Category : Blogging

Hop Press: Canvolution

February 27th, 2010

My Hop Press article for today—”Canvolution“—takes a look at the canned beer segment of craft brewing (something which I have passing familiarity with) to serve as both an introduction and an advocacy piece. Oskar Blues, 21st Amendment, and Canfest all get nods.

Need last-minute Super Bowl beer?

February 7th, 2010

Follow my suggestions in my Hop Press article yesterday. There’s still time to run out to your nearest bottle shop (or boutique grocery, or wherever sells craft beer in your area) and stock up.

Another Bend Beer Blog

February 4th, 2010

As active as the beer culture is here in Bend, Oregon, there sure is a scarcity of local beer blogs. For the longest time there was just myself (and of course, now my Hop Press blog as well) and Brewerman. Only two of the breweries have blogs: Deschutes and 10 Barrel (though that one hasn’t been updated in nearly a year).

But! There’s a new blog that has popped up: the aptly-name “The Bend Beer Blog.” I’m always glad to see a new beer blog, and one here in Bend is especially welcome!

Now if we could only get a few more, we could have some serious meetups.

Liquid Solutions is closing

January 31st, 2010

I saw this news last week but hadn’t really had time to fully process or address it: online beer retailer Liquid Solutions is closings its doors.

It is with a heavy heart that I am closing the business down after nine years of operation. We are shutting down the website and liquidating our entire inventory out of the warehouse. We are selling all beer, mead and ciders at 10-30% below cost. Hundreds of great beers are available. For a list of products see the post below. Come to the warehouse early for the best selection.

There is also a list of beers available for liquidation, but if you’re able to go there’s no guarantee that any of these will be still available.

Beyond that, of course, is a deeper regret on seeing the site shuttered; while the site itself was a little rough around the edges, it was still incomparable as far as online beer stores go, both in selection and with their vintage auctions. Not to mention that they offered an affiliate program—as regular visitors here have undoubtedly noticed. That alone put them ahead of other online stores I’ve come across.

Definitely a loss to the internet beer community, and they will be missed.

Hop Press: To Age or Not To Age

January 31st, 2010

In case you missed it yesterday, my Hop Press articles is a meditation on the aging of beer.

When does the aging end and the drinking begin? Do you follow the Pliny school of thought, or the Reserve Series? Lately I’ve been drifting a bit from the Reserve Series column to the Pliny column: beer is meant to be drank. But there are some styles of beer that are worth aging; it’s not an absolute either way for me.

There needs to be a Beer Bloggers Conference

January 19th, 2010

It came to my attention that the 2010 Wine Bloggers Conference is coming to Walla Walla, Washington, this June, and it got me reflecting on that fact that there even is a Wine Bloggers Conference. I don’t read any wine blogs (I should probably start) but it seems to me that they’re probably not too much different from beer blogs, at least in concept; so the question that naturally comes to my mind is:

Where’s the Beer Bloggers Conference?

There needs to be one. In fact, it seems like a no-brainer! Now I don’t know jack about organizing such a thing, but I’d gladly participate if someone who knows these things did. I will suggest the location for the first Conference though: Portland, Oregon (of course).

Stan touched upon this topic back in November of 2008; and I just found this thread on the Beer Bloggers forum on Ning asking and discussing this very question from the middle of last year. (Interesting takeaway: it’s possible one may be organized for 2010, in Colorado.)

Monday morning updates

January 18th, 2010

I’ve decided to change up Theme Week a bit starting this month; instead of starting on the third Monday (third full week) of each month, instead it will be the last full week of each month. It’s a minor change, but gives me a bit more time to track down elusive beers (for instance).

The Hop Press is going strong, picking up steam even. I pretty well finished up my overview of the Bend Beer Scene on Saturday, and for a concise table of contents for that series, here it is:

• Part One: Deschutes & Bend Brewing
• Part Two: Cascade Lakes & Silver Moon
• Part Three: McMenamins & 10 Barrel
• Part Four: Three Creeks & The Brew Shop
• Part Five: Beer Bars

I’ll be getting back on the “Beer Hacker Brewing on the Cheap” series again very soon as well; first off will be re-examining some of the cost assumptions I laid out early on—hops are cheaper now, so that equals a nice reduction in brewing costs.

The Greg Koch chat… “liner notes”

January 10th, 2010

As promised, here are some additional bits about my meeting/interview with Greg Koch of Stone Brewing. Call them “liner notes” or “special features” or something.

Anyone who’s had a Stone beer is familiar with the text on the labeling—the paragraph of text first made famous on the Arrogant Bastard bottle admonishing would-be drinkers for not being worthy and probably not liking the beer is the classic example—and what’s interesting is that Koch writes all of that text himself.

Each year’s edition of their Old Guardian Barley Wine features different text written each year by Koch, and his tradition is to open a bottle (or two) of the previous year’s Old Guardian for inspiration. He never plans ahead what he’s going to write, it’s as much stream-of-consciousness as anything, and he’ll take the time to write it wherever he happens to be at the time. This year it was in India; another time while he was in Istanbul.

You can imagine bringing along a couple of bombers of beer along while traveling the world is a bit of a pain… but not as much as leaving one behind! If you follow @StoneGreg on Twitter then you likely saw the posts alluding to this—yep, the second beer was accidentally left behind in the hotel minibar as he was leaving India.

That bit of the story made it into the label of this year’s bottle, which you can (squintingly) read over at Beernews.org. It’s rather meta—writing the label text about writing the label text.

Remember the hop shortage a couple of years back? I asked about how they affected Stone—known for being a rather hop-intense brewer—and Koch confirmed that they were hit pretty hard by the shortage. It manifested across the board by price raises and they were adaptable to various changes in their hopping (mostly minor changes involved with bittering hops), but they definitely felt the pain.

(Regarding prices, anecdotally I’ll point out that even in San Diego, Stone beer is more expensive than other local beer: $10 to $11 and up for a six pack of Pale Ale or IPA, for instance, while other offerings hover in the $7 to $9 range per six-pack. I’m painting with broad strokes, obviously, but it seems similar to the Rogue effect we have here in Oregon: six-packs of Rogue beers are markedly more expensive than those of other Oregon brewers, which leads to a bit of grumbling. No theories here, just an observation.)

Because I am interested in such things, I found out Stone has a laboratory with which they can properly analyze their beers. (Of course, all large-enough breweries should have an in-house lab, but I’m a nerd and had to inquire anyway.) Has Stone ever offered (or considered offering) use of their lab to other, smaller area brewers? No, said Koch, a bit surprised, that’s something they’d never thought of doing before. But he certainly seemed receptive to the idea; maybe (giving myself far too much credit here) someday Stone will do just that (nothing Koch said, I’m just reaching).

All in all, it was a really good meeting, I thought, and even though I’m quite sure I babbled like an idiot more than once, Koch was extremely friendly and forthright and was generous enough to donate about 45 minutes of his day to me.

And I’ll reiterate from past reviews, if you ever find yourself in San Diego, take the time to visit Stone Brewing up in Escondido. Totally worth the trip and you’ll be glad you did.

Hop Press: Talking with Greg Koch of Stone Brewing

January 9th, 2010

My article today over on Hop Press is the write-up of my visit with Greg Koch of Stone Brewing last week. He’s a really cool guy, and had no problems about meeting with me—which is awfully generous for the busy CEO of a big company.

I’ll be posting some “liner notes” of things about our meeting that didn’t make the cut over at my Hop Press article, sometime this weekend. Some fun stuff—all about the beer, of course.

The Brew Site Best of 2009

January 7th, 2010

It’s time to write my “Best of 2009″ wrap-up post, looking back over the past year to come up with “The Brew Site Best”: those beers and breweries and festivals that really stood out for me personally. (Which is my disclaimer to say that in no way am I proclaiming these to be the “Best of All Time” or willing to get into fisticuffs over.)

Beers

I drank a lot of good beer last year, and weeding down the list of the ones that really wowed me was difficult. Predictably there are a lot of Oregon brewers represented here, because I happen to live in Oregon and we have good brewers and fresh beer available.

My criteria for coming up with this list was: first, what were the really good beers I reviewed; of those, what really stand out in my mind; of those, which were the Wow beers—the stand-up and take notice, revelatory beers. All subjective, mind you. The only other criteria was that I wrote a review of it last year.

Here’s my Best Beers of 2009:

• Drifter Pale Ale: Widmer’s new addition to their regular line-up, stunningly delicious, and heralding the trend this year in (Oregon) beers: big hoppy character without just being bitter.
• HopHead Imperial IPA: Bend Brewing’s GABF-award-winning beer, the first they ever bottled. Big and juicy in the hops without being over the top.
• Full Sail 21: Full Sail’s anniversary Doppelbock, perfectly balanced and I called it “world class.”
• 2008 Bourbon County Stout: Goose Island’s granddaddy of barrel-aged beers, I just discovered it last year. It’s just as much “bourbon” as “beer.”
• Widmer Snow Plow: The understated classic that surprises me every time, simply a freaking great milk stout.
• Red Chair IPA: The first of several Deschutes beers on this list, Red Chair is hop forward but in the trend of “not-bitter”: there’s a ton of hop character in the beer that you can taste.
• Black Butte XXI: The way-too-drinkable second showing of Deschutes’ double Black Butte Porter, with chocolate and coffee and partially aged in bourbon barrels.
• Smashed Pumpkin: Shipyard Brewing’s Imperial Pumpkin ale, strong but a good pumpkin showing.
• Cherry Oak Doppelbock: I pre-emptively declared this beer one of the best of 2009, and I stand by that declaration. Widmer shows everyone how it’s done with this beer.
• Life & Limb: The notable collaboration beer between Sierra Nevada and Dogfish Head, a big, rummy dark beer that gets as much kudos from the bottle design as for the beer itself.
• The Abyss 2009: This was probably my most predicable choice; of course I would pick The Abyss. This year’s vintage is—I believe—the one where Deschutes locked it all in, and it reflects that experience and maturity.

If I pick just one beer from that list, it would be… hmm… the Cherry Oak Doppelbock. The biggest factor I’d have to say that it possessed is that it surprised me completely.

Breweries

I visited a number of breweries this past year, but I only wrote up “real” reviews on the ones listed below, so that was my criteria for this list. Like the beers, it’s not a knock against the other breweries I’ve been to, just what I happened to write up and found memorable.

• Barley Brown’s Brewpub: (See also my notes on their beers.) One of the very few breweries in all of Eastern Oregon, located in Baker City. Great food and great beers.
• Double Mountain Brewery: Hood River’s newest brewpub, with a funky old-school vibe and some fantastic beers.
• Stone Brewing: A visit to Stone’s brewery, restaurant and beer garden is always a treat, and this year the garden itself had really, er, blossomed from when I was there last (it was still under development).
• Steelhead Brewing: Nice brewpub over in Eugene (Oregon) with decent beers and really good food.

In addition, I visited Pizza Port Carlsbad not long after Christmas, but I haven’t yet written up my review of it.

If I pick just one of these? It’s tough and a toss-up between Barley Brown’s and Double Mountain… but I think the edge goes to Barley Brown’s, for the fantastic beer deals (and the great beer) and the even better food.

Festivals

This is a misdirection: I only attended one beer festival last year, so by default it is named the Best. Fortunately it was a really good festival, as well.

• The Little Woody: Bend’s very own, very first barrel-aged beer festival. All the Central Oregon brewers participated and it was a really good first effort.

Miscellaneous

I threw this category in here just to share some stats. Last year, the top 2009 posts were:

1. Drifter Pale Ale
2. The Beer Hacker: Brewing on the cheap
3. Hop Hound Amber Wheat
4. Received: Stone Vertical Epic 09.09.09
5. Bend’s pub scene is growing
6. American Macro Week 2: Keystone Ice
7. The Beer Hacker: Brewing on the cheap: Costs by style
8. Oregon Beer Week: The Oregon beer tax
9. Recipe: Cream Ale
10. Recipe: Coconut Cream Stout

The top search terms used to get to The Brew Site were:

1. pumpkin ale recipe
2. best cheap beer
3. golden monkey beer
4. simcoe hops
5. cheap beer
6. pumpkin beer recipe
7. costco beer
8. delirium nocturnum
9. buying beer online
10. oregon beer tax

Overall, Google Analytics tells me I had 180,189 visits for 2009. That seems pretty good to me.

Working on my “Best Of” post

January 5th, 2010

Just so the suspense can start killing you, I’m working on my “Brew Site Best of 2009″ post which I should have online in the next day or so: my personal “best of” list as gleaned from the beer and brewery reviews I made online in 2009.

I don’t have the review written yet, but technically I visited (and have notes and pictures) Pizza Port Carlsbad in 2009, so I’m debating adding it to the list of eligible breweries; my own admittedly weak criteria has been to consider only those I wrote a review for, and the Pizza Port review will technically be up in 2010. Oh, the dilemma of self-imposed rules for building out an entirely opinionated list…

But I’m curious as to what all your “Best of 2009″ beers and breweries were. Let loose in the comments.

Merry Christmas!

December 25th, 2009

Merry Christmas everybody! Hope you all are having a safe and beery holiday.

Checking in on Hop Press

December 15th, 2009

With all the business of this Advent Beer Calendar I’m running this month, I forgot to link to my two latest Hop Press articles: a multi-part guide to the Bend beer scene.

Part 1 is here, wherein I cover Deschutes Brewery and Bend Brewing Company. Part 2 is here, covering Cascade Lakes Brewing and Silver Moon Brewing. At the rate I’m going of two breweries per post—not to mention the Brew Shop, several beer bars, and beer stores—I figure I should have three or four more parts to the series, at least.

Those will wait, though, because this week I’m covering a “Beer School” topic. It’ll be up Saturday, so tune in to see what I’m talking about.

An interview with moi.

December 11th, 2009

The Beer Wench (a fellow Hop Press writer) has started up a series of “beer blogger interviews” lately on her blog, and today she posted the interview with yours truly. It’s a fun read, and reveals a bit more about my overall background than I probably have here. Though my beer opinions and history aren’t really a surprise to regular readers.

Anyway. Go read it. And check out the rest of her site, too, while you’re at it.

Jubelale vertical

November 28th, 2009

My latest post over on Hop Press is up today: a vertical tasting of Jubelale. Something else to be thankful for this week!