Zwickelmania 2014

Once again, I happened to be in Portland for this great event.

Once a year, breweries across the state of Oregon host tours in an open house format with short brewery tours and samples directly from the conditioning tanks. In Portland alone, 41 breweries participated.

My friend and fellow blogger, Red, picked me up and off we went.

First stop was Ecliptic Brewing. A fairly new place, it's helmed by John Harris, who worked many years at Deschutes, where he developed many of their flagship brews.

John gave a brief history the brewery and explained some of the steps in the brewing process, while we enjoyed samples of Coalsack Cascadian Dark Ale.

He mentioned that their brew kettle came from a defunct brewery in Japan. When I asked him about it, he said that it came from Fukui but that he wasn't sure of the exact brewery. We had a look at the control panel and indeed the labels are in Japanese.

Next up was Stormbreaker Brewing, which opened two weeks ago. Actually, it is more or less a reopened Amnesia Brewing: same location, same equipment, and same brewer. Had a nice glass of their Mississippi Red.

We wanted to go to Widmer Brothers. Red said that the tour there has beer and food stations along the way. But the line was much too long, and so we skipped it. One of our group is a big fan of hefeweizen, and I imagine that he was a bit disappointed.

Next we went to Lompoc/5th Quadrant, where we sampled their Batch 69 Baltic Porter.

We took a lunch break at the Burnside Brewing restaurant, first visiting the brewery for samples of a new brew, Hasselhofbrau Lager, and then their Spring Rye.

Lucky to get a table there. It got very crowded just a few minutes after we sat down.

Base Camp Brewing is a popular place. We waited in line for about 20 minutes before we got in. Whereas most breweries offered samples of only one or two beers, Base Camp gave us four: Ctrl+Alt+Del (a new altbier); Ripstop Rye Pils (a regular); Celestial Meridian CDL  (dark and spicy); and In-Tents IPL (an IPA style brewed with lager yeast and conditioned on oak chips).

Last was The Commons Brewery. This place has become known for its Belgian farmhouse styles, and we had Urban Farmhouse and a light pils from the zwickel. Then, as a final brew, I had a glass of Brotherly Love... and I loved it.

What a day! Six breweries, three friends, and lots of samples. I'm looking forward to doing it all again next year.

 

New Year's Sampling

We met in Kyoto last week, for the first sampling of the year, As usual, each of us brought 2-4 bottles we’d been hoarding for some time. It’s pretty cold here at this time of the year, and many of the beers we had were extra high in alcohol, ranging all the way up to 16%.

 Here are some of the highlights:

Ølfabrikken Porter  (Baltic Porter, 7.5%)

This was 2-3 year-old bomber. It had a big chocolatey nose, with some smoke and fumes, and nicely sweet dark fruits. The winey, light chocolate initial flavors went deeper into dark some sweet plums and then a bit of umami in the finish. It might have been better to have had this bottle a little younger. Overall, we felt that the body was a touch light for the style.

Two from The Bruery, which appeared in Japan a few months ago:

The Bruery Mischief  (Belgian Strong Ale, 8.5%)

This ale gave off fresh light citrus aromas, with some yeastiness, and light stinky hops. A solid but light malty initial, with touches of grapefruit and orange peel noticeable in the mid palate and some grape skins. The finish was light and so smooth. There were great tangy citrus notes from top to bottom.

The Bruery Autumn Maple  (Spice/Herb/Vegetable, 10%)

Yeasty and big earthy aromas with spice, light chocolate and moderate fumes. The individual flavor components were somewhat difficult to suss out, but we found a strong mix of dark fruit, mild citrus, as well as cinnamon and yams notes balance it out. It was very rich flavor-forward but also elegant and not overly sweet. A great take on a traditional style.

De Molen Hel & Verdoemenis 666  (Imperial Stout, 10%)

Large doses of deep dark fruits, bitter chocolate, along with some phenolic notes, fumes, light smoke, and berries. The initial flavors were of harsh bitter chocolate with dark berries. It became somewhat lighter and even buttery in mid palate. The finish was smooth but a bit thin. Overall, the palate was wonderful: the flavors floated gently around the tongue. Heavy stuff at first, then it lightened up, and finally landed like a butterfly.

Finally, two outstanding beers from Kuhnhenn, which is a small overachiever from a Detroit suburb:

Kuhnhenn Fourth Dementia Old Ale  (Old Ale, 11%)

This was a 2010 vintage bottle. It had a massively sweet caramel nose, with some moderately aged cheese, raisins, and light berries. The initial flavor was also super sweet: the caramel was intense but controlled, with medium-strength fruitiness. It really had one of the most complex, gentlest aromas -- I spent about 15 minutes just savoring the nose before tasting it. Amazingly good.

Kuhnhenn Raspberry Eisbock  (Fruit Beer, 10.6%)

2012 vintage. The aromas were of jammy berries and light chocolate. A big range of explosive berry flavors right away. The mid palate mellowed into smooth sweet fruitiness, and the final was very lightly bitter. Medium body with just a touch of astringency. Such a great variety of subtle fruit flavors, which never overwhelmed the tongue. It also hid the high alcohol very well. Great!

The Summing Up

I had been thinking of writing a sort of overview of the best brews I sampled in the past year. But RateBeer.com beat me to it and did the work for me with their new year-end feature, “My 2013 in Beer.” This is a compilation/summary of all the beer ratings I entered on that site during the year. Or what one (better) blogger calls a "listicle."

And so, I learn that I “entered 878 beer reviews in … from 336 breweries. 191 breweries were tried for the first time, 5 of which opened in 2013.”

I had 107 IPAs (at an average rating of 3.5 out of a possible 5.0)

57 Pale Lagers (2.17 avg.)

46 Imperial/Double IPAs (3.6)

43 American Pale Ales (3.32)

41 Belgian Strong Ales (3.6)

and 36 Saisons (3.69).

My favorite styles are Imperial/Double IPA and Saison, but those types are harder to come by in Japan than are Pale Lagers (which are everywhere).

By nation, I rated 399 brews from the United States (avg. 3.48)

165 from Japan (2.98)

107 from Belgium (3.45)

46 from Germany (3.19)

and 27 from Denmark (3.66).

On the road, I had chances to visit the following bars, breweries, and brewpubs for the first time:

Craft Beer Bar Marciero (Osaka)

Doll Dress (Osaka)

Beer Belly Tenma (Osaka)

Concordia Ale House (Portland, OR)

Grain and Gristle (Portland, OR)

The Commons Brewery (Portland, OR)

Alameda Brewing Co. (Portland, OR)

Breakside Restaurant & Pub Brewery (Portland, OR)

Bend Brewing Company (Bend, OR)

10 Barrel Brewpub (Bend, OR)

Silver Moon Brewing (Bend, OR)

Three Creeks Brewery (Sisters, OR)

Double Mountain Brewery and Taproom (Hood River, OR)

Arch Rock Brewing Company (Gold Beach, OR)

Surly Brewing Company (Brooklyn Center, MN)

Firestone Walker Brewing Company (Paso Robles, CA)

Ladyface Alehouse & Brasserie (Agoura Hills, CA)

Finally, here are the beers I rated at 4.0 or higher during 2013:

Firestone Walker Double DBA (4.4)

Three Floyds Behemoth Barleywine (4.4)

Hill Farmstead Arthur (4.4)

BFM √225 Saison (4.4)

Mikkeller George! Barrel Aged (Bourbon Edition) (4.3)

Oude Gueuze Tilquin à l’Ancienne (4.3)

Hill Farmstead Vera Mae (4.3)

Hill Farmstead Juicy (4.3)

Russian River Blind Pig IPA (4.3)

Harviestoun Old Engine Oil (Bottle) (4.3)            

Nectar Ales Nectar IPA (4.2)

Mikkeller Monks Elixir (4.2)

Founders Nemesis 2010 (4.2)

Bush Prestige (Scaldis Prestige) (4.2)

Schneider Aventinus (4.2)

Firestone Walker Sucaba (4.2)

De Ranke XXX Bitter (4.2)

BrewDog Abstrakt AB:13 (4.2)

De Dolle Dulle Teve 10º (Mad Bitch) (4.2)

The Bruery White Chocolate (4.1)

Grassroots Arctic Saison (4.1)

Grassroots/Stillwater/Mikkeller Gypsy Juice (4.1)

Evil Twin Falco IPA (4.1)

The Bruery Black Tuesday Imperial Stout (4.1)

Fuller’s Golden Pride (Bottle/Keg) (4.1)

Jandrain-Jandrenouille IV Saison (4.1)

Green Flash Imperial IPA (4.1)

Gigantic IPA (4.1)

Weyerbacher Sour Black (4.1)

Firestone Walker Wookey Jack Black Rye IPA (4.0)

J.W. Lees Harvest Ale – 2004 vintage (4.0)         

Deschutes The Dissident – 2008 vintage (4.0)

Mikkeller Draft Bear (4.0)

Firestone Walker Walkers Reserve (4.0)

Ladyface Chesebro IPA (4.0)

Firestone Walker Pivo Hoppy Pils (4.0)

Shiga Kogen Far East Triple IPA (4.0)

Maine Beer Lunch (4.0)

8 Wired iStout (4.0)

Sierra Nevada 30th Anniversary Jack & Kens Ale (4.0)

Logsdon Seizoen Bretta (4.0)

Malheur Bière Brut (Reserve) (4.0)

Lagunitas Maximus (4.0)

St Feuillien Grand Cru (4.0)       

Fantôme Saint-Roch (4.0)

De Leite Ma Mère Speciale (4.0)

Upright Captain Beefheart (4.0)

Whew!

Here’s to 2014!

Merry Christmas

Walking around the Grand Front building in Umeda, we came across a beer tree near the World Beer Museum. This is the kind of tree beer geeks would surely like to have in their homes during the Christmas season.

Happy Holidays to all!

BrewDog Bar in Tokyo / 東京ブリュードッグバー

The dogs are coming to Japan.

 

According to several news sources, including BBC, Scotland’s BrewDog will open a bar in the Roppongi district of Tokyo next March. This will be their second bar outside the UK, after a Stockholm venue opened in summer 2013, and their first one in Asia.

The Tokyo bar will reportedly have 20 taps for BrewDog's core line as well as limited edition brews and guest beers from other craft breweries.

New Beers from the Japanese Majors in 2013: Suntory / 日本の大手企業からの新しいビール 2013: Suntory

One more month left to go until 2014. It's time to look around and take stock of new beers brought out in 2013 by the four major breweries in Japan: Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo, and Suntory. I'll discuss them each in a separate post. I'll also give the style, alcohol by volume, and the current RateBeer weighted average score followed by my rating score (out of a possible 5), keeping in mind that most of them have fewer than ten ratings.    

Finally, we'll check out nine new beers from Suntory.


Suntory Kohaku no Kutsurogi - 2013 Version     
(Amber Lager/Vienna 5%)     2.89 /  3.2

Fruity and good roast malt nose, some decent stinky hop in the background. Clear orange//amber color, with a 1-cm head. Opens smooth and then goes to a tangy fruitiness / mid has roast notes and then balance / little licks of bitterness in the finish. Pretty good. All is in order here. Saaz hops. Lively and tasty. Glad they brought this one out of retirement.
 

Suntory Full Body Beer     
(Strong Pale Lager/Imperial Pils)     2.86 / 3.3

Bready, light grass, some stinky hop, and light fumes. Crystal clear, bright medium straw color. Fairly rich initial, with some grass and medium-strength hops. Some minor fumes. Finish is somewhat candyish and then balances as the hops linger. Not a phrase typically associated with mass market Japanese lagers, but it does have a fairly full body. "Strong stimulus"? Is this the beer to celebrate Abenomics?

 

Suntory Royal Blend     
(Amber Lager/Vienna 5%)     2.85 / 3.1

Meaty malt, with some fruitiness, and what really seems to be smoke. Dark amber, off-white head, some lace. Decent caramel and bittering / moves to sweetness in mid / bittering lingers for a moment. Medium body. Not bad at all. A surprise from Suntory (which made a number of interesting one-offs back in the late 90s, but which hasn’t been impressive in the interim). Strong caramel for a lager -- approaching the character of amber ale.

 

Suntory The Gold Class     
(Premium Lager 5.5%)     2.78 / 2.7

Light caramel, flowery hops, and a hint of cardboard in the nose. Medium straw color ("gold," if you are imaginative). Light cake-like sweetness / mild hopping in mid / finished with small bitter tracks. Thin-medium body. Seems to be a blend of a pils and a happoshu (with a cardboard/spirits note), or dangerously close. Not Suntory’s best effort.

 

Suntory Extra Rich
(Pale Lager 5%)     2.77 / 2.9
Slight sewer stink, some metallic notes. Medium straw color. Thick pils-like maltiness / somehow an extract note enters and then a little bittering / finish is balanced and ends with touch of sweetish malt. Medium body. Aroma ain’t much, flavors are okay.

 
Suntory The Premium Malts's Koku no Blend     
(Amber Lager/Vienna 5.5%)      2.68 / 2.5

Warm roast grain nose, with some light extract-like stink. Pretty reddish-brown color. Mild grainy roast malt initial / rises into a moderate fruity tanginess and then flattens quickly / final is a bit unpleasant, with light hop bitterness and some metallic notes. Thin body. Hmmm.... this is a blend of regular Premium Malt’s and Premium Malt’s Dark (two beers blended -- or more likely just dumped together > then lagered > then filtered). It’s like an underdone Vienna. Looks like an amber, but...

   
Suntory Kuchi Doke no Fuyu Komugi     
(Pale Lager 5%)     2.55 / 2.2

Typical happoshu sewer nose, light lemon notes, and no hint of wheat. Greenish, white wine appearance, with an initial fluffy white head that "melts" away in a flash. Light grain, gentle and gradually increasing cardboard, mild sweet finish. Thin body. Pretty lousy stuff, but relatively drinkable. Wheat spirits, no wheat.

 

Suntory Sweet Rich     
(Pale Lager 4%)     2.39 / 1.6

Thin cardboard, light powdery sweetness. Bright lemony color, small head, fat tonic water bubbles. Thin fruit, all watered down, small bitter note in final. Thin body. Really toned down, almost no main flavors (except for the minimal sweet malt, cardboard, and baby hops). Maybe aimed at the distaff happoshu crowd?


Suntory Gran Dry     
(Pale Lager 5%)     2.36 / 1.8
Dog poop and rotten veggies. Light straw, frothy head. Cardboard, some sugary extract-like malty (?) notes. Thin body. Fizzy. Nothing "gran" about it; not dry, either.

New Beers from The Japanese Majors in 2013: Sapporo / 日本の大手企業からの新しいビール 2013: Sapporo

One more month left to go until 2014. It's time to look around and take stock of new beers brought out in 2013 by the four major breweries in Japan: Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo, and Suntory. I'll discuss them each in a separate post. I'll also give the style, alcohol by volume, and the current RateBeer weighted average score followed by my rating score (out of a possible 5), keeping in mind that most of them have fewer than ten ratings. 

For number three, we'll check out this year's new beers from Sapporo Breweries.

 
Sapporo Yebisu Joel Robuchon   
(Premium Lager 5%)     2.96 / 3.3

This limited brew has a lightly stinky hop aroma from a healthy amount of Nelson Sauvin hops. The color is a very bright clear yellow, with a really fluffy, strangely shiny white head (like a slick baked meringue). The mild grassy initial flavor has some punch to it, then the hops emerge nicely, for just a moment, finally the  flavor goes flatl, with some prickly hop bites in the aftertaste. Thin body. The aroma is great for a lager like this, but flavor does not impress so much. Some people think that this was the best new beer of the year from any of the major beer companies. Unfortunately, it pretty much disappeared from the shelves about a month after it was released. Hoping it makes a come-back next year.

 
Sapporo Yebisu Premium Black     
(Schwarzbier 5%)     2.92 / 2.9

This beer has a small nose of chocolate and a bit of prune. A very mild roast initial is followed by decent balance in mid palate, and the finish has very minimal flavors, for a dark brew like this. The body is thin-medium body, and maybe just a bit too thin. Very drinkable stuff. I certainly liked the regular Yebisu Black Beer better than this one. However, what I’d love is to have the old Sapporo Black again -- haven't seen that one for several years. That was a superb schwarzbier beer (see Michael Jackson's books for his opinion on that one).

 

Sapporo Mugi To Hoppu Zeitaku Hatsudzumi      
(Pale Lager 5%)     2.71 / 2.5
This brew has a light sewery scent, along with lemon and peaches -- but the advertised Czech hops don’t come through. It offers a moderate and slightly rasty maltiness, but is fairly nondescript overall. However, the typically nasty happoshu flavors are not really present. This "Mugi to Hoppu" happoshu series by Sapporo is by far the "best" of any from the Japanese majors.

 
Mugi to Hoppu Aka     
(Amber Lager/Vienna 5%)     2.7 / 2.4

The aroma is of light sweetish malt, roasted grain, and dark fruit. It pours out brownish-amber with a thin head and big carbonation bubbling up. The flavors is primarily candyish roast malt, there is also an off-flavor sort of bitterness (not like hops). It's not ot really terrible. Somehow the roastiness covers the normal roughness and crude character that most happoshu has.

Sapporo Goku Zero     
(Pale Lager 4%)     2.59 / 1.5

This lousy brews has an aroma of apple juice and soap. It's a bright golden straw color with zero head. Flavors of peaches, cardboard, apples, with almost no bittering. The final is a touch harsh. This is fruit juice beer. Although it is close to zero ... I’ll give it 1.5.

Kuradashi Draft Beer     
(Pale Lager 4.5%)     2.59 / 2.4

A mild sweet aroma, with an extract notes. Light straw color, frothy head. Very bland sort of malty initial, with a bit of tang and sweetness in mid palate, and light bitter traces with metallic notes in final. Thin-medium body. Not so bad. But it seems to tend toward happoshu characteristics.

Toko Natsu Ki Bun     
(Pale Lager 5%)     2.55 / 1.6

A very sharp, sewage-soaked cardboardy nose. Thin, hazy apple juice color, small head. Tart, harsh fruit, which fades into mild sauerkraut. The finish is a typical happoshu dusting of light sugary sweetness. Thin body. Nothing special abut this one. A total waste of the Apollo and Cascade hops, which really aren’t detectable.