2 Days, 10 Events (at least)

We have a busy beer weekend coming up with at least 10 beer events taking place, all of which we'd be at if we could clone ourselves. Alas, science still has a long way to go in that area. Thankfully the science of brewing fantastic beer is well developed so make your plans and enjoy!

Friday
Cascade Brewing Sour Fruit Fest - This festival actually kicked off on Wednesday and will run through Sunday, at both the SE Belmont location and the SW Raccoon Lodge. There will be 50 exclusive Cascade fruit sour beers rotating through the festival, 25 daily at Belmont and 10 daily at the Raccoon Lodge. Noon - close daily through Sunday.

Roscoe's Stout Summit - As with all their summits, this one will start Friday and run through the weekend or until the kegs blow. A full tap list is pending but the preliminary list includes some that were at last weekend's Festival of the Dark Arts and others that weren't. Taster trays available. 2pm - Sunday 8pm.

Montavilla Brew Works beer release - Conveniently located just blocks from Roscoe's, the folks at Montavilla are combining the release of their Dark Cherry Porter with the 28th anniversary of Johnny Cash's San Quentin Prison performance. Beer at 3pm, concert showing at 5:30pm.

Three Magnets/Logsdon Tap Takeover at Beer Belly - We'll be honest, we were involved in setting up this event and we want to have great turn out. Beyond that Three Magnets and Logsdon make great beer and this is an opportunity to try over a dozen of beers, many which are difficult to find elsewhere. 4pm - close.

Saturday

Hillsdale Brewfest (aka Battle for the Belt) - This long running festival, now in its 24th year, has been a great time every time we've attended. Yes, it's a McMenamins-only beer festival but this is where you'll see the best of what the brewers at each of the 22 McMenamins locations that are participating can turn out. It's a sample-style format, available by the tray (each tray containing 11 beers) and not only does the winner get bragging rights but also the championship belt. 11am - close.

Zwicklemania beyond Portland - The zwickling continues this weekend, the first time for the Oregon Brewers Guild to have expanded the open house-style event to two weekends. Breweries outside of the Portland metro will be open so if you're in the mood to hop in the car there are plenty of options to choose from. Pick a direction and go. 11am - 4pm

StormBreaker 3rd Annual Brewstillery Festival - We talked about this in detail on Tuesday and you can read that here but the short of it is that there will be 21 beer + spirit pairings. Noon - 8pm (VIP entry at 11am).

Lompoc Black Out Beer Festival - In the 5th edition of this event there will be 25 dark beers - porters, stouts, coffee beers and black IPAs - inside Sidebar and in the heated tent in the adjacent parking lot of Fifth Quadrant. Noon - 10pm.

Triple IPA Fest at N.W.I.P.A. - If big, hoppy beers are your thing, this is the place to be. And if trying all of them is your thing, you're in luck. Beers will be poured in 2oz sizes, up to six at a time. 2pm - midnight.

PDX Bottle Share - Open to anyone, this rotating-location bottle share takes place this time at John's Marketplace in Multnomah Village. The standard "entry fee" is one bottle (typically a 22oz/750ml) and it's a great opportunity to try a variety of beers the generous folks in the beer community have acquired. 2pm

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.

Killer Beer Week Kicks Off

Killer Beer Week, curated by Brewpublic founder Angelo De Ieso II, officially kicked off Sunday night at Roscoe's. Showing up right as the festivities were getting underway meant a bit of a wait as the efficient staff got everyone squared away with their first round. It also gave me time to peruse the beer list and narrow it down to my (first) four pours.

Courtesy of Roscoe's

When it was my turn I placed my order, got my set of beers back quickly and set about reviewing my order to figure out which to have first. About that time I felt something was amiss. The sample on the left didn't look like what I expected it would and a sideways glance at the menu I had borrowed from a fellow bar mate gave me pause. It turns out he had an early version of the menu and the beers had been reordered. Amazingly there was actually one of the four that I meant to order sitting in front of me. Giving it up to the "oh well, I was going to order more anyways" I set about investigating what was in front of me. Forgoing a long, blow-by-blow description, suffice it to say the one I meant to order was my least favorite of the four. And one I probably would have passed up ended up being one of the favorites of the night.

I tried less than half of the beers being offered but my two favorites were so good I can't resist sharing them. The first, the one I probably wouldn't have ordered was a one-off fresh hopped keg from Deschutes cleverly named Open Mike Night IPA (for Mike Foy). The aroma could be called off putting, but that's only if you don't like a "litter box" smell (which I recently realized I DO). The flavor was completely different - a very bright, grapefruity IPA.

My other favorite shouldn't come as a surprise as it's a second favorite style of mine and the beer is a GABF Silver Medal winner. That would be none other than German Sparkle Party, a tart German wheat beer, from 10 Barrel. Great name and an even better beer, it's one I hope to find more of around town.

Speaking of around town, Killer Beer Week offers up events each night. Here's the down and dirty:
Monday - Killer Pumpkin Fest at Green Dragon
Tuesday - Washington Killer Beer Night at Salmon Creek
Wednesday - Sean/Shawn/Shaun Fest at The BeerMongers
Thursday - Bend Killer Brewers Night at The BeerMongers
Friday - Brewpublic's 4th Brewniversary at Saraveza
Saturday - Killer Beer Fest at Bailey's Taproom
Sunday - Yetta's Recovery Beerunch at The Hop & Vine
For full details, check out Brewpublic's event calendar.

Besides great beer it was great to see so many familiar faces, chat and enjoy the evening as I suspect Angelo intended all of us thirsty folks to do. Perhaps we'll see each other at one of these events. Cheers!

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.

Is the Whole Greater Than the Sum of its Parts?

Roscoe's held another of their summits on Friday, this time a collaboration summit, showcasing collaboratively made beers. There were 14 to choose from and since I was flying solo I had to be brutal with my decision about who would get cut and who would make it on my sampler tray. I was able to narrow it down to five, what I hoped to be outstanding, beers.

Rosconian Cream Ale - The first of two collaborations involving Roscoe's, this was brewed by Flat Tail. The flavor was delicate and pleasant as one would expect from a cream ale but it was the mouthfeel that really hooked me. Although probably deviating from style the wasabi, Kaffir lime and ginger worked well together and I would enjoy seeing this on from time to time at Roscoe's.
Roscoeweizen - The other Roscoe's collaboration paired them with Rock Bottom to produce a hoppy wheat beer. The wheat characteristics came out more as the beer warmed but they were subtle and offered a great backdrop for the Amarillo hops this beer was brewed with.
Sobrehumano - This was the choice I was least sure about, coming from Maui and Jolly Pumpkin, but I couldn't resist the fact that it was made with Michigan cherries. Those cherries were strongly evident in the delicious aroma although didn't carry through to create the beautiful, crisp, red appearance I had hoped for. Setting aside the visual aspect the cherries made a reappearance in the flavor leaving a very pleasant lingering flavor in the mouth.

 

Astoria on the Rock - I had high hopes for this one, a collaboration between Fort George and Dunedin, which if you remember put in a showing at OBF. Being an imperial IPA, a style I readily enjoy, I was surprised to find that from the very first sip all the way through finishing the taster, that I really didn't enjoy it. Although I couldn't put my finger on what turned me off about it I suspect it may have been the hop variety/varieties that were used.

Flanders Fred - I purposely saved this one for last. In addition to being made in part by Hair of the Dog, it was one of the higher alcohol offerings. Starting with the aroma, lambic no doubt!, and continuing through to the flavor this beer was too good for words. It was so good that I strongly considered ordering another sampler or possibly even a goblet of it. If you can't get it on tap I believe it may be available in bottles. Surely it'll be on the more expensive side but trust me, it's worth it.

It wouldn't be a trip to Roscoe's without eating and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the awesome food I had. Starting off I couldn't pass up the special - two soft shell crab sliders for $5.25. Then from the the sushi menu, the Ricky's special and finally for dessert, my favorite sushi house offering - salmon roe with quail eggs.

Seeing as how the summit was just two days ago I think there's a good chance there are still some, maybe even many, of the collaboration beers left. So if you didn't make it to Roscoe's yet now is the time to go. Because really, today is a second Saturday for most of us so go make the most of it!

 

(Beer menu photo courtesy of Jeremy Lewis.)

Two Loves, Combined

I did it. Finally. On a Monday night no less. That’s right, I’m no longer a Roscoe’s virgin.

What pushed me over the edge? What temptation was it I could no longer resist? Sushi. Not just any sushi, but sushi paired with the bittered nectar of the gods, beer.

Although my love of sushi is strong and my love of beer uncontested, combining the two in a planned way was something I found to be intimidating. If done improperly, instead of complimenting one another one might overpower the other or they might clash in a horrific way. I’d be left unsatisfied and resentful of squandering two things that are exquisite on their own.
Of the eight pairings Roscoe’s, and their neighbor Miyamoto Sushi, offered, four passed my lips.

Those four were chosen based more so on the sushi side of the equation, with the beer pairing barely taken into consideration. In fact it’s unlikely that I would order a pint of any of these four beers on their own. Both the Gratzer and the Flora Rustica and not styles I tend to prefer, Kolsches don’t generally do much for me and the Hibiscus Ginger, while intriguing, would get the most cred in my book by the fact that Caldera makes it.

As is to be expected when ordering sushi, the presentation was beautiful. After tasting each of the pairings it was clear that the thought put into the beer selections were equal to the care put into the making of the sushi and I thoroughly enjoyed all four. I could have easily been convinced to order those same four again or taken on the next four were it not for the 82^nd Po-boy with tots patiently waiting on the table, which turned out to be delicious as well. (As a side note, if you are a Taco John’s potato ole fan, these tots are the closest thing I’ve ever had – yum!)

Left to right: #3 Escolar Roll w/Upright Flora Rustica, #8 Black Tiger Roll w/Burnside Gratzer, #6 Hamachi Roll w/Caldera Hibiscus Ginger, #1 Sexy Magic Roll w/Oakshire Daily Dose Kolsch

If you weren’t able to make it to this event, I’m sorry. It was a great time and at only $15 for all of that food and beer you see in the picture, an absolute steal. But don’t be too sad. Miyamoto sushi can be ordered and eaten along with beer at Roscoe’s any evening until 1 am. And keep your eyes open for me because this first visit is the kind of visit that ensures I’ll be making my way back for more.

A big thanks to all the folks that worked hard and worked together to put this on. You did great!