The Drunkard'ss Walk Across The Country: Everywhere and Nowhere

The time has come for another one of these posts.  This is the time of the year where I am whipped around the country like I'm involved in the worlds biggest version of the ice-skating game where children hold hands and experiment with centripetal force.  Inevitably I feel a like the poor bastard at the end of the line; dizzy, a little ill and questioning the sanity of my actions.

The following beers were sampled at three different places.  The first place was the Heorot Pub in Muncie, Indiana.  The second at Golden Valley Brewing Company in Portland and the third was at some sports bar in Oklahoma city that's really not worth discussing in detail; they didn't have much of a beer selection nor was the place particularly interesting.  So here's the two:

The Heorot Pub: Fun fact: When I asked Siri about the Heorot Pub, her response was, "Sorry Jeremy, I cannot find places in Afghanistan.  Seemed a bit harsh.   Muncie isn't the nicest or most interesting city in the country but I don't think it's quite as bad as Afghanistan.  For example, there is one place in the city where a lost soul can stumble into for a decent beer.  It's a small, dark, wood paneled paradise where every square inch of wall space seems dedicated to some oddity and the weird and wild beers flow.  I can't imagine a more quality place to sit and sink pints for hours on end.  Among their many offerings, I had:

People's Brewing; Mound Builder: Since we are in Indiana, I was able to get my hands on a cask aged version of this beauty.  It has a sweet, raisin, brown sugar aroma that are complimented by dark fruit and malty flavors.  All of the above work together to stand up to an impressive spicy and floral hop bill and the result is a well-balanced but complex brew.


New Albion; Community Dark: Among those that have a bit of an obsession with microbrewing in the United Sates, the name 'New Albion' is said with a certain reverence.  It is generally agreed to be the first microbrewery in the United States, that is to say the first small-scale brewer since Prohibition and the industrialization of brewing.  Problem is that, like most new ideas, it needed some tweaking and New Albion closed it's door nearly twenty years ago.  Which made seeing it on the beer menu a little shocking.

Information is a little spotty, but it seems that someone in the wilds of Ohio has resurrected the brewery, if in name only, and has recently begun brewing under the name.

The dark beer they are brewing has a nice roasted coffee and chocolate aroma with some nutty sweet caramel flavors to go with it.

New Albion; Hoptimis: Since the resurrected brewery (dare I say zombie brewery?) required a little more investigation, I went with one more.  Their IPA had a light hoppy aroma that left me completely unprepared for the assault that was to follow directly.  This is all spicy, herbal hops with the subtlety of a baseball bat to the head.  Didn't have any of the balance a good IPA should have.

And then I was in Portland, Oregon.

It's a shame that, while nestled deep in the the beer-filled bosoms of Portland, I didn't have time for a proper motorboat.  But that is the way of things lately.  I did stop by a Golden Valley located in a massive freaking building in Beaverton.  Nice place but crowded as all hell which, given the size, is quite a feat.  Food was good, beer was good, but nothing special to say about it.... well apparently there is a company in Portland that makes it's own ketchup and mustard, but that was the only thing that really stuck with me.  Caring about whether or not one's condiments are locally produced seems to be a very Portlandian thing.

Golden Valley; Red Thistle: Light caramel aroma with a hint of citrus.  It's kind of a typical amber with a little extra.  It's got that slight roasted flavor with a spicy hop background that demonstrates the city's love for the little green flower.

Golden Valley; Dundee Porter: Slight coffee aroma with a fairly heavy bitter character in the flavor along with some coffee and woody roasted flavors.  P-town loves them some hops.

One last beer thrown in.. kinda just because.  It was in my notes waiting for one of these random posts to appear.  I was in an typical sports pub in Oklahoma when this little nugget floated to the top.

Left Hand Brewing; Stranger American Pale: This has a citrusy sweet orange aroma.  The flavor is lighter with a dose of malty sweetness that barely helps reign in the dry, citrus, pine hop character.

Back to business as usual next week where I actually find an interesting place for a beer in Oklahoma.  Yes, they exist.

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 Pilgrimage: Portland, Oregon

All stories have a beginning.  For all intents and purposes, this blog began in Arizona, but it really started in the state of Oregon.  I went to school at the University of Oregon and I quickly hooked up with a group of self-described beer snobs.  Up until then my view of beer was similar to that of most Americans, beer was a fizzy yellow beverage designed to be drunk in massive quanities.  It was there that I was introduced to the world of microbrewing.  This is no accident, the beer culture in Oregon is something that I can't quite describe in words.  It's something that has to be experienced first hand.  And the center of that culture... Portland.

Basically what I am saying, if you like beer and you have not been to Portland, get off your ass.

You could create an entire blog around Portland brewing alone, and a few people have.  I had but a weekend to spend, so I just picked one.  I picked this one using the highly scientific method of typing the word, 'Brewery' into my phone and going to the dot closest to my position.  So we are off to Colombia River Brewing.

In the city of Portland where brewing is a cultural phenominon all its own, this is a fairly new brewery.  It opened in 2010 in the site of the Laurelwood Brewing Company in the Hollywood district.  

Rose City Raspberry Wheat: It has a sour fruit aroma.  The flavor is very sweet off the top that hits hard and fast leaving a slightly dry finish with a light malty finish.

Stumbles Stout: Chocolate coffee aroma.  The flavor is similar with a leathery taste added.  Finishes with herbal hops that really linger for an oatmeal stout.  Pretty good, but lacks the body of most oatmeal stouts.

Double Vision Belgian Double: This one had a very light aroma; I picked up just a hint of lemongrass, but the flavor was something else.  It was very surprising, but I was an instant fan.  There was a lot of pineapple, and citrus and white wine flavors and finished just slightly dry.  This one became quickly became a favorite of mine, for about a minute before...

Wee Heavy: Scotch style ale.  I ended up ordering a pint of this beer after I finished the tasting flight and they brought it out in the rose glass as picture on the left.  The glassware is almost enough of a reason to order this beer, but the beer itself is a thing of beauty.  I has a very light, sweet, fruity aroma that made me think of strawberry.  The flavor starts with this light fruit sweetness and moves to a woody oak flavor.  The high alcohol content of this beast makes itself known adding just a hint of fusil flavor. This massive combination of flavor hits and then is gone leaving almost no aftertaste.  

Brown Ale: This one starts with a slightly sweet, fruity aroma.  It has a creamy mouthfeel and a very light flavor profile.  There is some berry and light fruit sweetness combined with a woody flavor and something else that I could never really identify. 

ESB: Slight citrus aroma with a even lighter initial flavor.  Northwest citrus hops kind of creep up on you and leave an aftertaste that makes me think of an English IPA.

CRB Pale Ale: Slightly cloudy in appearance.  Hoppy aroma with a bit of citrus.  This one is just about a perfect balance of malt and citrus and grapefruit hops.

Hop Heaven: This is Columbia River's IPA offering.  As expected the aroma is filled with Northwest citrus hops.  The flavor is slightly sweet off the top and is only there for a split second before the hops really hit.  I noted some floral notes as the flavor moved through the palate and the profile ends with more herbal hop bitterness.

War Elephant: As I understand it, this is a limited time offering from the brewery, and that is a bit of a shame when considering the unique nature of this beer.  I could never get this confirmed but I think the beer was named after the very nature of it's flavor profile.  It starts off with a lot of sweet malt flavor with a warming sensation from the alcohol and a lot of English herbal hops in the back of the throat.  As the flavor continued I could almost feel the bitter hops moving from the back of the throat across the tongue.  An interesting beer for this fact alone.

That's all from Portland for now.  Next dispatch comes from Indianapolis, Indiana. 

Cheers!