The Champagne of Blogs

Today, Sarah and I attended the reception for entrants in the 2008 BridgePort Hop Harvest Homebrew Competition at Bridgeport’s Pearl District Location. Faithful readers of the blog may remember the sad fate of my intended entry, whose over-hopped-ness resulted in what may be the bitterest liquid to have ever passed my lips.

In hopes of entering the contest again this year, I attempted redemption, remembering something I read awhile back in “Beer: The Story of the Pint ,” an out of print history of beer. According to the book legend, the Porter style was born in attempting a re-creation of “Three Threads,” a labor-intensive 18th-Century beverage combining equal parts ale, beer and “twopenny,” aka strong ale. The author doubts have been raised as to the veracity of this legend, but the idea of mixing different beers to create something better appealed to me.

To that end, I decided to create a new beer based on the hyper-bitter fresh hop beer combining the uber-bitter with a second batch of beer, this one with no bittering hops at all. I brewed a very simple five gallon batch of wort using 6 pounds Extra Light dried malt extract that I dry-hopped with 2 ounces of Amarillo pellets.

On bottling day, I siphoned off the bitter brew into my bottling bucket first, bottling a few bottles at 100% strength to see how they’d change with some age (I suspect they will be no more drinkable in a year, but who knows?). The bitter beer filled the bucket about halfway, and I topped off with the non-bitter beer. After gently stirring a few minutes, I bottled with that mixture until the bucket was half empty, and I again topped off with the non-bitter. In this way, I created three different blends of the beer, which was kind of fun.

After letting the different blends percolate in the bottle for 10 days, I sampled the 50% bitter and 33% bitter mixtures, eventually selecting the least-bitter beer for my entry. Last Sunday, I dropped off three 12-ounce bottles and my completed entry form.

Karl Ockert (Bridgeport’s Brewmaster) and Jeff Edgerton (Assistant Brewmaster) greeted Sarah and I when we arrived at noon, and presented us with a souvenir gift bag as thanks. Sitting down at one of the linen-covered, candlelit tables, I pawed through the bag’s contents: a “Keep Portland Beered!” bumper sticker, the ubiquitous Bridgeport keychain, and three custom golf tees. The highlight was definitely a 22 ounce bottle of the 2008 Hop Harvest Ale. “A pretty good exchange for three bottles of poorly-made homebrew,” I thought to myself. A few minutes later, Jeff sweetened the pot still further with a “Keep Portland Beered” t-shirt that he forgot to add to the bags on first pass. Score!

I made my way to the bar and ordered a Hop Harvest. At last year’s reception, they had several vintages of Hop Harvest on tap, which was fun to compare, but this year they had just the 2008 version (in addition to their regular lineup).

My first sip was somewhat reassuring – the Hop Harvest this year has a pretty bitter kick, with 70 IBUs, and an alcohol backbone to handily deliver the blow. My beer, “Two Threads IPA,” had bitterness and alcohol, too! But, there was a fresh, “green” quality to the Bridgeport version that mine was lacking completely. My beer was pretty one-dimensional, while theirs had complexity and some depth.

At 12:45 or so, the complimentary buffet was unveiled. Last year’s spread was pretty incredible to this bunch of unshaven beer nerds, and this year’s smorgasbord was no different. I loaded up my tiny plate to overflowing with homemade pretzels, various works of charcuterer’s art, chicken skewers, baked brie and Old Knucklehead BBQ meatballs. I’d have taken pictures, but my hands were pretty full trying to keep the free food on my plate!

Once the crowd of 25 brewers and companions had been through the serving line, Karl gave a photo slideshow on the hop harvesting process as well as their fresh hop brewing process. This year’s Hop Harvest gained its fresh hop flavor using a hopjack/hopback exclusively, filtering the cooled wort through 220 pounds of fresh Centennial cones before diverting to the fermenter. Last year’s version got its fresh hops after primary fermentation, injecting 250+ pounds with a fresh dose of sugar and letting the beer further condition in the fermenter before bottling. It was really interesting to hear first-hand how they approach the problem, and tinker with the recipe. Apparently, this year’s version is based on an old version of Blue Heron, amped up a bit to get to 7% abv.

Karl sat with Sarah and I before the slideshow, and he mentioned his frustration with some of the blogs’ Diageo bias. According to Karl, Diageo is just 20 people in an office in Texas, and he has complete freedom to brew whatever he wants. The only limiting factor is the size of their brewing setup: Bridgeport brews in such large quantities it can be hard to “fail.” Every new beer they make is a “live fire” at full scale.

Through the slideshow, he dropped a few more tidbits, talking about the severe, and largely silent malt price increases (doubled in 2008 and will likely double again in 2009), as well as the his prediction that the hop shortage should be largely over in 2009 as new acreage comes online.

Finally, it was time to reveal the winners. From 28 brewers and 41 entries using 12 hop varieties, the folks at Bridgeport selected 5 prize winners:

• Honorable Mention: Mark Easton, “IPA Lot,” featuring Cascade, Crystal and Willamette Hops
• Honorable Mention: Steve Brainerd, “Wet Cascade IPA,” featuring Cascade Hops
• Third Place: Tom Litwin, “Chicken Creek Fall Classic # 2,” featuring Cascade, Simcoe and Amarillo Hops
• Second Place: Steve Munch, Ray Berardinelli, Dean Duncan and Steve Carter, “Harvest Gold,” featuring home-grown Cascade and Willamette Hops
• First Place: Krisen Lunden, “Felony Flats Fresh Hop Ale,” featuring home-grown Goldings and Willamette Hops

Predictably, my beer was not selected as a winner, but it was again a lot of fun, and I really thank Bridgeport for putting such a cool event on. I will definitely enter again next year.

If I could provide one critique (since they apparently listened last year and pushed the entry deadline back!), though, it would be this:

Sam Adams’ Longshot contest is not as awesome in either the prize or reception department, but one thing I do like is that they provide entrants tasting notes and feedback. It’s not often we get direct access to some of our favorite brewers, and it would be nice to hear some tips from the Bridgeport gang on where we went south. To Karl’s credit, he took notes on the beers he tasted and willingly shared his thoughts after the presentation to those who asked, but he only tasted the top 12 entries and so had incomplete notes. Of particular interest, Karl mentioned in his presentation that there were some infected beers and some that went too far in the opposite direction: they were infected with sanitizer. I hope I wasn’t in either category, but I don’t have any good way of knowing.