The Great Northwest Brewery Tour: Day 2, Corvallis Oregon.

They still have phone booths, what's up with that.

As a University of Oregon alum, Corvallis has always been that 'other city' on the I-5.  A bastion of (what passes for) civilization in the no-man's land between Eugene and Portland.  As such the ins and outs of the city remained very much unexplored for me until now.  It was still in Oregon, so clearly there was a brewing culture at work, but I always kind of assumed it was a couple of Granite City's and a lone nutcase just outside of town with a bag of barley, a bathtub and a dream.

I'm not saying that it was a fair assumption.   I am saying that college rivalries are what they are, it helps sell more college-related swag which helps keep otherwise bitter and unemployable professors tenured, and thus keeps them from interfering with the productive world.  It's not a great system, but it works so don't screw with it.

Now that I've been there, I won't say that I'm ready to take back every bad thing I ever said about the city, but I am prepared to respond with any Corvallis-related badmouthery with a shrug and a cursory comment about the quality of their beer.    You don't have to thank me, people of Corvallis, you've earned it.

Block 15:  Out of all the breweries we visited, (and there were quite a lot) I'm not ready to say that this one was the best, but it was definitely in the top five.  Not only were the beers consistently good, but they do things with the beer that are just kind of cool.  It doesn't always have something to do with novel styles or obscure ingredients (although there is a bit of that), but they just do things that are... well... kinda cool.  And because they are doing things that are kind of cool.  We were also lucky enough to have a server, (I think his name was Alex.  It's hard to journalize while having fun) who was exited to talk about all the kind-of-cool things that the brewery was doing.

Two bitter things.  The One Hop Wonder, and Gary

Okay, so standouts:  Among them was the One Hop Wonder.  This is exactly what it sounds like, and IPA brewed with one hop and, in this case it was the Centennial hop.   It had a light lemon aroma.  The flavor was surprisingly light and lemony that sort of rises and falls on the palate and leaves with almost no aftertaste.  In Oregon the blending of hops rises almost to the level of alchemy.  A pinch of this, a handful of that, a different hop to bitter, a different hop to flavor, a different hop to dry hop a different hop to call that hop and apologize for dry hopping that other hop's hop, and so on.  I don't think anyone does anything like this and just makes a beer featuring a certain hop variety.  And that is, say it with me now, kind of cool.

Also on the highlights reel was the Aborigonale.  It is a free-style ale, and what that means it that it was brewed without any real adherence towards the any particular style.  It's basically the kind of beer that sits in the back of the class, doodles in the margins and flips the bird at the other beers when they are not watching.  The aroma has just a hint of light fruit while the flavor starts sweet with light fruit, malt and caramel and slowly moves to grassy and then some slightly spicy flavors.

Of course the absolute highlight of this brewery is the Belmont Station 15th Anniversary Beer.   Belmont Station in Portland holds a special place in the lore of Pacific Northwest Beer culture.  It was one of the first beer stores and place where many people started to explore the world of brewing.  Even now, it remains one of those places to find beer from all over the world.  It's a widely held belief here that if they don't have it at Belmont station, it probably doesn't exist.  So what's a beer brewed in honor of a beer store in the Land of Beer like?  It doesn't disappoint.  The aroma full of caramel and red wine or port, coffee chocolate and a hint of pepper.  The flavor has distinct sour cherry notes under a wave of sweet chocolate and caramel that ends with woody bourbon flavors. 

I could write more about Block 15, but I won't, at least not today.  Next, we stopped at Flat Tail Brewery.  I was originally disappointed, but as I look back I realized that they had one hell of an act to follow.  While they might not have been doing as many kind-of-cool things as Block 15, they had more then their fair share.  Their amber ale was very nice.  It had a lemony, floral aroma.  A sweet malt  combines with the flowery, almost lavender, notes in the flavor.
The Licentious Goat Herbed Double IPA had a grassy, lemon and minty aroma.  The flavor was on the sweet side with some lemon and a good amount of spiciness.  I found it very drinkable for a beer this size.

Okay, lean in close.  This is one of those 'best kept secret' things.  It's also one of those things that you won't find unless you are looking for it.  The only reason we found it was through directions given to us by our server at Block 15.  To get there you have to find the Old World Deli and then walk through the restaurant into a little shop in the back and you will find Oregon Trail Brewery.   This is a much smaller operation with about four beers on tap at any given time.   Among them was the Oregon Trail Wit, a wheat beer with a slightly spicy aroma along with lots of orange lemon and spices.  They also had a ginseng porter that had quite of bit of body with chocolate and coffee and an earthy finish.

As good as the beer was on this stop, the thing that really captured my imagination was the brewery itself.  It's not the highly-mechanized shiny stainless steel operations they keep behind glass at the local brewpub, nor is it a massive warehouse of fermentation vats and neatly labeled machinery.  Walking through this brewery, I was reminded of micro-brewing pioneers like Ken Grossman or Jack McAuliffe who quite literally built their operations from scratch.   It's a tough sight to describe in such a short space.  It's really one of those things that needs to be seen and experienced.

Our tour guide was Weston who happened to be working the brewery when we showed up.  It is possible that the only thing he likes more than beer is talking to people about beer.  Either way, we did a lot of both and had a blast doing it.  This was one of those stops that really defines a trip.
Weston is one of the gurus of the Brew of O, a student homebrewers club out of my old University.  It might be a good thing as it probably would have delayed my graduation further.  But still, they are doing some fantastic things out there and ensuring that there will be a fresh batch of dreamers, artisans and lunatics that will keep the microbrew revolution moving forward long into the future.   So here's a shout-out to Weston, Jon and everyone else at the Brew of O.   In the words of Hunter S. Thompson, "Good people drink good beer."

Cheers!