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.