Since moving to Portland, I’ve become less caught up in the phenomenon of “exciting” beers. New releases of rare, limited-edition beers or special evenings where one-off, hard-to-find beers are being poured just don’t get me as worked up as they used to. Perhaps it’s the ubiquity of really good, and even great, beers here. This definitely wasn’t the case in Boston, which relied on the release of new, exciting beers from out of state to keep the beer scene humming. Here in Portland, your nearby brewpub is as likely to turn out something really exciting as anyone from out of state.

That being said, there are still certain beers that I get downright excited about, and look forward to the chance to track down and try. On a local level, Cascade Brewing’s Vlad The Impaler is one. Founders KBS is perhaps the perfect example (sadly, there are no Founders beers in Oregon), since I’m still hoarding the few bottles of this that I have left from before our move. And Alesmith’s Speedway Stout is another.

Surprisingly, though Alesmith is distributed in Massachusetts, Speedway Stout is a beer of theirs that I’d never had the chance to try. It would always sell-out before I got my hands on a bottle. So when I heard that it would be available here in Portland about a month ago, I happily went out and snapped up a bottle.

Speedway Stout is an imperial coffee stout that Alesmith releases annually. It’s a very big beer, brewed to an original gravity of 1.111, and loaded with many pounds of coffee beans. While the beer itself has garnered a great reputation, Alesmith has taken this a notch further by releasing a bourbon barrel-aged version of it (seriously, that would be tremendously awesome to try) in very limited quantities, and plan on releasing single-origin coffee versions of the beer later this year. There’s not much info out there about the single-origin versions, except that one of them will use the rare Kopi Luwak beans (more info).

We had a brief spell of warm weather here, followed by a return to more normal, cooler temps. Right in the middle of the two, when the temps were comfortable but you still needed a sweater, I popped open this beer to share with a friend of mine.

Tasting Notes

As I said above, this beer is brewed to an original gravity of 1.111, and finishes at 12.0% ABV. It uses an unspecified amount of coffee, though with that OG you can guess that it is quite a bit. It comes only in 750, capped bottles. They don’t vintage date their bottles, but obviously this is from the 2011 release.

The beer pours jet black, with a thick, dark, chocolaty brown head that leaves loads of lacing. The nose practically leaps out of the glass with notes of bittersweet chocolate, coffee beans, anise, and herbal hops. The palate is very smooth, with a velvety textured mouthfeel conveying deep rich flavors of flourless chocolate cake, roasted malts and coffee beans. The flavor spectrum definitely leans towards the sweeter side, with chocolate flavors accented by coffee notes. On the finish, a notable hop bitterness lingers, alongside notes of dark-roasted coffee beans.

I’d sum up by saying that this is a big, rich beer, full of sweet chocolate and malt flavors, alongside the flavors you’d experience if you were chewing on a mouthful of dark-roasted coffee beans, complemented by a noticeable hop presence. The nose and the palate were pretty remarkable, but I found the finish to lack some of the depth that they had. And this is definitely a big beer, so make sure that you have someone to share it with.

Ahhh summer. It’s arrived in Portland, at last. Being a recent transplant to Portland, I have to admit that I struggled a bit in June. Seeing as how I was used to June being summer that is, and here in Portland June is a continuation of spring, which itself (this year anyhow) was ostensibly a continuation of winter – i.e. cool (50-60) temps and cloudy skies pretty much every day.

But once it’s arrived, summer here is pretty swell. And it really arrived all of a sudden. One day (June 30th) was gray and cool, and the next, July 1st (no kidding, it actually was July 1st) dawned with nary a cloud in the sky and temps in the low 60s. By the end of the day, they’d risen to the high 70s, and we still had no clouds in the sky. The weather then remained just like that for the next week or so. I think we saw more sun in that brief period of time than we had for the previous several months. Pretty amazing!

But this post isn’t about summer in Portland, so much as it’s about summer beer in Portland. Because when summer arrives, the whole city changes. All of a sudden every patch of lawn and park is covered with people soaking up sun, and practically every restaurant, bar, and brewpub opens up their patios. And brewers follow suit, with most breweries in Oregon releasing one or more of their summer beers.

What’s best about this raft of summer beers is how they’re all pretty different from one another. There are lighter, more refreshing styles (Cascade’s Portland Pale, Spring Pale, and Summer Gose come to mind), bigger, bolder, hoppier ones (HUB’s Galactic Imperial Red and Evelyn Sunshine Imperial IPA), and those that hover somewhere between the two (such as Lompoc’s Pilzipa). Ninkasi’s recently released Maiden The Shade falls within this overall spectrum, being both pleasantly hoppy and very refreshing.

Ninkasi is based in Eugene, Oregon, and has been brewing since 2006. They’ve grown to become one of the bigger breweries in Oregon, and are one of the few to bottle their beers in both 22oz and 12oz bottles. They have a lineup of year-round beers that are all good-to-very good, with the Total Domination IPA being a typical go-to IPA around here, and the Tricerahops Double IPA a scarily drinkable imperial IPA. Alongside this, each year they release a number of seasonals. Maiden The Shade is their summer seasonal IPA.

In my estimation, Maiden The Shade is a great beer on two counts. 1) It’s a really good beer. Super drinkable and very flavorful, with lots of hop aroma and flavor without much hop bitterness. 2) The name of the beer and the typographics on the label (see above) are a play on Iron Maiden:

Admittedly, I’ve never been a big Iron Maiden fan (honest!), but I love the approach. And I especially loved it when they released this past winter’s Sleigh’r, whose label again used both a play on words and on the typographics of a well-known heavy metal band. This time it was Slayer, and seeing as how I’ve always appreciated the occasional Slayer song*, this one really struck me as pretty awesome.

Of course, however much I may like their tongue-in-cheek naming and typographics, the most important point is that the beer itself is typically very good. I’m a big fan of flavorful-but-not-super-bitter IPAs, and Maiden The Shade fits the bill to a T. It’s not a small beer, brewed to an ABV of 6.8%, but it’s 72 IBUs are spread out nicely towards the aroma and flavor end of the spectrum. Best of all, look at this lineup of 7 different hops that they use in this beer: Summit, Centennial, Simcoe, Columbus, Crystal, Palisade, Amarillo.

All in all, I’d recommend giving this one a try. Especially good if you pair it with something on the lighter, quaffable side, like a Fort George 1811 Lager or even a Trumer Pils.

Tasting Notes

As I said above, this one is brewed to 6.8% and 72 IBUs. They use the 7 different hop varieties named above, along with 3 different malts: 2-row pale, vienna, and flaked barley.

The nose opens up with lots of orange and citrus notes, and as the beer warms a note of coppery malt enters into the mix. The palate has lots of citrus and evergreen hop flavor balanced by sweet malty notes and a very mild bitterness, almost all of which picks up at the back-end of the palate. The flavors here are well-balanced, with the malt base layer really highlighting the hop flavors. More hop bitterness comes into the picture on the finish, with pine and resin notes dominant. The finish is pretty lengthy, with those hop flavors really sticking around and making their presence known.

Like I said, go try it. It’s a summer seasonal, but just came out recently. And since summer only just started, it should be around for a couple of months or so anyhow.

*In the interest of full disclosure, I’m actually a huge Slayer fan. My interest is bookended by Hell Awaits and Decade of Aggression, which admittedly is limiting the scope of their oeuvre. But let’s face it, Reign In Blood, South Of Heaven, and Seasons In The Abyss are incredible albums and form a trilogy of true metal greatness! Yeah!!

Of late, my fascination with barrel-aged beers appears to be waning. I don’t know when it happened exactly (although I have a guess*), but I can pinpoint when I became aware of it. It was last week when we had a couple of friends over for dinner, one of whom really appreciates good beer. So I pulled out a couple of bourbon barrel-aged imperial stouts for us to sample, one that I had brewed and the other a Goose Island Bourbon County Stout. I enjoyed them both, but I wasn’t swept off of my feet by them.

I used to think these beers were the bee’s knees, and here I was drinking them while at the same time some part of me longed for an eminently drinkable, sessionable beer. Very surprising, but not altogether unwelcome. Barrel-aged beers are great, full of powerful, unique flavors. But they’re also big and uncompromising, and as a result they’re beers that you really need to be in the mood for.

Yet, all this aside, these can be pretty remarkable and exciting beers, and the Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout remains my favorite example of the style. I first landed a few bottles of this in 2009, and had saved some with the plan of doing a comparison tasting with the 2010 when it came out. One thing led to another, and I didn’t get around to doing the comparison until recently. But it was well worth the wait!

Founders’ Kentucky Breakfast Stout is an imperial stout brewed with coffee and chocolate to an alcohol percentage of 11.2%, alongside 70 IBUs. The beer is entirely aged in bourbon barrels (as opposed to only partially, as was the case with Deschutes’ Abyss). It is released in (very) limited quantities annually on the Ides of March.

Tasting Notes

2009 Vintage

KBS pours thick and oily, pitch black with a thin layer of mocha-colored head. The nose has notes of vanilla, caramel custard, whiskey, crushed coffee beans, and dark chocolate – think flourless chocolate cake with bourbon-caramel sauce drizzled over it. The palate is velvet textured, with flavors of bourbon-soaked vanilla cake, vanilla beans, chocolate sauce, cocoa dust, anise, carob, and espresso. Amidst this rich backdrop of flavors, the whiskey plays a subtle role, noticeable but not overwhelming. The finish has lingering notes of whiskey, caramel, and espresso and is very long.

2010 Vintage

This vintage of KBS exhibits a flavor spectrum that is wholly similar to the 2009, but not quite as expressive. All in all coming across as more restrained.

The appearance is identical to the 2009, thick and oily, and pitch black with mocha-colored head. The nose is not quite as rich as the 2009, displaying more coffee and chocolate, and less whiskey. The palate has a supple texture and brighter carbonation than the 2009 (note that the 2009 was bottled with a screw top). The whiskey notes here are a shade more astringent than the 2009, with the overall palate being not quite as rich, more french roast coffee than coffee-infused chocolate ganache, more burnt caramel than salted caramel. Age clearly gave the 2009 the extra time needed to soften its edges and meld the flavors more fully than the 2010.

I have to admit that I had expected the opposite of what this tasting demonstrated. I had imagined that the flavors of the 2009 would have begun to tail off and lose potency, whereas the 2010 would be much richer by comparison. Instead, the 2009 has clearly had time for the flavors to marry and develop, and as a result is more harmonious and resonant than the 2010. The 2010 is a fantastic beer, but that extra year has given the 2009 a leg up!

***

*Note: I think that my beer tastes have really begun to shift as a result of our having moved to Portland. Imperial stouts in general, and barrel-aged ones in particular, are pretty uncommon here, both on taps and in bottles. This is (as most of you know) a town where IPAs rule the roost, and have little competition for favorite beer style.

That being said, I find that I’m less interested than ever in IPAs that display that mouth-coating, tastebud-stripping bitterness that so many IPAs here have. Instead, I’m thoroughly enjoying many of the beers that exhibit a more restrained, and yet pronounced, hop character. Floral, hoppy notes on the nose, pine and citrus hop flavors, all without the bitterness. Cascade makes an excellent Pale Ale in this vein, but my overall favorite is thus far Deschutes’ Red Chair.

I keep a mental list of specific wines, beers, whiskies, etc., that I’m dying to try. The list grows inexorably, despite my attempts to whittle it down through the application of rational expectations and thought. Each time a new issue of the Art Of Eating comes out, or I receive a newsletter from Ridge, or the Malt Advocate arrives on my doorstep, invariably something that I read calls out to me to be added to the list. The criteria is not always clear, but the result is often a new resident of the list who, like its brethren, is difficult if not impossible for me to try.

Take for example, Ridge’s Monte Bello. Here is a wine that has been on this list for quite some time. It has no reasonable place on this list, by sheer virtue of its price tag ($150), yet I wouldn’t remove it for the life of me.

Why is its presence on the list not open to debate? Ridge holds a special place in my hierarchy of wine producers, and Monte Bello is their flagship wine. To taste Monte Bello would be to taste what they believe to be their best possible effort. What could be more exciting? The other variation that could lead a reasonable (read: rational) person to question some items on this list concerns availability. It’s not uncommon for items on the list to be wholly unattainable due to geography. Why thirst for tasting something that isn’t even distributed near you?

I believe it’s the mystery, the not knowing coupled with curiosity that drives this thirst.

The Abyss from Deschutes was one of the items on the list that most excited and intrigued me. I have read about it since I first became interested in beer. Later, when I became a fan of Deschutes in general, my interest in the beer grew as I came to appreciate their lineup of beers. Yet, here I was, 3000 miles away from being able to taste it. And now
here I am, living within walking distance of the Deschutes brewpub in downtown Portland! And so when they announced the release date for the 2010 Abyss, I marked it on my calendar, and began looking forward to securing a bottle. The Abyss is an imperial stout released each fall by Deschutes. It is brewed using a combination of 8 types of malt to reach an original gravity of 1.100. 33% of the beer is then aged in a combination of “oak and oak-bourbon” barrels, as the label states. I take this to mean that the 33% is not entirely bourbon barrels, but some previously unused oak barrels. The label also states that molasses and licorice are additional ingredients.

Whereas in the past, The Abyss was harder to get your hands on, today Deschutes brews a fair amount of it. As a result, you didn’t have to go to the brewpub on release day to get your hands on some. But I did, if for no other reason than I enjoy the excitement of such an event. Plus, they pulled out all of the stops, offering a 4-year vertical sampler of The Abyss (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010), with the 2010 included as both a nitro and regular draft offering.

Tasting Notes

The Abyss pours pitch black with ruby highlights and a thick, mocha head that leaves lots of lacing. The nose has notes of coffee, unsweetened dark chocolate, black licorice, and carob. All in all, the nose is rather subdued and very understated. The palate has flavors of malted milk balls, bittersweet chocolate covered espresso beans, blackstrap molasses, and burnt toast. The texture is smooth and creamy, with an overall sense of sweetness balanced by bitter undercurrents. The finish tails away with dark roasted malt and dark chocolate. In the end I had three observations about this beer:

1. The nose (and finish) doesn’t do the palate justice. The beer’s flavors are rich and interesting, with a subdued bourbon element, complemented by lots of ground coffee, espresso, and dark chocolate.
2. This is tasty stuff, but not in the same league as a Founders KBS or Goose Island Bourbon County Stout. Yet, those are different beers altogether, seeing as how they’re aged entirely in bourbon barrels, whereas a small percentage of The Abyss is. Ultimately, this beer is more similar to a Founders Imperial Stout (not bad company!)
3. The Abyss struck me in the same way that most of Deschutes’ beers do at this point. It’s good, but not great. It’s interesting, and displays promise, but isn’t a top-flight beer in the way that KBS is. Mind you, this is a very subjective judgement.

The Abyss is a good, fun to drink beer. I wasn’t wowed by it, but I will look forward to trying it again next year and revisiting my impressions.

After a move cross country to Portland, Oregon, it seems only fitting that my first post following the move would be about beer. I knew that Portland was the veritable beer capital of America before we moved here, but I didn’t know the full extent to which beer thrives in this city. Now, after a few weeks here, I can absolutely attest to this being the most remarkable beer city that I can imagine.

The beer culture here is stunning. From the smallest restaurant to the biggest chain, nearly all of them will offer at least a couple of local beers. And in most restaurants, you’re presented with a compelling selection of local offerings. The number of high-quality bottle shops is outstanding, and in addition to selling bottles many also serve beer by the glass and fill growlers as well. And the number of breweries within the town limits is absurd. Just counting within a couple miles of where we live there are 6 breweries! While IPAs certainly rule the beer scene, there is enough room for small breweries specializing in top-notch session ales and even one that specializes in sour beers!! The diversity of options, styles, and places to visit is simply remarkable.

To really get the feel for the beers brewed here, I’ve tried to drink primarily local beers since our arrival (note: I’m defining “local” as beer brewed either in Oregon, or in one of the breweries just over the border (such as Walking Man). I’ve veered from this on occasion, such as sampling a glass of the outstanding Trumer Pils from Berkeley, CA. There are loads of great beers brewed right here in Oregon, but I haven’t deprived myself of the chance to try some of the great or outstanding beers brewed out of town.

Heater Allen Brewing is one of the non-Portland breweries whose wares that I was excited to try. They’re located in McMinnville, about 1 hour outside of Oregon, where they specialize in brewing lagers. I’ve always been interested in breweries who choose a unique path, such as Hair Of The Dog and their range of big, challenging brews, or Cascade with their stunning range of outstanding, creative, sour beers. Heater Allen’s decision to brew only lagers, with a focus on German and Czech-styles, lands them directly in this camp, even if their beers are very different from either Hair of the Dog or Cascade.

The brewery opened in 2007, and has built a lineup of four year-round beers and a handful of seasonals. Their year-round offerings include a Pils, amber lager (named Coastal), Schwarz, and Dunkel. They also roll out some seasonals and occasionals, including a bock, doppelbock, smoked beer, and an octoberfest (named Bobtoberfest). All in all, a solid lineup that does a good job representing the full spectrum of German-style lagers.

One note is that, while they offer a fairly wide range and have four year-round offerings, their beers somewhat hard to find, at least here in Portland. Their production is fairly small, and as a result they show up on draft in only a few places, and the same goes for bottles. It seems that you can reliably find their bottles at just a few shops, and unreliably on draft in beer establishments around town.

Let’s face it: brewing low-alcohol lagers is a risky business. Beers like this don’t hide off-flavors, and so the brewer has to really know what they’re doing. The Abzug in particular, rolling in at 3.8%, is remarkably clean and well-executed, and wonderfully drinkable.

If you haven’t yet tried their wares, and you like German-style lagers, and Heater Allen is available near you, go try their beers. Good stuff, well worth seeking out.

Tasting Notes

Pils: 5.0%, 38 IBUs, 3.8 SRM

The Pils pours a lemony gold, with two fingers of fluffy white head and lots of lacing. The nose brings notes of wheat, herbal hops, and lemon citrus. The palate has lots of texture, balancing effervescent carbonation with a creamy mouthfeel. The flavors are understated and mellow (in a good way!), with subtle flavors of lemon lime citrus, herbal spicy hops, and wheaty malt. The finish rounds things off nicely, continuing the theme of malty wheat and herbal hops.

Abzug: 3.8%, ? IBU, ? SRM

The Abzug marks itself as unique from its Pils brethren straightaway with its light copper color. Similar to the Pils, this beer pours crystal clear, with a billowy white head and a fair amount of lacing. The nose has lots of malt underscored by notes of citrus and peach. The palate is very clean and clear, with continuing themes from the nose. Flavors are underscored by a soft malt base with accents of herbal hops and citrus. The finish is rich with lingering maltiness.

Both of these beers are very good and eminently drinkable. The Pils is a real quaffable beer, with a harmonious blend of flavors, deftly balancing malt and hops. The Abzug, despite the notably lower percentage (3.8% vs. 5.0%), actually came across as having more depth and flavor. The darker malts brought about a striking range of flavors, and left a lingering maltiness that was very enticing.

All in all, a very enjoyable, well-crafted pair of beers!