After a night at the KLCC Microbrew Fest and some sampling of the local bar scene, we started our day at the Broadway Inn where as you can see, all the classy out-of-town brewers stay. I also recommend the hotel’s neighbor, Burrito Boy, to satisfy your stomach after last call.

Hop Valley Brewing

Our first stop was Hop Valley Brewing in Springfield.  You couldn’t miss the giant sign right off of I-5 and the Gateway Mall.

The location has quite a local history. Prior to producing beers for Hop Valley, the building and the 15-barrel system was home to Spencer’s Butte Brewpub and where the first Ninkasi beers were made.

Open for one year, Hop Valley makes a wide variety of styles including the DD Blonde, 541 Lager, Step Child Red, a Vanilla Porter and, where they really excel, the Alphadelic IPA and the Alpha Centauri Imperial IPA.

Stay in touch with Hop Valley on Twitter and Facebook.

Ninkasi

Our next stop was Ninkasi. Our trip was during Zwickelmania and Ninkasi’s new tasting room was packed. The purple shirted clan was a “drinking club” named the Royal Drunks and some members certainly lived up to at least half of their name. The tasting room is open 11 a.m. – 7 p.m. daily.

Head brewer Jamie Floyd led us on a tour of the brewery and showed us where the brewery will be expanding. Ninkasi’s growth is explosive. They started on a 15-barrel system at what is now Hop Valley, opened the brewery with a 20-barrel system and are now up to a 30-barrel system. Last year the company produced 19,500 barrels and estimates 32,000 barrels in 2010.

Helping fuel that growth, Ninkasi is now available at all Safeways and most Costcos in Oregon.  Total Domination is the company’s top seller, accounting for 60 percent of their total sales.

Information from Ninkasi can also be found on Twitter and Facebook

Oakshire Brewing

Our day concluded at Oakshire Brewing which is growing at a significant rate as well. In 2006 the company started on a 4-barrel system as Willamette Brewing.  They are now up to a 16-barrel system and took production from 300 barrels in 2007 to 2,000 barrels in 2009. Built for growth, they have the capacity to produce 7,500 barrels and are aiming for 3,600 in 2010.

Brewer Matt Van Wyk was our host for the day and seeing as how it was Zwickelmania, he poured us a couple of tastes from the fermenters. Most notable was the 2-day old O’Dark:30 that to the surprise of everyone was already tasting great.

Oakshire’s biggest sellers are the Watershed IPA and the Overcast Espresso Stout. The stout features cold pressed espresso from local roaster Wandering Goat that is added to the beer as it is being transferred from the fermenter to the brite tank.

You can find out more straight from Oakshire by checking them out on Twitter  and Facebook.

Next stop… Corvallis.

After last year’s surge in post-game web traffic, I knew we had to do something spectacular this year. This time, inspiration came in the form of a slab of shelf-stable Broadbent pepper bacon I acquired from bacn.com (now owned by baconfreak.com). The predictable thing to do would have been to chunk it up into lardons (French for thick-ass pieces of bacon) or simply slice it thick for superdelishtstic BLT’s. But the meat stuntman in me wanted to stuff it with something.

So of course I went to the best stuffing of all: more pork. I picked up a whole pork loin from Gartner’s, along with some pork sausage-stuffed pork tenderloins. If you’re counting, that’s four types of pork product so far.

I had a plan going in, but it was just a bit of stray cholesterol until I actually opened up the slab. I had no idea how much room there was in there! I got so excited I forgot to take photos of the assembly process, so instead I’ll let you digest the photo below, and describe what’s going on after the break.

Back? Not what you were expecting, was it? Heh. So the body’s the pork loin, sliced at one end to form a mouth. Inside the “mouth” are two garlic cloves acting as incisors, and the traditional apple. A couple more garlic cloves form the eyeballs, and two apple slices form the sow’s ears. The legs are those sausage-stuffed tenderloins I mentioned, with garlic toes (Mmm, garlic toes). Now, I wanted this thing to actually be tasty, and I was a bit concerned about overwhelming samplers with a lot of grease. This creation was going to be wrapped in bacon for a few hours, after all. So before I tucked her in, I sprinkled her back and legs with fresh rosemary “bristles” and lots of chopped up garlic “garlic.” Beneath the sow, I cut some drainage slits in the bottom of the bacon blanket.

I set the oven to 350, and tried not to open it every 15 minutes to see how my monster was developing. The house smelled … so delicious it was actually almost sickening. Imagine a foggy morning so thick you have to turn your headlights on. Now imagine that fog in your nose, and the whole thing smells like bacon, rosemary and garlic. It was difficult to concentrate. But four hours later, I pulled the pig and … wow. I wish you could have tried it. It was delicious, and those that could get past its eerily lifelike appearance were able to taste all four meats in one bite. Best of all, no one got sick, despite the Russian Roulette-like meat game we played. Four chances to get trichinosis, but all cylinders came up empty.

Soooo-ey!

I give this fest high marks, more than 50 breweries and 110 beers, a homebrew competition, vendors selling classic vinyl records, live music and a People’s Choice Award (won by Hop Valley’s Alpha Centauri). The lines and crowd were very manageable, hardly waited more than 30 seconds for a fill and it’s a pretty standard $1 ticket per taste and your $12 admission gets you an actual glass taster. Proceeds benefit the listener-supported station.

Definitely the most interesting aspect of the festival was the inclusion of a collaboration brew, where participating brewers each developed their take on a (get this…) Belgian Style Cascadian Dark Rye Ale. In the description of the beer below they used the phrase “Because we can,” perhaps because some said “Oh no, you didn’t?” Overall, I think each of the beers suffered from being a bit of an over-engineered concept, any two of the three (Cascadian Dark, rye malt, Belgian yeast) would have been fine, but all three together created some odd flavors regardless of the skill of the brewer making the beer. A good thing to remember is just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Dave in his quest to drink 999 different beers over 999 days reviewed Ninkasi’s entry here.

Aside from the collaboration brew, there were handful of seasonals but most brought beers that are available in some form here in Portland. That didn’t crush our enthusiasm for seeking out old favorites like Maui Brewing’s IPA and breweries we’ve never tried such as Wakonda Brewing’s Imperial Pilsner.

As our Twitter post summed it up that night, it’s like a mini-GABF but instead of beer geeks there are college girls and old hippies. I would definitely recommend checking the festival out in future years, either on its own if you’re in the area or as a part of of a beer weekend to check out the all great breweries in the area.

More on our Zwickelmania trips later…

A couple of weeks ago, the fine folks at Widmer invited us over for dinner to celebrate the release of W’10 Pitch Black IPA. Due to the enormous success of Brrr, W’10 was already in stores, but that didn’t deter our enthusiasm for this Cascadian Dark Ale.

I’ll leave a more detailed review of the beer to Dave at 999 Beers but I really like W’10, easily my favorite in the series, challenged only by W’07 that eventually became Drifter.  I think it’s a safe bet we’re going to see a lot more Cascadian Dark Ales this year and that style will be the choice of backyard BBQs and camping this summer. It’s a great blend of roasted malt flavor and hops without being too heavy.

I was joined for dinner by brewer John Eaton who generally works the overnight shift at Widmer. I was a great opportunity to discuss the entire W series at Widmer, the collaborative creative process and the success of 07 and 06 turning into Drifter and Brrr in the company’s line. In general, the brewers get together and discuss a few different styles and then they work together to hash it out and determine what that year’s W beer will be. It’s a great opportunity for the brewers to flex their creativity outside of the company’s standard brews.

It also seemed some at Widmer were a little miffed/disappointed at the lack of success of W’09, the Belgian Golden Ale and to a lesser extent 08’s Crimson Wheat. In thinking about the Belgian Golden, it reminded me of Bridgeport’s Supris and a similar tepid response.

It makes me think that major production brewers such as Bridgeport and Widmer become well known for certain styles and the consumer just doesn’t think of them as an outlet for something so different. I’m certain that in addition to letting brewers create new styles, the W series also helps Widmer stretch the consumer’s mind and while a certain year may not sell as expected, it can help open the door for future, more commercially successful new styles.

You can learn more about W’10 and the W series by going here and can find Widmer Brothers on Twitter and Facebook.

Last week, I performed a simple taste test to compare a flavor of cold beer in a cold glass to the flavor of beer in a glass that approached the ambient temperature. I used Total Domination IPA (6.7% alc./vol. 65 ibus.) from Ninkasi Brewing Company in Eugene, Oregon in both tastings. My results are as follows; I encourage you to try a similar test and confirm my results.

Ninkasi Total Domination IPA

Cold Glass + Cold Beer

I used a freezer mug for this test. This mug had been inside the freezer overnight and the fluid inside the mug kept the beer frosty cold.

• First, the beer tasted cold (obviously, but I need to state this for completeness, right?)
• I could tell it was a carbonated fluid, but not much more.
• There was little, if any, flavor on the sip.
• The beer raced through my mouth, not much time to savor.
• I tasted bitterness upon swallowing; when back of tongue reaches the roof of my mouth.
• It also exhibited a bitter aftertaste.
• This reminded me of the macro-brews consumed during my college years. The point was to drink this one and then move on to the next one. Not much thought was put into enjoying the experience.

Ambient Glass + Near Ambient Beer

Now that I write this, I wish I would have taken a temperature measurement with Dave’s sweet laser thermometer. I didn’t think about it, so maybe I’ll have to re-do the test. Ha!

• This warmer beer was thick, with a full body which bloomed into a slight citrus taste after a few sips and more time in my glass.
• This beer was more savory and definitely more chewy than the cold glass I had earlier. I could chew on the bubbles that make up the head.
• The beer exhibited a more malty finish too.
• I could tell the bitterness was more of an after-thought than the primary flavor present in the cold glass.
• I could sense a slight pine flavor; other beers like Pliny the Elder (the beer, not the ancient Roman nobleman) have a bold pine flavor, but this was more subtle.
• I stuck my nose in the glass and smelled a real craft beer.

Based on my results, I experienced a much broader flavor when the temperature of the beer neared the ambient temperature of the room. I wasn’t missing nearly as much as I did with the ultra cold beer. Even after burning a fair amount of my taste sensation on the cold, bitter beer, I could still enjoy the flavors present in the warmer beer.

You might be asking yourself why some beers actually highlight the coldness of the beer and/or the can. That’s a good question. My guess is that (1) you were watching a commercial for mass markets and (2) the beer advertised was not a craft beer.

I don’t have anything against big market beer with less flavor, it has a time and a place too. And I’ll still get a lot of enjoyment out of my Blazer mug with embedded super-freeze technology. I’ll just put the right beer inside it and enjoy the day. Its a close analogy to mixing Seagrams 7 in a glass of Coca-Cola and pouring Woodford Reserve in a tumbler with a little water to open up the flavor. I enjoy both beverages, but there’s a time and place for each. When you select one, make sure you’re getting all the flavor available to you.

(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.

In other 33 Beers news, I restocked both Belmont Station and Saraveza last night, so be sure to stop by after you hear my colorful, rambling origin story on the radio. Bailey’s Taproom is also stocking the books and represents our flagship downtown location.

And of course, you can also purchase the booklets online if you’re outside PDX but inside the USA. I’ll guarantee pre-Christmas arrival for any books ordered online before 11 PM Pacific time on Sunday, December 20th.

Still not sure about the books? Here’s some unbiased reviews from some of my favorite bloggers:

• Beervana
• Appellation Beer
• Brewvana
• Brewpublic
• realbeer.com Holiday Gift Guide

Before I get to the beers though, a warning: most of these beers are strong. Some of them are very strong. Please make responsible transportation arrangements (it shouldn’t be hard, given the fest’s location at the confluence of all four MAX lines) and go easy. Also, drink at least a pint of water when you get home. My head is none to happy with me this morning, but these are the things I do for you, our loyal readers. On to the beers…

Jim ‘07 – Hair of the Dog For those who don’t know, Jim is an annual collaboration between HotD brewer Alan Sprints and Ale Fest organizer/host Preston Weesner. It is a blend of several HotD beers (Adam, Fred, Doggie Claws, and Blue Dot) as well as a few others. The ‘07 variety featured Adam (an “old ale”) prominently but you can also easily taste the sweet spiciness of the Doggie Claws and the floral hoppiness of the Blue Dot, all perfectly balanced. This is my favorite of the Jims, and one of my favorite beers ever. If you’ve never had this beer, you really must try it. What? It’s all gone? ALL of it? In the whole world?!?! Oh, well, nevermind then.

Jim ‘09 – HotD Sorry about the ‘07 tease. On the upside, there should be plenty of Jim ‘09. While Adam was in the forefront in ‘07, ‘09 is all about the Blue Dot and Doggie Claws. Well, not ALL about those two. Much as those added key flavors to Jim 07, now Adam and Fred provide the hints of chocolate, toffee and other notes that make this year’s Jim equally well-rounded, if totally different. Getting to see what treat Alan and Preston have concocted each year has come to be a highlight of the Holiday Ale Fest.

Barrel-aged Baba Yaga – Bear Republic Don’t let the 110 IBUs fool you, this is actually not an especially bitter or hoppy beer. The sweetness and alcohol combine to balance out the bitterness and you’re left with a smooth, sweet, smoky, maltiness that lingers nicely in your mouth.

Wassail Holiday Blend – Full Sail Usually Wassail is not one of my favorites of the local winter ales, but here they’ve combined it 65/35 with some of their bourbon barrel aged porter. To taste it, you’d think that ratio is reversed. The malt and bourbon flavors of porter actually end up coming through strongest, and the hoppy notes of the Wassail end up as pleasant accents. It does end up a bit thinner than many of the beers here, but that can actually be a bit refreshing, given how full-bodied and heavy things can get.

North III – Fort George I’m normally not a big tripel drinker either, but this was a very different tripel. They’ve added a ton of maple syrup and sugar plums to give the beer a great sweet maply flavor. It’s possible that if you ARE a big tripel fan, you’ll find this a horrible bastardization, but I loved the way the fruit and spiciness balance out the hops. This was one of my favorite beers.

Sang Noir – Cascade If you like sour beers, you’re going to love Sang Noir. If you don’t, stay far away because this is one of the sourest sours I’ve had. It’s also fairly dark and has some nice oaky notes from the barrel-aging. It reminded me in some ways of Russian River’s Consecration (those who know me will know that this comparison is one of the highest compliments I can pay a beer), though most of the flavors are a little more in-your-face. Another really great beer.

Spiced Baltic Porter – Eel River The name really says most of what you need to know about this beer. It’s really just what you’d expect, a rich, full-bodied porter (though definitely a bit less coffee-tasting than many) with some hefty flavors of cinnamon and vanilla. Not too much though. This was also one of the better beers I tried.

Oaked St. Nick – Block 15 I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I wasn’t actually familiar with Block 15 before several folks recommended this beer (there, I gave them a little linky to make up for the oversight). Anyway, apparently they’re doing some really nice things down there in Corvallis because this is a really solid beer. It has a great dried-fruit flavor with plenty of spiciness, and also just a touch of floral hoppiness. A really nicely balanced beer.

If it sounds like I was really impressed with the vast majority of beers I tried, that’s no accident. There were way more triples and home runs this year than I remember in the past (a baseball metaphor for Dave). Not to say I didn’t find a couple strikeouts. I didn’t care for the chocolate huckleberry stout from Laughing Dog. Some of you are probably shaking your head, wondering why I even thought that would be a good idea. Well, I do believe it could be done, and be good, but this wasn’t it. There was just a bit too much bitter coffee-ness that didn’t mesh with the berry sweetness. Or, at least it didn’t work for me. YMMV. I also wasn’t a big fan of the Son of Santa from Southern Oregon. It had some nice spiciness, but overall I found it a bit thin and not especially well-balanced.

I’ll also throw in a word or two about two beers that were only available yesterday, but unlike the incomparable Jim ‘07 (yes, I’m still an asshole) you might be able to find them elsewhere. Braggot from New Old Lompoc is, well, a braggot, which is to say it’s beer mead. Or mead beer. Or something like that. Anyway, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from such a strange beast, though I guess I should’ve known. It tasted like mead mixed with beer. Duh. It also worked a lot better than I expected. Give it a try if you happen to see it around, just for the uniqueness if nothing else. Also, I got to try some Scaldis Noel ‘07 which had aged REALLY nicely; a very complex mix of fruity flavors, spiciness, malts and floral notes. It really made me wish there were a few more beers that had been given a few years to mellow and mature.

Well, that brings us to the end of my Holiday Ale Fest wrap-up. One last note for those who made it all the way to the end, do try and warm the beers up a bit with your hands before you drink them. Preston says he turned the coolers up to 44 degrees (from the OBF standard 34), but it’s still damn chilly out, particularly at night, so hold that beer close and warm it a bit to get it to ideal sipping temperature for beers like these (which, contrary to what the American macro-beer industry tells you, is not actually a tenth of a degree above freezing).

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not promote the wonderful little book that allowed me to take notes on these beers to share with all of you. Yes, I tried out the 33 Beers beer sketchbook, and I must say it pretty much rocked. I took much better notes than I ever have at previous beerfests. So, go order some online at 33beers.com or pick them up wherever fine beer is sold (well, at least a few places in Portland where fine beer is sold, specifically Saraveza, Bailey’s Taproom, and Belmont Station).

I’d like to say that the recap blog posts are forthcoming, but as every festival attendee can attest, the details tend to get hazy as the samples take hold, and SMS/Twitter reconstructions can only go so far toward recalling the flavor profiles and production details on some of the more obscure or original microbrews tasted.

Our first product, 33 Beers, is an attempt to solve this “memory problem.” It’s a beer journal we designed for rapidly taking down the important details of a beer. A unique “flavor wheel” is included on each of the 33 pages of note-taking area, and it provides a quick, visual way to describe a beer’s flavor (and recall it later). Simple check-boxes for serving method (draft, can, bottle, etc.) and other key information further speed up the process. The idea is to take notes for later recall, but do so rapidly so you can, you know … enjoy the actual beer?

Best of all, it’s highly portable, unlike the 11×17-sized, color-coded Excel spreadsheets we used to tote around to beer festivals. It easily fits in the front or back pocket of a pair of jeans, and is thinner than most mobile phones. It’s printed in the Northwest on 100% Washington-recycled paper using US-grown soy ink, so it should satisfy even the hippiest of hippie beer drinkers.

We’ve set up a web site to sell the book at 33beers.com, and it’s available in a few stores in the Portland, Oregon area (Saraveza, Belmont Station and Bailey’s Taproom as of this writing). It’s been largely a labor of love, and we’d love it if you’d help us spread the word to the other beer geeks in your life. It’s pretty inexpensive, too; it retails at $4 each or a three-pack is $10. Wouldn’t these look great under your tree?

I’ve heard all about making yeast starters and dividing that up after adding it to wort created expressly for the purpose of breeding, but frankly, that has always sounded like a lot of work.

This lost to history web page I discovered had a simpler way to harvest yeast for re-use: simply poor the dregs of a carboy into sanitized plastic bottles after doing your kegging/bottling. Up to six months later, simply open the bottle up and dump into your wort. Even I can do that.

Anyone out there tried this method before? How did it work? For the record, the yeast I’m attempting to re-use is Wyeast 1056 American Ale.