(pictures coming soon — hopefully)

Wallace Brewing
During 2008’s snOMG (or Snowpocalypse), the missus and I ventured east to Montana for the holidays. We arrived at our halfway point — Wallace, ID — a little frazzled from crazy roads and a harried departure. There, we discovered a little restaurant called the 1313 Club, and its tiny neighbor brewery called Wallace Brewing. It wasn’t open, but this year, we made it back to Wallace before the tasting room closed.

Generally, the beer at Wallace felt weak compared to many of my favorite Oregon breweries. For one, I think most of their beers had an original gravity of under 1.045, translating to low ABVs. The body mostly wasn’t there. Their cream stout felt nice and bitter. The Red Light amber had a decent malty sweetness.

We bought a growler of the Red Light amber, mostly to see if having a full pint would somehow impart more body than you can get from a tiny glass (hey, I’m not above mind games). We threw it in the trunk and continued on.

It actually tasted a little better two days later. Go figure.

I will definitely stop at Wallace again. If nothing else, their beer has such little alcohol that I don’t feel bad about sampling a small beer before heading back onto the freeway.

Bozeman Brewing
We made it out to Bozeman, where we sampled the Bozeman Brewing (Bozone!) Amber, which is a lusciously sweet amber. It kinda reminds me of dipping my finger into a bucket of malt extract, only with suds. Yum. While skiing up at Bridger Bowl, I also had their winter seasonal, “Steep and Deep,” which was a bittersweet stout (I think). Also good. But the best thing Bozone has to offer is their wicked cool growler.

Madison River Brewing Co.
We took a day off from skiing, and we ventured northeast to Belgrade, MT, about 20 minutes up I-90 from Bozeman to Madison River Brewing Co. Madison River is way bigger than I thought. They do all the contract brewing for Wyoming’s Big Hole Brewing and Utah’s Moab Brewery. I’ve seen Big Hole and Madison River six-packs at Montana and Idaho grocery stores.

Amanda picked their Scotch Ale for her growler. It’s a bit of a tradition of ours to get a pint on the way out of the Bozeman Airport. It’s a dark, peaty, heavy Scotch ale that drinks like a meal.

We also sampled their double IPA, which was a relatively low 7.8% ABV but thick with Amarillo and Simcoe hops. I rate it a 3.5 out of 5. We tried a few others, all of which were quite good. My favorite, however, was their traditional German Hefeweizen. Unlike your cloudy and sweet American Hefeweizen — Widmer, Pyramid, etc — it was zesty and spicy. I got a growler, and it was fantastic.

Double Mountain Brewing
Our long drive home went faster than planned, so we treated ourselves to a stop at Double Mountain Brewery. Nothing like a spicy Jersey Pie and a Hop Lava to make those last rainy, foggy, twisty miles of driving through the Gorge go a little easier. We also picked up a growler of 85 IBU (!!) Fa La La La La La La La La, which is their heavy holiday ale. Delicious.

It seemed like a good time to bring this up, because if you’re going to plant hops to use this year, you need to do it in the next week or so. (And because I stumbled across these photos and realized I never used them. Ha!)

2 oz of Cascade Hops

My expectations were low, but I used a fair amount of compost and water anyway. Every day when I got home from work, I’d wobble over to the raised beds in my bike shoes to see if there was any growth. It was a sad (and scary) site with me in my spandex peering into the dirt, hoping for some sign of life.

Growing Hops in our Raised Beds

Eventually, the hops did grow. You can see the “bounty” of the first year in the photo below. I believe that’s my Cascade hops hanging off the bamboo trellis I used.

Taking Down the Bamboo Hops Trellis

Tending your hops by using lots of compost and keeping the ground moist if you’re in a container or raised beds are the two simplest steps you can take to get a decent crop your first year.

I am convinced I would’ve had a lot more hops with a little more attention. The mistake I made was not fighting off the insects (aphids) that attacked all three varieties of hops. The homegrown Magnum hops below were certainly the most aggressive, but also were laid low by the aphids. You can see I got less than an ounce of Magnum hops.

0.7 oz of Magnum Hops

And you’ll also notice that I’m not showing the crop of Willamette hops that I grew. That’s because I didn’t get a single hop cone of Willamette hops. The aphids just knocked it down. In fact, I think my Willamette hop plant never got higher than six feet. This year, I won’t make that mistake. A little insect soap will go a long way.

So here’s the recipe for the 8022 Red I made with my fresh hops last fall:

• 1 lb 40L Crystal malt
• 1/2 lb 50L Caramel malt
• 1/4 lb Flaked corn
• 9 lbs extra light malt extract
• 1.5 oz fresh Cascade hops (boiling)
• 0.7 oz fresh Magnum hops (boiling)
• 0.6 oz fresh Cascade hops (aroma)
• Wy’East American Ale Yeast

It is, unsurprisingly, a very sweet ale. But it’s my sweet fresh hop ale, made with my homegrown hops.

Delicious BBQ with a Weber and a Smokenator

In the world of BBQ, I am puny, puny amateur. But this year might be a turning point. For one, I finally found a good BBQ store in Hometown Hearth and Grills. Having secured wood for smoking (cherry, alder, maple, oak) to go along with the Smokenator (my Smokenator review), I have also tricked most of the family into thinking there is magic in my grill. I am proud to say that people have requested my BBQ — yes, they have of their own free will actually asked me to bring BBQ to the family gatherings.

That said, BBQ season in Oregon doesn’t really kick off until June or so due to what I will charitably describe as variable weather conditions. But I want to go into the 2009 BBQ season at full speed, so I figured I’d better start early.

Three weeks ago, I set up the pop-up tent (a must-have for the year-round cook in Oregon) and invited the boys over for beer and BBQ. (Have you seen Dave’s insane recipe for Broken Shard ChardonnIPA yet?)

We had three kettles going for beer-brewing, while I had two racks of ribs going over maple in the Weber with the Smokenator.

I rubbed the ribs with a cup of brown sugar, two tablespoons of kosher salt, and two tablespoons of chili powder. They smoked for three hours at about 240 degrees. Mistake No. 1: too hot!

Then I let them rest in a foil packet in the oven for 215 degrees. Mistake No. 2: I forgot to put honey and whiskey into the foil packets.

Then I forgot about the ribs completely, since we were drinking Belgian Kriek beers like they were going out of style. I served the ribs almost straight out of the oven. Mistake No. 3: I prefer to let them rest for 30 minutes in the foil (but out of the oven) and then throw them on a very hot grill before serving.

All in all, the ribs were pretty good. Not great, but pretty good. It goes to show that pre-season is where you work out the kinks.

Today, I’m test-driving some sausages from Woodstock’s Otto’s Sausage Kitchen with cherry wood. I’ve never smoked anything with cherry wood before, so it’s good to try it when only my wife and I will suffer if it was a bad call.

Everyone needs some funny-looking boots for pre-season BBQ

But no worries. A little rain now will make the summertime all the sweeter. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go check those sausages.

So here’s a few tips I’ll take with me into Year Two of growing hops at home:

1. Keep watering the hops. I grew mine in a raised bed, and it can get a little dry. Don’t soak ‘em, but keep it moist. Especially in the first year.
2. Don’t be stingy with the compost. Again, especially in that first year where you’re trying to get that little hops rhyzome to bloom. I used mushroom compost, and added a few handfuls to enrich the soil when I planted, and then once during the early summer. I think this year I might add compost a little earlier and a shade later.
3. Keep the bugs at bay. This was the biggest limiter I had with the hops in Year One. A little bug soap goes a long way when you start noticing little crawly critters on your beloved hops.

All in all, I can’t see why any homebrewer with a little patch of sunlight wouldn’t try growing hops themselves. It’s ridiculously easy and incredibly satisfying to toss your own homegrown hops into a batch.

The Muddy Rudder in Sellwood

Trying out Sellwood’s Muddy Rudder. Lovely old wood décor. Feels very throw-back with old model boats and a bus or trolley sign from a few decades ago. Comfy benches and nautical knick-knacks mix easily with a decent beer and wine selection. The menu, however, isn’t the working-class pub fare we hoped for. Rather, it’s just on the wrong side of hippy and frou-frou. Still, we’ll be back again, because this place just feels right.

And I managed to get some of the last HUB 150. Outstanding. A lady next to us said she didn’t like floral hop characteristics of the HUB 150. Which, to me, is like saying you don’t like America. Anyway, it’s a floral, citrusy hop syrup. Drink with abandon!

And I just found another ticket. Not sure what I’ll try next. I’ve heard good thing about the Rogue Ales Mogul strong ale. We’ll see…

How’s that beer? Firkin’ great!

Anyhoo. Am trying the Laurelwood Workhorse IPA. Delicious. It’s what I refer to as a full-mouth IPA, because it hits all the IPA notes with their blend of hops. Well played, Laurelwood. Well-played.

I think Roots Nevermind has a nice bitterness for only 35 IBU. I actually wonder if that’s a typo because it seems to have more bitterness than that.

Anyhoo. Wondering what to do with the last food ticket: cheese or sausage? Thoughts? Tweet us: @bsbrewing.

Paging a beer snob, table for one!

Also dove into the cheese from Steve’s Cheese. Delicious. All raw milk cheese, including a goat cheese from Pholia Farms, which the girls from FU Cheese visited last week.

True story: Pholia Farms is off the grid. They get all their power from solar panels, and they have a mini-turbine powered by a creek. I’ll post a link to the FU Cheese write-up later.