More Holiday Ale Festival

Here are a few pictures from last night at the festival. Sorry about the quality, I took these with my iphone because I forgot my camera (again).
Here are some of my favorites from the fest:

• Upright Brewing - Holy Herb
• New Belgium Brewing - La Folie (Wed. night) & Tart Lychee(Fri. night)
• Oakshire Brewing - Very Ill Tempered Gnome
• Hopworks Urban Brewery - Kronan the Barbarian
• Full Sail Brewing - Wassail Holiday Blend
• Cascade Brewing - Dre Zwarte Pienten "Sang Noir" 2009
• Deschutes Brewery - Lost Barrels of Mirror Mirror

Those are just a few. If you haven't gone down there, you should! We're heading down there right now!

For more complete coverage check out these fine blogs:

Brewpublic

Taplister

It's Pub Night

Beervana

Okay I need to get my act together and get down there!

Cheers!

'Tis The Season - Holiday Ale Festal Part 1: Preview

Ok, it's that time of year again. Time for the Holiday Ale Festival. The HAF is probably my favorite festivals of the year in Portland (even though this is only my 2nd time to attend this festival). A lot of that has to do with the fact that I really enjoy holiday beer of all types, which is what you find at this festival.

Okay here is the info for the Holiday Ale Festival, which kicks off today at 2 pm.

Holiday Ale Festival, Dec 2-6
Pioneer Courthouse Square
Wed, 2 pm - 10pm
Thurs-Sat, 11am - 10pm
Sun, 11am - 7pm

Website and here is the Twitter feed.

Here are a few of the beers I'm looking forward to trying this year (in no particular order):

• Alaskan Brewing - Alaskan Barley Wine - Always a solid brew
• Block 15 Brewing Co. - Oaked St. Nick
• Cascade Brewing - Anything they serve will be fun!
• Firestonewalker Brewing Co. - Oatmeal Stout
• Full Sail Brewing Co. - Wassail Holiday Blend - Sounds intriguing.
• Hair of the Dog Brewing Co. - Jim 2009
• New Belgium Brewing Co. - Various Lips of Faith beers! Not to be missed!

These are just a few of the beers I look forward to trying today. There are some other beers that sound like solid brews, so we will see...

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

Lucky Lab Barley Wine & Big Beer Festival

This weekend was the Luck Lab Barley Wine and Big Beer Festival down at the Luck Lab Beer Hall on NW Quimby St.  It was a 2 day event that went from noon to 10 PM both Friday and Saturday. My wife and I were able to get there Friday night and then on Saturday our friend Marc took us there again Saturday afternoon.

Friday night was pretty crowded  as was later in the afternoon on Saturday.  They had started running out of vintage beers on Friday and by Saturday the list was of "Out" beers was getting pretty long.  So really your best bet was to look up at the signs to see what was available. As with most festivals getting there earlier pays off.

Some of my favorite beer included:

2008 Speakeasy Old Godfather Barley Wine

2008 Three Creeks 8 Seconds Imperial Stout

2008 Walking Man Stumble Foot Barley Wine

2006 Pelican Grand Cru

2005 Old Lompac Old Tavern Rat Barley Wine

2008 Laughing Dog Dogfather Imperial Stout

2006 Lucky Lab Old Yeller Barley Wine

Updates/Braking The Silence

When I started this blog I mainly wrote about my beer travels.  A lot of that beer travel was to Portland, OR.  I have found an abundance of inspiration for this blog since I moved out here to Beervana. In fact, I get a little overwhelmed by the amount of things to post about and just stop updating the blog. 

I'm going to work on that and try to take a different approach to updating this blog so I don't get overwhelmed.  After all, I am just doing this for fun.

With that said, I do have a few things I want to post about. So stick around, I have plenty to say.

Fred Eckhardt recovering from open heart surgery

It has come to my attention though a Twitter posting by my friend Lisa Morrison that the "Dean of Beer Writers"  (and overall  beer guru) is in Fair condition after undergoing open heart surgery.  I don't know any other details at this point. 

I just wanted to let everyone know about this.  Please feel free to send healing thoughts or prayers (or whatever works in your belief system) Fred's way.

Thanks.

Catching Up: Day Trip Part 1

A few  weeks ago I was able to take 2 beer related day trips both with my friend (and tour guide of sorts), Marc. I have been trying to figure out the most efficient way of posting about these trips. I decided that it would be better to break them up into several post.

 

On Monday on we down to McMinnville, OR .  But we of course had to stop a few places along the way.

First stop was Max's Fanno Creek Brew Pub in Tigard, OR. We wanted to stop there and see how things were going after all the changes at the pub. Despite the changed we were happy to find that the pub is turning out some very tasty beer.  Marc had a O Holy Hop Ale and I had Dopplebock. Both were well made defiantly worth a return visit.

Next up was Golden Valley Brewer & Pub in McMinnville for lunch and a beer. The food was good but more importantly, so was the beer.

Marc had a Chehalem Mt. IPA, which was good and clean but could use some more hops in the bittering to balance the malt. I had a Tannenbomb, which is there winter sessional and, as the name suggests, is very much a malt bomb.

Jason the brewer was nice enough to talk to us and invited us back into the brewery. We had a nice chat about his brewery and these are a few of the pictures I snapped.