Great Northwest Beer Tour #5: Seattle, Washington

Our final stop on the tour is the city of Seattle, and a fine end to the tour it is.  In many ways Portland and Seattle are sister cities.  They share a climate, a general culture to a certain degree and a wild and interesting microbrew industry.  Although whereas Seattle is home alone studying for a law degree with a glass of wine, Portland is the girl at the bar breaking cue sticks over bikers' heads and chugging whiskey from the bottle.

Seattle is going to require a bank statement and a credit report and at least three really good dinners before she will even consider asking you back to her place.

Portland will follow you to your place for a free drink, but you are going to wanna hide your wallet and anything else that can be carted off before you wake up.

I think I've made my point.

(Although just to extend the metaphor one more step: Las Angeles is the sister that chugs a whole bunch of Smirnoff Ice and vomits on the rug.)

 First stop was outside of Seattle proper, but close enough.  Trade Routes brewing company might sound familiar.  If it does, it's because I wrote about it six months ago or so.  It should be noted that there is something pretty amazing about the fact that I can tour breweries in a place like this and only have one repeat review and, frankly, I only stopped here again because it was on our way.  In addition to the beers they had from the last time I was here they had a Blood Orange Whit that contained a sweet orange flavor and a creamy mouthfeel.  It was a little acidic but overall a very nice summer beer.  There was also the blond ale that had a coconut, banana aroma with a smooth tropical fruit flavor that's more reminiscent of a Belgian whit then a blonde.

Our next stop was at George Town Brewing.  It should be noted that Georgetown is not a brewpub like basically every other place we stopped at, but a place to pick up a keg for your draft system.   There is a tasting room inside the brewery and you can stop in for a free taster flight, however, so it worked out pretty well.  We weren't able to taste everything they had available, but out of the ones we did have the Johnny Utah Session IPA and the Super Red were clear standouts.  Johnny Utah had a very strong lemony flavor that was almost like a lemon peel.  It was still very drinkable with an IPA aftertaste that didn't linger excessively long on the palate living up to its session title.  The Super Red shared the same lemony, citrus malty flavors that the Choppers Red had but added some fruity berry flavors off the top.

Beer at the Space Needle

Elysian Brewing Company next up and a lot of really good beer to choose from here.  Plus their semi-macabre theme is just fun.  This year with the end of the Mayan Calender and almost certain doom looming ahead for us all, Elysian started releasing their '12 Beers of the Apocalypse series.  Rapture and Ruin were both on tap during my visit.  Ruin had hints of apricot and orange along with floral and spicy hops.  The finish was just slightly bitter.  Rapture had a lot of citrus and orange flavors with the peppery spice of coriander.

Also worth mentioning was the Mens Room.... no, not the toilet although it was quite nice too as far as used beer disposal systems go.  Here it is also a beer with lots of caramel sweetness off the top followed by peppery notes.

For the final stop on our tour it was time for an old Pacific Northwest standby.  Mcmenamins has brewpubs up and down Oregon and Washington.   If you're anyone close to civilization in those states, chances are you're also close to a Mcmenamins.  Normally I'm not a huge fan of macrobreweries, as fellow beer snobs often call them, but this particular one is still kind of cool in it's way.  Far from trying to replicate the same experience no matter where you are in the country, each Mcmenamins revels in it's own special character.  Each one has their own brewer who brews a regular set of beers, but they are also given some freedom to charge off the well-worn path if the mood strikes them right.  At the six-arms pub the special brew on tap was the Proletariat Porter, a caramelly, chocolaty porter with a creamy mouthfeel.   They also feature a seasonal ale that was a sweet orange and lemon wheat beer with just a hint of bitterness on the back.


And that was it.  I know not much in the way of an ending to a the Great Northwest Brewery tour of 2012, but there you go.  Lots of beer was had.  154 different beers by my count.  Enough said.

Cheers!

Great Northwest Brewery Tour part 4: Portland Oregon

Okay it's time for part two in our tour of Portland, Oregon.   I really don't have any additional smart-ass remarks about Portland by way of an intro, so let's just do this thing.

Our next stop was and the Cascade Brewery Barrel House.  Aside from the pretty normal beers most everyone has on tap, IPS's, Pales, Reds etc.  Cascade Brewery also specialize in sour fruit beers, so that's kind of what we focused on.  These are beers purposely infected with lactobacillus bacteria giving them all a tart fruit flavor.  Most were fairly dry, but a few crossed into the semi dry category.  The standouts were the Nightfall which had a favor similar to the blueberry with a light carmel flavor.  It hovered around the semi sweet mark.  The Vine was a close second.  It had a sweet wine and honey aroma.  The flavor was citrusy, with white wine qualities and a crisp finish.

Next was Coalition Brewery.  These guys do something kind of cool.  They kind of have a small, neighborhood bar feel and that is further accentuated by the fact that they have a program where local home brewers can get a chance to help design a beer, brew it on a small pilot system and possibly, if the beer gets enough cheers from the fans, brew an additional batch on the big 10 barrel system.
The result of this coalition during my visit was the Apollo Creed CDA.  It had some charcoal, coffee and herbal notes.  Nothing earth shattering, but nice.
Also worthy of note was the King Kitty red, with had a nice sweet malt favor off the top with a carmelly, citrusy finish.  The Bumps Bitter came in a close second with a citrus, light malt aroma.  It's flavor brought a decent profile of citrus hops backed up by a good malt bill that was a nicely balanced, drinkable beer.

It had been a long day.  Out travels had taken us from the middle of Old Town out into the suburbs on the east side of town.  We had staggered into six breweries tasting a grand total of 52 different types of beers and we even took a little side trip down distillery lane and we weren't quite done yet.

But before we continue, I would like to send a message to the great brewers of the Portland area.  For the last fifteen or so years, you fine men and women have forged the trail the rest of the country meekly follows in.  Everywhere I go, beer snobs across the country look to the west with this far-away look in their eye when the name of the city is mentioned.  When it came to the combination of good food and good beer this city led the way.  And a big part of this innovation was because of a citrusy, spicy little cone known as the cascade hop, it's big brother the amarillo hop and the rest of it's pacific northwest brethren.  The unique charactaristics of these flowers allowed brewers to push IBU's to new and exiting limits.  Now here we are, and I find myself writing the adjective 'citrusy' after every damn beer I taste.

Dear Portland brewers, do something else.  There are literally hundreds of different hops in the world, or better yet, there are wonderful things being done with malts these days.   People are coaxing a multitude of different flavors using strange strains of  yeasts and archaic herbs.  There are some wonderful things being done in Portland, as I have talked about, but damn people, you can back off the hops just a tad.

I'm glad I got that off of my chest.  I'm also glad that there is a very small audience for this little blog, I think these would be considered fighting words in most Portlandian neighborhoods.  But lest you think I am alone in this, here is a drunken rant from Gary.  This has not been edited, we just gave him an IPA and recorded him.  I wouldn't watch the entire thing, it gets a bit weird toward the end, but I think I've made my point.

The last stop was Migration Brewery.  Admittedly this stop is a little fuzzy around the edges for me.   I know it had a really nice outdoor seating area.  I know that their taster portions are very generous.  I know that the Rye Whit was good, it had a nice sweet, citrusy smooth drinkable summer beer flavor.  I know that the Nitro IPA was a nice, well-balanced Northwest citrus IPA with the smooth creamy mouthfeel of a nitrous beer.   And.... that's about it. 

With our palates completely shot by relentless IBU assault we slinked back into Old Town for a couple of drinks in some of my favorite downtown watering holes and passed out.  There was one more city left to conquer.  It lie just up the I-5 to the North.  Seattle, Washington was to be our final stop on the trip.

The Great Northwest Brewery Tour Part 3: Portland Oregon

At last we come to that Mecca of microbrewing.  It is the city that more or less spawned the brewpub culture that we all know and love.  The Pacific Northwest is the land of good beer and Portland is it's capitol.  So strap in, there is going to be some minor drinking taking place.

Yep those are fruit loops on that doughnut. 

When on the third day of a drinking binge, it's important to take nutrition into consideration.  Your body has expended a lot of energy trying to keep your brain from drowning in an ocean of booze not to mention the extra expenditure that results from trying to keep yourself from careening into walls, trees or other bar patrons.   It's also important to create a base with which to start pouring the next round of booze.  Without that ever important foundation the alcohol will have a direct line of assault to the body and you end up plastered before lunchtime.   Endurance is the key here.  So we started our day in Portland at the Voodoo Doughnut, a local shop famous for their cavalier attitude towards what can and can not be put on top of deep-fried carbohydrates and also exactly what shapes said deep-fried carbohydrates can take.  Keep in mind that when going there with the kids, there are many things that are shaped like a shaft with two round lumps on either side.  Top choices: rocket ships, submarines with attached air tanks, er um... bear claws with one enlarged claw, a bakery accident involving the lady fingers and a box of doughnut holes....
Anyway, enough with the Freudian pastries, on to the beer.  Our first stop in the morning was at Hair of the Dog brewing company.  It hard to pin this particular brewery down specifically, so I am just going to say this.  Hair of the Dog brews a lot of really good beer.  As much as I like novelty in my brews, this isn't it.  They take malt, hops and yeast and make them do fantastic complex things in my face hole, and that is to be commended.    Worthy of note, Fred a beer that contains a certain lore in my family.  My father had it once about seven or eight years ago and was never able to find it again until I brought him some from this trip.  It has a fruity cherry aroma with a hint of citrus.  It starts of sweet, malty with lots of fruity flavor that slowly blend into grassy herbal hop flavors.  Secondly there is Adam.   It has smoky, dark fruit aroma.  The flavor is leathery, smokey with some sharp roasted barley flavors.

Next was the Lucky Labrador.  This brewpub is probably worth mentioning for the sheer amount of different beers available at any given time.  The last time I visited this establishment was on the original Great Northwest Brewery tour about six years ago.  It was the last stop of the day and my friend, Garrett had to drive us to Seattle and therefor I was imbibing the majority of our tasters that day.  We arrived and Garrett went up to get us our tasters flight and came back with a platter that would easily be enough for four people seated at a table.  This was just the two of us and, as I said before, one of us had to drive.  I am sad to report that the massive platter is no longer available, probably after sending one too many people like myself giggling insanely into the night.  You can still try all of their beers, but it's going to take you two or three flights to do it.  The selections were good, but nothing was really outstanding.  I will mention the Black Lab Stout, it had a maple, caramel malt flavor to it with a bite of roasted barley and herbal hops.  Also there is the Black Sheep CDA.
CDA, you may ask yourself, what is that?  Well do you remember that snake pit I mentioned a couple of posts ago in Bend?  Well here we go:
Short story: What is a CDA?  It's a dark IPA. You can move on now.
Long Story: Why the new beer acronym? Well...it's like this.  The people of Oregon like their hops, and they will put them in anything.   It was only a matter of time before some brewer started looking at a class of porter and a pile of Cascade hops and finally made the connection.   And in reality that connection was made years ago when the first Dark IPA's started rolling out.  The problem was, as a few snarky beer snobs started to point out, that they were brewing a Dark Indian Pale Ale.  As Shakespeare would say, "That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow."   (That's right bustin out the Shakespeare.  I'm not just another pretty face over here.) I knew what they meant and I think most beer lovers did as well.  But let's face it, a dark pale ale is kind of stupid and we all know it. So the new term is a CDA or a Cascadian Dark Ale.  It might be a little presumptuous as it implies that it was those crazy hop-head brewers in Portland that thought of a bitter dark beer.  Still I like it if only for the shout out to the Pacific Northwest's contribution to the world of brewing.
Now, as for this particular CDA? It has a slight coffee and herbal aroma.  Flavor is much the same with that kind of bitterness that is reminiscent of an English IPA.

Out next stop was just down Hawthorn street.  It was time for a quick break from malt and hops and dip our toes in the cool, clear water of distilling.  Microdistilling is still in it's childhood in this country, but if any city was going to represent this growing market, it would be Portland and the New Deal distillery did not disappoint.  Their offerings are pretty strait forward, they have vodka and gin and both are very good, but the real fun lies in their slightly off the wall selections.  If you a fan of sweet drinks then the Mud Puddle chocolate liquor is something that you  will want to try.  It was sweet but it had enough of a bitter, unsweetened chocolate flavor that set it apart from your average bottle of creme de cacao that basically amounts to chocolate syrup and alcohol.  For something slightly less sweet, there is a ginger liquor that pretty much tells you all you need to know, it's spicy sweet and wonderful.  For you the adventurous there is the Hot Monkey.  It's a pepper vodka that, as demonstrated at the distillery, makes a mean bloody mary.  Drinking it straight is another option, but only if you really like biting right into a pepper.

Next was the Buckman Village Brewery at the Green Dragon pub.  There are brewpubs that have one or two eccentric beers on tap, but not here.  Here eccentric is what they do.  24/7, all year around there is going to be something a little weird in your glass.  The brewery is owned by Rogue Breweries, a brewing organization known for some of their own strange brews.  Given that, part of me believes that Buckman functions a kind of a laboratory for Rogue on some level.   My personal favorite here was the Caramello, a beer brewed with chamomile tea leaves.  It has a light, lavender, floral citrus aroma and flavor that was a fantastic session beer. My second choice was the the black saison which combined the slightly sour fruity flavor of this farmhouse ale with the chocolate coffee and licorice flavor of a porter.

And that was Portland... actually that's a lie.  That was half of Portland.  The other half can wait until later.  So I'll talk at you all again next week as me and my friends continue to roll our way around this city.
Cheers.

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!

The Great Northwest Brewery Tour: Day 1, Bend Oregon

This is going to be a little different from normal.  It has been my custom up until this point, to select a brewery... maybe two if I was getting wild and crazy with the cream cheese, do a nice write-up and spew it forth for your reading pleasure.  I... can't do that this time.  See, here's what happened:

I am getting married in October to a wonderfully patient and loving woman who agreed to marry me despite the fact that I spend most of my time jetting all over hell and creation drinking beer and then coming home only to stink up our small apartment with the smell of mashing barley and fermenting wort.  (Obviously I'm using her opinion of the smell here.  I, on the other hand love it  If they made a scented candle called 'IPA brewpot', I would buy all of them  In fact, someone should make a candle like that.  There you go, there's a million dollar idea from me to you.)

My friends and I decided to mark my transition to married life in a different way.  Instead of the usual tradition that requires gallons of alcohol, a superfluity of strippers (the official group name, by the way and if it isn't it should be), a few illegal drugs and a donkey, my friends and I decided to hop into the car and set out on the Proud Highway on the Great Northwest Berwery tour.


Basically what I am trying to say is that there was a lot of beer, and a lot of drinking of beer.  My normal format would not only double the size of this blog, but probably drive me absolutely mad the process.  The whole trip was kind of a blur while it was happening and I found myself torn between the desire to interact with my friends and enjoy myself and my need to document the experience for posterity, so I some of the details are missing or lost in the haze of the whole experience.  So what I have done instead is kind of a highlights reel of the whole experience.  City by city, day by day this is what happened.

Bend, Oregon:
 It was once a rather quaint little logging town nestled at the base of the Cascade mountains.  Today it's a quaintess-based economy where displaced Portlanders, Seattleites and L.A. - type-humanoids gather to hike up mountains, and then barrel down those mountains balls-first on a bike, a pair of skis, a snowboard, a raft or some combination of the thereof.  After those activities, people like a beer to help sooth their battered egos, strained muscles and bruised genitalia.  Add to that equasion the Oregonian love of all things fermented and you've got one hell of a micro-brew culture.

Silver Moon Taster

We started at an old favorite of mine: Silver Moon Brewing.  The last time I was there it was six or seven years ago and Silver Moon was just a homebrew supply store with a few fermenters in the back and two beers on tap.  It's grown up a bit since.  The Hop Nob stood out here.  It was citrusy (and you're going to be seeing that word a lot over the next few posts), crisp and refreshing.  It was an IPA for someone who doesn't like IPA's.  The Boys in the Wood was also notable for it's berry, cherry caramel and herbal aroma.  "It tastes like a cherry Twizzler" said my friend Garrett, "Ti would go go with sperament gum."

Sweet Potato Fries and Tasters at Deschutes

It was on to Deschutes Brewing.  Fellow Northwesterners will immediatly recognize the name as well as their famous porter that has been cloned by so many breweries that it's almost a style in and of itself.  The brewery in addition has a mind-blowing assortment of additional brews on tap, but none really, really stood out.  The Quick Bane was light bordering on watery, but it had a nice sweet flavor with a slight cinnimon spice to it.  The Hop in the Dark was a dark ale that started off citrusy and became sweeter adding caramel and cholcolate flavors to the palate and finished with an earth, bitter aftertaste.  It is part of a new, and rapidly growing style out here in the northwest, but I'm going to wait until Portland before I dive into that particular snake pit.

Bend Brewing was next.  There was a clear stand-out here, the Elk Lake IPA with it's wonderful pine aroma and flavor, it just tastes like the air smells in this area of Oregon.  The Scottish heart was a close second with it's sweet dark fruit and red wine flavors that make for a wonderful Scotch ale.

10 Barrel is Bend's newest location for some local color.  The S1nistor Black Ale was nice, it was surprisingly light but it had lots of sweet caramel, coffee and mocha flavors going for it.  The Imperial Pray For Snow had some nice complex Belgian flavors to it.  I picked up some champagne, strawberry and white wine flavors.  It finished just slightly bitter with a fizzy mouthfeel.

Goodlife brewing company is a brewery that in every way celebrates the 'outdoor lifestyle' of this town.  (i.e. barreling ball-first down a mountain as discussed earlier).  The Good And Worthy deserves some note because it was one of the few Belgian wheat beers we encountered.  Far from the 'weak-ass lemonade' flavor as described by both of my friends Garrett and Gary, this one had lost of bannana, tropical fruit, clove and citrus peel and/or corriander spice.  The Indian Brown Ale was noteworthy with a sweet coffee, caramel flavor backed with some English hops.  Not as strong as and IPA should be, in my opinion, but pretty good.

Finally, we come to Cascade Lakes.   I was a fan of the River Red. It had a sweet, caramel and red wine aroma and a herbal hoppy, caramel and light fruit flavor.  The 30" was a close second with lots of raisen and dark fruit and malty flavors that finished just slightly bitter.

Brewery count: 6
Beer count: 50

And.... that was a nice warm-up.  Next it's on to Corvallis and then Portland and Seattle.