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.

Farm to Brewery, the Centennial's Trip from Silverton to Portland

Last week we showed you the trip we took down to Goschie Farms with Pyramid/Portland Brewing to experience the hop harvest. The trip was a dual function in that we brought back with us 200lbs of fresh-from-the-vine Centennial hops.

Five bags, filled straight from the conveyor belt that shuttled the hop cones onto the drying floor, were tied up and packed into the van along with the human cargo. A little tighter fit than on our way down to be sure but the trade off was being surrounded by the heady aroma the Centennials gave off. Those hops were some of the best car mates any of us had ridden with.

The brewers that joined us on the trip, head brewer Ryan Pappe and brewer Brian McGovern, enjoyed the visit but it was clear that they were eager to get back to the brew house and get those hops into their brewing kettle. Upon our arrival they headed off with the bags of green goodness while the rest of us took a brief respite, consuming some of their previous efforts, before rejoining them in the brewery.

The Centennials had been loaded into laundry bags (apparently Bed, Bath & Beyond's are the bags of choice) and were being tied up with fishing line, efforts to keep them from going too far into the tank of Outburst Imperial IPA.

One may recognize that beer as a standard in the brewery's lineup however this will be the first time that it has been aged on fresh hops. Going by the name of Fresh Hop Outburst, Ryan chose to use Centennials in part because they’re a favorite of his and in part because they are already used in the beer. He said by doing this “we will get a chance to see the difference between the way we normally use those hops compared to the nuances that the fresh hops bring to the beer.”

In the past they have made a fresh hop version of another standard, Mac's Amber, but this year Ryan wanted to try something different. "Fresh hop beers are always experimental, because unless you are repeating a beer you have previously produced, you don’t know what is going to come out on the other side. You can’t brew a test batch, because you can only brew while the fresh hops are available."

The 55bbl batch was kegged late last week and is currently on tap both here in Portland and at the Pyramid Alehouse in Seattle. It will also be making an appearance at the Portland Fresh Hop Festival taking place September 29 & 30 at Oaks Park. He's eager for feedback, "I would love to hear what people think about our Fresh Hop version of Outburst!" so if you get a chance to try it leave a comment here and we'll pass on your thoughts to him.

Visiting Goschie Farms for the Hop Harvest

 

Over the past few years we'd been invited on various trips during the hop harvest, something we were eager to experience, but the timing never ended up working out. This year the stars aligned and we were able to take advantage of the opportunity, hopping into a van driven by Pyramid/Portland Brewing brand manager Bruce Kehe last week. Along with other members of the Portland beer community we made our way to Silverton and back, taking in the harvest of Centennial hops at Goschie Farms.

When we arrived owner Gayle Goschie informed us that the harvest had begun earlier in the morning (in fact we ran into 54 40's Bolt on our way in, his van already loaded up with a batch of fresh hops). Making our way over to one of the farm's buildings we were greeted with a view of the hop bines being lifted out of the harvesting trucks and attached to the mechanical system. The noise level made conversation impossible but there was no need to speak, only to breathe in the dizzying aroma of fresh hops and watch in fascination as the bines made their way through the processing machinery.

Mechanical harvesting of hops began in the 1940's, a system that is based on hops being round and leaves/stems being flat. Once stripped off, all of the material makes its way through a series of belts that separates the usable hop cones from the discarded material. The final set of belts, called dribble belts, are where the hops fall/roll/dribble down for collection while the leaves and stems are carried on. Since hops vary not only in the profiles they impart to beer, but also in overall shape, there is some variation in the efficiency in which the mechanical system pulls them off the bines. Regardless of variety, non-hop cone material making it through with the hop cones is less than 1%, a dramatic decrease from the 12% that was common when hand harvesting was the norm.

Once the hop cones have been isolated it's time for them to head to the drying house. Entering at nearly 80% moisture, the hops are spread out to a depth of 24 inches where 130 degree heat is pumped through, drying them to around 8% over the course of about seven hours. This part of the process has remained largely the same over the last 100 years even though computers assist in monitoring kiln operations and growers have instruments to help gauge when the hops are dry. Ultimately however, Gayle still uses the age-old process of rubbing the cones between her fingers to judge dryness, just as her father and grandfather did.

The dried, yet still warm, hops are then moved to a cooling room for about 12 hours. During that time gentle, non-heated air is blown through the mountain of hops before they are compressed into 200lb bales. Mini/mobile "sewing machines" are used to seal the bags around the bales, with the final stitches on the ends being done by hand. At Goschie it is tradition that at the end of the hop harvest, when the last hop bale has been made, Gayle herself sews the final bag shut.

This year the weather has been nearly perfect for hops, meaning that soon, especially the fresh hops that went straight from the dribble belts into large bags picked up by brewers like Pyramid/Portland Brewing head brewer Ryan Pappe, will be make an appearance in our glasses as fresh hop beers begin to hit taps around town. The rest, in dried form, will make their way from Goschie and other hop farms to supply brewers throughout the coming year.

Ringing in Harvest Season by Picking Hops

Yesterday's hop harvest at Hopworks Urban Brewery was a very fitting way to usher in September, fall and the best time of year for brewers - the hop harvest. Coincidentally, it was also harvest day for the McMenamins breweries. Called the "Running of the Brewers", it's a marathon of a day starting with the bines coming out of the Sodbuster Farms fields in the morning followed by a mad rush for seven drivers who delivered 1,120 lbs of fresh Simcoe hops to 20 McMenamins brewing locations for this year's Thundercone. Many photos and videos documented the event on their Instagram account.

Back to Hopworks, a smaller scale operation, but one that annually invites the public to come help with the harvest of the estate-grown hops from the SE location. Picking hops is a fairly mindless task but what makes it fun is meeting and chatting with the other harvest helpers. This year I was seated next to a couple of gentlemen from Oregon City and as usual when craft beer drinkers get together, we had no problem keeping the conversation going during the four hours of picking.

The hops that the group picked were a combination of an experimental variety that currently has the unfancy name of X17 and Willamette and Cascade hops from their backyard. In total 94.9 pounds went into the brew kettle to create Estate IPA, a beer that is the fresh hop version of the classic Hopworks IPA. The fresh hop beer will be available in two to three weeks and when it is I plan to get down there to do a side-by-side tasting of the Estate IPA and its classic cousin.

If you, too, want to get your hands dirty (literally - your hands will get dirty and sticky and you'll LIKE it), mark your calendar for next Tuesday. That's when the SE location of the Lucky Lab will be holding their community harvest. Everyone is invited to help pick the fresh hops off the bines, a combination of ones grown by Lucky Lab, homebrewers and drinkers across the city. The conglomeration of many varieties of hops will be used for the 11th annual brewing of The Mutt.

Lucky Lab
915 SE Hawthorne
Tuesday, September 8th starting at 4:00 pm

2014 Thundercone in the Making

As you read this, fermenters across the McMenamins empire are filled with batches of 2014 Thundercone Fresh Hop Ale. In what is certainly no small feat, 1120 pounds of Brewers Gold hops from Sodbuster Farms were delivered to all 22 McMenamins brewing locations yesterday. It took a fleet of eight drivers just under five hours to drop off the fresh hops. From there the brewers went to work.

I had a chance to visit the Concordia Brewery, housed at the Kennedy School, as brewers Dave Kosanke and Matt Carter spent a full day brewing a double batch. Walking into the brewery I was hit with the familiar, but always just as pleasing, aroma of my favorite beverage being made. Coming in pre-sparge of the second batch, it wasn't until Dave opened the bag of fresh hops that I was treated to the bright scent of fresh hops.

During the brewing I had a chance to get a little history on Dave that included finding out he's an IA/MN transplant like me, although he's been calling Oregon home for much longer. He's been with McMenamins since 2001 where he started out as a bartender...a bartender that was also a home brewer. Attending a formal brewing program was something that Dave had looked into but before he got around to making it happen a brewing internship opened up at Edgefield.

In the two and a half years since then he's been working in the "cozy" facility at Concordia that turns out 300 kegs per month. Both Dave and Matt are big fans of lagers, with last year's Doppelbock being one of the favorites created. They would jump at the chance to brew lagers more often, but time and space constraints make turning out ales the majority of their production.

Thundercone will be hitting the tap lines Friday, September 19th. As with all fresh hop beers, it probably won't last long.

Geek Info:
Malts: Canada Malting Superior Pilsen Malt, Franco Belges Caramel Munich 40
Hops: Chinook, Fresh Brewer's Gold hops
OG: 1.061  TG: 1.013  ABV: 6.19%  IBU: 56  SRM: 7

Two Outta Three Ain't Bad

I recently mentioned four events on the horizon that featured a critical mass of fresh hop beers, possibly the only way to have any chance at trying a good percentage of the dizzying number available right now. While I didn't make it up to Concordia Ale House for their Hop-a-Palooza the week prior, this past weekend I hit up back-to-back fresh hop events starting with Roscoe's Fresh Hop Summit on Friday, followed by the Fresh Hop Beer Fest at Oaks Park on Saturday.

Between taster trays and tasting tickets I personally ordered about 20 beers. But since I went to both events with friends I had quite a few more tastes out of others' glasses. Reviewing the lists from those events it seems like the Pale Ale is the most used base beer this year. Being someone that prefers an IPA over a Pale Ale most days of the year one could guess that I wouldn't be blown away by most of them. One would be correct. That isn't to say that I didn't enjoy trying them, it just means that overall most of them were just OK. There were however three of them that rose to the top.

In no particular order, they were Gigantic Brewing Sodbusted Simcoe, The Commons Fresh Hop Myrtle and Logsdon Farmhouse Ales Citra Fresh Hop Seizoen. All three come from breweries that generally impress me and these beers reaffirm that.

Gigantic's Sodbusted is a 6.8% ABV IPA with surprise, surprise Simcoe hops. It has an amazing aroma and being an IPA base from a brewery that excels at them, it's really a no-brainer that this one hit it out of the park for me.

Myrtle (pictured above) is a Farmhouse Ale and one of The Commons' spring seasonals. Not an obvious choice in my mind to be a base beer to brew with fresh hops, the citrus and sourness from the Lactobacillus strains work very well with the Meridian hops.

Logsdon Ales also chose a less-than-obvious beer for their fresh hop offering, Seizoen. While Citra hops were the primary ones used, eight other varieties supported the conversion of their flagship beer into an even better version of itself.

Since I know you've been drinking at least a few fresh hop beers, too, which ones have made your taste buds sing?

Fresh Hop Beers All Over Town

Tomorrow (Saturday) is the Hood River Hops Fest and I know plenty of people that are looking forward to it. I have yet to make the drive out to this festival, especially when there are so many fresh hop happenings going on without leaving the comfy confines of Portland.

Already in progress is Concordia Ale House's Fresh-Hop-a-Palooza where one can get a "groovy taster tray" of 10 fresh hop beers for $12. Those who have been to their events before know to expect that the beers will be presented blindly with the names of the beers revealed the Monday following the conclusion of the event (September 30) and a people's choice winner announced from the votes submitted.

Next weekend Roscoe's throws their 4th Annual Fresh Hop Summit and the Fresh Hop Fest takes place at Oaks Park. The Summit, or if you prefer "tap takeover-style event," starts Friday, October 4th and will feature 17 fresh hop beers. Since that number is greater than the number of taps they have the beers will be presented on a rotating basis throughout the weekend with taster trays available. A partial list of breweries and beers is currently available on the Facebook event page; expect more details to be announced as the Summit approaches.

Running Friday evening and Saturday Oaks Park Fresh Hops Fest will be serving up another line up of fresh hop beers. Drink packages run $15 - $40 for glasses + tickets and can be purchased in advance or at the door. I've yet to see a beer or brewery lineup released, which is generally par for the course for this festival.

The following Tuesday (October 8 for those not following along with their calendar) is White Owl Social Club's Heathens & Hops Fresh Hop Celebration. This music venue and quietly-working-on-becoming-a-beer-bar had their first beer festival last month, Lager Fest. As I understand it, the turnout was lower than optimal, due in part to some early fall weather raining on the parade. I'm pleased to see that didn't seem to deter them as they take another stab at it with a festival featuring 15 breweries, primarily from Oregon. The brewery and beers list can be found on their Facebook event page.

Besides the festivals there are of course plenty of fresh hop beers to be found at breweries and bars all around town as well. With all the choices you're sure to find a time and venue to get your fill of bright, fresh-from-the-vine hopped beers.

Lucky Lab Hop Harvest - More Than Just Manual Labor

Fresh hop season is in full swing, the time of year when the mature hops are brought in from the field, filling the air with their most delicious scent and filling my Twitter feed with images of their glorious green color. Large commercial operations utilize machines to strip the hop cones from the hop bines (yes, it's actually bines, not vines) but as those who grow hops in their yards know hand harvesting is a labor-intensive process. However, just like home brewing, hand harvesting is made more fun by inviting some friends over and imbibing while the work goes on.

The Lucky Lab puts on their own hop harvest every fall, inviting whoever would like to immerse themselves in the aroma of fresh hops, and by night's end hands made sticky and dirty by the hop resins, to come to their Hawthorne pub. Some of the hops are theirs while others are contributed by people coming to pick. What results is an incomprehensible number of varieties of hops that will all be used together to brew "The Mutt."

Last night was the first year I took part in this event, having been busy or simply missing it in the past. I arrived early to find the tables laden with hops and groups of two or three getting to work. As the evening progressed the patio filled with more people and eventually the tide seemed to turn, progress on whittling down the piles of hop bines being made.

I'm always happy to lend a hand, especially when my help is going to result in beer being produced, but the best part of the event was the coming together of many beer friends I hadn't seen for some time. And as much as the labor of many hands helps the Lucky Lab harvest local hops for a fresh hop brew I think they too understand that this is a great way to bring the community of beer lovers together.

Good luck to Ben as he gets to work brewing this year's version of The Mutt today. I'm sure I'm one of many who is looking forward to tasting the beer in a few weeks.

Fresh Hop-a-Palooza

It was a whole new take on fresh hop beers Concordia Ale House offered last week. Instead of choosing your selection of fresh hop beers off a list, for $12 a tray of 10 unmarked beers was presented. In this way there was no opportunity to be influenced by the name of the brewery or whatever you may have heard about a specific beer. It was just your taste buds and the beer.

Of the 10 beers provided the clear favorite in my book was #5 with #8 coming in second. Mag preferred #7 with #1 being his runner up. Although I couldn't be for certain I was pretty sure that none of the 10 tasted familiar. Going on the last day of the Palooza meant that I only had to wait about 12 hours to find the results waiting in my inbox, a timeframe when the beers were still quite fresh in my mind.

F->A->S->T-> F->O->R->W->A->R->D->

My favorite also turned out to be the crowd favorite, Ninkasi Total Crystalation, a fresh hop version of Total Domination. New Belgium Hop Trip X took 2nd, Rogue Oregasmic took 3rd and Mag's favorite, Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere came in 4th. Reviewing the full list I think my initial impression that I hadn't had any of them previously was correct. With any luck, even though fresh hop season is winding down, I do hope to get a few more pints of Ninkasi's deliciousness!

If you attended Fresh Hop-a-Palooza how did your favorite stack up? Was is something you'd had before?

Note: Concordia included a couple of corrections along with the results visual. #10 was actually New Belgium Trip X, not VII and Ninkasi's beer name is correctly spelled Crystalation.

Fresh Hop Summit

Roscoe's Fresh Hop Summit, starting Friday afternoon and presumably running until the kegs have been drained, provided a nice follow up to last week's Fresh Hop Fest at Oaks Park. Smaller in scale but with the added bonus of beers being delivered to my waiting hands by the friendly, efficient servers Roscoe's offered up 14 fresh hop beers plus more in reserve once the first kegs up had blown.

Not surprisingly there were some beers that had made an appearance at Oaks Park. However a couple of those I didn't have last week and took the opportunity to at Roscoe's. One was a hit - Ninkasi's Smells Like Purple - and one was a miss - Logsdon's Fresh Hop Saison. I purposely didn't get the Saison at Oaks Park as they were asking for three tickets ($3) for the sample. Whatever fresh hop flavor may have been in there was overpowered by the Saison characteristics and even Roscoe's more reasonable $2.50/5 oz was expensive for a beer I found to be a disappointment.

Smells Like Purple, a beer that intrigued me with its name but one I didn't get to before the lines at Oaks Park got long, was a surprisingly good brew. Slightly sweet in both aroma and flavor from the Meridian hops I can't disagree that this might be what purple, or at least violet, might smell like. It competed with Amnesia's Mother Plucker, one I had enjoyed last year, as one of the two that tied for my second favorite of the Summit.

 

The one that stole my heart though was a repeat from last week. After being enamored with it at Oaks Park I had to order it just to see if it was as good as I remembered. I was thrilled to find it just as delicious as I had remembered and so The Commons' Fresh Hop Farmhouse retains the honor of "favorite fresh hop" in my book this year. The season isn't over quite yet, however and with Concordia Ale House doing their own version of a fresh hop tap takeover there's still a chance (slim as it may be) I'll find another that tops it.

2012 Portland Fresh Hop Fest

I couldn't make it to the Fresh Hop Fest in Hood River last week and for whatever reason I wasn't that excited about the Fresh Hop Fest at Oaks Park this week. In fact I was pretty sure I'd skip it. Then Saturday dawned bright and beautiful and with no other competing plans I had a change of heart.

As per our usual plan we got there early, about half an hour into the fest and there was an expectedly light crowd. It took longer to decide what beer to get than it did to actually get it. As often happens we ran into some beer drinking friends and settled into a routine of chatting, wandering off for more beer and rejoining the group.

Then, suddenly it seemed, the tent started filling up at a very swift pace. According to a tweet from the Oregon Brewers Guild, "We had as many people by 3pm as we did last year at this years Fresh Hop Fest - sorry about running out of beers." Thankfully by the time the lines were getting longer than I wanted to wait in I had made it through the beers I was most interested in trying and I didn't feel bad switching over to a full pour to finish off the afternoon. Another stroke of luck that my favorite beer of the fest, Fresh Hop Farmhouse from The Commons Brewery, wasn't one of the kegs that had blown.

Beyond The Commons' offering I enjoyed Sasquatch Fresh Hopped Healy Heights, Deschutes King Cone and Pelican Elemental Ale. A surprising number I found to be only OK, ones I would have been disappointed to have ordered a full pint of and there were a few stinkers in the lot. Overall though it was a very enjoyable afternoon of drinking beers with friends and even making a new friend with a beer traveler from New Jersey.

After note: Although we went early and didn't experience the full extent of the problem of blown kegs I found it very unsettling that friends who showed up later did. Beyond that, it sounds as though the festival organizers were not informing people about the substantial lack of beer, leaving this unpleasant discovery once they had purchased their glasses and tickets and went in search of beer. Hopefully they'll make better contingent plans for the future.

Powell Estate IPA

Mid-September I spent a few hours surrounded by other beer-loving volunteers harvesting hops at Hopworks.

After our crew of 24 got done with our work the HUB brewers went to work on their end. The fruits of our labor, 82 lbs of fresh, grown-out-back hops were added to Hopworks' standard IPA.

The result, released two weeks from the day the cones were plucked off the bines, is Powell Estate IPA. Billed as being a softer version of the original, loaded with aromatics provided by the combination of Willamettes and Cascades, it is exactly that. The aroma screams "fresh hop" and compared side by side to the standard IPA there is a subtle difference in flavor that smooths out the IPA bite. Both are delicious although being one of the pickers I'd have to say the fresh hop version is better. If you get a chance, visit Hopworks soon and decide for yourself.