Pictures from the Hood River Hop Festival

Good times with friends at the Hood River Hop Festival

The weather was mostly great (except for a 20 minuet or so downpour)

Updates & Hood River Hops Festival

Okay, I know I am sucking at this blog thing. I will try to get better but I seem to be better at the "micro-bl0gging" thing i.e. Twitter. My Twitter feed is on the right side of this page if you want to follow along.

That being said let's move on to the today's topic: Hood River Hops Fest!

Yes, it's that time of the year again: Fresh hop beer abound all around Beervana! I've already had at least 10 fresh hop beers this season even before attending a Fresh Hop Festival! So on to the festival (which technically in NOT a Fresh Hop Festival, rather it is a Hop Festival - a celebration of beers hoppy and not so hoppy). The tap list is here. Jeff over at Beervana has a nice post with a list here.

Pictures coming soon...

Hops And More Hops!

Just a quick note about a few hoppy happenings around Beervana... Yes it is that time again!!!

Today starting soon:

Hop Harvest at the Lucky Lab on Hawthorne! Starting at 2 PM going on all day.

You can find more info at The Beer Here blog.

And next up is Hop Madness down at Willamette Mission State Park this weekend! I'll be heading down there on Saturday with my friends Ritch and Ezra. Should be a great time!

(For more info hit the link)

I'd better get down to Lucky Lab!

Cheers!

Concordia Cup 2009

Now that we are moved in to our new home in Portland proper we can start update in this blog again... Where to start? Last month was Oregon Beer Month so there quite a few beer events we end up attending. Lets start close to the new neighborhood up at Concordia Ale House. They just held their annual Concordia Cup event. This event along with all their BEER BRAWL events are always fun and a must if you're in or around Beervana. This is part of the email from Concordia Ale House about the results from Concordia Ale House:

1st place Deschutes Experimental Batch #4 Imperial IPA

Congrats to Cam O'Conner Deschutes Portland Brewing Co.

Oregon's 2nd Time running BEER BRAWL III Captain

2nd Hair of the Dog Blue Dot Imperial IPA

3rd Laurelwood Imperial IPA

4th Ninkasi Tricerahops

5th Steelhead T-Rex Imperial IPA

Beers in order as listed on taster tray

1. Ninkasi Tricerahops

2. Deschutes Exp. Batch #4

3. Hair of the Dog

4. Fearless Imperial IPA

5. Hopworks Evelyn

6. Root's Shark Bite

7. Old Lompoc C-note

8. Laurelwood Imperial

9. Alameda Yellow Wolf

10. Terminal Gravity IPA

11. Oakshire Perfect Storm Dry Hop

12. Steelhead T-Rex

Thanks to all who voted!

What were my favorites? I really liked #2 (Deschutes Experimental Batch #4 Imperial IPA) . It was a very close battle for 2nd between #5 (Hopworks Evelyn) and #9 (Alameda Yellow Wolf, my neighborhood local brewpub favorite).

Congratulations to Deschutes' Cam O'Conner for the win and for brewing a such a tasty beer!

Updates: Last Week's Epic Baltic/Imperial Porter Tasting at Upright Brewing

Before I forget to post this...

Last week I was lucky enough to attend one hell of a beer tasting masterfully organized by Ezra a.k.a Samurai Artist and graciously hosted by Upright Brewing . I sampled some great beers, a few for the 1st time like Smuttynose Baltic Porter and Victory Baltic Thunder. There was also a great spread of snack food as well.

This event really opened my eyes to not only to a style of beer that I previously had little experience with, but also to how special the beer scene is here in Portland and how very lucky I am to be a part of it.

A big thanks goes to Ezra for putting it together and to Alex at Upright Brewing for hosting it.

For more detailed (and overall more interesting) reports on this event see these fine beer blogs:

It's Pub Night

Brewpublic

And Matt at Portlandbeer.org took some fantastic pictures of the event here.

This just in from our friends over at Saraveza:

Full Sail Session Black Release Tailgate Party
Thursday, July 2nd, 6-8pm
Come try Full Sail's new summer stubbie! Still refreshing and "sessionable", only a black lager!
Tailgate with us! Hot off the grill, we'll be serving brats and dogs and washing them down with Session Black Lager!

Session Shwag, Brewers and lots of Session Black Lager to go around!

Sounds like it's going to be a good time!

-We are on the way back from the National Homebrewer's Conference in Oakland. Look for a post on that soon...

Cheers

FredFest 2009

There are so many beer events on here in Beervana that I’m still having a hard time keeping this blog updated with the events I actually attend. There have been quite a few events we have attended lately so I will give each event it's own post in no particular  order. Also I will post few pictures on this blog and also will try to put most of them on my Flickr page. 

Saturday FredFest 2009 was held at Hair of the Dog Brewing n SE Portland. It was a blast as usual. Having attended this event once before I kind of knew what to expect. This year the event exceeded my expectations. 

As Jeff so eloquently put 

it - FredFest is more than a just a festival, it is actually a birthday party for a man who has taught us all a great deal about beer styles, food pairings, and about overall enjoyment of beer. It was also a great time to catch up with old some friends in the beer community and meet some new ones as well.

                                                                                       

                     

Teresa and I got down to the fest about the same time as Bill, just as they were letting people in.

Bill in action

The 2009 Brewery and Beer List: 

* Astoria Brewing Company - Bitter Bitch

* Bend Brewing Company - Black Diamond Dark Lager

* BridgePort Brewing Company - Hop Czar

* Cascade Brewing Company - Bain de Brugge

* Deschutes Brewery - Mirror Mirror From the Wood 

* Double Mountain Brewery & Taproom - Oak-Aged Inglemonster

* Firestone Walker Brewing Company - Abacus

* Full Sail Brewing Company - 1998 Boilermaker

* Hair of the Dog Brewing Company - Cask Fred of the Wood

* Hopworks Urban Brewery (HUB) - Bourbon BBL Noggin Floggin

* Laughing Dog Brewing - Dogfather Imperial Stout 

* Laurelwood Brewing Company - Organic Portland Roast Espresso Stout

* Lucky Labrador Brewing Company - Pennsylvania Swanky

* McMenamins Cornelius Pass Roadhouse - Weisenbock 2007

* Midnight Sun Brewing Company - Brewtality

* New Belgium Brewing Company - "Mystery Beer"

* New Old Lompoc Brewery - 2008 Bourbon Barrel-Aged Proletariat Red Ale

* Ninkasi Brewing Company - Sasquatch 

* Pelican Pub & Brewery - Nestucca ESB

* Rock Bottom Brewery - Super Dopple Bock

* Rogue Ales - Charlie 1981

* Saxer Brewing Company - Vintage Dopplebock

* Widmer Brothers Brewing Company - 8409 Double Alt

Here are a few stand-outs for me:

Firestone Walker Brewing Company - Abacus

Hopworks Urban Brewery (HUB) - Bourbon BBL Noggin Floggin

Deschutes Brewery - Mirror Mirror From the Wood 

Bend Brewing Company - Black Diamond Dark Lager

Also Full Sail Brewing Company - 1998 Boilermaker was very tasty too.

The oldest beer there was a keg of Saxer Brewing Company - 1994 Vintage Dopplebock. I was pleasantly surprised by how well it held up over time. There was some oxidation, but not as much as one would expect from a beer this age.

Teresa cutting one of the birthday cakes.

With a little organized coaxing from Bill we got a picture of a few of the bloggers/writers with Fred (and Rob Widmer for some reason...)  I'm not sure who took it.

What a fun party it was!

Happy Birthday Fred!

For more on FredFest check out these bloggers sites: Jeff, Derek, & Bill's