Oregon Brewers Festival Day 1

I was able to taste a bunch of great beers yesterday at OBF and the crowds were pretty sparse for the first several hours. There are a lot of IPAs, and Doubles (double IPA, double red, imperial golden etc.), and actually a fair amount of Belgian wit beer. There are also a lot of organic beers which is great to see. Here, in no particular order, are some highlights of beers that really stood out.

Butte Creek Organic Pilsner: The best of the pilsners that I tasted at OBF so far. It’s very clean and crisp but has enough hop snap to make it very refreshing. It’s on the lower end of the bitterness range for the style, but remarkably well made and quite delicious.

Old Market Wit: This was a surprisingly good beer. I’m not always impressed with the beers from this brewery but I thought this was their best offering at the festival in several years. It’s spiced with chamomile, orange, coriander seed and cumin. There’s a fair amount of spice, but it’s well integrated and there’s a nice touch or orange in the palate and the finish. It’s got a slight amount of tartness that a good wit beer should have but it’s not over the top. Surprising and very refreshing.

Oregon Trail Wit: This wit has a lot more obvious fruit and spice. There’s a very prominent orange note on the palate and it seems a little spritzier than most which makes it lighter on the palate and more refreshing. The spices are also more noticeable and there’s a distinct coriander note in the finish. The spices are a bit heavy for my tastes, but still it’s very good and a great beer for a hot day.

Widmer Noggin Grog Imperial Wit: I was a little hesitant about this one because I don’t think that wit is a style that does well when it’s too big. This is a monster beer that comes in at 9% alcohol. It’s very spicy, but the spice flavors are very well integrated. Because of its low bitterness, the alcohol actually comes through as a slight sweetness in the finish (ethanol gives a sweet mouthfeel). It’s slightly viscous, and has a long balanced spice finish. I couldn’t drink more than a pint of it, but it’s a very nice beer that’s definitely worth trying. Widmer rarely disappoints and has done a fine job with this one.

Ommegang Hennepin Saison: Ommegang is one of my favorite breweries and Hennepin never disappoints. This is a remarkable beer and it’s rare to find it on draft so take advantage if you’re down at OBF. It’s clean, balanced with nice notes of lemon, ginger and spice (maybe a little star anise?). It has the distinctive fruit ester notes from the house yeast. One of the best American brewed Belgian style beers. A real treat on draft.

Ninkasi Believer: This double red ale is deeply colored and has a deep rich malt aroma. There’s a distinctive caramel note and a touch of roasted malt bite as well. The hops are big but well balanced and the beer has enough malt backbone to standup to the hop bitterness. The hop nose is impressive and is well balanced with the caramel malt notes. Another Oregon brewery that rarely disappoints.

Flying Fish Bourbon Barrel Abbey Dubbel: This is an interesting beer, but not really my kind of thing. The beer is delicious if you like big beers with prominent bourbon barrel notes. Unfortunately for my tastes, it leans a little too much towards bourbon barrel and not nearly enough towards the Belgian Dubbel side. But it is intensely rich with deep flavors and a long finish. It’s also nicely dry for such a big beer. If you like bourbon barrel aged beer, seek this out and savor it’s intensity.

Trumer Pils: I need to try this beer again, because it came highly recommended by Van Havig from Rock Bottom Brewery, who is an amazing brewer and has a very discerning palate. There was a slight trace of diacetyl in the nose up front, which is a flaw in this type of beer. It also seemed a little under hopped for a pilsner, because it leans towards sweet malt notes. To me it’s much more of a Munich Helles style than a pilsner, but you shouldn’t avoid it based on style-Nazi judgments like that. I will try it again to see if the diacetyl is still there or if it was a bad keg or dirty tap.

Diamond Knot Industrial IPA: A double IPA of sorts (or an XIPA as the brewery calls it). It has a distinct biscuit malt or victory malt aroma, with some caramel notes as well. There’s a citrus and floral hope notes in the aromas as well. It has good hop bite, but doesn’t seem to have as big a hop nose as I look for in a double IPA. It’s still a nice drinking beer and worth trying.

Rock Bottom Velvet Pale Ale: Van Havig has brewed a great beer. This beer is very hops forward in the aroma and flavor but doesn’t have the aggressive hop bitterness that many American Pales have. The Simcoe hops are distinctive and seem to have a slight orange note to them. It’s exceptionally well balanced and it’s aptly named because of its smooth finish. It’s a great beer that would be ideal for drinking a few pints with friends.

Alameda El Torero Organic IPA: In the past some of the beers from this Portland brewery have seemed hit or miss to me, but I was happily impressed with this beer. With more than 7% alcohol and 90IBUs, you would think that this beer would be a bruiser. It is a complex, deeply flavored beer, but is exceptionally well balanced. It’s more balanced than its profile would lead you to believe. There’s a rich malt component to the palate and rich floral and slight citrus notes from this all-Simcoe IPA. There’s good hop bitterness in the finish to make this a satisfying balanced example of the style.

Calapooia Yankee Clipper IPA: There’re good sweet malt flavors in the palate balanced by citrus and floral hops flavors. It’s got a distinct American citrus hop note to it from the use of Cascade and Centennial hops. It’s a lighter crisper style than many west coast IPAs, but it’s full of flavor and finishes crisp and clean.

Laurelwood PNW Pilsner: This beer from one of my favorite Portland breweries is aptly named. It’s a distinctively Pacific NW style of Pilsner. Fans of true German and Czech pilsners will likely be disappointed. Fans of big NW beers will likely be very happy. It’s very hoppy and doesn’t seem to have the crispness I associate with pilsner. It comes in at 8% alcohol making it more of a “double pilsner.” Still it’s a distinctive beer that is a true hybrid of styles.

Fifty Fifty Donner Party Porter: This is one of the few darker beers this year at OBF. It has an aroma of molasses, dark sugars, and caramel. It’s got sweet dark rum and brown sugar flavors, with some toasty notes and a drier finish than the palate would suggest. Nice balanced hops with a slight hop note in the finish.

I’ll be back down there today to taste a few more and will post notes on them tomorrow. See you there.