Portland's Cheers To Belgian Beers - May 1, 2010

The 4th Annual Portland's Cheers to Belgian Beer will be be held at Hopworks Urban Brewery tomorrow Saturday May 1, 2010.  I was able to make it to last year's event for the first time and loved it!
Here is the details for this year's event:

Hopworks Urban Brewery
Upper Parking Lot
2944 SE Powell Blvd
Portland
503-232-4677
Noon-9pm
Admission is Free.
$5 for tasting goblet which is required to taste.
$1 for tastes.


This year's featured Belgian yeast strain is Wyeast 3726 Farmhouse Ale.
From Wyeast' website:
This strain produces complex esters balanced with earthy/spicy notes. Slightly tart and dry with a peppery finish. A perfect strain for farmhouse ales and saisons.

Attenuation                 74-79%        

Alc. Tolerance            12%

Flocculation                variable

Temperature Range     70-95°F (21-35°C)

I have had some experience with this yeast in homebrewing and really like it. 

And here is a list of the beers:

2010 Portland’s Cheers to Belgian Beers Beer List

BREWERY	BEER	Plato	ABV	IBU	YEAST
Ambacht Brewing Co.	Ambacht Black Gold	15.2	6.8	25	Y
Amnesia Brewing Co.	Dilemma	17.3	7.9	70	N
Big Horse Brewpub	Cuvee de Ferme	-	6.3	-	Y
Block 15 Brewery	La Ferme’ de Demons	19	8.8	31	Y
BridgePort Brewing Co.	Fallen Friar Firkin	-	8.2	-	N
Cascade Brewing	Frite Galois	14	4.6	13	Y
Deschutes Brewery – Bend Pub	Tropisch Bruin	12.5	4.8	35	Y
Deschutes Brewery – Portland Pub	Sinfully Delicious DSA	19	9.2	17	Y
Double Mountain Brewery	Bonne Idee	17.2	8.4	50	Y
Double Mountain Brewery	Bonne Idee Kriek	-	8	48	Y
Eugene City Brewery	Bannister Belgian Strong	18	8.8	25	Y
Fanno Creek Brewpub	Reverands Daughter	16	5.4	20	N
Fort George Brewery	Magnifera Indica Belgae	19	7.9	15	Y
Green Dragon	King Ghidorah	20	9.2	25	Y
Hopworks Urban Brewery	DiaBlato	23	11	20	Y
Laurelwood Brewing Co.	Infared	17	7.5	65	Y
Lompoc 5Q	Saison The Beach	-	5.5	-	Y
Lucky Labrador BeerHall	Doggie Kong	17.3	6.4	0	Y
Lucky Labrador Brewpub	Malt Bomb V	16.2	5.4	25	Y
MacTarnahan’s Brewing Co.	Lip Stinger	13.5	4.8	32	N
McMenamins Crystal Brewery	The Big Worm	21	9.3	10	Y
McMenamins Kennedy School	The Life of Riley Honey Wheat	13.3	5.7	20	Y
New Old Lompoc	Norman Invasion	-	5.6	-	Y
Oakshire Brewing	La Ferme	15.8	7.8	15	Y
Old Market Pub & Brewery	Red Headed Step Child	14	6	10	Y
Pelican Pub & Brewery	Le Pelican d’OR	18.1	8.4	45	Y
Philadelphia’s Steaks & Hoagies	Philly’s Belgian IPA	19.5	8	88	Y
Rock Bottom Brewery	Floreal IV	13	5.9	35	Y
Rogue Ales	John’s Dark & Scary	18.8	9	35	Y
Roots Organic Brewing Co.	Brune “O”	17	6.6	28	Y
Silver Moon Brewing	Saison de Moon	13.3	5.9	24	Y
Upright Brewing	Mingus and Monk	16.8	7.2	22	Y
Widmer Brothers Brewing Co.	Biere De Table	8	3.7	26	Y

I've been fortunate enough to have tried a few of these beers  already and  look forward to trying them all (or as many as I possible)!

For further informaton on the festival check out these fine blogs:
The New School Brew Blog
Brewpublic
Portland Beer.org
And Jeff at Beervana has posted a great primer for the event.


I hope to see you there!

(BTW- I apologize for the poor formatting of this post! I suck at formatting. Hope to get better at it with practice...)

This just in... IPA Summit at Roscoe's on Stark April 30th

I just got this an email from someone involved in putting together this IPA Summit over at Roscoe's. This is the only information I have on this event so far:

A friend recommended that I get in touch with you regarding our upcoming IPA Summit. Our event is on Friday April 30th at Roscoe's (8105 SE Stark). We will be featuring 14 amazing IPAs (and only IPAs) from many great breweries. The breweries include: Avery (with The Maharaja), Oakshire, Russian River, Amnesia, Elysian, Terminal Gravity, Cascade, Deschutes, Pyramid (debuting their Outburst Imperial), Fort George, Everybody's Brewing, Belhaven, and a couple more. Many of the beers will be limited release and seasonal IPAs. We will have 5 oz tasters available. We are very excited about the event and would appreciate anything you can do to help get the word out.


Roscoe's is here:



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I will try to find out more about this. Or maybe one of my blogger friends will... There is NO information about this anywhere so I'm not sure how they were going to let people know about it. At least they sent it to someone, although I'm know sure why me. I have not yet been to Roscoe's since moving here, but I've seen some good reviews of it since they remodeled the place.

Anyway, it sounds like a good list of beers/brewers.

I'll let you know more information as soon as it become available.

New Updates & Odd Pictures

Migration Brewing Opens 

Hello. No, I'm not dead. I'm just lazy. With some much beer tasting to do here in Portland I just never take the time to sit and write up a post even though I do usually take some pictures. I thought I should post a few and try to get back in the groove of posting.

Tonight (Wednesday)  they are having their first meet the brewer with Alex Ganum from Upright Brewing. He will be pouring some new barrel aged beers starting at 6:30 PM.  I'm curious to see what they might be...

Full Sail Bourbon-Barrel Aged Top Sail Tasting

Okay, since I have been getting so much shite from my friends (mostly blogger friends) I'm going to knock out this post out while it is still fresh in my mind even though I don't have any pictures (yes, once again I forgot to bring my camera and I didn't even use my iphone camera. I know, lame).  But that is okay because  I  know a few of  did take some pictures. Maybe I will "steal" one...

I got to the Full Sail Brewery at Riverplace a little early to find a table since I knew of there were a few other people coming. Ezra was already there and had secured a good size table for all of us (thanks Ezra!).  Soon after were joined by Derek,  Bill, and "SNOB" Ritch.

For reasons that Bill explains in his report of the event here, this year's Top Sail release party featured a horizontal tasting of single-barrel versions of this year's Top Sail Imperial Porter. They aged the beer in three different whiskey barrels: Maker's Mark, Stranahan's (out of Colorado) and Four Roses.

Like Bill, my favorites were the Maker's Mark and the blended versions. The blend seemed to have the most bourbon character while the Maker's Mark to me had the more smooth and balanced flavor with a good amount of vanilla notes. With that said, I did like the Stranahan's quite a bit. (I think Ritch liked this one the best.) To me it seemed to have the most "spicy" character of all the samples. The Four Roses was my least favorite. I think it had the least amount of bourbon flavor of all with a pretty dry finish.

Later on we sat around drinking beers and were joined by Kerry and Ken of Taplister.  At some point in the evening  Full Sail's John Harris was nice enough to bring our table samples of the 2004 and 2008 versions of Top Sail. Both of which I really enjoyed, but I would have to say the 2008 was the better of the two.

I should also mention that the Full Sail's Riverplace Brewery (a.k.a The Plisner Room) has a happy hour menu with great food special which makes sense seeing how The Pilsner Room is connected to McCornick & Schmick's Harborside at the Marina next door.

Overall,  I really enjoyed the horizontal tasting and had a great evening. Kudos to Full Sail Brewing for putting this event on!

Finally I'm getting around to posting my first blog post of 2010. What's taken me so long? Lack of things to write about certainly isn't a valid reason since there is so much going on in Portland. I guess I let procrastination and writer's block get the best of me... Well the only way to change that is to just jump in!


So here we are in a new year and a new decade! There are a number of things to mention. Several new beer blogs that have just started up:

The New School Brew Blog - This is a blog started by my friend Ezra who is quite the renaissance man of beer, music, and the visual arts. His blog is a fun mix of beer news and reviews. I know he has some great content planned. I look forward to reading and contributing to his blog.

* 999 Beers - Beer tasting project started by my friend Dave Selden one of the bloggers behind The Champagne of Beer Blogs.


I haven't met these two bloggers yet, but I look forward to doing so.
* The Daily Pull 
* Portland Beer And Music 

We have such a rich beer scene and beer blogging scene I hope this will inspire me to write some posts to this blog. I guess that is one of my New Year resolutions...

Cheers!

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!