Raccoon Lodge

Raccoon Lodge is the brewpub that services Cascade Brewing.

As some of you may remember I've had some not very nice things to say about these guys on some of the after brewfest postings.

I went there this weekend.

The result? Every single beer I had on site was excellent, including those I've previously disliked at brewfests. The food is great, the staff friendly and it's all in all a great establishment I 100% recommend. Yes, including the beer.

I had the opportunity to chat some with Curtis, one of the brewers, about the brewfest vs on site taste diffrences and he couldn't really explain it either. But he did give us a little sneak of some of what they have coming up, and it's definately worth checking out.

I brought home a growler of the Razberry Wheat, before I had this at the Lodge I liked Mcmenamin's Ruby, Ruby WISHES it had the tartness and balence of the Razberry.

I will let you know if time in my fridge affects it, maybe the brews just don't travel well....

But get over there, they have lots of low hop options like the Flemish Sour that you just don't see much of that are worth trying out.

Winter Beers are back

Saturday was the first winter beer tasting of the season at By The Bottle in Vancouver and they had several good beers open. Anchor's offering for this year has a nice shot of nutmeg to it. But the standout for me was Anderson Valley's Winter Solstice ale. This one is a strong ale, but it has a wonderful caramel/toffee tone that makes me want to curl up with it on a cold night.

My usual Winter beer joy has been somewhat dimmed by Widmer brewing this year. As long time readers know one of my all time favorite beers is Widmer's winter release Snow Plow. So when my SO came home and told me he'd bought a variety pack and Widmer had switched to the winter seasonal I was thrilled, until he told me it ISN'T Snow Plow this year. They've release a red IPA they are calling Brrr. It might be okay if you like bitter beers, I don't and was sad.

Fortunately they are releasing my beloved Snow Plow in larger bottles this year, so I just have to go to a beer store to find it. And I will probably stop muttering about Widmer betraying me something this spring...

The Salmon Creek Brew Pub already has their winter seasonal on tap (Salmon Clause...mmm) as well as an Rum Oaked Porter (also mmmmm.)
Rumor has it Larry has some other Christmas goodies up his sleeve as well.

The Holiday Ale Festival starts Dec 3 and runs through the 7, so stay tuned.

A few words on Ciders

With fall in the air and apples in the market I've decided it is time for a quick overview of the more common hard cider style you may encounter.

First up, and sadly most common, the Not Hard Cider At All.
Look closely at what you buy. If the bottle says 'malt beverage' what you mostly have is fermented grain, most probably rice, with flavoring pretending to be Hard Cider.

Farmhouse Cider- these range from sweet to dry (and should be labeled as such). Most are going to be drier than the average person tends to expect. You tend to taste the alcohol up front with subler fruit flavor coming into play later. Many small cider producers make these

French Cider- this is the style most Americans will be more familiar with, it has a lower alcohol content and higher sweetness with a more 'apple juice' character to it.

Fruit Cider- this is hard cider with other fruit juices added.


Now I bet you are wondering why more breweries don't make their own hard ciders.
Simple answer here, it requires a winery liscense. In the U.S. alcohols fermented from agricultual products other than grains (like apples or honey) are legally considered wines. Which is why, I suspect, we tend to see the Not a Ciders hanging about in the grocery store...

Deschutes-Dissident

My local bottle ship managed to get Deschutes special release 'Dissident' in.

This is an interesting beer, it's one of very few in the US that's been brewed using a wild ferment. It is a Flanders Brown ale with cherries added.

The result is a tangy, fruity brew with some serious kick to it. It would stand up well to rich or spicy foods. All in all it is another excellent release in Dechutes Reserve line.

Really, the major complaint I personally have with the Reserve line is the packaging.
I mean, seriouly, if you MUST dip your bottles in wax, at least cork them. It is a total hassle to peel off enough wax to use your bottle opener on the cap.

And ladies, don't be lazy, peel off the wax a good way below the cap or you get crumbling wax bits in your beer when you pour it...not fun or tasty at all.

The Rock Woodfired Pizzia

Checked this place out because a friend told me that they brew their own beer. They are a Seattle area chain that recently expanded down into the Vancouver area.

They acutally don't. They have a selection of five or six beers that are re-labels from Seattle area breweries. Most of them come from Fish Tale, not one the chick's favorite breweries. If you must drink the beer here I would say stick with the Jumpin' Jack Black (otherwise knowen as Mudshark Porter).

However the pizzia is worth the trip all by itself. High quality ingredients, their own dough and a nice selection of somewhat unusual toppings make it a great place to stop and eat.

Don't worry, they also have a full bar that serves up some nice tropical-style cocktails.

July is Oregon Craft Beer Month

Yup, officially. The governer annouces it and everything.
Here is the listing of events I promisted a few days ago.

12 Mcmenamins 7th Annual Roadhouse Brewfest
Hillsboro -The Cornelius Pass Roadhouse

7 Release Party-Walking Man Brewery
Belmont Station

14-20 Puckerfest
Belmont Station- They will have wild yeast beers on tap all week

18-20 2008 Portland International Beerfest
North Park blocks the Pearl District

22 Fred Eckhardt's Annual Beer & Cheese Tasting
Portland Rogue

23-27 EMOfest
(Even More Oregon) Fest
Details on this event are still sketchy.

23 Oregon Brewers Dinner
Tcikets for this must be purchased in advance

24 21st Annual Oregon Brewers Festival
Portland, Oregon - Beer Festival

25 Oregon Brewers Brunch & Parade

25-27 21st Annual Oregon Brewers Festival
Waterfront Park

The Green Dragon will be having its regualarly scheduled Meet The Brewer Nights every Tuesday with the folks from The Lucky Lab, Roots, Double Mountain and Southern Oregon Brewing in that order.

North American Organic Beer Festival

July 26-27 was the Organic Brew Fest. It was an intersting event

The brewers turnout was right around 70 breweries from a wide geographic base. There were even a few from England represented. The majority were from Oregon however. There were also several ciders and one mead that turned up for the event.

In addition to the beers, the Organic Brewer's Fest also featured a number of vendors of various green products from home flooring to local produce.

However, in mayn ways I found the event really poorly organized. We went on Saturday, and the temperture was 104. I'd tell you what it was in the shade, but there wasn't any shade to speak of.

The live entertainment was also a problem for me, for the most part I found it more annoying than entertaining. Unfortunatly it was also close to half of the beer tents, so if you wanted to actually talk about the beers you were trying with those you were with you had to walk some distance to be heard.

Updates

I know we've been off for a while, and the calender isn't updated through July. I'm going to try to post July events here sometime in the next two days.

The main site is currently in the middle of a server change, so may be unrelable for a while. This shouldn't affect the blog since it is hosted seperately.

July is Oregon Craft Beer Month, so expect a LOT of big events going on in the near future.

Portland Deschutes

The Portland location of the Deschutes brewpub opened this weekend. The place was, of course, packed to the rafters.

That aside, the staff, although a little harried, was polite and efficient. The food prices are on the higher end for brewpub fare with dinner entrees coming in the $20 dollar range. However, Dechutes is committed to using local sustainable products. Most everything in made on site, and that includes house cured meats and their own pickles. The menu also includes a number of game-meat offerings, such as elk chili.

They are offering beers not available in bottle, and they are brewing on site. Including the flagship beer of the Portland brewery Armory XPA (named after the Armory just next door), which was a wonderfully citrus-y beer. There were a few snags with them running out of things, but time will work that out.

I loved the decor. It was a beautiful blend of Pearl industrial chic and ski lodge inspired color and wood carving including some just stunning archways.

All in all they have done a supurb job of blending a feeling of being local to their new location without giving up the company's roots in Bend.

Washington State musings

First up, and the good news, Vancouver, Wa has a new Irish pub. It is called the Irish Town Bar. I visited it and was impressed. The atmosphere is nice, they have pools tables and darts and host live music. They also plan on showing soccer games in the bar during the season.

The beer selection isn't extensive, but it IS a nice blend of mainstream beers and harder to find offerings. It is the only place locally I have the Irish Red Smithwick's on tap. So far, definately worth checking out.

On the side of not so good news the Issaquah Brewhouse near Seattle has been responsible for my only real disappointment with the Rogue chain.

I was there yesterday and noticed a heather ale (the Kilted Frog) on the menu. I was eager to try it since I liked the only other heather ale I have had. My expectation was for an light, shading to sweet ale with interesting herbal character.

Unfortunaly, I can't really tell you if that is what I got. The Brewhouse served the Kilted Frog far too cold so no flavor at all came through, I might as well have been drinking water. Sadly, this isn't where my disappointment with them ends.

I asked the waitress about the temperature of the beer, her reply was "We only have the one cooler for the kegs and we try to balence the temperture between main stream drinkers and beer geek temperature"

Now, at first this sounds almost reasonable to me, until I thought a bit and realized the Kilted Frog was brewed ON SITE. So the brewer intentionally created a beer that COULDN'T BE SERVED AT THE PROPER TEMPERATURE. Wow, need I say more?

Well, acutally, yes, I do. In the last ditch effort to try to find out if the Kilted Frog had the complexity I hoped for I attempted to order some to go. Which I couldn't do, because they were out of caps for their to go containers....

Kona Brewers Festival

Some of you may have noticed I am a bit late on this post. The reason for this was a trip to the Kona Brewer's Festival on the Big Island of Hawaii.

The Chick was actually pleasently surprised by this event. When we bought the tickets the cost of $50 a head seemed a bit steep.

However this cost covered 8 6oz glasses of beer, live entertainment thoughout the event, including hula dancers and as much food as you could eat. Officially the food was supposed to be 'appetizers' but there were sandwichs, salads and seafood and all the food 'vendors' were eager to push samples into the hands of passersby.

Admittedly for those who regularly attend West Coast brewfest the beer offering aren't terribly exciting. The 10 or so Hawaii-based breweried that show up had new and interesting things to offer that aren't often found on the mainland. However, the majority of the mainland breweries who turned up brought parts of their regular line ups rather than things brewed specifically for the event.

More on the Hawaiian breweries that we visited in a day or two

Stouts and Porters

Now, a lot of people notice that there are a great deal of flavor similarities in these two families of beer styles. So much so, in fact, that is often difficult to tell them apart.

The reason for this is that they started out as the SAME beer family. Our beloved Stouts, my dears, are nothing more than strong porters that have branched off and become a beer style of their own.

As to the hows and whys, those are a little muzzier. The most famous of Stouts, Guinness, started life as a porter, the label was changed to Extra Stout in 1840 and a number of people date the style from this point.

Although this really isn't terribly accurate since the wealth of English Porters and 'Stouts' pouring into Ireland is part of what inspired Arthur Guinness to adopt the style in the first place.

the Honest Pint Project

Ok ladies,
This one was started by Jeff over at the Beervana Blog and is actually an issue near and dear to the chick's heart as well.

The proposition is this, make sure bars are selling you a pint of beer in a glass that actually holds a pint (many so-called pint glasses hold 14 not 16 ounces).

So sign the petition.

Site Updates

yes, that's right, some changes have been made to the Brewchicks website.

First off some photos from the Firkin Tastival have been uploaded. Yay.

Second, and this is very exciting, we have a brand new Calender feature. Yes, that's right, now all the beer events I know about are posted right on the site on their proper days and times. It is currently updated through April.

1st Firkin Tastival

Yesterday the Oregon Brewer's Guild rolled out the First Annual Firkin Tastival, featuring local cask-conditioned beers.

On hand were offerings from BJ's, Bridgeport, Double Mountain, Full Sail, Hair of the Dog, Hopworks, Laurelwood, Pelican and Rock Bottom. There was actually quite a lot of variation in style and the advantage of having nine breweries was it was easy to try most everything.

With 8 6oz pours and food offerings the $25 admission was a pretty good deal. Including the food was definately welcome given the volume of beer.

My pick for a favorite here was actually the IPA Pelican brought. It was a beautful cloudy gold color with mellow citrusy hops and a lot of depth. Might be time for me to make the drive down to Pacific City and visit them soon...

As to the event itself, attendence was limited so it was not crowded with short lines and more time spent savoring the diffrent beers available, all of which deserved the attention.

I enjoyed this event, it was calm and laid back. Looking forward to next year.

We did get some pictures which I hope to get onto the main Brewchicks site in a few days along with another site addition that should be very exciting...

Events Update

Ok ladies, beer festival season in the NW is starting to kick off, and I am going to do my best to keep you up to date on the game.

We start with the Feg. 24 the 2008 Firkin Tastival, sponserd by the Oregon Brewer's Guild. This is the first year of this event, and they are promising 9 cask beers and food. Now, the Chick is a huge fan of the complexity of flavor cask beers have, so this one should be interesting. Cost is $25 and this year's event is limited to 120 people, so if you want to go act fast.

March 7 & 8 will be the Lucky Labrador's Barleywine Fest at their Quimby St. Beer Hall, there will be at least a dozen big beers over at that one. This is normally a fun event.

Also March 8 for those of you inclined to get on a plane is Hawaii's only brewfest the Kona Brewer's Festival, sponsered by Kona Brewing. This one features a variety of beers from the West Coast as well as a good showing from the home state.

March 21 & 22 will be this year's Spring Wine and Beer Fest, Admission to that one is $5, or Free if you get there early (between 12 noon and 2pm)

That should keep us busy for a while, I think

How much beer did I just order?

Since a lot of standard beer glasses orignate in Europe, it is sometimes hard for the average American beer drinker to figure out the volume in the glass they just ordered. But that's okay. I'm here to help.

We'll start with the most common measurements. First off is the American pint, that'll be 16oz.

Then we have the Imperial or British pint. Here is where it starts getting a bit trickier. A lot of places will tell you this is 20oz. and it is. But is is 20 British ounces, which are slighter larger than their American equivilant. So a place that is claiming to serve British pints and giving you 20 American ounces is really short pouring by about 2oz. Yes, that means the Bristish pint comes out to about 22oz in the states, which suddenly explains why you see so many imported and craft beers in what seems like a bizarre measurement, yes?

In Britain you see the half pint a fair bit (10 British ounces, roughly 11 American) on our side of the Atlantic though the smaller serving of beer tends to be the 'glass' which is much less standard but usually 8 or 10oz.

There has been relatively recent trend in Britain toward reintroducing the 'Third" (roughly 7oz.) in stemmed glasses as an attempt to make beer more acceptable to women. I don't think this trend will carry over to the states, however. Our beer servings tend to be a little smaller to start with and we don't have as strong a stigma about beer being 'unladylike' as they do in the U.K.

That pretty much covers the basics, but if you go to themed bars you are likely to encounter some of the following:

German
The Stein- Typically holds 1 litre or about 34 U.S. ounces
the Pilsner- This is the long narrow one, typically anywhere from 12 -16 oz.
The Weiss, also called the Wheat Beer glass- Similiar in looks to the pilsner, but tends to tulip out at the top, they tend to falls between 16 and 22oz.
The Boot- A novelty glass shaped like a boot, usually holds 2 litres or about 68oz.

Belgian
The Goblet- typically holds 12-16oz, but can go up to 22oz.

English
The Half-Yard-typically about 25-32oz
The Yard-typically 44-50oz.


Now, ladies, some quick advice about the Boot, the Yard and the Half-Yard. All of these glasses were pretty much designed with drinking contests in mind, and all are designed to soak you with beer if you don't know the trick of dealing with them.

The Boot is the easiest of the lot, make sure the toe is pointed either to your right or left, if it is straight in front of you air will gather in it 'til the tension breaks and the beer gushes out onto you.

The Yard and Half-yard glasses present the same basic physics problem, air can't get to the bottom of the glass 'til you are a fair way into it, then it releases everything in a rush. This one is harder to outsmart than the Boot. Your best option is to remember NOT to upend this glass quickly, sip it down as far as you can with minimal tipping of the glass, then go slowly.
Oh, and wear a dark colored shirt just in case....

Barleywine

What is it? Wine? Beer? Is Barleywine Style Ale diffrent? I don't get it...

Since a lot of these show up as winter seasonals it's time to address the questions about it.

First off, it is most definatly a beer. We have England's many wars with France to thank for the name and the style. When it became a patriotic no-no for upper class Englishman to drink wine brewers responded by creating a high alcohol beer (10-12%) that aged well. I believe the first brewery to mass produce this style was Bass.

Beers that are made in the U.S. are labeled "Barleywine Style" 'cause in the U.S. things labeled "wine" have to be made from fruit or honey. They are, in fact, the same as Barleywines.

Second, do we, in fact, want to drink it?

OK, I get that this tends to be a scary style for most new beer folk. It tends to run a little higher in price than other beers, is high alcohol content and generally has BIG flavors. Worse yet, there is no real set flavor profile for this style beyond strong. These can be super fruity or super bitter so it's always a risk trying a new one.

The tips? Worth trying, these are bold brews with a lot of complexity. Try to find tastings or brewfests that offer them if you can. If not, as a very very general guideline the European brewers are more likely to turn out a sweeter product than their American counterparts. And remember brewers that like to use a lot of hops in their other styles will almost certainly go crazy with them here. For example, Rogue's Old Crustation clocks in at a whopping 110 IBUs.

(Quick note, IBUs or International Bitterness Units are used to measure hop resins in beer. High numbers mean bitter beers.)

Meet the Brewer

This is a relatively new event started at a relatively new Portland brewpub. The place in the Green Dragon . They aren't brewing their own beer yet, and the menu hasn't quite gelled, although the Belgian style fries are quite good.

And just because he's not brewing himself yet doesn't mean there is any shortage of craft beer. They are running about 14 taps, all of them micros, and constantly changing.

As to the event itself, they've set up a seperate mini-bar area where they are inviting other local brewers to come in every Tuesday night, bring a few kegs of their own stuff and chat it up with the customers. It's a nice laid back event where the serious and not so serious beer hound can pick up a lot of information on what is going on in the local scene.

This last Tuesday the brewer guest was the owner/operator of my favorite Vancouver, Wa Brewpub, Salmon Creek. Their website is currently under construction, but keep an eye on it. This man creates solid European style beers and his wife is an excellent cook. One of the reasons I love this place is it really gives one the feeling of having been invited into someone's home for the evening. I am reliably informed that they have ordered women's shirts so look for them on the shopping page as soon as they have the website finished.

Trendwatch '08 or Microdistilleries

Alright, Microdistilleries aren't that new. A few have been around for quite a while.

What we have been seeing over the last 10 years though is a tendency for well established microbreweries to ADD distilleries to their line ups.

Anchor Brewing of California was one of the early birds in this field, but they have since been followed by McMenamins, Dogfish and Rogue. The chick is aware of some smaller Oregon breweries that have been toying with the idea as well.

For the Trendwatch part, definately worth watching. I think probably this is going to be the next big alcohol revolution, particulary on the West Coast. Bigger micros with good brand recognition are well set up to take advantage of a local spirits craze, and odds are most of them will realize this.