NW Coffee Beer Invitational - Year Two

I don't know what kind of magical powers Dave Fleming possesses but somehow both last year and this year he has arranged for the day in January of his beer festival to be one of the warmest, most beautiful days of the whole month. Kudos to him for taking a risk on an outdoor festival (albeit tented) in the middle of winter and for creating a festival that couldn't be more Pacific Northwest themed. Coffee beers aren't for everyone but apparently there are more than enough of us that are interested in seeing how some of our favorite breweries incorporate locally roasted coffee into their beers.

This year there were 16 beers available, up from 12 last year, and being brutally honest I only enjoyed about half of them. But the actual enjoyment of the beer in my glass is only part of the equation. I'm a good beer geek, always on the search for the new thing, the beer I've never had before and I know that they're not all going to be winners. Some just weren't for me, some I think could have been better crafted, yet I give everyone an A for effort for creating something I haven't had before.

It's hard for me to pick my favorite but the four that were the cream of the crop in my opinion were:
Barley Brown's Barley's Imperial Breakfast Stout - An oatmeal stout using beans from Sorbenots Coffee in Baker City, this definitely tastes like chocolatey breakfast in a glass. I'd had the regular version of the beer before and it was good but this bigger, 8.5% ABV version, really does go to the next level.

Chetco Brewing Company Black Thunder - I'm a big fan of CDAs and for me this was the love child of a CDA and a stout. Brewed with Signature Coffee from Humbolt it was a more roasty version of a stout.

Fire on the Mountain Spanish Coffee Mudd - FotM is one of our favorite eateries in town so I'm familiar with most of their beers and have had their Electric Mud chocolate oatmeal stout on many occasions. I've also been known to enjoy a Spanish coffee from time to time and they nailed the flavor profile, with beans from Spella Café, while containing the booziness to beer range.

Elysian Brewing Cthulhu Imperial Oak Aged Coffee Stout - I won't go back on my word, this beer was brewed before the recent hubbub, but as soon as I saw it in the lineup I said to myself, "This will be the last Elysian beer I drink." And it was a hell of a good-bye beer with great coffee aroma and flavor, in part from the Stumptown Cold Brew used, and that's what I want to remember about Elysian.

Besides the beer I had a great time seeing friends from some of the participating breweries and plenty of fellow beer geeks. Gathered around the sunniest of the tables (we were first in line so we quickly snagged it) it was a great afternoon chatting about the beers and what everyone had been up to since we'd last seen one another.

The unexpected highlight was having brewer/owner Mike Frederick of Chetco Brewing Company out of Brookings, OR join us. His beer is distributed by Alebriated, which is owned by a friend of mine, and he was able to stop at the festival as part of a larger trip around the area. For brewing out of a 468 square foot facility he's doing good work. The fact that his beer made my tops list had nothing to do with meeting him yesterday, that was just the icing on the cake.

Two Creative & Delicious Pumpkin Beers

Historically the only pumpkin beer I have actually enjoyed each year is Southern Tier Pumking. This year I haven't had any of it [yet] but I have found two others that shocked me by how good they were. They also served to remind me that just because I generally don't like a style of beer doesn't mean there won't be some brewer(s) out there that will use their creativity and talents to craft something delicious.

The first that captured my attention was Punkuccino from Elysian Brewing. While they utilized usual suspects cinnamon and nutmeg, it was the twist of also using coffee that really made this beer stand out for me. Specifically they added a Stumptown coffee toddy with pumpkin to the mash, kettle and fermenter.

The second made me take notice was The Dapper Skeleton from Burnside Brewing. Here the goodness is the result of a great balance of Cherry wood smoked malt, chilies and cocoa nibs. As with their Sweet Heat, the amount and type of chilies used are just right so that they are present in the beer but compliment instead of overwhelm the other ingredients.

In addition to what's contained in the bottles, both breweries did a great job with the label artwork. I'm hopeful that next year even more brewers will work outside of the standard pumpkin and spice box to create beers that rival these for my attention.

Have you had any particularly outstanding pumpkin beers?

Seattle: An Overdue Return

Our recent four-day trip to Seattle was long overdue. Not only hadn't we been there since moving to Portland over two years ago but we hadn't been there since our honeymoon, almost 10 years ago. It's not that we hadn't talked about going, we'd done plenty of that, but it was a matter of finally making plans and going. When a happy collision of scoring a free two-night stay at Hotel Monaco and realizing that the Vikings were playing at Seattle in early November occurred we decided to jump on it.

It wasn't designed to be a beer trip 100%, there was the football game to attend and the King Tut exhibit at the Pacific Science Center to see, but it wouldn't be a vacation for us without including beer, especially in a beer city like Seattle. It was the least planned trip we'd taken meaning there were some places we missed visiting because we hadn't taken into account their open hours but there was one very, very happy surprise we probably would have missed had we been on a completely planned out trip.

We kicked things off right away, walking just a couple blocks from the Amtrak train station over to Elysian. As is usually the case with beer brands we're familiar with there were their standard beers available as well as those limited, found-only-at-the-pub-or-nearby beers. All five we tried were excellent - Krokus, Omen, Humdinger, Maelstrom and Dark 'O The Moon.

After dropping our belongings off it was off to Georgetown Brewing. We made it within the last half an hour they were open and the place was hopping with people picking up growlers. We weren't interested in growlers but trying everything they had on tap which numbered nine. Lucille, the hoppiest of the bunch was the grapefruit hoppy that makes me most happy and DH369, made with last year's experimental hops now called Mosaic, was both fruity and stanky and very, very good. The biggest surprise of our time there came at the end when we tried to pay for the samples. Apparently samples, even all 10 of them, were free.

Venturing back out into the rain we made our way over to Schooner Exact, guided in at the end by the sandwich boards on the street reading, "BEER ----->." (As an aside, whenever you see these signs, follow them!) Bellying up to one of the shared tables we set about to another sampler tray. Again the hoppy one, Hop Vine, most tickled my fancy while Mag favored King Street Brown Ale, which I have to admit is probably the best brown ale I've had, due in large part to the hazelnut aspects.

That brings us to the end of our first of two beer focused outings in Seattle. Check back tomorrow to see what else we drank.

OBF: Round One

My first day attending the Oregon Brewers Festival I went, as usual, with a fairly well outlined plan of attack. Cheat sheet in hand, I was determined to cover many of the fruit beers first so as not to muddle my palate with the delicious hops I was sure to find in the IPAs that I love. Of the 12 I'd identified wanting to try I made it through 10 of them with minimal "interruptions" - a few of the "here, try this" variety, two IPAs and a visit to the sour tent.

Of those 10 fruit beers there were a few I would politely refer to as, "refreshing, like a cold glass of water is refreshing." There are bound to be some of these in any offering of fruit beers, ones where the fruit flavor just didn't come through as strongly as I was hoping (and maybe not even as strongly as the brewer was hoping for...who knows though?). The one that easily topped my list was 10 Barrel's Raspberry Crush. The raspberry flavor was well rounded, not too sweet and of course, the beer was visually breathtaking. One of my drinking companions suggested that it would make a great sorbet. I think he's right however I'm not sure I could part with any of it to make sorbet.

Also high on my list was Old Market's Cherried Alive. This 7.8% beer could be a dangerous one as it drinks more like a 4%. If you like fruit beers this will probably provide the most bang for your buck.

My only trip into the combined Buzz/Sour Tent yielded utter happiness in the form of Deschutes' Blackberry Sour Ale. I'm generally hesitant every time I plunk down two tokens, wondering if what will be poured into my glass will really be worth the heftier price. This most certainly was!

I mentioned that I had deviated, briefly, from my fruit beers first plan, inserting two IPA on my list. Both Elysian's Space Dust IPA and Flying Fish's Exit 16 Wild Rice IPA were of the delicious, stanky IPA variety that is my most favorite. They were so good that after each one I was tempted to ditch my original plan and go after more hops.

By the end I hadn't made it all the way through my list, but I'd had my fill for the first round. So I guess that means there will have to be a round two. Stay tuned for more.