Thirty Years of Brass!

By Gary Corbin

The Horse Brass turns 30 on Nov. 1, and owner Don Younger plans to entertain you the best way he knows how: with “lots of really good beer!”
Ten breweries are brewing special beers for the party. One is Laurelwood, brewing a Belgian Wit designed by home-brewers in the Oregon Brew Crew. Rogue Ales is brewing up a special batch of Imperial Younger Special Bitter. If you’ve enjoyed Rogue’s YSB, “this is YSB squared,” Don says.

Don Younger in white t-shirt at the Horse Brass (lower left) & Sign outside of Horse Brass(Upper Right)

Photo by Gary Corbin

The other breweries and beers remain secret for the time being. “I never tell people what I’m gonna do,” Don says, “but I’ll tell you this: People are raiding their cellars and dipping into stashes.” Making an analogy to movies, Don said this party “will not be a chick flick … maybe more of a horror movie!”
No matter. It’s easy to find out for yourself: Go down to the Horse Brass (4534 S.E. Belmont St.) for the party. It starts Friday, Oct. 27, and runs until Nov. 5. There will be a music marathon on the final day of the party, consisting of bands that have played there over the years.
The Horse Brass opened Nov. 1, 1976, with a full liquor license during a transformational time in pub and tavern life in Oregon. Before the early 1970s, Oregon was tavern-only — beer only except in hotels and restaurants.
Pubs weren’t even allowed to have windows. “Windows changed everything,” Don explains. “That brought in a better class of people. Mainly, women!”
Don should know. He’s been in the bar business for 40 years. One of his earliest establishments, the Bear Paw, is still open near the east side of the Ross Island Bridge. Others, such as Strawberry Fields in Orient, Ore., have gone by the wayside. “That place was great,” Don says. “We rocked hard. If you wanted a cop, you had to call one. Otherwise they weren’t going to come around.”
The Horse Brass is best known for three things: great beer, darts and smoke-friendliness. First, the beer. The HB sports 53 taps, eight of which are rotating among “guest” breweries. The other 45 rotate beers from single breweries, and a large chunk of them are Oregon-based.
That doesn’t mean you’ll have heard of them all. The Brass is known for introducing new breweries and beers to its clientele.
Few had heard of Terminal Gravity before it went on tap at the Horse Brass. Hair of the Dog had one its first taps there. Caldera was once a guest tap and is now one of the 45 regulars.
One reason the taps rotate so much is that the customers demand it. “We’re a neighborhood pub,” Don says with obvious pride.
As with all of his many pubs, the customers drive the pub’s direction. “We have 30-year customers, three to four dozen 25-year customers, and more 20-year customers than I can count,” he says. You’ll find many of them playing darts, practicing for the many tourneys held there, or playing pinochle, cribbage and backgammon.
Smokers know they’re welcome there. A smoking ban would be “the end of pubs as we know them,” he says. “People don’t understand — the corner bar, the mom-and-pop pub, goes away. It’s a culture change. Public places, yes, I agree — ban smoking there. But the corner bar is sacred ground.”
Even so, several years ago Don installed a new heavy-duty ventilation system to reduce the smokiness.
Asked if he’d still be at the Horse Brass to celebrate its 40th anniversary, Don says with a chuckle: “I hope so. I’m not going anywhere.”

Beer News:

One gone and one to go! It appears as though Yamhill Brewing Company on SE Yamhill and 9th Avenue has closed it’s doors and is for sale. It is always a sad thing to see in Beervana. It also has been announced that one of our favorite watering holes, the Rose and Raindrop will be closing down at the end of 2006. Unconfirmed reports say that it will end up being a financial institution in the future. We are looking for the new beer pubs and taverns that are opening. Please let us know at Guest on Tap if you hear about new places in the area. Email us at Dave@guestontap.com

Better News: New Beers: Deschutes Brewery has released this year’s Jubelale which is beginning to appear around town on draft and even cask at little places like the Horse Brass Pub. Other great beer sightings include BridgePort’s Ebenezer Ale, Caldera Brewing’s Pilot Rock Porter, Baryn Brewing’s Octoberfest, and a great Imperial IPA from Great Divide Brewing Company.

The Party starts Saturday! A Big THREE- OH! The Horse Brass Birthday Bash starts this Friday, October 27th and goes to November 6th at the Horse Brass (4534 SE Belmont Portland, Oregon 97215 USA (503) 232-2202) for more info go to: http://www.horsebrass.com/brasstacks.html

"An Evening with Ebenezer" combined with a handcrafted BridgePort ale. Enjoy a sumptuous holiday feast with Ebenezer Scrooge, and support a local child in the process. BridgePort Brewing Co. presents the fourth annual "Evening with Ebenezer." The event will take place on Dec. 16 from 6 to 9 p.m. in the Heritage Room at the bridgeport brewpub + bakery, located at 1313 NW Marshall St. Tickets cost $50 per person, with proceeds benefiting the Franny Fund, a community trust that helps pay for the uninsured medical treatment costs for Franny Cabler, a local six-year-old with cerebral palsy. The event is limited to ages 21 and over. For reservations or additional information, call Christine Bradbury, 503-241-7179.

Fearless Brewing Company’s Third Annual Holiday Hop on November 11 starting at 6:30 pm until 9:00 pm. This is an event that beer lovers will not want to miss. Says brewery owner Ken Johnson, "It is a great way to learn more about beer and impress your friends with your knowledge". The HOLIDAY HOP will feature live music, guided beer tastings, brewery tours and a smorgasbord of beer friendly appetizers. Tickets to the HOLIDY HOP are $7.00 Fearless Brewing Company is located in Estacada, Oregon. The address is 326 South Broadway. Phone: (503) 630-BEER (2337) http://www.fearless1.com/

A Journey to the Dark Side from the NYT

October 18, 2006
Ales of The Times
A Journey to the Dark Side
By ERIC ASIMOV

SIMPLY by conjuring up the different styles of beer and ale, a brew lover can travel the imaginary world without leaving the barstool. India pale ale stirs up the days of the British Empire, with long ocean voyages and kegs of sustenance loaded aboard ship. Trappist ale evokes images of silent monks expressing their serene devotion through brewing. Stout calls up comfortable leather chairs, a full belly and a warm fire, while lager, the German word for storage, can almost make you shiver in the chill of the cold caves where medieval brewers matured their wares.

By contrast, even the most creative mind would have trouble with porter, a word so humdrum that by the 1960’s it had practically disappeared from the brewing vocabulary. It was the ale, not the prosaic name, that stimulated the thirst and imagination of craft brewers in the late 20th century who resurrected a style far nobler than it sounds.

What the revivalists discovered was a smooth, balanced, dark brew with subtle roasted-malt flavors of coffee and chocolate bound by a sort of tart, minerally twine. Porter had been the most popular style of ale in 18th-century London and beyond, beloved in Ireland and in the American colonies. While Washington distilled whiskey and Jefferson was a connoisseur of wine, both loved porter. Jefferson, as you might expect, even tried to make it himself.

Stories differ on how porter got its name. In one unlikely version, the ale was sold to passengers on trains, who would shout, “Porter!” when they were dry. More probably, it became associated with prodigiously thirsty London dockhands, who were known as porters. Whatever the truth is about the name, it was porter’s fate to be lost in the shuffle as tastes evolved. In England and Ireland, mild brown ales, pale ales and stout squeezed out porter, while in the United States German immigrants brought with them lager beers, which swiftly became the country’s most popular style.

As with so many other beers that we now take for granted, it was left to those scavenging archaeologists, better known as American craft brewers, to reclaim porter from the scrap heap. Now, porter has become widespread again, brewed all over the United States and revived in Britain as well.

With relative ease, the Dining section’s tasting panel gathered 25 porters to sample: 14 from the United States, 9 from Britain and one each from Sweden and Lithuania. Many more American porters are made in small quantities by brewers who mostly sell locally. For the tasting, Florence Fabricant and I were joined by Lew Bryson, a beer writer and managing editor of Malt Advocate magazine, and Joe Carroll, the owner of Spuyten Duyvil, a beer bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

American brewers tend to prize power over finesse, and love to express themselves by taking a style and making it bigger and stronger, with more, more, more. Yet, though American brewers have taken some liberties with porter, whether by adding hops for citrus and pine aromas or using smoked malt, we found that most of our favorite American brews adhered to the classic porter. They were balanced, with modest levels of alcohol and plenty of room for the delicate, complex aromas and flavors that make porter so interesting and easy to enjoy. In fact, our No. 1 porter, which hit all the classic porter notes, was an American brew, Geary’s London Porter, from Portland, Me. It was dry and tangy, softly carbonated, with earthy coffee and espresso flavors, the kind of ale that I imagine I could enjoy immensely through an evening with friends.
In some ways, experimenting with the porter style is appropriate, as porter is a style born of bartenders playing around with beers. In the early 1700’s it was common for pub patrons to ask for blends of the various available brews. Bartenders, mixing together as many as a half-dozen or so beers, understandably tired of this labor-intensive practice, and eventually a brewer came up with a beer that resembled a blend of three different ales. Before the name porter caught on, it was first known either by the somewhat literal moniker Three Threads, referring to the streams of beer pouring from taps, or the more poetic Entire, presumably for the entire realm of styles incorporated in one beer. It was dark, though generally not as dark as stout came to be, or as rich.

Our No. 2 beer, Smoked Porter from Captain Lawrence, sounds like one of those brewing experiments, but the company, in Pleasantville, N.Y., insists that it is not. It argues that before modern brewers developed methods of indirect heat to roast their malt, all beers had a smokiness, so their porter is therefore true to the original flavors of the style. Perhaps, but the smokiness is practically undetectable amid the chocolate and coffee flavors in this balanced, assertive brew.

In the blind tasting, I was sure our No. 3 beer was American because of its powerful, assertive flavors of coffee, licorice and chocolate, but it turned out to be from Fuller’s, one of Britain’s leading breweries. Despite its richness, this porter is well balanced and very smooth. Two other British porters in our top 10, Samuel Smith’s Taddy Porter and St. Peter’s Old-Style Porter, seemed more typically low-key. The Samuel Smith especially is a delicate, subtle brew, able to get its point across without raising its voice. Otter Creek Stovepipe Porter, from Vermont, also fits into this mellow category.

Smuttynose Robust Porter, from Portsmouth, N.H., is an example of a porter with well-integrated American touches. You can’t help but sense the bright, piney American hops mingled with the more classic aromas of roasted malt, but it’s done in a way that adds interesting notes without overwhelming the porter character. By contrast, Mocha Porter from Rogue Ales in Newport, Ore., did not make the top 10 because the hop aromas drowned out everything else.
Those porters from Sweden and Lithuania? Dead on arrival, victims of poor storage. A few other good porters did not make our list but are worth trying, most notably Stone Smoked Porter from Southern California; Southern Tier Dark Porter from Lakewood, N.Y.; and Original Flag Porter from Britain.

Away from the geekish realm, porter still has a somewhat confused identity. If people have heard of it at all, they think of porter as sort of a near stout, which is not a bad way to think of it because the two styles are closely related. In fact, the original stout was simply a more robust porter called stout porter. Porter was classically made solely from roasted malt, while stout had a component of roasted barley, too. But the distinctions have become clouded. Nowadays, porter is porter, stout is stout, but the twain do indeed meet.

Tasting Report:
Complex Flavors and Aromas of Chocolate and Coffee
Geary’s London; Porter Portland, Me.
$1.50, 12 oz.***Dry, refreshing and tangy; espresso and mineral flavors; classic porter.

Captain Lawrence Smoked Porter; Pleasantville, N.Y.$15, 64 oz.*** Well balanced and assertive; not at all smoky but delicious just the same.

Fuller’s London Porter; London, England$2, 12 oz.***Big and rich with a pleasing texture and potent aromas of coffee and licorice. (Distinguished Brands International, Littleton, Colo.)

St. Peter’s Old-Style Porter; Suffolk, England$4, 25 oz.***Mild and mellow with rich bitter chocolate aromas. (Eurobrew, Santa Monica, Calif.)

Otter Creek Stovepipe Porter; Middlebury, Vt.$1.75, 12 oz.**½Light-bodied and fresh; subtle, lingering flavors of coffee and chocolate.

Smuttynose Robust Porter; Portsmouth, N.H.$1.60, 12 oz.**½Porter, American style, with plenty of piney hop aromas mingling with the roasted malt.

Samuel Smith Taddy Porter; Tadcaster, England$4, 25 oz.**½Porter, British style; lightly fruity with earthy coffee and chocolate flavors. (Merchant du Vin, Tukwila, Wash.)

Salopian Brewery Entire Butt English Porter; Shrewsbury, England$ 5,
500 ml.**½Complex and intriguing, with flowery and sweet aromas. (Shelton Brothers, Belchertown, Mass.)

Butte Creek Organic Porter; Chico, Calif.$1.40, 12 oz.**½ Round and powerful with espresso aromas and a little sweetness.

Anchor Porter San Francisco$1.75, 12. oz.** Aromas of dark chocolate, flowers and, yes, graham crackers.

An Oktoberfest Experience

BY Ken Kane
Honorary Beer Scribe for Guest on Tap

Go to a World Series.
Check.
Home-brew an award-winning beer.
Check.
Run a marathon.
At age 52, increasingly unlikely.
Attend Oktoberfest. The real one.
At long last, check!
I can cross another one off my life list. After 20 years of trying, last month I made the pilgrimage along with five other beer nuts from Portland and a nationally certified beer judge from Tucson, Ariz.
We crammed ourselves into a 10-by-12-foot hostel room within stumbling distance of Munich’s Theresienwiese (Oktoberfest grounds) for four days of serious “research.” We learned a great deal …
Oktoberfest combines the world’s biggest frat party with a state fair on steroids. Six million men, women and kids packed the 104-acre site over 18 days. Ferris wheels, roller coasters and a midway vied for attention. It might’ve been mistaken for Labor Day at the Salem fairgrounds, except that people were throwing balls at mini-beer kegs rather than milk cans (three for a dollar … make that a euro) and the haunted house was called a Geist Schloss (ghost castle).
Who knew seating for 8,000 — three times the size of Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall — could constitute a temporary “tent”? Don’t think canvas and sandbags — the construction was all I-beams, timbers and two stories. The 14 main tents served up 5 million of liters of beer, 700,000 chickens and 90 roast oxen.
Bavarians and tourists from the world over mingled — truth be known most nights we were crammed cheek by jowl — while we swayed to rock and country standards. The bands did far less oompah-pahing than might be expected. And while rotisserie chicken was the cuisine in most tents, the “Chicken Dance” was rarely heard.
Once the event ended, within days the tents were down, the rides removed and Theresienwiese returned to being just another city park.
No one would confuse Oktoberfest for the Oregon Brewers Festival. Oktoberfest isn’t about increasing one’s beer IQ nor the modest sampling of a variety of styles. This was all about maas-consumption, the “maas” being the 1-liter glass stein that constituted the only size of beer available.
There’s little Oktoberfest beer at Oktoberfest. Munich’s “big six” breweries kept the choices simple: One could drink a yellow, fizzy lager or … another yellow, fizzy lager. A step up from PBR or Silver Bullets to be sure, but a malt aficionado (like me) or a typical Northwest hophead would find the beer tent sipping pretty insipid.
There’s more to Munich than Oktoberfest. Try as we might, we Portlanders couldn’t live by yellow fizzy and rotisserie chicken alone.
So by day we explored other sites, such as churches, the secular shrine known as the BMW museum, the vast English Garden and Marienplatz, Munich’s living room. That’s where, on my final day in town, I found someone who — in his own way — made up for some of the disappointing beer in the tents.
He was a street musician of the grandest kind — he and his baby grand piano, right out there on the cobblestones. He cranked out versions of Mozart and Beethoven that were far more inspired than the yellow fizzy had been.
A final Munich memory, this sidewalk soloist made that silver-painted robotic guy who works Pioneerplatz in Portland pale in comparison!

Beer News:

DO YOU THINK YOU KNOW GOOD CHOWDER? You can help choose Portland’s Best Chowder at Fifth Quadrant Saturday, Oct. 21 for the first Lompoc Chowder Challenge. Chowders from at least 11 Portland restaurants will be competing for the soon-to-be-prestigious People's Choice Chowder Cup, along with prizes in other categories such as Most Authentic, Most Flavorful and Best with Beer. The contest will run from noon to 7 p.m. The festivities will also feature a beer garden, live music and a raffle to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphona Society. So don't be shellfish! Help pick the best chowder by voting.
A Big THREE- OH! The Horse Brass Birthday Bash is coming October 27 th to November 6 th at the Horse Brass (4534 SE Belmont Portland, Oregon 97215 USA (503) 232-2202) for more info go to:

At Laurelwood Public House in Hollywood, they are “ Bringing Home the Gold!” In case you haven't heard, they recently were rewarded a Gold medal at the 2006 Great American Beer Festival in Denver, Colorado. Organic Deranger, their Imperial Red Ale won top honors in the Imperial or Double Red Category. That Expresso Stout that we mentioned in last week’s beer news is called Stumptown EspressoStout (5.9% ABV; 20 IBUs;O.G. 14.7º Plato). This opaque creation was brewed with 15 pounds of cold pressed Stumptown espresso imparting a smooth, rich coffee flavor and aroma. ( Laurelwood Public House and Brewery , 1728 NE 40th Ave. # 503.282.0622 < http://www.laurelwoodbrewpub.com/ >)

Fearless Brewing Company’s Third Annual Holiday Hop on November 11 starting at 6:30 pm until 9:00 pm. This is an event that beer lovers will not want to miss. Says brewery owner Ken Johnson, "It is a great way to learn more about beer and impress your friends with your knowledge". The HOLIDAY HOP will feature live music, guided beer tastings, brewery tours and a smorgasbord of beer friendly appetizers. Tickets to the HOLIDY HOP are $7.00 Fearless Brewing Company is located in Estacada, Oregon. The address is 326 South Broadway. Phone: (503) 630-BEER (2337) http://www.fearless1.com/

Hop Harvest!

Hop Harvest
By Abram Goldman-Armstrong
At the end of summer farmers pick the resinous hop cones that give Northwest beers their floral, herbal, and citrusy hop flavor and bitterness.
Oregon was the nation’s largest hop producer until the 1930’s when irrigation projects in the Yakima valley, combined with a blight on Oregon hops allowed Washington to take the lead. Growers in the two states, along with a few farmers in Idaho produce about 30 percent of the world’s hops. Oregon’s hop farms are mainly family affairs, located in Marion and Polk counties. Some such as Goschie Farms have been growing hops for over a century.
At a recent “Hop Field Day” for brewers and media, the Goschie family gave a tour of their hopyard and dryer, concluding with barbequed pig cooked in a hop rub.
Here in Oregon farmers favor hops prized for their flavor and aroma, derived from the delicate essential oils in the petals of the flowers, or “cones” of the hop plant. The Willamette Valley’s mild climate, similar to that of the hop growing regions of Germany, renown for “noble” aroma hops, rather than the bittering-type hops more commonly grown in Yakima.
Here in Oregon farmers favor hops prized for their flavor and aroma, derived from the delicate essential oils in the petals of the flowers, or “cones” of the hop plant. The Willamette Valley’s mild climate, similar to that of the hop growing regions of Germany, renown for “noble” aroma hops, rather than the bittering-type hops more commonly grown in Yakima.
Local brewers have a love affair with aroma hops, such as Willamette, Mt. Hood, and Cascades, the citrusy hop which gives many Northwest IPAs their grapefruity signature. At hop harvest brewers make beers with hops only a few hours from the vine. The fresh or “wet” hops impart subtle grassy tones not found in the dried hops used year-round.
Many of these fresh hop beers can be sampled at the Oregon Fresh Hop Beer Tastival at the Lucky Lab Beer Hall at 19th and NW Quimby, October 14. Brewers from around the state will be showcasing beers made with this seasons freshest hops. Fresh hop beers have generated a buzz in the brewing community, with even east coast brewers trying their hand at versions made with hops sent overnight.
A typical fresh hop beer starts life in the field where picking crews cut the 18 foot hopvines from their trellis. Machines then strip the cones from the vines, sorting out the leaf material. After the cones emerge, they are intercepted before going to the kiln where they would be dried then pressed into bales. Brewers bring the wet hops back to the brewery by the truckload and dump them into the kettle. Brewers must use seven times the amount of fresh hops as they would dry hops, in order to extract the soft flavors from the wet petals.
Pelican brewery manager Ben Love filled his Honda Element to the brim with Sterling hops from Goschie farms. He says the hop pickers simply call them “Coors hops,” as the macro brewer buys the majority of the crop of this aroma variety. Sterling are derived from crossing several varieties including Saaz, the famous Czech aroma hop, and Cascade, an Oregon bred variety.
The Lucky Lab is brewing a Fresh Hop beer from homegrown hops called “ the Mutt” as it uses so many different hop varieties, in contrast with the usual “varietal” fresh hop beers.

The Fresh Hop Festival runs from 12-9pm, October 14th, at the Lucky Lab Beer Hall, 1925 NW Quimby

Abram Goldman-Armstrong used wet Hallertauer hops from his garden in a batch of Peach Hefeweizen to celebrate harvest.

Beer News
Congratulations to Pelican Pub & Brewery! The Pacific City Brewery walked off with “Large Brewpub of the Year” at the Great American Beer Festival! For the third time in seven years, the Pelican Pub & Brewery has won "Brewery of the Year" honors at the 25th Annual Great American Beer Festival. Head brewer Darron Welch was named "Brewer of the Year - Large Brewpub". The team from the Pelican Pub & Brewery won an astounding five of the highly coveted medals: Kiwanda Cream Ale won the gold medal in the Golden/Blonde Ale category, Doryman's Dark Ale scored gold in the American Brown Ale category, Tsunami Stout captured the gold in the Foreign-Style Stout category, MacPelican's Scottish Style Ale took the silver medal in the Scottish-Style Ale category, and Stormwatcher's Winterfest won the silver medal in the Barley Wine-Style Ale category.
New Beers: From the folks at Laurelwood, we hear that Fabik’s Rye is the Seasonal on tap at the Hollywood Laurelwood Public House & Brewery (1728 NE 40th Avenue, Portland # 503.282.0622)

October 14, 2006 - Portland, Oregon, United States Third Annual Fresh Hop Beer Tastival Fresh Hop Beer Tastival with up to 15 Oregon Brewers Guild member breweries using exclusively fresh Oregon Hops picked from the vines during the 2006 hop harvest in the Williamette Valley. Location: Lucky Lab Beer Hall 1945 NW Quimby; Hours: 12 - 9pm
Email: info@oregonbeer.org for more information

More Birthday Bashs! From now until October 15th, participating Old Chicago Pizza & Pasta locations will be celebrating their 30th Anniversary! For More information goto www.oldchicago.com.

DO YOU THINK YOU KNOW GOOD CHOWDER? You can help choose Portland’s Best Chowder at Fifth Quadrant Saturday, Oct. 21 for the first Lompoc Chowder Challenge. Chowders from at least 11 Portland restaurants will be competing for the soon-to-be-prestigious People's Choice Chowder Cup, along with prizes in other categories such as Most Authentic, Most Flavorful and Best with Beer. The contest will run from noon to 7 p.m. The festivities will also feature a beer garden, live music and a raffle to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphona Society. So don't be shellfish! Help pick the best chowder by voting.

A Big THREE- OH! The Horse Brass Birthday Bash is coming October 27th to November 6th at the Horse Brass (4534 SE Belmont Portland, Oregon 97215 USA (503) 232-2202) for more info go to:

A Year of cheer and beer

BY Lisa Morrison Honorary Beer Scribe for Guest on Tap

We are honored by the support of our readers over the past year. This is your column, and we look forward to continuing our work for you. Your love of beer gives us the drive to continue our work. We will strive to continue to give the quality beer dialogue that you demand. Thank you for your support!

2006 Great American Beer Festival Winners
We would like to lift our glasses in Honor of the Pacific Northwest brewery winners at this year’s festival. Click here to view winners

It began as the brainchild of a Portland Tribune staffer who loves beer. But in the year since its debut, Guest on Tap has come a long way, baby.
The idea for Guest on Tap was for it to be a forum for home brewers, professional brewers, beer aficionados and writers. Today, nearly 20 honorary beer scribes have contributed. It’s also grown in size, starting out at a modest 325 words and expanding to about 500 words.
That’s a good thing, because looking back on the past year, there was, as usual here in Beervana, a lot to write about.
Some highlights(click to view full article):
• Pelican Pub and Brewery was honored as Small Brewpub of the Year at the Great American Beer Festival — for the second time in five years.
• With Halloween still weeks away, we bemoaned the increasingly earlier arrival of holiday beers while anticipating them with glee all at the same time. And, come December, we crowded under the tents at the Holiday Ale Festival to enjoy those special brews.
• “Beerthdays” didn’t go unnoticed. Brewers across the state — and the country — celebrated Benjamin Franklin’s 300th birthday with their interpretations of Poor Richard’s Ale, a fitting tribute to the man credited with saying, “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”
• Portlanders asked, “What Would Fred Drink?” as the Dean of American Beer Writers, Portland’s own Fred Eckhardt, became an octogenarian (and evidence of Franklin’s prose).
• Beer lovers raised glasses to friends who have died. Guest on Tap remembered Jim Kennedy, a man who was key in cultivating Portland’s reputation as Beervana. The memory of Wild Duck brewer Glen Falconer lives in the Sasquatch Brew Fest and Brew Am golf tournament and the Legacy beer project. Proceeds from the events go toward sending Northwest brewers to advanced brewing school.
• The days begin to get longer, and we embraced our inner SNOB (Supporters Of Native Oregon Beers) at the annual Spring Beer & Wine Fest — right off the heels of the World Beer Cup where Oregon breweries garnered 10 medals. Walking Man Brewing, just a hop away in Stevenson, Wash., grabbed two golds as well.
At the North American Organic Brewers Festival, we learned Kermit the Frog was wrong: It is easy (and tasty) being green.
As summer arrived, Oregonians celebrated independence and remembered our brewing forefathers with the pop of a craft beer bottle. We also went a bit Euro at the Portland International Beer Festival, while showing our homegrown pride during the first-ever Oregon Craft Beer Month.
Vacation time meant day trips (and sips) to breweries across the state. We also examined the ABCs of beer from IBU to IPA, and got a history lesson on the ever-changing landscape of Beervana — just in time for the new school year.
Ah, yes, what a long, strange sip it’s been. And hang on! We’re just getting started.

Beer News:

Happy Birthday to us! Tonight! Guest on Tap will have a Birthday Bash at the 5th Quadrant on Tonight from 6 Pm to Close. Win door prizes. See the Portland episode of Beer Nutz! Eat, Drink, and be merry with our Honorary Beer Scribes. All are welcome! 5 th Quadrant: 3901 B N. Williams Avenue (N. Williams & Failing) #503.288.3996

Oregon Brewers Guild members’ beer production grew at a rate of nearly 24 percent in the first half of 2006 compared to the same period in 2005. “ Oregon’s craft brewers are growing faster than the exceptional growth rate of the craft beer industry as a whole,” said Brian Butenschoen, Executive Director of the Oregon Brewers Guild. “In 2006 Oregon brewers are projected to double the national craft beer growth rate.” The Brewers Association has reported that the volume of craft beer sold in the first half of 2006 rose 11 percent compared to the same period in 2005.

October 7, 2006 – Hood River, Oregon Hood River Hops Fest- will again be FREE and fun for the whole family. The Second Annual Hood River Hops event will take place in downtown Hood River on the corner of Columbia and Fifth Streets and will run from noon to 9 PM. featuring great Music from the hot rockin blues to Bavarian Umpah. For more information visit: www.hood-river-hops.com or call #541.308.6738 or 541.490.0022

October 14, 2006 - Portland, Oregon, United States Third Annual Fresh Hop Beer Tastival Fresh Hop Beer Tastival with up to 15 Oregon Brewers Guild member breweries using exclusively fresh Oregon Hops picked from the vines during the 2006 hop harvest in the Williamette Valley. Location: Lucky Lab Beer Hall 1945 NW Quimby; Hours: 12 - 9pm
Email: info@oregonbeer.org for more information

More Birthday Bashs! From now until October 15 th, participating Old Chicago Pizza & Pasta locations will be celebrating their 30 th Anniversary! For More information goto www.oldchicago.com.

DO YOU THINK YOU KNOW GOOD CHOWDER? You can help choose Portland’s Best Chowder at Fifth Quadrant Saturday, Oct. 21 for the first Lompoc Chowder Challenge. Chowders from at least 11 Portland restaurants will be competing for the soon-to-be-prestigious People's Choice Chowder Cup, along with prizes in other categories such as Most Authentic, Most Flavorful and Best with Beer. The contest will run from noon to 7 p.m. The festivities will also feature a beer garden, live music and a raffle to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphona Society. So don't be shellfish! Help pick the best chowder by voting.

A Big THREE- OH! The Horse Brass Birthday Bash is coming October 27 th to November 6 th at the Horse Brass (4534 SE Belmont Portland, Oregon 97215 USA (503) 232-2202) for more info go to:

GABF Results unconfirmed

Greetings fellow brewcrewers,
I am currently in Denver at the Great American Beer Festival and have just watched the awards ceremony. I am glad to be able to post these exciting results. You heard it here first! Once again, Oregon and the Pacific NW made a great showing.
I was madly jotting down the results on a postcard, so I may have missed a few of the Washington breweries. The results go by so fast, I sometimes didn't have time to write everything down, so there may be some minor inaccuracies, but here is what I have.
#1 American Cream Ale or Lager
Bronze: Henry Weinhards - Miller Brewing Co.

#2 American Style Wheat Beer
Gold: Pyramid Breweries
#3 American Style Hefewizen
Gold: Widmer Bros Brewing - Hefeweizen
#12 Wood and Barrel Age Strong Beer
Silver: Full Sail Brewing - Black Gold Imperial Stout
#19 European Style Pilsner
Bronze: Widmer Bros Brewing - Export Lager
#35 Classic English Style Pale Ale
Silver: Pyramid Breweries - Mac's Ale
#37 American Style Pale Ale
Silver: Widmer Bros Brewing - Brewmaster's Pale Ale
#39 American Style India Pale Ale
Gold: Bend Brewing - Hop Head Imperial IPA
#42 Imperial or Double Red Ale
Gold: Laurelwood Brewpub - Deranger Red
Catagory ???
Gold: Pelican Brewpub - Kiwanda Cream Ale
#45 Scottish Style Ale
Silver: Pelican Brewpub - MacPelican's Scottish Style Ale
#48 American Style Brown Ale
Gold: Pelican Brewpub - Doryman's Dark
#58 Robust Porter ??
Silver: Flyer's Restaurant and Brewery, Oak Harbor WA - Pacemaker Porter
#59 Brown Porter
Place??: Big Time Brewing Company - Goddess Porter
#60 Classic Irish Style Dry Stout
Place?? Ram Restaurant and Big Horn Brewery, Seattle, WA- Slapshot Stout
#61 Foreign Export Style Stout
Gold: Pelican Brewpub - Tsunami Stout
Silver: Alameda Brewhouse - Black Bear XX Stout
#64 Oatmeal Stout
Bronze: BJ's Restaurant and Brewpub, Portland, OR - Lasto's Oatmeal Stout
#69 Barley Wine Style Ale
Silver: Pelican Brewpub - Storm Watcher's Winterfest
Of other interest: #34 English Style Summer Ale - Gold: Goose Island - Golden Blonde Ale.
Large Brewpub and Brewer of the Year - Pelican Brewpub - Darron Welch
Pro Am Catagory
Gold: Foothills Brewing - Baltic Porter
Silver: Papago Brewing Co. - Hop Dog IPA
Bronze: Odell Brewing - Whale's Tale Pale Ale
Congratulations to all the winning brewers! My apologies if I missed someone.
Other observations: Colorado made a big showing, winning many awards. I got to taste the 1996 Alaskan Smoke Porter, and it was excellent.
Best Beet T-Shirt Logos:
The Liver Is An Evil Thing
It Must Be Punished!
My Indian Name Is
Runs with Beer
If I spill beer on you
consider yourself baptised
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