The Champagne of Blogs

This year might be the year of the Belgians. The prediction isn’t based on any sort of scientific study, just a feeling that I get looking at the local tap lists and Oregon beers coming out.

Last night at Bailey’s Tap Room, I sampled:

• Roots Flanders Red

• Russian River’s Salvation Belgian Brown
• Hale’s Ales Cerberus Tripel
• Dick’s Raspberry Tripel

I stumbled over to Deschutes, where they had their original D Straat Dubbel on tap, as well as their Maiden Oregon Belgian Amber, a 100% Oregon beer for our fair state’s 150th anniversary.

Given all those, plus Bridgeport’s Stumptown Tart (marionberry Belgian), Deschutes’ Dissident, the mass appeal of Coor’s Blue Moon Belgian White, and the fact that Budweiser is now owned by InBev, a Belgian conglomerate, I think the Oregon beer palate will be moving more toward a beer that goes well with pom frites and cyclocross.

What do you think? Are there more sours and Belgians in our future?

Editor’s note: we’re going to be posting recaps of all our Bay Area beer stops over the next week or so, but they won’t likely be in chronological order as we aggregate content from about 5 cameras, 3 twitter feeds, and four Flip MinoHD. We’ll put together a central list of our stops in order sometime, but bear with us as we get the content out first and foremost.

Day two of our San Francisco beer trip had us departing Ashland for northern California, but not before hitting Caldera Brewing. I’d e-mailed ahead of time, hoping to secure a tour. Like Portland’s Hair of the Dog, Caldera makes some great beers, but they don’t have much of a tasting area, and they’re not in what I’d call a real tourist area. It proved to be worth the effort, though, as Caldera ended up being one of our favorite stops on the trip.

When we arrived, Brewer Todd was in the thick of things, working on a batch of Ashland Amber. Even though he was the only one working, he was a gracious host, handing each of us a glass before returning to the 10- barrel brew kettle, adding as he gestured toward the array of taps, “You guys know what to do with those, right?”

Yeah, I’m pretty sure we do, Todd. Take your time.

In an attempt to take one for the team, I went for the Ginger Beer (contains alcohol) first, a decision I was pleasantly surprised with. Unlike Laughing Buddha’s super-sweet-soda-pop version, this one had a nice, dry finish with well-balanced ginger. A great crisp start to my beer drinking for the day.

While Todd brewed, we wandered around the brewery, discovering interesting bits at every turn, including this bit of brewer’s wisdom.

Every few minutes, Todd would step away from the brewing and show us another nook or cranny of the building. When he returned to the kettle, we’d fill up on beer and wander around. Here’s Nate posing with either the Smoker’s Stout or the Old Growth Imperial Stout (my favorite of the two, it includes pink peppercorns, licorice and chocolate in the brew, none of which are very prominent). How do you think the tour’s going?

The brewery includes the usual array of fermenters, pipes, hoses and wet floor, but I’d never been in a beer vault before. Floor to ceiling kegs and cans – I asked if I could sleep there overnight, but thought better of it when I glanced at a thermometer on the wall that read 40 degrees. I guess the Old Growth was keeping me warm inside.

Caldera is probably best known for two things:

1. Their Dry Hop Orange (regularly on tap at the Horse Brass), and
2. Their cans, which we wrote a bit about last week.

The canning line was quite a bit smaller than I’d imagined, and looked a lot more DIY. In total, it was probably about 20 feet long, and looked as though it would can about 10 beers at a time.

Empty cans are open at the top to accomodate filling, and then the pull-tab lid is crimped on by machine. The “fishnets” are applied by hand at the end. Todd noted that he tried to schedule his brew days when there was canning going on so he could avoid the noisy task.

Todd also let us in on a few tidbits while we were wandering around. Firstly, Caldera intends to start bottling some special releases in 22s later in the year. Secondly, they will begin canning their Ashland Amber sometime in the next few months. Here’s a sneak peek at the label.

We were only there for about 45 minutes, but Todd really made a good impression, showing us around with a smile, and answering more than a few dumb questions. It was really inspirational to see how DIY Caldera Brewing really was, and how hard they work to bring their beer to market. Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in the tasting notes, and forget the people that make the beers we drink possible. Thanks for a great tour, Todd. Stay awesome.

This beer trip to the Bay Area has been just awesome. We finished our final night at 21st Amendment Brewery in downtown San Francisco by the ballpark. Huge, heavy hitter beers all over 8%! OK, there was like one beer that was 5% but the rest were like 9% and 11%! Afterwards, we headed over to Chinatown IN A LIMO that our new best friend Matt hooked us up with. And then things went a little sideways. For one, we drank some crazy Chinese whiskey that tasted a little sweet and herbal. A few beers later, apparently Dave got a little punchy (literally, Dave likes to throw punches when he’s really drunk) which caused Dan to… Well, anyway, the end result was that Dave’s glasses are broken and it was apparently a quiet march back to the hotel. After we tucked Dave in, a few of us snuck back out again through the phallanx of transvestite prostitutes (“If she ain’t a dude, then why is she wearing a scarf with that mini-skirt?”) to the R Bar to finish in style: shots, Coors Lights, Jaeger Bombs, and a comemorative coozy that says, “Pregnant chicks drink for free.” San Francisco gave us great weather, amazing scenery, lots of new friends, and an appreciation for the Cali beers. Oregon may be home, but there’s a warm spot in our hearts and dark spot on our livers for San Francisco.

Samplers are turning into chugging contests at Moylans. This may be what Malcolm Gladwell would refer to as “the tipping point.” As in, “it’s pretty easy to tip Jay over after he drank that much so quickly.”