by Logan on August 9, 2010
Often referred to as Beervana or “Americas Beer Capital”, Portland, Oregon is an amazing place to be if you like good beer. Craft beer culture is everywhere around this great city and I love living here. If you’ve never been, I’d highly suggest adding it to your list of upcoming vacation spots.
After taking over this blog, it has been on my todo list to add a beer guide for Portland. The site already had a great guide to Portland, Maine, but I wanted to add more cities (especially my own). Well today I finally sat down and got a good start at creating the Portland, Oregon beer guide.
While I still have more links to add, it’s a great start.
I do however want to expand the city guides into other beer cities, and could use some help. I realize that living in a city helps a lot to know what’s going on. If you are interested in submitting a guide for your city, please contact me. I’d love to add it to the site.
What’s your favorite brewpub or brewery in Portland, Oregon?
by Logan on August 5, 2010
One of the best things about living in the North West is the huge number of great breweries located within a few hours drive. This makes for a great selection of local craft beer in supermarkets that I sometimes take for granted. While at my local store this week I picked up a 6 pack of the Deschutes Brewery summer ale called Twilight.
From my knowledge, Deschutes Brewery distributes to quite a few places across the US. If their beers aren’t at your local beer store, then you’re missing out. Most of their brews are pretty dang good, and Twilight didn’t disappoint.
First off, I’m not a huge fan of the name. Maybe it’s the Twilight movies and books that ruined the word, but all I can think about while looking at the bottle is vampire boys glimmering in the moonlight. Not a good visual for drinking beer to.
Once I got past the name, things got a lot better. Pouring into the glass, the color was a little more amber than I was expecting. There was about a finger of head in the glass that receded pretty quickly (I had to grab my camera pretty quick to get a picture before it was gone). It did however leave some nice lacing on the glass.
The smell was a nice blast of citrus with a a small hint of honey. This is from dry hopping with Amarillo hops. I must admit I am a huge sucker for Amarillo hops, which is why I think I like this beer so much. Drinking it wasn’t to hoppy and it was well balanced with a nice light and slightly sweet malt flavor.
Once the glass was gone I was ready for another glass. From the seasonal summer ales I’ve had this year, I’d have to say this is my favorite. This is a great summer beer that is light, but full of flavor. It’s perfect for drinking while hanging out outside.
Overall I give Twilight an A-.
This is definitely a beer to try if you can.
Bitterness: 35 IBU
ABV: 5.0%
Availability: May-September
What are your thoughts on Twilight (the beer, not the movie)?
Note: If you represent a brewery and are reading this and would like your beer reviewed on BlogAboutBeer.com, please contact me for more info. Thanks!
by Logan on August 4, 2010
There is something glorious about watching sharks devour whatever is in their path. They are incredible animals that seem so full of mystery, power, and beauty all at the same time. Every year the Discovery Channel puts together Shark Week, which is 7 days full of shark packed TV. Today we are in the middle of shark week and I figured it is necessary to share some good beers that should be in your hand while watching sharks do their thing.
Here they are in no particular order…
From Port Brewing Company, this is a classic West Coast-style imperial red ale brewed with medium crystal malts, centennial and cascade hops. The ABV is 9.5% so I’d probably not suggest drinking it before going swimming in shark infested waters. It would probably pair best with watching the Top 10 Shark Attack Videos.
From The Lost Coast Brewery in Eureka, CA, Great White is a refreshing witbier style ale that is light and extremely easy to drink on hot days. It carries 5.0% ABV, so feel free to have a few while you watch some great white sharks demolish a few hundred pounds of tuna.
While owned by Anheuser-Busch (I know, I guess not technically a craft beer), Land Shark isn’t to bad, especially on really hot days. If you happen to be watching Shark Week without any air conditioning, this may just be the beer you should choose if you have absolutely nothing left in the house to drink.
by Logan on August 3, 2010
Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post by Geoff Spakes. Geoff is a longtime homebrewer trying to balance his love of craft beer with his passion for distance running and CrossFit. If you would like to contribute a guest post to BlogAboutBeer.com, please contact me.
Nothing goes together quite like a tasty brew and the great outdoors, even better if it’s your own painstakingly crafted concoction. Trying to escape the heat wave that’s hit the Colorado Front Range my homebrew buddy and I packed up the families and headed to the high country for some cooler air. Besides all the typical camping gear that is required we also loaded a cooler full of our favorite homebrew.
Two of our newer brews were tucked away in the coolers awaiting their appointed time of drinking…two radically different recipes meant to be drunk under very different conditions. The first, Meyer Lemon Hefeweizen, is designed to go down easy on a hot summer day. After a painfully long two hour drive, we arrived, setup camp and hit the trail for a quick hike…it was the perfect activity to get a quick blast of mountain fun and relax after the hectic unpacking.
Of course back at camp we eagerly dug into the cooler, pulled out a liter bottle and filled two glasses. We were greeted by a white fluffy head and a cloudy pale liquid; raising the glass to take a drink the tangy aroma of the Meyer lemons rose out of the glass. The first sip was just as expected, cool and refreshing…a light summer wheat beer with just enough citrus to make things interesting.
Meyer Lemon Hefeweizen
Batch Size: 12.00 gal
Boil Size: 13.74 gal
Estimated OG: 1.058 SG
Estimated Color: 4.3 SRM
Estimated IBU: 30.3 IBU
Boil Time: 60 Minutes
Ingredients
20.00 lb White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM)
2.00 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM)
2.00 lb Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM)
1.00 oz Summit [17.00 %] (60 min)
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (30 min)
12.00 items Meyer Lemon (Primary 7.0 days)
1 Pkgs American Hefeweizen Ale (White Labs #WLP32)
Mash Schedule: *Single Infusion, Medium Body
Total Grain Weight: 24.00 lb
*Single Infusion, Medium Body
60 min Mash In Add 30.00 qt of water at 165.9 F 154.0 F (Step Temp)
20 min Mash Out Add 16.80 qt of water at 196.6 F 168.0 F (Step Temp)
Notes:
Zest and juice lemons; boil juice, rinds and zest for 15 minutes. Add rinds to boiling wort for 60 minutes and add juice and zest to primary fermenter.
by Logan on August 2, 2010
Have you ever had a time you cracked open a beer and for some reason needed to put it back in the fridge? If you’re like me that doesn’t happen often, but on occasion I’ve had to throw a half filled beer away after it goes flat sitting in the fridge (such as when my wife uses beer in a dinner recipe). To fix the problem a new product was created called Beer Savers.
Basically Beer Savers are silicone caps that go on your opened beer bottle that keeps it fresh overnight. Each pack comes with 6 colors so you could also use them to cap your beer to keep others from mixing it up with theirs. I was sent a sample pack and it fit pretty snug, and accomplished what it claims.
I’m not sure I’d use these very much, but could think of a few other uses for them that would work for me. For example these would probably work great to put on sterilized bottles when home brewing while the bottles are waiting to be filled to keep things clean.
For $7.99 they are cheap enough to buy a set to have around for when the time does arrive that your freshly opened beer needs to be put back in the fridge while you make that unexpected trip to the store to grab propane for the BBQ.
Check out Beer Savers.
Note: If you have a beer related product and are reading this and would like your product on BlogAboutBeer.com, please contact me to send a sample for review. Thanks!
Hi and welcome to Blog About Beer. My name is Logan and I live just north of Portland, Oregon, a city that has more craft breweries than any other in the US. I'm a full time marketer, blogger, and dad to the most beautiful girl in the world. I'm also a homebrewing and craft beer fanatic.