice than beer and a perfect way to being the day.
Evil Twin Tropical 'Itch - Another Berliner Weisse, found in wonderfully portable 12oz can form, starts us climbing up the ABV ladder ever so slightly. 4.5% and with a similar passion fruit profile, it showcases the great tartness and light, drinkable characteristics that make it great for morning/all day/warm weather enjoyment.
Baerlic Test Flight - Transitioning out of the realm of mild sours, because for most of us there is a limit to how much (delicious) acid we can take, the new world hops used give this beer a pleasant blend of Pacific Northwest flavor and tropical flare. A session IPA clocking in at a mere 5% helps bridge the gap to our favorite style - IPA.
Fort George 3-Way IPA - We're seriously digging this most recent iteration of 3-Way, which in case you've been living in a cave, is a collaboration with Great Notion and Reuben's Brews. At 7% (that's sessionable, right?) the combination of fruit-forward Azacca, X331, Mosaic and Citra hops drinks refreshing and easy. Supplies are dwindling but you're likely still able to find some on tap or in cans around town.
Stillwater Artisanal Wavvy Batch 1 - Technically a double IPA, it's double-hopped with Nelson, Simcoe and Centennial hops to create a beer that is juicy but still plenty hoppy. 8% won't do you in right away but remember, water is your friend (and not just the water contained within this lovely yellow and green 16oz can).
Whatever you're drinking, raise your glass to great American craft beer!
Guinness is rolling out a new product in the U.S., Nitro IPA, in nitrogenated cans and on tap at select bars. The beer is a part of Guinness' The Brewers Project in which six brewers are exploring new beers at a pilot brewery at Dublin's St. James's Gate.
At a preview dinner last night two Guinness employees talked about the beer, noting that the company values balance in their beers. While the beer is brewed with five hop varieties - Admiral to start, Topaz and Celia in the whirlpool, followed by Challenger, Cascade and more Topaz for dry-hopping - they were clear that this is an Irish IPA, not an American IPA. This is a particularly important distinction for hop heads like myself that are used to a strong hop punch from their IPAs. The combination of being an Irish IPA, being served on nitro - which tends to mellow the hop bite of any beer - and being brewed with the same proprietary, 100+ year old yeast strain used in Guinness stouts makes for a beer that one might be more pleased with were it called a Pale Ale instead. It's a simple fact that there are expectations based on style and when a beer doesn't meet that expectation the overall impression may be less than stellar no matter how well made the beer is.
When asked about who the brewers hoped to reach with this beer, they said it wasn't developed with a particular segment of drinkers in mind. I'm certain they're hoping to tap into both the pool of IPA fans they hadn't reached in the past as well as those who are classic Guinness stout fans. Whether each pool will be hooked will be interesting to see as it likely won't be hoppy enough for most IPA fans and perhaps too hoppy for stout fans. Either way, one cannot dispute the visual appeal and silky mouthfeel the nitrogen widget, developed by Guinness in 1988, produces. And at the suggested retail price of $8.99 for a six pack of 11.2oz cans, it is an approachable price point.
Seeing that it was a "dinner" you might be wondering how the beer pairs with food. My overall impression was that it is a good "with food" beer. By that I mean that while the beer didn't pop or make any of the dishes pop, it also didn't distract from, clash with or overpower any of the dishes either. Even the dessert, Guinness Pot Au Creme, which I hoped would be served with stout, remained delicious with the IPA. A sessionable - 5.8% ABV - beer, it is one that could easily consume a few pints of during the course of dinner, or an evening.
It's not a loss; it's a change. A change even more profound than moving halfway across the country to a city where we knew no one. It was just the three of us and now the two of us have to figure out how to exist without the third.
I know, this doesn't sound like much of a beer-related post and no, I haven't decided to give up the most delicious beverage on the planet. This is a post for me so if you decide to stop reading now, that's ok; I promise we'll be back to regularly scheduled programming soon. Otherwise, I appreciate you hanging in there with me.
Yesterday we said good-bye to our furry child, the one who had defined us for over 13 years. As I was searching for a particular picture I ran across one of our favorites of our little beer girl.
Just like you shouldn't let human children drink a full bottle of beer, we would never have given that much to our furry child. But, just like many of the parents I know, a sip, dip of the finger into the glass...well, I don't see a darn thing wrong with that. For as long as I can remember our girl was a beer girl and the hoppier the better even though those hops never failed to make her sneeze.
So on the day we said good-bye I guess it's only fitting that we'd already had beer plans. They weren't just any beer plans, though; they were in fact plans that involved a movie and three IPAs. We weren't sure we were going to go, that'd we'd be ready to have a bit of fun, but as the afternoon progressed we knew it would be better to be out than at home so off we went.
It wasn't an uber beer geek event but there were folks we knew there and it was a good beginning to the next stage. And the beer was good, thanks to the brewing team at Lompoc headed up by Bryan Keilty. The IPAs, The Spy Who Dry Hopped Me, Dr. Hop and From Lompoc With Love, of course are named to play off Bond movie titles. Our girl spent many hours watching Bond films with us and she would have loved to have sneezed her way through all three of the beers with us.
We're coming into the height of citrus season and while I love a juicy, red grapefruit to start off and brighten dreary winter days, come later in the day I want my grapefruit to come from a bottle. No, I don't want a glass of grapefruit juice, what I want is a citrus-forward IPA bursting with bright flavor up front, finishing with a pithy bitterness.
One of my current favorites and a great local representation of this is Lompoc Pamplemousse Citrus IPA. In addition to four hop varieties - Centennial, Chinook, Meridian and Tettnang, they also use actual grapefruit juice to create the combination of citrus pop and delicious bitterness that makes my taste buds sing.
In case you were wondering about the name, "pamplemousse" isn't just some long, slightly odd word that Lompoc created but is actually the French word for grapefruit. Fitting, right? From there Lompoc has had some fun with things, creating a mascot, Sir Pamplemousse, which you may have seen at local Lompoc events. He's the leader of the Kingdom of Lompoc and according to "legend" a scurvy old French sea captain was the first to discover grapefruit on the island of Barbados, to which Lompoc celebrates with this beer.
Clocking in at an almost-sessionable 5.8% ABV there's plenty of flavor bang packed into a beer that you can enjoy more than just one of. Perhaps tonight would be a good night to do just that. I mean look at the colors on the label, looks like a "Go, Ducks!" kind of beer to me.
With no plans for Saturday we decided to head up to Concordia Ale House for their California Cup to sample 10 California-brewed IPAs. We'd enjoyed the Fresh Hop-a-Palooza in October (regardless of some of the offerings not truly being fresh hop brews) and looked forward to another "drinking game."
We opted to share one 10-beer sampling tray figuring it would free us up to order pints of our favorite(s) after making it through the tasting and identifying the ones that spoke to us the most. Mag ran the tray backwards, starting with #10 and working his way down, while I went with the traditional route starting with #1 and working my way up. Halfway through the tray I suspected he might have done it "right," either that or there was a tray full of beers of which none would be of the variety of IPA I like best.
Thankfully the second half of the tray was much better. There we both found our favorites. #9, full of grapefruity goodness, took top honors from me with #7, offering up stank in both the aroma and flavor, my runner up. Mag chose #8 as his favorite (not hoppy enough for me) with #10 (boozy sweet but drinkable to my palate) his runner up.
The results will be emailed out from Concordia Monday and I hope they'll also include the names of the beers. I'll be interested to see how my blind tasting palate compares to my previous, "eyes wide open" opinions of the beers have been. Four of the beers tasted familiar but only my favorite would I hazard a guess as to what it might be (Hop Stoopid from Lagunitas). If you went to the California Cup, what was your favorite? Any guesses on naming any of the beers?
Results Update: While I am clearly no good at guessing the name of my favorite, I did vote for the crowd favorite. It turned out to be Firestone Walker Union Jack IPA which I have had, and enjoyed plenty, in the past. My runner up was another favorite frequent flyer - Stone IPA.
Neither of my favorites surprised me but what did was that I did not enjoy #5 which was revealed to be Green Flash West Coast IPA. I usually LOVE that beer so I wonder why not this time. Anyone else agree with me? Any ideas on why?
