Beer Around Town

So the other day I was in a conversation with a friend over who I thought was Portland’s best brewery. Later in the day I sat wondering who I thought were Oregon’s top brewers. After all, with a major influx of new breweries opening in the next year I need some bar to see how they stack up, and it’s something to look back on years from now.

Sitting back in deep beer fueled thought a few jumped to mind, then I stopped to consider their whole beer line up and things got more complicated. On one hand there are breweries like Hair of the Dog, they make Adam which could downright be the greatest fricken beer I’ve ever had, but their line-up is smaller and has a ton variability. On the other hand are breweries like Deschutes, they crank out great beers across the board, but might have a few less “wow” beers then the previous. How do you compare? Lastly there are quite a few breweries that I haven’t had a large enough sampling from, i.e. Brewers Union, Barley Browns, Oakshire, so those don’t get a fair shot.  So enough with the blathering here is my list:

1. Block 15
2. Deschutes
3. Cascade Brewing
4. Hair of the Dog
5. Big Horse
6. Heater Allen
7. Upright
8. Standing Stone
9. Double Mountain
10. Laurelwood

Heater Allen? A all lager brewery? I’m not typically much of a lager guy, but damn they make great beer.

I’m not sure Cascade/Raccoon Lodge would have even been in this list a few years back, but their recent work with sour beers has ramped them up near the top.

Block 15, from no where these guys have risen to the top of my list in a short time they’ve been open. Every time I’ve been to their pub I’ve ordered up a big sampler tray full of inspiring beers.

The most interesting part of this for me was looking back on my list once finished and thinking about how it will stand in the coming years. I’m sure if I had created this list when I first moved to Oregon, and I wish I had, it would have looked very different. Maybe I’ll continue to hash out this list yearly to compare. So who’s going to climb up the rankings in 2010? Which of the new breweries opening up will leave a real impression?

So who’s in your top 10? Any bets for who will jump out of the gate in 2010?

Our homebrew crew has been in high gear. Currently I’m housing 5 carboys fermenting away, aside from the 4 others of souring beer that are going. What better day then Monday to run through and check up on a few of them.

From left to right we have a Wit, Belgian IPA, Dubbel, Imperial Stout, and Cherry Wheat Wine.

The Wit is the newest of our beers brewed just over a week ago. A pretty standard Wit recipe with a touch of coriander and hibiscus flower pedals fermenting away with the Cheers to Belgian Beers farmhouse strain. Attenuation isn’t anywhere near finished so this just tastes yeasty and sweet. So far the spices haven’t come through much, but hopefully as this dries out they will stand out more.

Belgian IPA, sort a tamed Pliny the Elder fermented with the Farmhouse ale strain. This finished out nice and dry. I really enjoy the way the farmhouse strain plays of the big citrus hop notes. We fermented this towards the higher end of yeasts range and it pulled some delicious tropical fruit notes. Sadly we had a lower efficiency on this batch so the IBU balance is a bit out of whack and the bitterness comes off a bit sharp and pithy. I’m thinking this will definitely be a repeat recipe as this is shaping up to be a perfect summer refresher.

The Dubbel is rather basic, Belgian pilsner malt, some special B and munich, fermented with the Farmhouse ale strain as well. We made up some dark amber candy sugar for this, but after seeing the color I wish we had made it a touch darker for a deeper red color. The dubbel still needs to drop a few more points to dry out, but early signs are promising, very fruity with hints of plum and cherry. I think a Westmalle or Chimay yeast would have been more appropriate to get more clove notes as the Farmhouse strain gives off more banana even at the lower temps I’m holding it at.

The Imperial stout dubbed “Gunk” is sort of an experiment in yeast behavior and sugar contributions. Starting out towards 10% ABV with a hearty smoked malt contribution, we then sought to pump this beer full of other sugars to see what we could get away with. Currently infused with 5 pounds of a mix of home made golden, amber, and dark candy sugars this beer is sitting at 1.038 with hopefully a bit more fermenting to go. Dark candy sugars have filled this with flavors of vanilla, carob, prune, and cola. Very complex but very sweet at this point. Hopefully it will continue to dry out utilizing the high gravity yeast strain, could be a good one for aging.

Lastly we have a wheat wine fermenting on 4 pounds of dark cherries and Hungarian oak. This was fermented out dry with the Rochefort yeast strain then racked onto the cherries. So far I’ve been a bit disappointed, the cherries giving a sort of plastic phenolic/medicinal note that I don’t care for. If this doesn’t turn around soon and lose the medicinal note I’m going to try pitching some brett and see if I can’t salvage this.

Well, the Oregon Brewers Festival is wasting no time in getting organized. Here we are the first week in March, over 4 months away and they are already posting an early list of what will be pouring at the fest this year. Here is a link to the site.

Oregon Brewers Festival 2010 Beer List

While far from final a couple are already standing out:

1. The Bruery 7 Grain Saison – if this is anything like Saison Rue I may just camp in this line over and over.

2. Surly Bitter Brewer – From the few experiences I’ve had with Surly I’ve been impressed, and well, lets just say a well made bitter would be nice in the hot summer.

3. Goose Island Sofie – A brett saison aged in wine barrels. I was lucky enough to try this in the past year, very nice.

4. Riverport, Natian, Mt. Emily, Great Northern – All new breweries to the fest, so I’ll be looking to try my first offerings from them.

5. More diversity in styles – Just browsing the half way completed list I’ve already noticed a more varied selection of styles. Lets hope that trend continues and we don’t end up with 75% of the beer with India in the title.