Category : Breweries
Urban Chestnut Brewing (from former A-B employees)
August 10th, 2010The news (and press release) making the rounds right now is the imminent opening of Urban Chestnut Brewing, a St. Louis brewery start-up made most notable by the fact that it’s being started by two former Anheuser-Busch employees. One is a former brewer for A-B, the other was in sales and marketing.
The PR is hitting all the right points for craft beer marketing—here’s a pull:
UCBC likes to call its unique brewing philosophy Beer Divergency —a ‘new world meets old world’ brewing approach wherein UCBC contributes to the ‘revolution’ of craft beer through artisanal creations of modern American beers, and pays ‘reverence’ to the heritage of beer with classically-crafted offerings of timeless, European beer styles.
UCBC will create, brew and offer their beers under its Revolution (American craft) and Reverence (European traditional) series.
Revolution: Our contribution to the renaissance of craft beer—brewing artisanal, modern American beers.
Reverence: Our celebration of beer’s heritage—brewing classically-crafted, timeless European beer styles.
They’re located in a 1920′s garage in the Midtown Alley district of St. Louis, and plan to begin distributing their beers late this year. No word on whether they’ll be available outside of the St. Louis area.
Craft Brewers Alliance (Widmer, Redhook) purchasing Kona Brewing
August 4th, 2010John Foyston broke the news yesterday which seemed to surprise people:
Portland-based Craft Brewers Alliance Inc. said Tuesday it will pay $13.9 million for Hawaii’s Kona Brewing Co., cementing what had been a nine-year partnership.
Under the agreement, Kona will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Craft Brewers, which also distributes the beers of Chicago’s Goose Island Brewery. Craft Brewers was formed with the merger of Portland’s Widmer Brothers Brewing and Woodinville, Wash.,-based Redhook Ale Brewery in 2008.
As part of Craft Brewers, Kona will be able to expand its brand and distribution while maintaining its craft brewery operations in Hawaii, said Kurt Widmer, co-founder of Widmer Brothers Brewing. Kona beer for mainland distribution will continue to be brewed by Widmer and Redhook.
I’m not sure why it was surprising, as it makes perfect sense: Widmer has been brewing Kona’s beers here on the mainland for years (it’s costly to export from Hawaii), and this deal will not only be an extension of that but will also get Kona’s beers into wider distribution (always a good thing).
There will be (and already are) those who think this is a bad thing because these bigger craft brewers have “sold out” somehow, but Jeff over at Beervana zeroes in on this and talks about why this is in fact a good thing (and nails it).
BrewDog, No.
July 22nd, 2010I’ve pretty much ignored the PR stunts of Scotland’s BrewDog because, well, they’re just that—stunts. But this is just offensively crude, in my opinion. I will never drink beer (or anything, really) from a bottle packaged in taxidermy roadkill.
Roots Organic Brewing is closed
July 15th, 2010I’ve been remiss in writing about this earlier, but this week Roots Organic Brewing in Portland closed its doors suddenly; John Foyston has the story.
[Craig] Nicholls had been trying to sell the pub and brewery for a reported $450,000, but a couple of deals fell through and he said Tuesday that every day the pub stayed open, he went deeper in the hole. He retains all rights to the name and the beers however, and said that it was possible that his beers might still be brewed and bottled and found on grocer’s shelves.
And some further details:
First, the good news. Roots ales will be on tap this weekend at Lompoc and Lucky Lab locations, thanks to those guys buying kegs and beer in a show of brewerly solidarity…and there is a dock sale this weekend, where you can buy cold kegs for $110 plus $100 deposit, cash/check only…you’ll e-mail Nicholls to return the keg…
10 a.m., Saturday, Roots Organic Brewing, 1520 S.E. Seventh Ave.
“We just reached the point where it was time to stop the bleeding and cut our losses,” said owner/brewer Craig Nicholls, who also runs the North American Organic Brewers Festival, which will continue. The closure shouldn’t be taken as a comment on organic beer or the health of the Portland brewing scene, because Roots fell victim to many of the ills that plague small businesses, including the economic downturn, under- capitalization and an unseasonably cold spring and summer, which has affected many Portland brewpubs.
It was especially hard on Roots, Nicholls said, which recently ceded its outside accounts because of distribution problems. Those accounts once were 60 percent of the pub’s income and a slump in the brewpub side further hurt the business. Nicholls has been trying to sell the pub for several months, initially for an asking price of $450,000. Five different buyers in Portland and beyond toyed with the idea, but even at a reduced price, none signed a deal.
Roots was the first organic brewery in Portland (indeed, it may have been all of Oregon) and I had only tried their beers from afar, never on the premises. And of course, I may now never get to try their Epic Ale.
What’s going to become of the space, I wonder?
Deschutes’ Black Butte XXII is canceled this year
June 28th, 2010I wish that were a headline I was making up for an April Fool’s Day joke, but it’s not: it’s official. Here’s the word from Gary Fish on the Deschutes Brewery blog:
The much anticipated release of Deschutes Brewery’s Black Butte XXII is being canceled this year. The Imperial version of the brewery’s popular Black Butte Porter, this year made with chilies, dark chocolate and orange peel, has been a favorite since it was first produced in 2008 for the brewery’s anniversary on June 27th.
The experimental chocolate that was used in this year’s formulation never fully dissolved in the beer. While most of it dissolved, a portion formed a layer on the surface of the beer. While the beer tastes fantastic, the visual presentation in the bottle is not up to Deschutes Brewery’s long held commitment to quality and the customer experience.
So, it is with great sadness that we make this announcement. We are not happy with this years Anniversary beer and we don’t think most of our consumers would be happy with it either. Therefore we are refusing to ship the beer recently packaged.
However, take this as Deschutes Brewery’s firm commitment to quality and to our customers. When you push boundaries like we do, something like this is bound to happen. We have been fortunate in the past that none of our experiments have resulted in this kind of drastic action. I hope all our friends and customers will forgive this year’s lack of an anniversary beer while recognizing our commitment to them.
We promise to never back away from the line, even when the risk is great.
There will be very limited amounts of draft Black Butte XXII available at the Deschutes Bend Pub, Portland Pub and the Tasting Room where Deschutes staff can monitor it closely and take appropriate action if the beer becomes visually unacceptable.
Brewpublic has a bit more as well.
I’ve had a sample at the Bend Pub and I thought it was quite good—the chilies made for an interesting twist as did the orange peel. I think what makes this announcement all the worse is that the beer actually tastes fine.
I have mixed feelings about it; I think if the beer is as good as I’ve tasted, then I (and I imagine other beer geeks) would easily excuse any appearance issue. On the other hand, I have to respect the fact that Deschutes is putting the kibosh on a huge release like this.
Bend beer news from Brewpublic
June 15th, 2010The good folks over at the excellent blog Brewpublic have been in Bend recently: not only did they publish a blog post about Bend Brewing yesterday, but they completely scooped me today’s posts about Boneyard Beer (I’ve been drinking through a growler of their “Black 13″ beer the last couple of days) and “More Bend News“:
In other Bend area news…it was confirmed through a city employee that New Belgium Brewing has applied and been granted a permit to start a production facility in Bend. According to sources, the facility will be used mostly for canning the Fort Collins, Colorado based brewery’s beer. This news came to Brewpublic when the permits were just approved, meaning that this project is still in a very early development phase.
The Bend area can also see two other new breweries coming its way. Also in early development stages, Bend can expect Noble Brewing and Copper Mountain Brewing to open facilities some time in the next year. If this happens, we may consider voting for Bend as Beer City USA in the next Charlie Papazian poll.
Color me both chagrined and intrigued.
Hey Angelo and Margaret… next time you’re in town, shoot me an email and let me buy you a beer!
Hop Press: Beer in Pacific City
June 5th, 2010My Hop Press article today is titled, “Good beer in unlikely places: Pacific City, Oregon” and reviews a bit of our Memorial Day trip to the Oregon Coast last weekend: specifically, a visit to the Pelican Pub & Brewery.
Long-time readers will remember that I’ve reviewed the Pelican before—way back in 2006—and I’m happy to report that it’s just as good as ever. But lest you think that the Pelican is the only place to find good beer in Pacific City (of all places!), go read the second part of my article—you may be surprised.
Deschutes testers
June 2nd, 2010These two rather non-descript bottles are from Deschutes Brewery and arrived today:
Fortunately an explanation letter was included in the package:
We invite you to fill the difficult role of “Deschutes Brewery Beer Tester.” We know it’s a lot to ask, but we’d love to get your feedback on a beer that we’ve been experimenting with in our Bend and Portland pubs for the last several months.
Currently named Miss Spelt Hefeweizen, this brew has been so popular in the pub locations that we’ve bottled up a small sampling to get some feedback from the professional: YOU.
We’re not going to tell you much about it: we want your opinion, unsullied by our expectations. Please let us know what you think about Deschutes Brewery’s take on this popular style of beer. We can’t wait to hear back from you!
What little I do know about these beers is that they’re made with 40% spelt (but are not gluten free). I’m not sure if I’ll review them here on the blog or not, but I certainly think this is an interesting (a new?) PR move for the Brewery to take.
Breweries’ historic buildings
May 18th, 2010The Lost Oregon blog is starting a “Beer and history” series that looks pretty interesting:
Many, if not most, of our local breweries and drinking establishments are housed in older buildings just by the fact that rarely is a new brewery built from scratch because let’s face it, most older buildings have an existing personality, architectural touches, good location, and good bones. As I’ve sat at many a bar and sipped on a cold one, I’ve often visualized the building in its previous life – Storefont? Office building? House of ill repute? Haunted by a 1920s flapper girl? [Ghosts are always romantic figures like a scorned lover from the 1920s that threw herself out the window. How many junkies that OD’ed on smack in a flophouse stick around to haunt the place?]
This seems like it could be an interesting subject regardless of where the brewery is located, but being it’s an Oregon-themed blog, naturally it’ll only cover the Oregon breweries.
The first one featured is Widmer’s Gasthaus.
Boneyard Beer (Bend)
May 5th, 2010You might remember about a year and a half ago I blogged about the forthcoming Brewtal Brewing here in Bend; last November I noted that there was no further word about it and wondered. So what happened? They became Boneyard Beer and have begun brewing beer! (Their Facebook page is here.)
They are a 20-barrel production brewery located at 37 NW Lake Place (Suite B), just on the very edge of the downtown area. They (will?) have a tasting room and plan to sell beer directly from the brewery (retail). I presume they’ll be selling to accounts in town as well.
Most interestingly, they are apparently planning to can their beer; according to their “services” page they’ll be canning in 16-ounce cans—not something you see a lot of with craft beer.
And yes, they’re brewing; on April 17th they posted on Facebook, “Big day yesterday…First official brew in our 20 barrel brew house!!”
That now puts Central Oregon at eight commercial craft brewers.
Boneyard Beer
37 NW Lake Place, Suite B
Bend, OR 97701
Phone (541) 323 -2325
Fax (541) 323 2326
Big day yesterday…First official brew in our 20 barrel brew house!!
Deschutes and Hair of the Dog collaboration
May 3rd, 2010There’s a press release that came through last week that has me excited: Deschutes Brewery and Hair of the Dog are collaborating (for the first time ever for both of them) on a beer that will be released in 2011:
[Hair of the Dog's Alan] Sprints came over to Bend in early March to brew two of his beers at the Deschutes Brewery brewhouse. Then it was Deschutes Brewery brewmaster Larry Sidor’s turn to brew two of his own beers. These four beers (which will remain unnamed as yet) will be aged in various wood barrels and then blended together sometime in early 2011 in a ratio yet to be determined as part of the creative process. Over the next several months, Hair of the Dog and Deschutes Brewery will be meeting to sample the aging beer and contemplate the blending process.
It may not generate as much fanfare as the Stone collaborations but this is big. I’ve often thought it would be cool to see Deschutes do a collaboration brew, and now we get two of the best breweries in Oregon putting together a wood-aged, blended beer… I can’t wait to hear more about this one.
Also on the topic of collaborations: remember that The Session is coming up this Friday the 7th on that very topic.
The Brewery at Lake Tahoe
April 5th, 2010As part of our Spring Break trip to Lake Tahoe, we rented a condo that was right on the Lake (it was a big family trip, so all of us together were able to afford it), and just happened to be across the street from The Brewery at Lake Tahoe. And when I say across the street, I mean literally just across the street from the condo complex: we couldn’t have stayed any closer.
Naturally enough, we ate there several times, and the first night bought a growler than we subsequently had filled a few more times during the trip. Overall, The Brewery has decent beers and great food, and I highly recommend it if you’re in South Lake Tahoe. Now that I’ve spoiled it, let’s get into the review.
Read the rest of this entry »
Deschutes Hop in the Dark Cascadian Dark Ale
March 16th, 2010No, this isn’t a review (yet), but a note that Deschutes Brewery is set to release their first bottled Cascadian Dark Ale (also variously known as a “Black IPA”) coming up this May: Hop in the Dark. (And note they are labeling it a “CDA” rather than a Black IPA.) Here are their notes about it:
Available May – September 2010
Bond Street Series (22-ounce bottles and draft)
What takes 22 brews and more than a year of experiments to reach perfection? Deschutes Brewery’s newest Bond Street Series release: Hop in the Dark Cascadian Dark Ale (C.D.A.). C.D.A. is a new style of beer that emerged recently in the Pacific Northwest, more widely known as a Black I.P.A. There has been a significant movement and debate in the region to call the style C.D.A., and Deschutes Brewery leads the way with Hop in the Dark.
This ominous looking liquid combines prominent Northwest hops with roasted malts to create a black tinted India Pale Ale type beer. Hop in the Dark aromas come from Cascade, Amarillo, Citra and Centennial hops that float over a gentle undercurrent of velvet malt complexities.
Deschutes Brewery invites beer lovers to take the plunge – a hop, if you will – into this new Dark Cascadian Ale.
Beer Geek Information:
6.5% Alcohol by Volume (ABV)
70 International Bittering Units (IBUs)
I’ve heard some of those 22 brews, while they were tinkering with the recipe, were rather odd, others were really good. There’s a definite advantage to using the pubs as a sort of “test lab” for these kinds of things.
Double Mountain 3rd anniversary – today
March 13th, 2010Double Mountain Brewery is celebrating their 3rd anniversary today with a big party at the Hood River brewery and taproom: they’ve closed off the block in front of the brewery and erected a big tent, and are featuring live music, food and reserve beers all day.
Kölsch
Alpenbrew
India Red Ale
Hop Lava
Black Irish Stout (on nitro)
Porter A-Go-Go
Imperial Chaos Imperial Stout
Nitro Pale (on nitro)
Empire Strikes Back All-English IPA
Devil’s Kriek
Terrible Two Bourbon-Barrel Aged Brown Ale
*Li’l Red Pils ‘09
*Jumpin’ Jack Flash Pub Cider
*Fa La La La La ‘09
*The Vaporizer ‘09 Dry-Hopped Pale Ale*These last four are one-and-done, we’ll only be tapping one keg of each on Saturday.
2:30pm: We start with a bang: Paris Slim and his band will be kickin’ some killer West Coast blues.
4:30pm: Next up we detour down the country-folk highway with Garrett Brennan and the Great Salt Licks, featuring Lewi Longmire and Paul Brainard (on pedal steel!).
7:00pm: A hot set as always from the incredible one-man supergroup Tony Smiley, with a little help from his friend The Bird. If you’ve never see Tony lay it down, you’re in for a special treat.
9:00pm: We wrap it up with some crucial reggae from Chronicle, a Portland band that knows how to make a party.As always, the tunes are 100% free. Come early, come often…
Our food offerings for the day will feature our regular fare plus some fresh down-home Mexican food too. Silvia (one of our wonderful servers) asked her mama to make some of her famous tamales and killer salsas. Kitchen jockeys Mark & Jonny Face will be knocking out some tasty tacos too, piled on fresh tortillas from Tortilleria De Leon in Gresham.
A quick reminder that the gig is kid-friendly until 8pm, per OLCC regs. Our big tent will be heated, but bring something warm & dry regardless.
There’s still time to head over to Hood River to enjoy the festivities—you’re only a short hop away if you’re in Portland, and just a couple hours away from Central Oregon and similar.
Suggest a new beer for Fort George Brewery
March 9th, 2010Fort George Brewery over in Astoria, Oregon, is busy this month: not only are they celebrating their third birthday coming up on March 14th, they’re also holding a contest to suggest their next new beer. From their blog:
We here at Fort George take being a Public House very seriously. It has been because of our great customers that we have been able to grow and better our business and for that, we would like to give back. Fort George Brewery would like your ideas for a new beer that could be made in our brewery. If you would like to see a new style of beer, would like us to try something new with our beers, or have a recipe of your own that you would like to see pouring at Fort George, submit an entry and it could end up being brewed!
All beer entries must be able to be made with our American Ale Yeast or our Belgian yeast. The beer selected will be based on quality, creativity, availability of ingredients, and by how delicious it sounds. You may submit as many entries as you like but only one beer will be chosen.
Click through to the blog to get the details on how to submit your beer idea. You have until April 10th to get your entry in.
