SheBrew - a Beer Festival for All

This Saturday, March 4th the SheBrew Beer Festival takes place for the third year and in doing so expands on what they built the previous two years. The all ages, all genders festival is a co-production of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and the Oregon Brew Crew and has added an AHA-sanctioned home brew competition and offers beer and cider from 20 local breweries.

The home brew entries from women locally and nationally were judged last weekend at Zoiglhaus and some of the entered beers will be available for sampling at the festival. A list of the winners...perhaps a name or two will be familiar to you...selected by the judges is available and attendees will have the opportunity to vote for a People's Choice winner during the event. The Best of Show winner, who will have the opportunity to brew with Natalie Baldwin at Breakside Brewery, will also be revealed.

Things kick off at noon and go until 8pm, plenty of time to stop in after Saturday chores, between other Saturday happenings or as a place to park it for the day and enjoy all the beer/cider, food and entertainment the festival has to offer.

12pm Festival opens
12-3pm Homebrews available for sampling and voting
12-4pm Musical acts
4-8pm Comedians
8pm Festival ends (...you don't have to go home but you can't stay here...)

Tickets are currently available for those 21+ with the $20 including a tasting glass (the commemorative one to the right for the first 250 attendees) and 10 tasting tickets. Per the usual run of festivals in these parts, additional tasting tickets will be available for $1 each. And per the inclusive nature of the festival, non-drinkers and those under 21 are welcome to attend.

SheBrew Beer Festival
Saturday, March 4 12-8pm
Buckman Coffee Factory
1105 SE Main St, Portland

Super Saturday: 5 Awesome Events

Saturday will be a GREAT day to be a beer lover in Portland! And we'll be out of town...but in another good beer town (Bend). So that you can plan your day, here's a rundown the things we'd be deciding between. Do one or do 'em all!

4th NW Coffee Beer Invitational
Saturday 12-7pm
Goose Hollow Inn
1927 SW Jefferson Street

 

This is the event I am most bummed to miss! Being a coffee fiend and having attended for the first three years breaking the streak is bittersweet. This year the event will feature 14 breweries and 2 cideries inside a cozy tent in the Goose Hollow Inn parking lot. The location makes parking challenging but historically this has been one of the most enjoyable festivals we've attended due to both the small size of it and, duh, coffee beers! Dave Fleming and his wife Jean bring the neighborhood feel of the Goose Hollow Inn to the tent for a festival where you're likely to see more people you know than you have time to chat with (especially if you're going to make it to any events beyond this one). Tickets are $15, available at the door only, and in the past the two of us have been able to drink through all of the beers by sharing.

Artisinful! The Portland Beer and Chocolate Festival
Saturday 12-5pm
Culmination Brewing Company
2117 NE Oregon Street

There's always something beer-and-food going on at Culmination and after last year's success Artisinful! is returning for its second year.  Tickets are required to attend ($21) and include entry to the Chocolate Hall where 8+ local chocolatiers will be sampling and selling their chocolate, a $5 certificate good toward the purchase of chocolate, tasting glass and four tasting tickets. The tap line up will include 10+ beers that either have chocolate in them or have been selected because they pair well with chocolate. Call it an early Valentine's celebration or preparation for Valentine's Day but if you love chocolate we're told this is a not-to-miss event (which is expected to sell out again this year although tickets were still available as of 7am Friday).

New Moon Mandarin Release Party & Chinese New Year Celebration
Saturday 4-11pm
Reverend Nat's Hard Cider
1813 NE 2nd Avenue

Technically not a "beer" event, most beer drinkers also at least dabble in cider and for our money, Reverend Nat's makes some of the best. New Moon Mandarin was made by "channeling the best champagne mimosas" using heirloom apples  that were fermented with a champagne yeast and blended with orange and lemon zest, a complex background of chamomile, fennel, coriander and cardamom, finished with a touch of orange blossom honey. The cider will be available on tap, in bottles to go AND through a special randall with fresh mandarins. To accompany the cider Chinese Lucky Dragon Food Cart will be slinging crab puffs, Buddah skewers, pork belly bao, pork and vegetable pot stickers and mar far chicken wings.

Stout Bout IV: Awards Ceremony & Public Stout Tasting
Saturday 1-5pm
Baerlic Brewing Co.
2235 SE 11th Avenue

With home brewing nearly as big as commercial brewing (maybe bigger) this is one of the events throughout the year that celebrates the two. From 1-3pm attendees can sample and vote on 12 stouts that were advanced from the Portland Brewers Collective Stout Bout Home Brew Competition for free and purchase raffle tickets. For the second half of the event winners, both People's Choice and those from the judges, will be announced along with raffle winners.

Base Camp's Collabofest
Saturday 2-8pm
Base Camp Brewing Company
930 SE Oak Street

This event showcases the collaborative spirit and creativity of 15 of Portland's breweries. Attending the event means all of the beers will be available in one space but if you don't make it they will be popping up at the breweries around town in the coming days/weeks. General admission tickets are $25 +fees and include festival mug, beer festival passport and 8 tasting tickets. For those looking to get a jump on things, $40 +fees VIP tickets allow for early entry at 1pm and an upgrade from festival mug to a festival branded Miir stainless pint along with the aforementioned items.

If you're going to try to make it to all five events, godspeed. There are sure to be motivated folks who will do so; others (like us if we were in town) would probably just pick one (maybe two) to fully enjoy. But whatever you do, pick at least one (for us, if for no other reason). Cheers!

4th Annual WW Beer Pro/Am - Bigger & Better Than Ever

Saturday, amidst "Portland Windstorm '16," the 4th Annual Willamette Week Beer Pro/Am took place in the comfy, dry confines of the North Warehouse. This year there were over 30 collaborations, more than a couple which surprised me in delightful ways. I would not have thought an India Pale Lager, a Doppelbock, a Yerba Mate-containing beer or a couple of Belgian styles would have hit the right notes with me. Yet they did, along with a sour, a couple of IPAs and a beer based on one of my favorite Girl Scout cookies. Quite an array of beers, no?

I was also thrilled to be part of the judging team that awarded Great Notion and Chad Graham's Amprosia Saison as the Judge's Choice winner. A beautiful color with a nicely sour nose and flavor, this pair - which I know both the pros and the amateur - showcased their talents with mixed fermentation and fruit. Runner up aka Honorable Mention went to the team of Rogue and Tracy Hensley for their barreled Belgian brew that combined the worlds of beer and wine.

The People's Choice went to one of the beers with a great name - Ex Novo and Jack Hall's It Burns When IPA, a jalapeno cream ale that had balanced heat and I'd love to have with nachos. Tied for People's Choice Honorable Mention were Fort George and Chris McNeel's The Doomed Rider, a wee heavy that was smoky and sweet and Bretta Persica, the Brett fermented IPA on nectarines from Coalition and Jon and Parker Hall that was fruity, dry and tart.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the most unique beer of the festival, Barely Legal Hazy CBD IPA. This creation came from Dean Pottle, Portland beer scene legend and proprietor of Dean's Scene, who passed away days earlier. CBD, the non-psychoactive substance in marijuana, was infused into a New England style IPA and I for one found the aroma of freshly harvested hops rolled between my palms and the flavor that mirrored it to be delicious.

In addition to the beers the food from both of the carts on hand - Thrive Sauce and Bowls (formerly Thrive NW) and PDX Sliders - were delicious and offered exactly what was needed to soak up all the liquid goodness.

There could have been more port-a-potties (are there ever enough at "that time" at a beer festival?) and it did get crowded as the afternoon went on but overall every year Steph Barnhart has improved this festival. (The charging station was a new addition that hopefully will become a festival feature as common as water stations.) I look forward to next year's iteration with great anticipation!

Creeping Charlie

Disclaimer: THIS beer was not brewed with Creeping Charlie.
It did catch my eye as a nice background.

No, it's not the name of yet another new brewery opening, rather it's something found in many lawns, especially in the Midwest. On a recent trip home my dad was once again beginning his yearly battle against his greatest lawn enemy. Then mere days later a friend mentioned that he didn't care that most people hated Creeping Charlie, he liked it and was going to let it flourish in his lawn. Circling back to my dad, in a call to wish my mom a happy Mother's Day, he mentioned he had heard on some program he was watching/listening to that Creeping Charlie could be used instead of hops in making beer. I threw the question out to the interwebs and one of my Facebook friends was kind enough to dig up some information.

As I had suspected, and shared with my dad, Creeping Charlie would most likely have been used as heather has been in gruit-style beer. Sure enough, not only is that the case but apparently that application of Creeping Charlie was common enough to have earned itself an alternate name - alehoof.

Going back a millennia, Creeping Charlie has been known as a medicinal herb that is extremely high in Vitamin C, making it a great way to prevent scurvy. There are plenty of other medicinal uses for it and apparently it can be part of your next salad as it's a member of the mint family, just don't eat a whole bowl of it as there could be some dangerous side effects of gorging on it.

But what about brewing with it? This guy, who sounds like he would fit in perfectly in Portland, but currently resides in Hamilton, Ontario, posted a beer recipe using solely Creeping Charlie after a couple of previous attempts in which he used it in conjunction with hops. This time he was going all in but unfortunately there was some pretty massive fermentation happening (according to follow up notes) causing his glass carboy to explode and thus preventing him from sampling the beer.

I'll definitely be sharing all of this with my dad although I'm sure he'll continue his fight against what he sees as a stubborn weed. But perhaps for those with less old-school, more progressive views on what a lawn can be this may be an enlightening look at a plant that's great ground cover (another alternate name being ground ivy) and might just be worth cultivating for a future hop-less homebrew.

Many thanks to Michael Agnew who dug up the articles I've linked to. Perhaps he'll don his homebrewing hat for a batch of Creeping Charlie brew and fill us in on how it turned out.

Beer in the Name of Philanthropy

I'll take just about any excuse to enjoy beer and it's even better when I can claim it's also philanthropic. One smart organization, Her Human Rights Campaign (HRC), took advantage of the great Portland beer culture to throw a fundraising event that was part beer festival, part homebrew competition.

To comply with regulations She Brew, a collaborative event between HRC and the Ladies of Lagers and Ales (LOLA), was a private, members-only event with pre-event memberships (and therefore entrance to the event) going for a mere $20. In addition to nine generous local breweries donating kegs, nine homebrewing ladies took the time to make a beer to donate to the festival. Surprisingly, out of the 18 total beers there were only two IPAs - Widmer's Upheaval IPA and one homebrew IPA. The homebrew was the first IPA this lady had brewed and while the lack of aroma hops was unfortunate, the other 13 hop varieties that were used combined to make one very tasty IPA.

Each person was given one ticket to vote for their favorite among the homebrews presented. While the coffee stout and the CDA were my personal top two, it was the coffee red brewed by Jodi Campbell that took first place. The coffee stout, brewed by Jamie Koty, took second place with the English Porter from Lee Hedgmon coming in third.

L to R: Jodie, Lee & Jamie (photo courtesy of Jodie Campbell)

This was a good first time event and I'm pleased that they are planning on doing it again next year. Huge thanks go out to the homebrewers and breweries that donated their beers!

For those interested here's the full list of what was poured:
Homebrews
Sulawesi Coffee Stout
Cascadian Dark Ale
Not the Tudors English Porter
Hot Mess Honey Brown
Rye Red
IPA
Coffee Red
Red Clover Irish Red
Belgian Wit
Commercial Brews
Lompoc/LOLA Collaboration LOLAmpac Clan Wee Heavy
Lucky Lab Hellraiser ESB
Full Sail Nut Brown
Widmer Upheaval IPA
Ecliptic Procyon Pale Ale
Reverend Nat's Revelation Newtown Pippin
Breakside Irish Stout
P.U.B. Funky Monkey Belgian Pale
Old Town Brewing Blasted Juice American Malt Liquor

Musings on Homebrewer of the Year

Thanks to one of the many beer related emails that hit my inboxes daily, I found out that this year's winner of the AHA title "Homebrewer of the Year" is a woman. I also found out that Annie Johnson is the first woman to claim that title in 30 years. Not only that, her entry was a light lager.

First of all, congrats to Annie! Sitting at the top of the heap of 3,400 entries is pretty darn cool and something she's likely put years and years into achieving.

Second, I think the fact that a light lager was able to win the competition speaks to growing popularity of lower alcohol, lighter beers. I have friends who have gotten tired of super-hopped beers and who are looking for well-made, sessionable counterparts to the IPAs/DIPAs/Imperial IPAs that I love. There is, of course, also the argument to be made that making a quality light beer takes much more finesse than dumping in as many hops as one can, letting them and a higher alcohol content gloss over imperfections.

Third, and this is a point that I hope I am able to phrase appropriately, I would be remiss in my thoughts on this brewer if I didn't also include the fact that Annie is black. For years Mag and I have commented on the very noticeable lack of non-white people at beer festivals. It seems to extend to the brewing industry in general as well. I find it odd and wonder why that's the case. If you have any theories or if you're a non-white craft beer drinker or brewer I'd love to hear what you think.

Have a great 4th everyone and whether you reach for a sessionable lager, a pucker-inducing sour or a steroid-hopped brew, enjoy!