Breaking News! Concordia Alehouse Sold!

That's right, one of the best beer bars in the metro area is about to undergo a change of ownership. Rumors are flying on the BrewCrew listserv about the potential changes, but some of the more disheartening rumors include TV's, lottery, and "consistent taps", which probably means the same boring things on tap all the time.

Let's hope this is just fear of change causing the negativity and that the new owners will realize what made CAH so special in the first place.

More to come as the situation develops and rumors are confirmed...

EDIT: Thursday March 1, 2007 5:00pm

I just got off the phone with Brittany (manager and beer goddess) and things don't look nearly as dire as some of the rumors would lead you to believe. She wasn't at liberty to discuss the new owners or much about their plans, but she assured that things should remain pretty much the same for at least the foreseeable future. Apparently the new owners are regular patrons of the bar, they're well aware of the niche that the Alehouse fills, and the last thing they want to do is lose all the customers that Matt, Molly, and Brittany have worked so hard to gain.

As far as the rumors about "boring beers" taking over the tap lines; let's just say it doesn't seem likely. In addition to managing the bar, Brittany is now in charge of all the beer ordering and her love of tasty, diverse beer runs as deep as any beer geek in the city. In other words, I think things will be fine.

On that note, here's a few things that will be tapped in the next couple days:

Just Tapped:

Cantillon Iris! (this is one of my personal favorites)

Eel River - Raven's Eye Imperial Stout and Triple Exultation

Coming Soon:

Anderson Valley - Double Nickel IPA (one of only 3 kegs delivered to Oregon)

Anderson Valley - Deep Ender's Dark

He'Brew - Bittersweet Lenny's RIPA

Walking Man - Scottish-style something or another...(you never know what Bob is going to come up with)


In conclusion: keep on supporting the Alehouse, have faith that Brittany will keep the beer fresh and interesting, and don't believe the rumors.

Event Calendar Added!

As the new cafe approaches a state of readiness I thought it would be good to add an event calendar to keep everyone abreast of current happenings, both in the store and elsewhere in the area.

There's not much there yet except for a few festival listings, but I'll be adding more events as I'm made aware of them.

If you have something beer-related in the works please drop me a line and I'll add it to the calendar.

I'll be working on updating the other pages of the site so they all connect to one another, but for now this page is really only accessible through this link.

I suppose you could click here as well...

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New and magical brews await

As I sit at home before going in to work at the Belmont Station, I
wonder what new and magical brews await at the store. You see, today is
Tuesday and that means beer shipment day. Today and Friday are the days
when we re-up on our stash of captivating beers. Thanks to our purchasing manager, Chris O, this is all possible.

February was my month to give up beer, and I almost made it. I figured there
wouldn't be too many new beers to appear in times I once thought
of as the doldrums for new releases. Yup, I was wrong.

Butte Creek Train Wreck-
Check your wrist for a pulse. Anything? Well if this beer doesn't start
your heart, it could very well stop it with enjoyability. Brewmaster Larry Berlin is known for saying "Go big or go home!" And home is not too far away on this fast track to magna cum hoppiness on a tour du malts. A dark sugary and fruity hoppiness
protrude the 10.6% alcohol dangling in the finish. Share it with a
friend, and take your time, because this certified organic monster is
big enough to derail Ozzy Osbourne (maybe).

Eisenbahn Unfiltered Wheat Doppelbock-
I was just hoping that a beer from Brazil would be something other than
a wimpy lager, and this beer (and brewery) has rewritten my perception
of the country's beer. This dark and somewhat fruity beer is more than
that, it is complex and gains momentum with each sip.Roasty and darkly clouded, this one reminds me of the care taken in some of my favorite German brews. The word "Eisenbahn" translates to "railway". I see a pattern here...

Santa's Terminal Abyss- You
might be thinking "wow! a new beer called STA!" (or not), but in fact,
it is no new beer, but rather one of my kooky creations from Chris O's 30th birthday. Gordon (also from Belmont Station) and I were in the kitchen sipping Deschutes
Abyss, and I thought of beer names that reminded me of underwater
horror movies. Leviathan (Fish Tale Brewing) also came to mind. I
digress... Next to the Abyss was another well-rounded ale that could
very well be marketed as winter seasonal had it not been a bomby
perennial favorite--Terminal Gravity IPA. This beer is one of the best
sellers at BS and offers a robust malt character with no shortage of
big NW hops. To round out the mixture, a bottle of Rogue's Santa's
Private Reserve sat lonely atop the stove. "Wanna try a blend?" I asked
Gordon. "Why not" he replied. And there you have it. Santa's Terminal
Abyss. Just make sure to be easy on the Abyss. It is gone for a while, and
weighs in at 11%. The three beers are kind that Rogue brewer John Maier might refer to as "pallet bruisers." Darn straight!

Mark your calendars now, Saint Patty's Day is less than three weeks away! This usual is indicative of more good beer to come.

New Arrivals For The Week

There's been a huge flood of new beer arriving in town this week. In addition to the Rogue 10K and Pelican beers we've gotten a dozen new products and a handul of things that haven't been seen around here for years.

This post would be gargantuan if I wrote descriptions of everything here, so I'll leave you with a brief rundown of things and suggest calling us or checking Ratebeer.com if you have questions.

From Bison Brewing in California:

Reunion - A Beer For Hope

From Butte Creek Brewing in California:

Trainwreck Organic Barleywine

From Sea Dog brewing in Maine:

Hazelnut Porter

Raspberry Wheat

Wild Bluebeery Wheat

Old East India IPA

From Shipyard brewing (also in Maine):

Single Hop Fuggles IPA

Export Ale

Old Thumper

From Morland's Brewing in England:

Old Speckled Hen

Hen's Tooth Strong Ale

Tanner's Jack Bitter

From Eisenbahn Brewing in Brazil:

South American Pale Ale -actually a Belgian-style pale

Smoked Lager

Dark Lager (Schwarzbier)

Brazilian Golden Ale

Unfiltered Wheat Doppelbock

LUST (a Belgian strong ale which has undergone methode champanoise)


It's going to be a busy weekend for my liver...

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Belgians From the Beach

From Ben Love, Brewery Manager:

Pacific City, Oregon • 15 February 2007 — The Pelican Pub & Brewery is proud to introduce two new beers, Saison du Pélican and Grand Cru de Pélican:

Saison du Pélican - The “Saison” ales of Belgium inspire our special vintage ale, Saison du Pélican. “Saison” is the French word for season, because these ales were traditionally brewed in the winter for consumption later in the year. With a spicy, herbal aroma from special Belgian yeast and a snappy, refreshing finish, Saison du Pélican combines traditional flavors with excellent drinkability.

Grand Cru de Pélican - Grand Cru de Pélican is the result of inspiration, creativity and imagination. With a nod to the great brewing traditions of Belgium, we have been inspired to create this dark, sensuous brew. Grand Cru de Pélican entices with a rich, complex aroma, and satisfies with deep malty and caramel flavors. Spicy, aromatic flavors provide a harmonious counterpoint to the malty foundation of this robust beer. A snappy finish and medium-light body enhance the beer’s smooth drinkability.

"We've really had fun thinking out of the box in creating these beers. They are unlike anything we have brewed before,” said Headbrewer Darron Welch.

The brewers brought in a special Belgian yeast for the production of the beers. Each beer also utilizes unique ingredients. The Saison du Pelican includes spelt, an ancient grain, adding texture and dryness to the finish. The Grand Cru de Pélican includes 115 pounds of hand caramelized sugar. It took Brewery Manager Ben Love two days to carmelize the sugar, 15 pounds at a time. The complex caramel flavors in the beer prove that all the work was well worth it.

Once the initial fermentation finished, the brewers added more sugar and then hand-bottled and corked the beers. Inside the bottle, a second fermentation occurred, adding complexity and natural carbonation in the beers. These bottle conditioned beers are available in limited edition 750 mL bottles. The bottles will be available at the Pelican Pub & Brewery and at selected bottle shops in Oregon.

Both of the new Pelican beers are now available (while supplies last) at Belmont Station. A limited number of kegs may be available as well, call for pricing and details. For more information regarding these beer, including ingredient lists and batch specifications, feel free to check out the Pelican seasonal beer page.

Coming Soon: Rogue Ten Thousand Brew Ale

From the Rogue Nation Wire Service:

On May 18, 1989 John maier brewed the 1st batch of Rogue Ales. On November 14th, he brewed the 10,000th batch at the Rogue Ales Brewery. Rogue began as a brew pub in Ashland, OR in 1988. The first brewery was in the pub’s basement and then relocated to a garage on the Yaquina Bayfront in Newport. And through it all was Rogue Brewmaster John “More Hops” Maier. Over 18 years he has created and brewed 40+ different ales including: American Amber, Brutal Bitter, Chipotle Ale, Chocolate Stout, Dad’s Little Helper, Dead Guy Ale, Half-e-Weizen, HazelNut Brown Nectar, Festivale, Honey Cream Ale, Imperial India Pale Ale, Imperial Stout, Juniper Pale Ale, Kells Irish Lager, Mocha Porter, Morimoto Black Obi Soba Ale, Morimoto Imperial Pilsner, Morimoto Soba Ale, Old Crustacean Barleywine, Oregon Golden Ale, Saint Rogue Red, Santa’s Private Reserve, Shakespeare Stout, Smoke Ale, Uberfest Pilsner, Younger’s Special Bitter, Oyster Cloyster Stout, Mogul Madness, Love & Hoppiness, Monk Madness, Glen, SchwartzBier, Skull Splitter, Integrity IPA, Imperial Porter, Artisan Lager, Charlie, Coho Harvest Ale, Cran-NCherry, Kriek, McRogue Scotch Ale, Rogue-N-Berry, Rose Festival Ale, Squak Valley IPA, Waterfront Lager, and many more.

Born in Riverside, CA in 1955, John was employed by Hughes Aircraft Co. as a Senior Electronic Technician where he worked on the F-14 Tomcat Radar System. In the Fall of 1986, John attended the Siebel Institute of Technology and graduated from their 50th course in Brewing Technology. That same year he brewed a Barleywine that won the American Homebrewer Association’s Homebrewer of the Year Award. He worked as Assistant Brewmaster at the Alaskan Brewery before coming to Rogue.

So what style is the special Brew 10,000? “It’s not any style,”said John, “but it’ll be good.” It’s made with 7 ingredients: Vienna, French Special Aroma, and Maris Otter Pale Ale Malts; Yakima Summit and German Saphir Hops, Free Range Coastal Waters and Top Fermenting Pacman Yeast. No chemicals, preservatives, or additives were added. It has a big earthy malt flavor balanced by lingering hoppiness, with hints of citrus--22 Plato, 78 AA, 60 IBU, 30 Lovibond. The brew will be packaged in 750 ml Black ceramic bottles with swingtop closures. 10,000 serigraphed bottles will be produced and available at select retailers across the country.

When asked if he has considered retirement after 18 years and 10,000 brews John said, “This is what I was born to do. I’m looking forward to 10,000 more.”

With any luck this will arrive tomorrow. I'll update this post with pricing info as it becomes available.

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February--not a month for beer?

'Tis the season, or at least it was.

The big warming beers during the months of little sunshine and cold micros is an annual connundrum. Monstrous doses of malty and hoppy goodness isn't always exactly what the doctor ordered. For instance, trying to appreciate the Winter Ale Festival's offering and several tasting bottled delectables like Eel River's Old Ale aka Triple Exultation, Mad River's John Barleycorn, or Deschutes' Abyss can put a strain on the evil* liver.

So, upon a conversation with my friend Michael who brews at Clinton Street Brewing (Portland's smallest micro brewer), I learned that February is a good month to give up drinking beer (gasp!). But why February? Well, for starters, it's the shortest month in the calendar year (godforbid leap year). Anyhow, why else? One hypothesis I heard is that there are less notable seasonals during the month of February. Really? Now on the second day of the month I found out about these new tid bits:

At Sellwood's Oak's Bottom Public House (a New Old Lompoc house with divine guest tappage) you can taste two vintages from San Diego's Stone Brewing including the Old Guardian Barley Wine. OB's Jim Parker ordered a keg of Stone's Anniversary IPA back in October, but instead got a keg of 2006's Old Guardian.

The Stone barleywine rolls in at 11% ABW and will be verticled next to this year's model. Did the ingredient-base mellow out at all? How did the hops' bitterness meld with the multitude of malts?

Monday February 5, 2007 7 pm @Oaks Bottom Public House, 1621 S.E. Bybee Street in Sellwood, OR for info call 503-232-1728.


Reason 2 to keep drinking Oregon craft beer during February:

Northwest Brewing New's people's choice award for best Oregon brewhouse, Laurelwood remains constant with new and innovative beers. Former brewer Christian Ettinger is in the process of redeveloping the old Sunset Fuels building on SE Powell Blvd. into a sustainable organic brewery. In the meantime, his old stomping grounds at Laurelwood are preparing the Portland's Hollywood District for their latest brewing locale, just up Sandy Boulevard from
the current spot.
Check out the new spot at Laurelwood's blogsite.

Check out the hottest new item at Laurelwood, the Imperial IPA # 7 in the latest series of new and innovative IIPA's (taken over right where they left off last year with six imperial IPAs side by side...what a madhouse that was!)

Here's what I know:

IIPA #7
7.5% ABW 107 IBU )G 17 degrees Plato
Brewed with Columbus, Amarillo, Simco, and Cascade Hops

also at Laurelwood while supplies last
Elvis Special Bitter
to honor "the King"'s birthday.

Keep your eyes peeled for the not too distant opening of Belmont Station's cafe next to the outrageous bottle selection (700 plus and growing!)

One last reason to drink handcrafted beer during February:

Like you needed it, beer geeks, all of you reading this far along. February is a good month to try something "non-seasonal" aka a perrenial treat. For example:

Adnams Broadside Original Ale--A fullbodied, carmellow beer with hints of roasty English malts and serene Euro goldings. Maintains a nice head despite the long journey it makes from its place of origin at Solebay Brewery in Southwold, England.
6% ABV, available in 12oz. bottles

Butte Creek Organic IPA--Some people are for some reason anti-Organic. Maybe it was a bad experience with gimmicky marketing involving items dubbed as "Organic". This Beer is no joke. Brewed with USDA certified organic malts and whole cone hops, this delicious sessionable IPA is any hippie beer snobs dream come true. Why did I give up beer this month?
7.1% ABW available in 12oz. bottles

Alba Scots Pine Ale--Claiming to be "an ale brewed with natural flavors" is the billing of this olde schoole brew from Scotland. Brewed and bottled by Heather Ale Ltd. buy the Williams Bros. Brewery, this gem is so damn smooth and worth mentioning for being so darn quenching. And to my total surprise this beer clocks in over 7%! You'd never never know. Vikings and cosmopolitans alike should feel very satisfied with this world class beer in their goblet.
7.5% ABW available in 11.2 oz. bottles



Thanks for reading!



*from a t-shirt I saw at OBF 2006 that read "The Liver is Evil and Must Be Punished"



l to r: Angelo, David and Mitzi at Old Belmont Station store 12/24/06

I'm Back, and Bearing Tidings of Great Beer!

It's been a long, lonely three weeks since I had my cat5 umbilical cord severed in the move, but they've finally plugged me back in to the intrawebs so I can resume rambling about beer and other stuff in a semi-coherent fashion.

I want to start things off on a good note so I'm going to put aside my tirade on the OLCC's new ruling regarding the OBF and the hypocrisy of not "punishing" the big wine events in the same manner, but rest assured I've got plenty to say about that decision.

New Arrivals:

Sierra Nevada - Big Foot 2007: Year after year, this is one of the most consistently delicious and reasonably priced barleywines on the market. If you like your barleywines big, hoppy, and aggressively flavored you NEED to buy a case of this before it disappears. Yes, a whole case. If you don't I can almost guarantee you'll run out and suffer withdrawal symptoms sometime in March or April.

Sierra Nevada - IPA: This limited release spring seasonal is supposed to fill the gap between Big Foot and Summerfest, but they seem to have gotten ahead of themselves and released them both at the same time. Oh well, no complaints here. This 6.9% English-style IPA has lots of nice earthy hop flavor and a wonderful malt backbone that helps separate it from the current batch of west coast IPAs that seem to rely entirely on the "Big C" hops. Quite tasty, and quite limited, so grab a 6 pack while it lasts.

Rogue - Dry-Hopped St. Rogue Red: Not to be confused with Salmon Nation, Santa's Private Reserve, or any of the myriad other red ales from Rogue, this is in fact a NEW beer from the venerable Newport crew. This tasty little concoction can be summed up in only a few words: Clean and neat, with a well-defined hop character. Unfortunately I haven't seen any of the 22oz bottles of this yet (and the small bottles don't list the ingredients), but if I had to guess I'd say it was brewed with a singular hop, probably Crystal. That's my amateur speculation of course, but the hop flavors remind me of Fish Tale IPA and Rogue Brutal Bitter, both of which are 100% crystal-hopped beers.

Coming Soon:

The Danish/Norwegian invasion has begun. Denmark and Norway are rapidly making a name for themselves in the brewing world with cutting edge nano- and microbrewers popping up across the country. The first of the new breed to be imported are Nøgne Ø and Ølfabrikken.

I haven't even had a chance to see the bottles, much less try them, but given the reviews I must say I'm excited. With any luck they'll bring me samples today so I can have a write-up prepared for everyone when the cases arrive tomorrow. Since these are new, relatively-unknown beers, the first batch will probably be limited to a couple case of each variety, so don't delay...

Nøgne Ø - Imperial Brown Ale: description coming soon...

Nøgne Ø - Porter: description coming soon...

Nøgne Ø - Imperial Stout: description coming soon...

Nøgne Ø - Pale Ale: description coming soon...

Nøgne Ø - Winter Ale: description coming soon...

Ølfabrikken - Porter: OK, I just cracked a bottle (kindly delivered by the distributor) and all I can say is, "Wow!" They've taken the classic porter formula and added a nice dose of roasty, coffee flavors (presumably from the malt and not actual coffee) and one heck of a lingering aftertaste. This stuff pours dark, thick, and opaque with a tight creamy head that lingers for quite some time. It should be priced in the $5-6 range, which I'd gladly pay for something like this. It's not quite Speedway Stout or Peche Mortel, but it's awfully close and it costs a lot less. I can guarantee this brew will go fast, so we may have to impose a 4 bottle per person limit until we find out how much is available.

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