Belmont IIPA fest
by Beeraroundtown ~ March 11th, 2009. Filed under: Uncategorized.
5:00 I found myself at Belmont Station’s IIPA fest, I guess hours or days to late since the Laurelwood Arctic Apocalypse had already been finished, still there was enough on tap that it would be pointless to complain. As I sat there over a couple glasses of delicious hopped up brews I was filled in on the night before. Apparently the Pliny the Younger drew an amazing crowd and punches were almost thrown when one guy was cut off. If I had shown one night earlier my blog might have looked more like a tabloid, damn, what a story, punches thrown over a rare beer… We have now achieved Beervana.
Although the Arctic Apocalypse was gone I was able to try the Bend Eclipse which I was hoping to compare the two. Sadly only one was on, so it was the Eclipse vs my memory. Eclipse didn’t quite have the sweetness up front as some of the better black IPAs and IIPAs I’ve had, big on the bitterness, less so on the aromatic hops. Overall it was a nice brew, but really could have used more roasted malt sweetness up front to balance out the bitterness.
Others I had were the Ft. George Chapel and Hales Supergoose, both were pretty solid. The Ft. George had a good malt bill up front, lots of caramel sweetness and mild chocolate note along with the big citrus bittering hops. The Hales was the mildest of the bunch, really well balanced with a light honey note.
Lots more that I didn’t get a chance to try: Moylans Hopsickle, Steelhead Hoposaurus Rex, Bear Republic Apex, and Ninkasi Imperial Sasquatch. Let me know what you thought of these. Hopefully I will be able to make it back again sometime this week to try a few more.
Also, lots of good new bottles arrived today including:
Mikkeller Beer Geek Breakfast weasel crap edition
Mikkeller Simcoe Single Hop
Mikkeller Warrior Single Hop
Mikkeller It’s Alright Wild Ale
Nogne Double IPA
and more! Also, I heard even more new brews are due in by the end of the week.
March 11th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
I’ve had the Moylan’s Hopsickle at Bailey’s a few weeks back. It was really rockin’ and stood out the most from the sampler tray I had gotten. I’ve also had a pint of the Ninkasi Imp. Sasquatch at Bailey’s, I remember it being a pretty straight forward American style strong ale.
I have to bring my girlfriend to the airport tomorrow, maybe I’ll stop into Belmont Station for a pint on the way back
-Matthew
March 12th, 2009 at 9:17 am
Great picture! I love the color iso feature of my camera. What kind of camera do you have?
March 12th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Derek,
Midnight Sun’s Black Double IPA is on at Bailey’s right now. It’s a 1/6th barrel and it is probably getting pretty low.
March 12th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Bo,
I haven’t had the Hopsickle on tap yet, only from the bottle, but it was excellent. Hopefully I’ll have time to get back to Belmont to try it.
March 12th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Joe,
Thanks! I just got a Canon XS a few months ago, working away at taking better photos. I did the color selection in Photoshop with a mask and a desaturation layer. I haven’t found that feature on this camera yet, but my old Canon S3is had a color selector feature that worked like that.
March 12th, 2009 at 10:30 am
i was there when the guy got thrown out. he punched the glass of the cafe front door so hard we were all expecting it to shatter. pliny was already long gone at that point, he was simply annoyed at being cut off.. unfortunately, the anger was not over portland’s current favorite rare beer.
the iipa’s i sampled were all good, with the exception of the steelhead which i thought smelled like a moldy sponge
March 12th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
I need to get photoshop. I’ve got a Canon G10 that I’m just starting to get the hang of and love. Cool picture no matter how you did it!
March 12th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Just a heads up from Laurelwood. Our last keg of the Arctic Apocalypse will be tapped at 5pm this Friday, March 13th at Laurelwood NW Public House. We are going to serve it by the pint until it is gone so if you missed out I would highly recommend trying it out.
Cheers!
March 12th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Cara,
Thank you for the heads up! Hopefully I can get there close to 5pm so I can finally get to try this beer.
March 19th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Hey Derek,
That’s a great pic. Any chance you can email me a high-res version to use as my desktop?
~Chris