After work today I swung by Newport Market over on Bend's westside for their Thirsty Thursday beer tasting. I just found out about these Thirsty Thursdays recently; they're every, er, Thursday from 3:30 until 6:00. Free beer! Can't go wrong with that.

Today it was a rep from Deschutes Brewery doing tastings of their two newest: Inversion IPA and Buzzsaw Brown. Both good, but the IPA was really good. So I picked up a six-pack of it, and then, to my amazement, found a bottle of Deschutes' Mirror Mirror, which I'd heard about but hadn't seen anywhere. I'm excited! But it's a big barleywine, so I'm saving it for the weekend. Or Friday night.

That means, of course, be on the lookout for reviews on both of these beers. :)

Donavan over at A Good Beer Blog must be in tune with my "Beers for spring" posts, as the next beers I'm blogging are winter warmers and barleywines:

On the 21st of March, after a day of eating chocolates and other Hershey candies, I was slumped in a chair in a room at the Hershey Lodge in Pennsylvania sipping a Winter Warmer from the Lancaster Brewing Company. What else would a person drink on the first day of spring? Especially when the forecast for that evening was for sub-freezing temperatures and snow. But it was warm inside and a Winter Warmer seems an appropriate way to welcome spring.

Probably a few people are thinking, "Huh? Everybody knows winter warmers and barleywines are for, well, winter!" And yes, nothing's quite as welcome on a cold night in late January as a good barleywine. But you know what? I'd also be hard-pressed to come up with a better beer to sip on a chilled early spring night.

Malty, rich, strong, warming, complex, these are perfect beers for early spring. Most American barleywines are hoppier than their English counterparts, and I generally only see the American style for sale in the stores. If you can find them, I'd recommend Bigfoot from Sierra Nevada (hoppy!), Old Crustacean from Rogue, and Old Knucklehead from BridgePort.

Now I need to put my money where my mouth is and pick up a barleywine or two for this weekend...

Someone reminded me about New Belgium's Biere de Mars, which is their seasonal brewed for March. A good early spring beer! The style is of a Bière de Garde, which I'd classify as a beer for spring.

According to Al Korzonas in his excellent book Homebrewing, Vol. 1:

Bière de Garde means "beer to keep" implying that it is meant to be stored. This dates back to the days when summer brewing was impractical and a stronger beer was brewed in the spring to be stored for summer consumption.

They are typically malty, expressive, fruity, and rich. Sounds perfect for an evening in mid-May, when the season has warmed but there's still a frosty chill to the air.

Aside from Biere de Mars, some other Bière de Gardes to look for are: Jenlain, from Brasserie Duyck; Perdition from Russian River Brewing; and Oro de Calabaza from Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales. (Okay, I cheated a bit and pulled those from BeerAdvocate's list.)

Since this last week was the start of spring, I thought I'd write a bit about seasonal spring beers. I can think of several styles that qualify, so I'll spin this out into several posts.

According to Michael Jackson in his book Ultimate Beer, the beers of spring are Bocks:

The idea of special beers for spring is strongest in Germany, especially in the state of Bavaria and its capital, Munich. Spring beers there are usually strong lagers, often dark in color. German brewers call a very strong product a Bockbier. Some even have "Double" Bocks. In Munich, a Doppelbock is regarded as a strong warmer to cure the winter blues as spring arrives. A third variation is the May Bock, sometimes paler and drier.

The Doppelbock was first brewed by the Pauline monks of Munich to be consumed during lent, as they are high-gravity beers designed to supplement and fortify the soul during fasting. This beer was named Salvator (still available today), and many other Doppelbocks have names ending in -ator to honor this first brew.

Perhaps the best known commercial Doppelbock—and highest-rated on BeerAdvocate—is Ayinger Celebrator. The charming thing about Celebrator—aside from how good it is—is that every bottle comes with a small plastic goat ornament tied around the bottle neck. Shipping those without losing them must be a logistical nightmare.

So celebrate the first weeks of spring and fight the remaining chill of winter (as we in Bend well know, with our three inches of snow on Saturday) with some Bocks and Doppelbocks. I currently have a Celebrator waiting in the fridge for me. But not for long. ;)

Tonight I opened up the bottle of Theakston Old Peculier that I picked up from Belmont Station when we were in Portland earlier this month. Old Peculier is an old ale style of beer that weighs in at 5.6% alcohol by volume—not overly strong, lending itself to being a good session beer.

Appearance: Dark, murky brown. Not quite as dark as a porter, but much darker than a typical brown ale.

Smell: Some molasses, some licorice... some dark malt. Overall, rather neutral.

Taste: Clean, neutral. Not real dark, as you'd expect from its appearance. Not overly sweet. I don't get a real hop character from it, more of an herbal/heathery essence. Somewhat mild and a little smokey.

Mouthfeel: "Buttery" was the first thing that came to mind. A bit fizzy. Kind of an oily smokiness. Thin but not watery.

Over on BeerAdvocate they rate it 87, with 98% approval. On RateBeer it scores 3.66 out of 5 and is in their 91st percentile overall.

A pretty decent beer, though I did find it a bit... peculier (rim-shot!): generally its neutrality was a bit surprising for the style and how dark it was. But a good session beer, as I mentioned. I bet it would really shine on a nitro tap...

I know, I really haven't posted much lately. I'm lame. It's been super busy at work and I've just had trouble getting motivated. Got some things coming up, though, including a new "Beer Hacker" feature. Maybe once I get that published I'll get back on a more regular schedule. Stay tuned!

PORTLAND, OREGON — This Friday March 24, The Lucky Labrador Beer Hall will have its Grand Opening. The festivities will include beer specials and live music. The Lab's Beer Hall features the company's second brewery furthering the notion that Portland is the beer capitol of the World with the most breweries within its metropolitan area.

The Lucky Labrador Beer Hall is located in the final frontier of inner Northwest Portland. Off to the side of the recent development of condos, doggie day cares, chic boutiques, and upscale restaurants, this pub is comfortably casual for relaxed meetings, laid-back hanging out, or relaxed groups. You can even park your bike inside. Soon to come will be an outside seating area for patrons to gather with their canine companions.

The Lucky Labrador Beer Hall is located in an old rustic warehouse with lots of wood and huge old growth timbers. The building originally was built as a Freightliner trucking warehouse. In honor of a five ton bridge crane hovering above the pub area, the brewers developed Five Ton Strong Ale. This malty, bold ale is made with Premium two-row, British crystal, and touch of chocolate malt with Nugget bittering hops, Northern Brewer flavoring hops, and "a ton" of Amarillo aroma hops. Supporting a 7.8% alcohol by volume, the Five Ton ale has a full body of malt with slight underpinnings of black currant and raisin. "Like our crane out front, this stong ale can really hoist your spirit," said the newest brewery team member Abby Sherrill.

The Lucky Labrador Beer Hall is located at 1945 NW Quimby. The newest addition to Portland's ubiquitous brewpubs, this casual neighborhood pub features outstanding bento, sandwiches, salads and other pub fare. Ales on tap at The Lab include Superdog Ale, Hawthorne's Best Bitter, Dog Day IPA, Organic Golden Ale, Top Dog Extra Pale and Black Lab Stout. "Paws down, it's the tastiest beer around." The pub hours of operation are Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. - midnight and Sunday, noon - 10 p.m. Minors are welcome until 9 p.m.

Goose Island's India Pale Ale is a hoppy, sharp IPA. I found it locally at the World Market and picked up a few, since I was impressed with their Demolition. I wasn't disappointed! It's not the best IPA I've had, but it's pretty good.

Appearance: Pours a nice thick head, a creamy off-white color. The beer is orange, relatively clear—only slightly hazy.

Smell: Fresh hops, spicy and green. Grapefruity, lots of Cascade hops.

Taste: Hops and sweet malt. There is that characteristic bitter-grapefruit flavor that comes from the Cascade hops. Strongish. Nice hop aftertaste.

Mouthfeel: Very nice. Creamy, on the thicker side of that elusive phrase, "medium bodied."

Over on BeerAdvocate it has garnered a rating of 86 out of 100, with 97% approval. On RateBeer it scores 3.61 out of 5. Decent all around.

Overall, I'm liking Goose Island's offerings. I also have their Oatmeal Stout which I'll review sometime soon.

This must be "beer dessert" week or something. Slashfood has a post about Irish stout cake with whiskey-sour icing. I've really got nothing to add except... yum.

Previously: Beer ice cream, Beer cheesecake!

Just a local beery St. Patrick's Day pointer for Central Oregonians: McMenamins is having their St. Pat's bash, with their Irish Stout (March only!), and the Old St. Francis School is having their celebration featuring free music (for all ages), Irish dancing, food and drink specials, and (they claim) kids entertainment.

So, I'm going to try to stop by there for a drink after work tomorrow. I've at least got to try their stout. No promises, but is anyone else going to be there?

Saw this press release on BeerAdvocate today: Introducing Lindemans Pomme, Apple Lambic From Belgium.

Lindemans Pomme, authentic apple lambic from Belgium. The flavor of a lambic is dry, complex, tart, and like no other beer. Frequently, lambics have fruit added as the perfect flavor balance, and the bright freshness of apples pairs with layered lambic flavors brilliantly. Added in the form of pure juice, apples contribute to a light body, a glowing golden color, and an aroma that is a bushel of freshly-picked apples direct from the orchard.

Yum. I've yet to meet a Lindemans that I didn't like. I'll be on the lookout for this.

Interesting that the apple is added in juice form... I homebrewed an apple ale once, using whole apples from my uncle's tree. All that fruit floating around in the beer was kind of a pain... and looked kind of gross after awhile. Juice would definitely be worth a try.

Just when you thought the beer ice cream was sounding too good to be true, Slashfood points us to a cheesecake recipe that is made not only with Bailey's Irish Cream, but Murphy's Irish Stout.

I'm simply speechless. :)

Okay, everybody and their dog has linked to this story today, so I'd better jump on the bandwagon: Norway, where beer flows instead of water. The woman turned on the faucet and beer came out!

It turned out that a worker in a bar two floors below had mixed up the pipes on Saturday evening, wrongly connecting a new barrel to a water pipe leading to Gundersen’s apartment. The bar got water in its beer taps.

I don't know what's cooler... beer flowing from the sink, or living only two floors above a bar. :)

Via... everybody, I guess. Credit where it's due, though, I think I saw this on On Tap first...

I suppose it was inevitable at some point, but people are making ice cream out of beer.

The Heritage Belgian beer cafe in The Rocks has "a trio of fruit beer sorbets" made from apple, cherry and peach beers. Made by an outside supplier, they are more like gelato in texture. Part-owner and chef Olivier Massart says the sorbets previously were made on the premises using equal parts of fruit beer, fruit pulp and sugar syrup (a formula that crystallised after a few days in the fridge).

The Redoak Boutique Beer Cafe in the city has gone the whole hogshead, creating a distinctive range of ice-creams and sorbets using the house beers - the pick of the crop is a stunning dark-purple sorbet made with blackberry hefeweizen.

Sounds interesting. I've heard of making floats out of ice cream and stout (like a root beer float), but this is a new one to me. I would've thought the carbonation would be a problem.

Via Slashfood.

Just a couple of notes on some Portland happenings that I saw today. First, altportland reports on the Lucky Lab's Barleywine and Big Beer Tasting. That's going on tomorrow and Saturday, the 10th and 11th, from noon until 10 p.m. No entry fee, but tickets for 4 ounce tasters are $1.50 each. Sounds like a neat deal (I loves me my barleywines).

The other event took place today, so I'm not very timely: BridgePort Brewing's Full Pint Fundraiser. BridgePort just re-opened after renovating their old brewpub space, and tonight's fundraiser was raising money for the Oregon Food Bank. Sounds like a good cause; hopefully they had a big turnout. (Via Metroblogging Portland.)

While we were in Portland, we also had dinner at BJ's Brewhouse, up on Weidler in the Convention Center district near the Lloyd Center Mall. BJ's is actually a chain of brewpubs in various western states and Hawaii. Overall, the experience wasn't bad, but the service left a bit to be desired.

To start with, I will say their beer taster option is one of the best I've seen: seven tasters, five ounces each (which is a lot for a taster!), for only $7.25. Great deal, and I got to taste all of their regular beers and one seasonal. I'll write more about those in a moment.

The food was pretty good, too, I thought. Nice big portions, tasted good, no problems. Where things fell apart was with the waitress; she was nice, but flighty, and we'd go stretches without anyone checking on us (there were four of us, sitting at what we jokingly referred to as the "rock star table").

As a result, our dinner stretched into a good hour-and-a-half, or a bit more. It wasn't a huge deal, since we weren't in a hurry, but you'd still like to have the good service.

On the other hand, I had so much beer to taste, and had such a big portion of food, that I couldn't eat everything, and didn't even finish my last taster—I was too full!

Okay, the beers. From memory only... I was tempted to pull out a pen and paper and write down notes, but I think everyone else would have thought I was crazy. They were all pretty good. I'd go back for them again.

BJ's Blonde: A Kolsch style, very light. Crisp and slightly fruity (tart), too. Very clear. Pretty good if you're into Kolsch, I think.

Harvest Hefeweizen: A good traditional weizen, fruity, clovey, spicy. Nice yeasty haze there too. Very drinkable, a good session beer.

Piranha Pale Ale: A nice hoppy pale, about average for me. Their description proclaims, "For hopheads only!" and says it's dry-hopped; I don't know about that, I've had hoppier beers. It was decent.

Jeremiah Red: Ahhh, now we're talking. A nice, strong, malty red ale. I think it's more an American red style than the Irish red they describe—more hops, stronger, bigger. Pretty good, one I'd definitely order again.

PM Porter: Decent, but for me, it doesn't compare to Black Butte Porter (but few porters do). Dry, dark, malty, but not as strong as the Red, so it didn't have that bite to it that I was expecting. Less hoppy than I would have expected, too.

Tatonka Stout: A Russian Imperial Stout, yum! And it was good, too, rich and complex and creamy and smooth—I think this one was my favorite of the bunch. A very good example of the style, not as strong as some I've had (8.3% alcohol by volume), but still very, very good.

Oatmeal Stout: I don't remember the exact name, but this was a seasonal and the only one I wasn't able to finish. It wasn't as good for me as the Tatonka Stout; it was harsher, with more bitter overtones (coffee, roast malt). Drier. Not bad, but not as good as an oatmeal stout should be (creamy and smooth).

Overall, a decent visit marred by a not-so-great service experience. They make some good beer, worth visiting for. I'll go back to try them again sometime.

I wanted to jot down some notes here from our quick trip to Portland this weekend, about the Horse Brass Pub.

The Horse Brass is one of my favorite places in Portland for beer and food. In the style of an English pub, they offer real darts, dark wood furnishing, English food (bangers and mash, kidney pie, Scotch eggs), cigars, and a large number of good beers on tap (and more in the bottle). It's one of the only places I know that has lambic (Lindemans Framboise) on tap.

For me, one of the best beer bars in Portland.

Anyway, while there, I had two beers: Poor Richard's Ale from Laurelwood Brewing, and a fantastic Black Cherry Stout from Walking Man (under construction, that site). Quick notes on both.

Poor Richard's: Laurelwood's version is creamy and caramely, and not as hoppy as the two others I've tried. Same character, though, nice and molasses-y in what I'm coming to think of as the "Colonial style." Very good.

Black Cherry Stout: Quite unlike a lot of other fruit beers I tried! It smells just like Cherry Coke, and the taste isn't too far off, either. The darker stout flavors are downplayed and very smooth, and the smoky cherry is right there at the beginning. Wow! I was very impressed. Next time I make it back to the Horse Brass, I will definitely order up a pint of this again.

One other thing to note about the Horse Brass: next door sits Belmont Station, billed as the premier bottle shop in Portland. They have a huge selection of bottled beer to buy, I picked up a few that I'll be drinking and writing about. Consider this a required stop, too, if you are looking to acquire some hard-to-find beer.

I'd been holding on to a bottle of Saison Dupont I picked up just after Christmas time, looking forward to the day I'd drink it, thanks to this article which proclaimed it the best beer in the world.

Naturally, reading that one particular beer is the best, period, tends to raise eyebrows. So while I had my doubts, my curiosity was aroused, and I finally opened up the bottle.

I'll start by saying that I don't know if this is the best beer in the world... but it's definitely near the top of the list. It's a beer that reminds me that no matter how much I think I know about beer, there's a whole different level I haven't even reached yet. As it should be.

My notes on this are pretty feeble, for largely that reason. They're really more impressions than descriptions.

Appearance: Very thick snow-white creamy head, very active. The beer is pale gold in color, and a bit hazy.

Smell: Tricky, because of the style. It's a Belgian farmhouse ale, which means a lot of things, one of which is that there are unusual aromas in here. My wife couldn't stand the smell at all; her best description when I pressed her was "apricoty-yeasty." My own scribblings include wet straw, musty, sour, yeasty. Very, very pungent.

Taste: Despite the smell, the taste is completely different and fantastic. Bready, fruity, yeasty, malty; hints of peach/apricot? There's bitterness, but it's not what I would call bitter. Low hops. Some sort of spicyness. Frankly, the taste is sublime.

Mouthfeel: Perfect. It's creamy, buttery, medium-bodied which belies its appearance... just perfect. No quibbles at all.

BeerAdvocate scores it high with 90/100 and 99% approval, with many glowing reviews.

This beer is... well, to borrow my note on the taste, sublime. Amazing. I still don't know about the best in the world—but it's pretty darn close.

Having brewed extract-based beer for years (I still haven't made the jump to all grain), I thought I'd share some hacker-ish tips to help improve your extract brewing. These are tips that are aimed more for the beginning homebrewer, though hopefully more advanced brewers will appreciate them too.

More...

I opened a bottle of my recent pumpkin ale (bottled about two and a half weeks ago) to try it out, and it's not bad. (I had actually had a small taster of it with some friends on Saturday, but tonight was the full bottle.)

I'll spare the full review treatment I've been giving all the beers lately—at least, for now. It could use a little more time maturing in the bottle, I think. The spices are coming across a little strong for me, but I imagine they will mellow.

Overall, it's pretty good. It's certainly not the 8% alcohol that my initial gravity reading gave me, I think what happened was the amount of pumpkin particulates in the first reading skewed my results by quite a bit.

More as I let it age a bit.

Tonight I cracked open a bottle of Rogue's Chocolate Stout, one I'd been looking forward to since I picked it up at the World Market over a week ago. I love Rogue; they just never disappoint. Chocolate Stout is everything I hoped the Siletz Chocolate Porter would be and more.

Appearance: Thick black, with a luscious dark brown head of foam.

Smell: Cocoa. Dark chocolate. Seriously, you get a nose full of cocoa when you smell this beer.

Taste: Black stout dryness with dark chocolate rolling around the mouth. There's a slight burnt flavor lingering at the edges, probably from the roasted barley. It's a very good, classic dry stout, full of chocolate.

Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied. Nice, but a little thin for a stout. The carbonation feels a bit higher when it hits the palate. You notice the dryness here too.

BeerAdvocate rates it highly with a 91 out of 100 and 98% thumbs up. And RateBeer gives it 3.94 out of 5.

Bottom line: It's excellent. Try at least one, if you can find it.