Migration Brewing: Six Months In
This month, Migration Brewing, one of Portland's newest breweries celebrates its sixth month in business. Last week, I was part of a group of writers and media who met with friends and co-founders of Migration, Colin Rath, McKean Banzer-Lausberg, and Mike Branes, to try the current beer lineup, and hear about Migration's progress thus far and plans for the future.
With September quickly approaching, it's hard to believe that it's already been six months since Migration opened its doors. In some ways, February seems like yesterday. At the same time, a lot has happened in the last six months. Migration has introduced us to three beers that will be part of the regular lineup (the much-talked about Little Bitter is not a beer that will be part of that lineup). The brewery also doubled its capacity, adding two new seven-barrel fermentors. With the increase in available capacity, Migration is hoping to start distributing its beers to local taprooms and bars around town beginning in mid-September.
The current lineup of beers includes:
My Picks for the Oregon Brewers Festival
The Oregon Brewers Festival starts today! While I've been distracted recently by the seemingly endless number of Oregon Craft Beer Month events, I thought I'd follow Brewpublic and Portland Beer and Music's lead and share my beer picks for the fest. Here are the beers - with descriptions offered by Gary Corbin - that I'll be seeking out this weekend:
- Boulevard Tank 7 Farmhouse Ale: A simple beer from a technical standpoint, what makes it unique is the blend of a Belgian yeast and citrusy Amarillo hops on a grain bed of pale malt, malted and unmalted wheat, and corn flakes. Yes, corn flakes. And with that milky white head, you could call it breakfast. It's named for the famously "recalcitrant" fermentation tank in which it came to life.
- Boundary Bay German Tradition Double Dry Hopped Pale Ale: Made especially for the Oregon Brewers Festival, this beer gets its name from the German Tradition hops used in all four hop additions, including two dry-hoppings. Two-row and Munich malts fill out the simple grain bill and provide malt balance to Tradition's medium-level bittering and citrus flavor and aroma.
- Caldera Hibiscus Ginger Beer: This beer is not about the hops. Ginger root, beets and hibiscus flowers provide its unique spicy, zesty flavors and aromas. Belgian candi sugar boosts the fermentables provided by 2-row and Carafoam malts. Ginger and hibiscus are boiled with the wort, along with a small amount of Willamette hops. The beer is "dry-flowered" with hibiscus. It was brewed special for the OBF, so get it before it's gone.
- Flying Fish Exit 4: This inspired Belgian-style Trippel has a hazy golden hue and the aroma of citrus with hints of banana and clove. Predominant Belgian malt flavors give way to a subdued bitterness in the finish. This beer is worthy of high praise, having won a gold medal at the 2009 Great American Beer Festival and named by Men's Journal as the best Belgian beer brewed in America for 2009.
- Great Divide Hoss: Based on the Marzen lagers of Bavaria, this award-winning brew (bronze - GABF 2009; World Beer Cup, 2010) boasts rich, layered malt notes with hints of cherry and dark fruits. The unique addition of rye imparts a slightly earthy, spicy character. Thanks to lagering and a proprietary clean-finishing yeast, Hoss finishes crisp and dry, with just a hint of Perle and Hersbrucker hops.
- Rock Bottom Oud Heverlee: This beer is steeped with both Belgian tradition and its correspondingly unusual ingredients. Dried tulips add a "weet niet het" flavor in the local vernacular - sort of a floral-crossed-with-umami kind of thing. Also, only specially-aged "vloer suipt" Sterling hops are used to bring out their best, most "noble" flavor. The Belgian-style yeast brings out notes of pepper and apricot.
- Rogue 21: Brewmaster John Maier has brewed a different beer for OBF for 21 years in a row; to honor the OBF and John’s “21er,” John brewed a one-time batch of an Olde Ale, called 21 Ale. It's brewed with 14 ingredients: 2-row, Briess Amber, C-40, Wyermann Carafa & Rogue Farms RiskTM Malt; Willamette, US Goldings & Rogue Farms Revolution Hops; Simpsons Golden Naked Oats; Franco-Belges Carawheat; molasses, brewer’s licorice, Wyeast Old Ale Blend yeast & free range coastal water.
- Sierra Nevada Tumbler: Sierra Nevada uses malt within days of roasting at the peak of its flavor to give Tumbler a gracefully smooth malt character. Two-row pale, crystal 40, chocolate and smoked malts give it a malty complexity. Challenger hops in the boil add balancing bitterness, while more Challengers and some Goldings give just enough hop flavor in the finish to balance all that malt.
- Surly Bitter Brewer: On top of its base of 2-row pale ale malt, Simpsons Golden Naked Oats, crystal malt and roasted barley gives this beer its extra smooth, slightly sweet taste and dark amber color. Glacier hops are used as first-wort hops, in the whirlpool, and for dry-hopping, with Columbus for additional bittering. The result is a malty, moderately-hopped, highly drinkable session bitter.
- The Bruery 7 Grain Saison: Two-row pale malt, rye, oats, unmalted wheat, flaked rice, flaked maize and spelt comprise this unique beer's complex grain bill. By contrast, only moderate amounts of Magnum and Sterling hops balance the malt's sweetness. The house Belgian-style strain provides a spicy character in the finish.
- Widmer Brothers Captain Shaddock IPA: People sometimes describe the aromas and flavors of hoppy IPAs as "grapefruit." Hell, why not use some then? Widmer's brewing team used a simple IPA recipe and added a generous amount of dried grapefruit peel to the end of the boil. The aroma is a melody of citrus, with a slight spice undertone, accentuated by the use of Citra hops. The flavor is that of nice hop forward IPA with the bitterness of grapefruit.
Please note, these beers and descriptions were part of the lineup made available to media on July 16th. The festival's website offers a list of all the beers that will be pouring here. The fest starts today at the Tom McCall Waterfront Park in Portland and runs through Sunday.
Seattle Beer Week’s Last Call
While I wasn't able to attend any of the other great events that happened last week as part of Seattle Beer Week, I did manage to make the trip from Portland on Sunday for Seattle Beer Week's Last Call event. Twenty-two Washington microbreweries were represented at the event and each had one or two beers - most of which were unique seasonals or one-off brews - available for tasting. I had pretty high expectations for the day. Unfortunately, those expectations went unmet.
The Last Call event was held at the Hale's Ales Palladium, which is really just a fancy name for Hale's Ales' warehouse. While the warehouse offered us shelter as rain threatened outside, the space was dark, quiet, and surprisingly empty. We showed up at 1:00pm, an hour after the event started, thinking we would let the initial rush of people get in the door before we lined up for a beer. I don't think that rush ever happened. Instead, we walked right in and found ourselves looking over our beer options with plenty of room to walk around and check things out with ease.
I started the afternoon with the beer that intrigued me most: Port Townsend Luciferous Belgian Whiskey Sour. The story behind the beer is as interesting as the name. Luciferous apparently began a couple years ago as a hoppy red ale with which the brewers weren't entirely satisfied. Instead of releasing it or dumping it, Brettanomyces, Saccharomyces, Lactobacillus, and Pediococcus were added and the beer was left to ferment in a basement where temperatures were left uncontrolled. After two years, the beer spent five months in a bourbon barrel before being served this weekend. The beer was a slightly hazy brown color, mildly sour, crisp with a dry finish. While I detected some bourbon in the background, the whiskey and sour flavors weren't as pronounced as I had hoped.
Welcome to the neighborhood: Breakside Brewery is open for business
Portlanders celebrated the opening of Beervana's newest brewery this weekend. Breakside Brewery, located in the Northeast Portland neighborhood Woodlawn, opened its doors for business on Friday afternoon. While Breakside's own beers are not yet available (look for them around July 1st), the brewery opened with a full food menu and a great list of guest taps that, as evidenced by the Yelp reviews and talk on Twitter, have been very well received.
I stopped in at Breakside on Saturday afternoon with some friends who were in town visiting from Chicago and others in from Hood River. We found a home at one of the tables in the bar between the two giant garage doors that opened onto a beautiful sunny Portland afternoon. After ordering beers from a list that included New Belgium Mothership Wit, Elysian The Wise ESB, Firestone Walker Union Jack and Dogfish Head Festina Peche, we dug into Breakside's pulled pork nachos and the jalapeno poppers. Our selections from the refreshingly straightforward menu of appetizers and sandwiches were great choices. A few beers later, some of our friends opted for the pulled pork sandwich and the blackened chicken burger - both of which looked great and disappeared quickly.
Aside from the food we ordered, there are a couple menu items that have the potential to be real standouts: the Lovely Pork Belly Sandwich: slow cooked with soy, brown sugar, leeks, ginger, and anise, and topped with fresh fennel and carrot slaw, and the Breakside Burger: The Cadillac of burgers! Juicy and tender American Kobe-style beef from Snake River Farms with a creamy center of Rogue Smoky Blue. Topped with roasted wild mushrooms and caramelized onions. I'm looking forward to trying both of these.
Double Mountain Bon Idee Release
As Angelo from Brewpublic points out in his post about Double Mountain's Bon Idee, there has been a lot going on lately in Beervana. After attending the Goose Island release event last Thursday, some of us headed over to Saraveza for the Double Mountain Bon Idee release party.
I had intended to share my thoughts about Double Mountain's latest effort, and its entry into this year's Cheers to Belgian Beers festival, before the actual festival. In some ways I'm glad I wasn't able to get my thoughts posted until now.
On Thursday, I enjoyed Bon Idee. As a farily hoppy beer described by the brewery as an Oregon Farmhouse Ale, it was a predictable brew given Double Mountain's heavy hand when it comes to hops. And while the limited quantity and blend of Bon Idee Avec Kriek suggested an enhanced version of the beer, I prefered the Bon Idee without the addition of Double Mountain's Kriek. At the release, the beers were complimented by house made boudin blanc sausages prepared by Spence Lack of Saraveza. And in leaving Saraveza on Thursday night, I thought Double Montain would be a strong contender in Saturday's Cheers to Belgian Beers competition.
Cheers to Belgian Beers 2010 Recap
This year's Cheers to Belgian Beers festival was my first. And of all the beer events and festivals I've attended, Saturday's event has definitely earned a spot as one of my favorites.
I like the idea behind Cheers to Belgian Beers: it's a brewing competition where all the beers share a common yeast strain. This year, brewers were tasked with using Wyeast 3726-Farmhouse yeast. Having never attended the fest, I was impressed with the spectrum and diversity of choices among the 30+ beers brewed for the event. The choices showcased a variety of ingredients from grapefruit peel to peppercorns, and styles from farmhouse table beer to Belgian dark strong ale. There was something for everyone. Evidence of this could be found in just about every conversation going on at the fest, and is reflected in the varying written opinions from Bill, Jeff, Angelo, Derek & Dr. Wort.
While many beer festivals quickly become chaotic and uncomfortable, Hopworks, the host for this year's event, offered an experience that was was refreshingly easy. We were met with a line of about 20 people when we arrived around 3:00pm, but the volunteers were organized and friendly. The line moved quickly and, with our pockets full of tickets and tasting glasses in hand, we reviewed our options. We barely took one step towards the beer tent when we came across a group of friends who were eager to share opinions of what they'd already tasted. This, and the fact that it was conveniently located at the beginning of the alphabetical lineup, prompted me to choose Block 15 La Ferme' de Demons as my first choice.
Goose Island’s Greg Hall introduces Matilda, Sofie, and Pere Jaques to Portland
Goose Island Brewmaster Greg Hall talks about Matilda, Sofie, and Pere Jaques
When I first came across a Goose Island beer in Portland, I was surprised for two reasons. First, I didn't expect to see beer from my hometown 2,200 miles away in Oregon. And second, from Goose Island's pretty extensive line of beers, there was one lone offering available: Bourbon County Stout.
In the months after we moved from Chicago to Portland, I did see Goose Island's Christmas Ale on the shelves at some stores and thought Goose Island may be making a push into the market. But Christmas came and went, and Goose Island's Christmas Ale went with it. Until recently, the only news I heard about Goose Island came from friends still living in Chicago.
Upright Brewing is (only) a Year Old
Alex Ganum, Owner & Brewer at Upright, talks about the Apricot Anniversary Ale
Last night, I had the opportunity to join a great group of beer writers, bloggers, and enthusiasts at Upright Brewing for a tour and a preview of what's to come at the brewery's one-year anniversary party on April 9th. In thinking about the two specialty beers that will be available at the party, an Apricot Anniversary Ale and the highly anticipated Four Play, and the rest of the Upright lineup, it's hard to believe that Upright Brewing is only a year old.
I really enjoyed the Apricot Anniversary Ale; it's tart, dry, and refreshing. Like some others in attendance, I found Four Play to be better now than when it was on tap in February at Saraveza. On Friday, April 9th from 4:30-9:00 pm, the Apricot Anniversary Beer and Four Play will be on tap; Four Play will also be available in bottles for $12/bottle.
My Oh My! My Beery Valentine
As if Zwickelmania wasn't enough fun for one weekend, our friends at Brewpublic tempted us with some unique Valentines Day beers at Saraveza with the event My Beery Valentine: A benefit for Haiti Relief. While I typically don't go for fruity beers, I was impressed with the beers on tap at the event. Standouts from the event for me included: Block 15 Love Potion #9 and Upright Four Play.
Block 15 Love Potion #9
Love Potion #9 was my favorite beer from the event. It's described by Block 15 as: "Stout conditioned with Local Black Raspberries from Stahlbush Island Farms and matured on house roasted Fair Trade Ghana cocoa nibs. Developed by Gypsies & guaranteed to help you find love. 6.3%alc, 30 IBU’s" In my mind, this beer completely embodies all things Valentines Day. After having this beer and reading how Dave Selden is talking about Block 15, I'm thinking that I'll have to make a trip down to Corvallis to check this place out soon.
Zwickelmania 2010 Recap: Our tour of Portland
As breweries across the entire State of Oregon opened their doors for tours and tastings on Saturday for Zwickelmania, we decided to stay close to home and check out some of what Portland's breweries had to offer. With more than twenty breweries to choose from in the Portland area, charting our course proved to be a pretty difficult task. And while we didn't get to see everything we would have liked to, we did check out some great breweries, drink some good beer and talk with some cool people along the way. Our day looked something like this:
Lompoc 5th Quadrant
