'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