Recent Arrivals and Returning Favorites

The weather is beautiful and the new beers keep flowing in. We've gotten a couple of incredible sour beer in over the last couple days which are perfect warm weather sippers. A handful of summer seasonals are also in stock so check the list below for the full run down of new brew.

The cafe draught list is also tipping towards the easy drinking side of things as the weather heats up. A couple of highlights on today's list include Heater Allen Isarweizen, Deschutes Red Chair IPA, and New Belgium La Folie. Never fear though, we've still got a wide range of styles, including a couple heavy hitters like Stone Imperial Russian Stout and Hopworks Bourbon-aged Noggin Floggin Barleywine for those who are gluttons for punishment.


New American Craft Beers:

• Leinenkugels - Classic Amber: A 100 percent malted lager, “Leinie’s Classic” features Leinenkugel’s own unique blend of two-row and six-row malts and four varieties of hops. A blend of Pale, Caramel, and Munich malts offer a complex flavor, with four different hops (Cluster, Cascade, Mt. Hood, and Hallertau) to balance the malts.
  
• Cascade Lakes - Paulina Lake Pilsner: Sweet, bready malt character meets crisp noble hops in this classic style. Toss a couple of bombers in the cooler and take some fishing.
  
• New Belgium - La Folie: Say what you will about Fat Tire, La Folie proves that New Belgium can brew, blend, and barrel age with the best of them. Former Rodenbach brewmaster Peter Bouckaert and crew keep watch over a multidude of foeders (huge oak barrels) filled with several vintages of La Folie. When the time comes to bottle they blend various batches together to create a harmonious, complex whole that's sure to put a pucker on your face. We only received a few cases, so please try and limit yourself to 3 bottles.
  
• New Belgium - Biere de Mars: The other new arrival from NBB this week is their delicious Biere de Mars, a New World take on the classic spring beers from the French/Belgian border region. New Belgium's version includes lemon verbena and "unidentified flying yeasts" to create a earthy, citrusy, brew with "crusty bread" malt character and a dry finish.
  
• Fish Tale - Organic Blonde: Fish's summer release is an easy drinking blonde ale brewed with a touch of rye for a delicate spiciness and just enough hops to give it a crisp, very refreshing finish.
  
• Sierra Nevada - Southern Hemisphere Harvest: This twist on the "fresh hop" craze features fresh hops from New Zealand that are dried, flown from NZ to Chico, and thrown into the kettle in less than a week. It's a major undertaking to be sure, but the reward is an off-season fresh hop beer bursting with grassy and floral hop aromas. Look for the fat 24oz bottle with the bright blue label.
  
• Elysian - Avatar Jasmine IPA: This delectable northwest IPA has a healthy dose of dried jasmine flowers to give it a unique floral nose and dry finish.
  
• Flying Dog - Canis Major 8 Pack: This great little package includes four of Flying Dog's big beers - Gonzo Imperial Porter, Double Dog Double Pale, Horn Dog Barleywine, and Kerberos Tripel - in 7oz nip bottles. They're perfect for when you want some strong, flavorful brew but don't want to commit to a 22oz bottle of something that's 10% or higher. Which begs the question, why do so many breweries put their monstrous beers in big bottles?
  

New Imports:

• Schneider - Hopfen-Weisse: This collaboration between Brooklyn Brewing and Schneider is a hopped-up take on the classic Schneider Weisse. Smooth and creamy bodied with a defined herbal, grassy hop character, this is one easy drinking summer brew.
  
• Belhaven - Scottish Stout: (commercial description) This deluxe stout is brewed for a full roasted chocolate flavour with a hop character that complements a blend of three different malts. Drink, savour, and enjoy!
  
• Whistler - Classic Pale Ale: Visitors to Whistler/Blackcomb (or Vancouver, BC in general) will surely recognize the distinctive labels. I haven't had a chance to try either of the Whistler brews yet, but you can click the links and see what other folks think.
  
• Whistler - Black Tusk: (commercial description) Obsidian black with a creamy, tan coloured head. Aroma: Subtle, malty aroma Palate: A dark, bold English-style mild ale. Expect a mild bitterness with notes of chocolate and a roasted coffee finish. Finish: Delightfully subtle with a refreshing, lingering finish.
  

Returning Favorites:

Russian River - Consecration: We got another small load of this incredible strong sour ale yesterday. I don't recall which batch we received last time, but for those who are keeping track this is batch 002X3. We've also got a fair amount of Pliny the Elder and Blind Pig IPA in stock at the moment.

That's all for now. Don't forget to drink plenty of water while you're out enjoying the sun. It's going to be really toasty this weekend, and your body will need all the hydration it can get.

Daily Notes and a Little Tease

We've only had a handful of new beers trickle in over the last few days, but there's some other exciting news to report as well, so join us as we stroll through virtual coolers...

New Arrivals:


Black Diamond - A long time Sacramento favorite, Black Diamond is now available in Oregon. The initial line up consists of their Belgian-style Blonde, Amber, and IPA. They've also sent a few kegs of their new Saison into town, so look for it to pop up around town at the usual suspect places.



Mateveza - The original Mateveza (brewed at Butte Creek) is no longer being produced. Jim Woods, creator/founder of Mateveza, has contracted with Mendocino produce two brand new beers featuring yerba mate. Mateveza Gold is a 5%abv Golden ale with the equivalent of 1/3 of a cup of coffee per 12oz serving. Mateveza IPA is a west coast style IPA replete with Simcoe, Centennial, and Cascade hop character capped by a long dry finish from the mate. The IPA has slightly more yerba mate in it; roughly equal to 1/2 of a cup of coffee per serving.

If you catch this post in the next couple of hours I'd encourage you to stop by the store to meet Jim Woods and try some free samples of his newest creations.


Heater Allen Returns! After a catastrophic equipment failure destroyed all of Rick's beer we were left wondering how long it would take him to recover, and I loaded up on all the H/A beer we could squeeze into the walk-in. If the word hadn't gotten out I think we would have had an uninterrupted supply, but unfortunately people started hoarding it when they heard it was in short supply and we ran out of just about everything last week.

Luckily for us (and all you lager lovers), Rick was quick on the mash paddle and this morning he replenished our coolers with fresh batches of Pils, Dunkel, and Schwarz. He also brought us the first few cases of Isarweizen, his Bavarian-style Hefe. I haven't had this batch yet, but Rick said he lowered the fermentation temperature a little this time to help mute the banana/clove flavor a bit, and he feels it's a whole lot better than last year's version.


Great Divide - A fresh load of Great Divide is here, and they sent a few fun new beers along for the ride. Belgica IPA is another entry in the blossoming "Belgian IPA" category. Leaning more towards the Belgian yeast character and less towards the hops makes for a fairly easy drinking brew with a complex fruity/yeasty/citrusy twang to it. The Dunkel Weiss is a dark, German-style wheat beer brewed with wheat, dark German malts, and a proprietary yeast strain. As the folks at GD say, "If you like wheat beers, come to the Dunkel side." Lastly, we got a limited number of their Saison, a classic Belgian-style farmhouse ale brewed with barley, wheat, rice (huh...), and 4 different yeast strains to give it that farmhouse character and a bone dry finish.

Fianlly, a little tease:



With any luck we should be seeing Boulevard Brewing Co. on our shelves within the next two months. They were present at a very packed distributor tasting last night, and everyone I spoke to seemed eager to have them. Of course nothing is certain until the beer actually arrives, but this is deliciously exciting news...

Last but not least, join us tomorrow night as we welcome Shawn Kelso from Barley Brown's brewpub. Barley Brown's is way, way out in eastern Oregon, and his incredibly well crafted beers are almost never seen on this side of the cascades, so don't miss this opportunity to try several of his latest brews including WFOIPA and 18 month old Whiskey Malt Rye beer. Yummy!

Recent Arrivals

Even ice and snow can't keep the good beer from reaching us. Just be sure to drive carefully (or take Trimet) so you can get home safely with your new found treasures. Speaking of Trimet, we're 4 blocks north of the #15 (get off at 45th and Belmont) and 5 blocks south of the #20 (get off at 44rd and Burnside), so even if you don't feel like driving you should be able to reach us fairly easily. That said, here's a few new things to drool over while you're snowed in...

New American Beers:

The Bruery Partridge in a Pear Tree: Based on the text of the back label it appears that The Bruery is beginning a "12 Days of Christmas" series. The first verse is a Belgian-style quadrupel, which seems like a fitting choice for something that's designed to be held onto for 11 more years. As it stands now it's a little bit under-carbonated, but I'd guess that was an intentional choice to keep the beer from becoming over-carbonated at some point down the line.

Lakefront East Side Dark: (Commercial Description) "The rich, coffee-like aroma and flavor of this fine Dark Bavarian style lager beer is derived from a precise blending of three different specialty barley malts: chocolate, black patent, and Munich malt. Munich malt is also added to bring about the creamy body of this malty brew that has an original gravity of 1060. The most impressive aspect of this brew is the perfect balance between the specialty malts and coveted Mt. Hood hops. Unlike many other dark beers, East Side Dark doesn't have the bitter aftertaste associated with it. Instead, your palate is greeted with the rich body and balanced flavor that only this beer can deliver."

Avery 14er ESB: (Commercial Description) "Named for the 54 Colorado peaks which tower over 14,000 feet in elevation, our session beer is a spectacular copper hued beauty. The treatment of our water to simulate English hard water and the blending of several specialty malts and hops produce a delicate balance between aromatic maltiness and herbal hops."

Avery Ellie's Brown: (Commercial Description) "This beautiful, deep russet brew has the sweet and somewhat nutty character of Adam Avery's late (1992-2002) Chocolate Lab, for which it is named. Crystal and chocolate malts give this beer a brown sugar maltiness with hints of vanilla and nuts, while subtle hopping gives it an overall drinkability that's second to none, just like Ellie!"

Sam Adams Chocolate Bock: (Commercial Description) Samuel Adams partnered with Scharffen Berger Chocolate to develop their newest innovation, Samuel Adams Chocolate Bock. Tettnang Tettnanger and Spalt hops were hand-selected from the world's oldest growing area and combined with a complex selection of malts including two row Pale, Munich and caramel to create a rich and satisfying brew. This dark beer has a big, malty character that is combined with the subtle sweetness of chocolate. The chocolatiers at Scharffen Berger crafted an exclusive blend of chocolate for Samuel Adams made with cocoa beans from Ghana called forastero. Samuel Adams Chocolate Bock was aged on a bed of this chocolate to create its unique layers of flavor. As the beer matured, the fruity, tart, earthy and chocolate aromas were infused into the liquid to give the brew a complex, full-bodied taste with a velvety finish. A hint of vanilla was added to meld the symphony of flavors together.

Woodchuck Oak Aged Cider: Personall I thought this stuff was painfully sweet, but no more so than any of the other varieties of Woodchuck. It does have the slightest hint of oak character to it, but as the cider warms up the residual sugar starts to dominate and it's hard to get past it. If sweet cider is your thing it's definitely worth a shot, otherwise I'd suggest moving on to something drier.

Heater Allen Sandy Paws Baltic Porter: (Commercial Description) "Our Christmas beer. This year's Sandy Paws will be a Baltic Porter - think Dopplebock with more roasted flavors. Big, roasty, malty. A great beer to sit by the fire with. (1.022 BG, 6.60%, 32 IBU, 30 SRM)"

New Old Lompoc C-Note Imperial Pale Ale: Now available in 22oz bottles! For most Portlanders this beer needs no introduction, but for the unfamiliar it can be summed up in one word: HOPS. A huge load of "C hops" (Centennial, Crystal, Cluster, Chinook, Cascade, and Columbus) induces lupulin-based euphoria and the 7% abv is tucked under the smooth, creamy malt profile where you won't notice it until it's too late.

New Old Lompoc Special Draft (aka LSD): I have a feeling that this beer would be flying off the shelves at a much faster rate had the folks at NOL been able to write "LSD" in drippy, psychedelic lettering on the label. But this is America, and the TTB wouldn't want people to get confused and think there's LSD-25 in the beer, so they were forced to drop the distinctive logo seen on tap handles across Portland and change the name from "Strong Draft" to "Special Draft". Other than that, it's the same strong, hoppy, and slightly smoky brew you know and love, now in a convenient take-home package. We postponed the NOL bottle release and tasting until Monday the 22nd, so cross your fingers and hope the weather is a little more agreeable by then.

New Imports:

Unibroue Taster 4-pack #1 (6% series): This gift set contains one bottle each of the Raftman (smoked ale), Chambly Noire (black ale), Blanche de Chambly (witbier), and Ephemere (Belgian ale with apples). With the exception of the Ephemere, none of these is available in Oregon, so it's a great way to try some of Unibroue's other offerings.

Unibroue Taster 4-Pack #2 (9% series): The "strong pack" contains one each of Maudite, Trois Pistoles, Don de Dieu, and La Fin du Monde. If you're new to the Unibroue line up you should definitely check this one out.

Haandbryggeriet Nissefar: (commercial description) This beer is full of all the dark malts that we have at hand and displays a full and complex malt taste, almost reaching in to the porter style. It has a balanced fruitiness from hops with a good mouth feel and smoothness, and a lingering aftertaste of roasted malts.

(Struise T'sjeeses: (commercial description) "Deep to orange blond abbey triple winter beer which has been lagered for 8 months on different stone fruits. Tsjeeses was born out of a 5 year brew experience regarding x-mas beer without being capable of finding a suitable name up to now. With the name came a face, a caricature actually, that was drawn on the day Urbain, our brew master and master brewer, drank too many Tsjeeses's. Every time he drinks one, he says "Tsjeeses, what a beer". Therefore the name is more an expression of stupefaction than a curse. We have had already many discussions around the pronounciation of "Tsjeeses". Very close would be that you say "cheeses" or cheese in plural.

Dieu de Ciel Solstice d'Hiver: Mmmm, barleywine. Nothing says "cold weather sipper" like a glass of strong, warming nectar. I've yet to try a bad beer from DdC, and this one is no slouch either. Low carbonation, subdued alchohol presence, and a full body encourage you to take your time and savor the season.

Olfabrikken Winter Porter: Apparently it's a spiced Baltic porter brewed with honey and cold fermented, which sounds delicious. I'll be drinking one of these in a little bit, so I'll try and update this post ASAP with some more info.

Returning Favorites:

Chimay Grand Reserve Magnums: Same Chimay, bigger bottle.

De Ranke Pere Noel: This hoppy Belgian delight never lasts long, so don't delay is you want to grab a bottle or two.

Reindeer's Revolt: This English strong ale is from Ridgeway, the same brewery responsible for the whimsical "Bad Elf" line of Christmas brews that have become popular the last couple years. I'm not sure why it arrived months later than the others, but it's back and ready to get stuffed into someone's stocking.

Weltenburger Wintertraum: Most German brewers eschew spices, fruits, and other adjuncts in an attempt to follow the Reinheitsgebot, so there's not much room for creativity when it comes to seasonals. None the less, Weltenburger has crafted a wonderfully full-bodied Vienna lager to capture the warmth of the season.

Redstone Vanilla/Cinnamon mead: Mmm, fermented honey with spices. Simple, clean, and potent, which is just what you need after spending the day with your family...

Kulmbacher Monchshof Weinacht Lager (5 liter mini-keg): The Weinacht flows from the minikeg with a deep golden hue and a frothy white cap, reminiscent of the picture of Santa on the outside. It's medium-bodied and has a fairly pronounced "cookie dough" malt character along with light herbal and citrus hop notes in finish. Bring this smooth, easy drinking beer to your next holiday party and see if you can find a couple of elves to do a mini-keg stand!

That'll do it for now. There's more snow coming, so stay warm and safe out there...