Portland Monthly Overlooked a Few
When the July issue of Portland Monthly Magazine arrived in the mail this week, with a mouth-watering photo of a frothy pint and the words Oregon Beer on the cover, I was eager to dig into the cover story. The article touches on various aspects of the Oregon beer scene, including discussion of some breweries, pubs and brewers. I was most interested in what the article referred to as The Perfect Oregon Case. This list of 48 beers represents the writers' "absolute favorite Oregon beers."
Overall, I think the list does a good job offering a spectrum of quality Oregon beers that are readily available in Portland. Are they the most noteworthy, innovative or exceptional beers brewed locally? No. But given the Magazine's audience, I was happy to see that the list wasn't simply a compilation of the most popular beers from the area's most well-known breweries.
While I appreciate the attempts to include a variety of beer styles and breweries from across the state on the list, I couldn't help but wonder about a few notable breweries that didn't make the list. Sure, the list was supposed to include only those beers that are available on tap or by the bottle in Portland, but even then, exceptions were made. The most obvious exclusions in my mind include: Fort George, Barley Brown's, and Block 15.
Shawn Kelso Talks about Barley Brown’s Brewpub and WTF IPA
After listing Barley Brown's WTF IPA as my most memorable beer in my top of 2009, I reached out to Shawn Kelso in hopes that he could tell us a little more about Barley Brown's and the brew pub's WTF IPA. Shawn offered up some great comments about the brewery, getting his start as a brewer there, creating 'Winter Time Fun', and some of his favorite local beers right now.
About the Brewery
Barley Brown's is a Brewpub located in Baker City, OR. We have been around since 1998. We brew all our beers on an Elliot Bay 4bbl system. All our beers are kegged and we don't bottle our beer except for growlers to go. All our beer is sold in house, but recently we have sold a few kegs to the Portland area. We love hops, and by tasting our beers you can tell that we do. We have received 34 national medals - 31 from the North American Beer Awards and 3 from the Great American Beer Festival.
My Top 5 of 2009
As the year comes to a close and many are sharing their Top 5 Lists, I thought it would be appropriate for me to do the same as my first post for The Daily Pull. I've lived in Portland for four months. In my short time here I've spent a lot of my spare time visiting the seemingly endless number of local breweries, beer bars, and bottle shops - talking with people about their favorites and asking for recommendations - trying to get a handle on all that's available here in the Pacific Northwest.
I moved to Portland from Chicago in August. By comparison, Chicago has an extremely limited number of local microbreweries (there were only a couple in the city when I moved here, and I heard that another opened this fall). Because of the limited local selection, we were left to seek out beers brewed elsewhere. And while that may not sound so bad, beer distribution issues in Chicago and Illinois served as another barrier to getting our hands on the quality and variety we were looking for (the most well-known case is Bell's Brewery's - see 'availability'). The move to Portland completely changed this.
I've included my Top 5 beers of 2009 below. These are all beers I first tried after moving to Portland, and I've opted to only include beers brewed in Oregon as part of my list for this year.
