Portraits of dead soldiers left in yard #2: Blackberry Sparks

On the heels of introducing this new series of snapshots of discarded malt beverage vessels from my yard, here's a rather more expected discovery. See, ever since moving into a house on a corner across from a Fred Meyer, beer bottles and cans of every style and price point appear out front. Such is the inspiration behind this new series.

Here we have something a bit more expected, Sparks brand malternative, with a twist. A twist of blackberry that is. It seems the intoxicatee minds not the ban on caffeinated alcoholic beverages, and since this souse can't obtain 4Loko, he or she but most likely he fell back onto a pint-sized can of Sparks Blackberry brewed by Steel Brewing Co., a subsidiary of MillerCoors. Classy, Adolph Coors and Frederick Miller.

Portraits of dead soldiers left in yard #1: BridgePort India Pale Ale

Years ago, while driving through Missouri, I got a call, but not on my cell phone. It was Nature. So I pulled over. That's when I first pondered the nature of beer litter. The ditch was full of empties, a bad sign considering it was the middle of nowhere and that meant the drivers discarding them were clearly driving under the influence. But then I noticed that, without exception, all the dead soldiers with macro brewed lagers, often of the budget variety such as Busch Light and Keystone Ice. I even wrote about it in my book, which you can find on pages 83-84. I'd mused, "Does that mean that domestic beer drinkers are more prone to littering and craft beer drinkers understand that trash belongs in trashcans, or better yet, recycling bins?"

Ever since moving into a house on a corner across from a Fred Meyer, a Kroger-owned one that stocks and sells more craft beer than any supermarket in the nation or so I've been told, I've changed my tune. Beer bottles and cans of every style and price point appear by our fence, in our yard, piled on the stairs, or sometimes stashed in a tree out front. Such is the inspiration behind this new series: Portraits of beers left in yard.

We begin with the noble BridgePort India Pale Ale, the trailblazer for Oregon's most popular style of beer, and craft brewing in general. Whoever littered it high within this tree proves he or she but more than likely he knows from full-flavored beers rich with hops. He could maintain his wits by drinking this sessionable 5.5% beer, but perhaps this was the last in his 6-pack and didn't have enough sense not to plant it in my front yard.

Portlandia Bröø Vërks in the works

Andrew Singer and Jonathan Krisel, producers of IFC’s hit TV show, Portlandia, announced that series stars Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein are launching a brewpub on NE Killingsworth adjacent to In Other Words feminist bookstore frequently spoofed on the program in the “Women and Women First” sketches. The space, vacated by The Record Room, formerly served as a cherished vinyl lounge offering craft beer until Portlanders eschewed vintage LPs and shifted en masse to digitally formatted recorded music mirroring the trend away from bikes toward mopeds and motor-assisted bicycles.

Emulating In Other Words’s not-for-profit status, the brewpub, to be called Portlandia Bröø Vërks Und Das Public Haus, will operate as Portland’s first nonprofit pub. As news leaked, Oregon Public House quickly opened overnight to capitalize on the concept, moving so quickly it’s as if the operators had been planning it for over two years.

The series creators and actors announced their opening line-up of draught beers, named after characters and phrases the satirical show popularized. Put a Bird on Wit is a sourpuss of a Belgian Witbier. (In related news, Armisen and Brownstein are suing Flat Tail Brewing from Corvallis for copyright infringement). Portlandia Pils will be their super-hopped summer Pilsner. (In related news, Armisen and Brownstein issued a Cease & Desist to Laurelwood Brewing.) Pickle That IPA will not be on tap, but rather available only in tallboy cans with the slogan "we can Pickle That." And they have mixologized a Martini Saison called Dream of the ‘90s is Olive in Portland, dry-hopped with three locally sourced, certified-organic, gluten-free, heirloom olives.

The brewpub is executive produced by Lorne Michaels.

Neglected Portland-area Breweries: Off the Rail (R.I.P.)

Portland has some 50 breweries and counting, 70 if you count all of Portland Metro. Many are world-class, even out-of-this-world, but not all. If we're being honest, a handful generally have no Beer Geek Brownie Points, deservedly so or not. Here's Pt. VIII in an ongoing series that included Tugboat, Philadelphia's Steaks & Hoagies, Max's Fanno Creek, Broadway Grill & Brewery (Old Market Pub), Widmer Bros (note the post date), Columbia River Brewing Co., and The Mash Tun: Neglected Portland Breweries.

Forest Grove’s Off the Rail Brewing Co. has powered down after a dozen years of brewing up Black Sabbath inspired beers. None of their beers contained copious illicit drugs or bats, but beers like War Pigs Wheat and Over the Mountain Stout at least indicate what was blaring in the 12-barrel brewhouse run by brewer Dan Bragdon and his wife Antoinette.

“We kept to ourselves,” said Antoinette, which explains why the Bragdon family—their kids have all done time at the brewery—were phantoms of the local beer scene despite self-distributing to many neighborhood watering holes. For my local, that meant Nick’s Famous Coney’s in the Hawthorne District, which always had Over the Mountain Chocolate Stout on tap. Silver Dollar Pizza downtown was a reliable source for Sweet Leaf Amber, while two of The Waypost’s five taps in the Eliot neighborhood recently proffered Coal Porter and Paranoid IPA.

In the end, the Bragdons didn’t point to lagging sales but said it was a “personal decision. It wasn’t business.” In an era with increasing competition from ever-opening breweries (around 175 in Oregon) and ever-expanding ones at that, OTR Brewing self-distributed to accounts from Portland to Corvalis. “(The brewery was) more of a passion and a hobby. Dan and I are happy and positive with our decision.”

I’d learned about the closure at the beginning of this year, but per Antoinette’s request, kept mum. When the story involves medical issues warranting emergency responders as well as a son returning home after being stationed in Afghanistan, getting the scoop on a rare Oregon brewery closure matters very little. Perhaps what’s most telling is that in the two months since, absolutely nobody seems to have noticed.

Beer Birthday: Jay Brooks

Today is the birthday of beer writer Jay Brooks. Jay is a veteran beer writer (Celebrator Beer News, All About Beer, BeerAdvocate, etcetera etcetera) whose column Brooks on Beer appears in the San Jose Mercury News. He has contributed to the Oxford Companion to Beer as well as Playboy Magazine. His guidebook, California Breweries - North (Stackpole Books), comes out later this summer. He is the co-founder of SF Beer Week (and it broke my heart to miss it for this first time in its fourth iteration last month). To anyone who follows the brewing industry, none of this is news. But for years, a convivial component of his Brookston Beer Blog has been celebrating brewers and those in the beer community on their birthdays. So please...join me in wishing Jay a very happy birthday.

Brewmaster Craig Cauwels, yours truly, the Beer Chef Bruce Patton, the birthday boy

Beer bloggers Jay Hinman, Chris Cohen, Steve Shapiro, Jay Brooks, moi, Bryan Kolesar

Outdoor Speakeasy: Me, Brian Lenzo, Jay Brooks (whose blog I copied this from), and Meg Gill

Neglected Portland Breweries: The Mash Tun

Portland has some 50 breweries and counting. Many are world-class, even out-of-this-world, but not all.

Sometimes I beat myself up for not having been to every single brewery in town I used to beat myself up for not having visited every single brewery in town. As of tonight: no more! But before we begin, if we're being honest, the ones that took me the longest to hit are the ones that generally have no Beer Geek Brownie Points. Here's Pt. VII in an ongoing series that included Tugboat, Philadelphia's Steaks & Hoagies, Max's Fanno Creek, Broadway Grill & Brewery, Widmer Bros (note the post date), and Columbia River Brewing Co.: Neglected Portland Breweries.

The reason for the visit wasn't actually so I could finally haul my butt into the solitary brewing company based in Portland--The Mash Tun--that I'd yet to visit, although naturally that did influence the decision. No, Half Pint and I went (along with our friends John and Anna who pronounces her name not like the latter half of banana but like the end of the Spanish word for tomorrow, and I confess we refer to them as Johnna in our house) because our son I.P.Yae turned 1 on Sunday and I pledged to escort him to 50 breweries by his first birthday. (Actually, I aimed for 52 and with wifey's help, we achieved our feat!)

So onto the experience. The Mash Tun, brewing since 2005 thus making it a veritable veteran of Beervana, gets zero lip service but it has something better than blog-love: patrons. The place with no sign above the entrance just around the corner on NE 22nd Ave from it's Alberta address (there's a beer garden that's certainly hopping in non near-freezing weather) was packed on a chilly Friday night. Our waitress was very sweet and attentive, but we could tell she wanted us to order when we kept saying we were waiting for a fourth (fifth; sorry IPYae). The interior is mostly wood (well, obviously the brew house visable through picture windows is stainless) including a pool table in the center and a dart board tucked behind the front door. Lots of hanging plants are a nice, lively touch.

Check in on Yelp and your first pint's FREE. Not that you'd walk out of here dropping a lot of coin; the prices are reasonable. Anna, John, and I all opted for the Keelhaul IPA, billed as "herbal and citrus" hop flavors with "sweet and nutty" maltiness, but I got lots of lemon notes and didn't mind the lack of ballyhooed malt backbone (though at 7.2% ABV it's there). Half Pint of course got the Penfold Porter, then got it again. Good malt-driven cocoa flavor.

Curiously, no one got a burger. I nearly went for the Dragon Burger, but even as a chiliphile I've had two jalapeno dishes this week and both set my mouth en fuego so I played it safe and got the cheesesteak that beckoned. It had Half Pint's and John's number, too. Decent. No mistaking it for actually hailing from the City of Brotherly Love, or even Cheesesteak Nirvana.


We all opted for another round. Johnna stuck with the IPA. Half Pint as I mentioned ordered another Porter, this time an actual half pint. I do something I rarely do: ordered a cream ale. Concordia Cream Ale entails flaked corn so I worried that while I wanted light, I'd also get sweet, but the beer is saved by sufficient local aroma hops to make it palatable to beer lovers and at 4.5%, perfect for lightweights like me.

All in all, the Mash Tun is like Cromagnon Man on the human evolutionary chart--a good snapshot of how far brewpubs had come since the early '80s to the mid-aughts and then gets frozen in time. Maybe it's the caveman in me, but I think this analog brewpub is a pretty good respite in this digital age. And the packed place proves we paleos travel in packs.

My 1st GABF

Our baby boy's no stranger to the beerfest circuit. I like to say Oregon has 53 beer fests because there's seemingly more than one a week. But this was his first time at the big dance. Great American Beer Festival. And in no small way, he has the GABF to thank for his existence. His mom, Half Pint, went for the first time in 2008 when my book came out and hustled outside the Beer Enthusiast Bookstore to help sell a ton of books. She drove out with me again the next year and by the time we got to Denver, she was my fiance. Next year, she was there as my wife. Since we love measuring our life events in terms of GABFs, it's only fitting that we returned this year as parents. And even more fitting that we've turned into chopped liver.

He was able to bob'n'weave through the crowds.

Obviously, he didn't do any beer sampling, but he did enjoy the sampler flight...of pancakes from Snooze. And he picked up an awesome li'l Yeti onesie from Great Divide Brewing on our walk back (photo T/K).

But that was hardly the only brewery he hit. I double checked to make sure we could bring him on the media bus tour. I heard the guide on the other bus was in disbelief someone brought a baby. He wasn't alone. But first... First stop of the tour, Mountain Sun's Vine Street Brewery. Brand new and tapping 21 -- TWENTY-ONE -- house beers. I definitely thought the IPA and Saison were right on. And it's a hippy-dippy hangout of a brewpub.

Next stop: the new River North Brewery, beers made w/ a Belgian yeast strain

And concluded the tour at Colorado's first brewpub, Wynkoop for the tail end of the Pints for Prostates Rare Beer Tasting IV. (Saving the best photo for last if you want to scroll down.) Since Wynkoop released their very real "Rocky Mountain Oyster-Stout" in time for GABF, now's a good time for a short video break.

OK, where were we?

Not everyone who goes to Denver feels this way, but we feel the real highlight of GABF is the fest itself. Beyond the endless one-ounce samples, it's the one place you're likely to bump into old and new friends and members of the beer family at large. Look: IPYae's first fist-bump with Charlie Papazian.

While standing in the bookstore, Izzy met Jack McAuliffe, the man who opened the very first microbrewery post-Prohibition! That was 36 years ago. GABF is on its 31st year. While this naturally was Izzy's first, it was only Jack's second time attending, his New Albion Brewery having gone under before GABF was even a thing.

Author Maureen Ogle did much for revamping interest in those early days of microbrewing and clutching Jack back from obscurity. As Izzy's beery godmother, I think no one looked forward to meeting him more than her. Who else could get her to crawl around on the floor?!

No live recording this year, so this is the closest IPYae gets to being on The Brewing Network. Kate's a fan.

Portland boys: SNOB Ritch Marvin, "Samurai Artist" Ezra Johnson-Greenough, Breakside's Scott Lawrence. 

Finally, considering the small population of babies in attendance (the age requirement is 21+, obviously, but also -2), I think they were all widely photographed. Izzy's bib perhaps gave him added flair. Most people dug seeing a little baby and told us as much. But I got a kick out of walking a few paces behind Half Pint and hearing drunk kids remark, "Who the (hell) brings a baby to GABF?!?"

We do. And unlike their parents, we were very proud of how he handled himself.

Photo credit: Matthew Schniper, courtesy of the Colorado Springs Independent