Congratulations to Deschutes Brewery for the reopening of their Bond Street Pub in Bend Oregon! Doubling their size and rebuilding from almost the ground up, they’ve spared no expense to make their patrons feel at home—and quite frankly, a little spoiled.

I took a walk around the Bond Street Pub a couple of weeks ago before their official grand reopening on February 1st. They still had a bit of work to do, but I captured some of the smaller details of the updated location. Although it wasn’t installed yet, I was told that in the same vein as the gorgeous custom woodwork at the PDX Pub, there will also be iron hop trellises put up.

I also posted this behind the scenes shot of this shot on the day I was roaming around.

Check out the rest of the photos here.

Those of you that came out to my Of Pints and Men beer photography show at Gigantic Gallery, got a sneak peek at Chainbreaker White IPA graciously donated by Deschutes Brewery. In fact, we kicked an entire 13 gallon keg in a matter of a few hours! I’m so proud of us.

But playing around with an IPA is a dangerous proposition. It’s obvious that we take pride in our huge floral and citrusy IPAs here in the Northwest. Messing with that recipe can be its own recipe for disaster. Luckily, Deschutes Brewery has a lot of thirsty guinea pigs at its Bend and Portland pubs! Testing out new recipes and variations on eager, honest—and hopefully forgiving—patrons is a great way to find new avenues of beer exploration. The addition of wheat and spices to a hoppy base beer brewed with a Belgian yeast strain makes this a truly different IPA. I can attest—alongside those that helped me finish off our keg of Chainbreaker White IPA—this recipe makes a delicious, easy drinking, exceptional IPA. But, you don’t have to take my word for it, check it out for yourselves when it hits the store shelves at the end of March. From the official press release:

25 January 2012 – Bend, Oregon – Why not? That’s a favorite question around the Deschutes Brewery brewhouse. This mindset spawned the creation of Chainbreaker White IPA a hop-forward, citrus-packed beer with an unmistakably smooth character. The new beer is slated to be released at the end of March to the Pacific Northwest, with distribution expanded to the remainder of Deschutes’ 19 state network over the next few months.

“We’re always experimenting with new ingredients and new styles at the brewery,” said Cam O’Connor, brewmaster for Deschutes. “In the case of Chainbreaker our experimentation really paid off: the marriage of wheat, spices, yeast and hops have all come together to make a very drinkable, complex White IPA.”

The name Chainbreaker White IPA was inspired in part by a legendary mountain bike race in Central Oregon called the Cascade Chainbreaker. The challenging race features a demanding course with multiple terrains, just as this beer challenges the palate to expand with a fusion of wheat and spice low notes alongside significant hop highs. Sweet orange peel and coriander round out the flavor profile for a refreshing ride.

First introduced at the Deschutes Brewery Bend and Portland pubs, as well as appearing at various special events, Chainbreaker White IPA was so well-received that the team decided to take it to the next level and make it part of the brewery’s year-round line up.

Vital stats: 5.6 % ABV; 60 IBUs

Chainbreaker White IPA will be available in six-packs and twelve-packs in Oregon, Washington, Idaho starting in late March 2012. The beer will continue to roll out to additional states in the brewery’s distribution network later in 2012.

Black Out Party
Lompoc Sidebar
3901A N Williams Ave, Portland, OR
4pm-10pm

Lompoc Brewing’s Sidebar is having a great event tomorrow night: the Black Out Party! Big, bold, dark beers and a great way to see the influences of different types of coffee on the same base beer. Compare Ristretto Roasters‘ Beaumont Blend, Peruvian proprietary roast, and El Salvadorian proprietary roast. Check out the official press release:

Come to the Dark Side tomorrow from 4 to 10 pm at Sidebar for our Black Out Party, featuring a number of rich, dark beers, including,

• 2009 Dark Side Porter, brewed in July 2009 and cellared for 2.5 years. It has a malty body with strong roast and chocolate flavors (7.5% ABV);
• 2010 Bourbon Barrel Aged 8 Malty Nights, originally brewed for Hannukah 2009 and aged in Bourbon barrels for nine months, it has a roasted chocolate flavor with hints of Bourbon and oak (6.5% ABV);
• 2010 Pre Dawn Stout, the base beer for our popular Black Dawn Coffee Stout, brewed with eight choice malts and flaked barley to create a full bodied stout with layered flavors of bittersweet chocolate, tobacco and molasses (7.5% ABV);
• Black Dawn III, the third installment of our annual coffee stout, features strong roast and dark chocolate notes that play nicely with the dominating coffee presence, courtesy of more than three pounds of coffee per barrel. Our friends at Ristretto Roasters provided the coffee, cold pressing 20 pounds of the Beaumont Blend (7.2% ABV);
• Black Dawn Peru, featuring the same base beer as the Black Dawn III, only blended with Ristretto Roasters Peruvian proprietary roast (7.2% ABV); and
• Black Dawn El Salvador, again the same base beer as the Black Dawn III, only blended with Ristretto Roasters El Salvadorian proprietary roast (7.2% ABV).

My Beery Valentine 3
Saraveza
1004 N. Killingsworth St., Portland, OR

Well, Brewpublic is at it again, this time with their third installment of the popular My Beery Valentine event. Let’s face it, you love beer and beer loves you right back. Why not celebrate that love by letting Brewpublic serve you up some great, mostly one-off beers. Here you’ll find beers brewed with delicious ingredients like: chocolate, cherry wood, vanilla, cocoa, black raspberries, coffee, cherries, apricot skins, Noncino, and other exotic treats. This is a no ticket event: just show up after 6pm and grab beers by the sampler tray!

The Official Beer List:

• Breakside “Lavender Fudge Stout” – “A sweeter version of our dry stout conditioned on cacao nibs and lavender.”
• Coalition  “Sweet Kiss Goodnight Double Porter” – Sweet Kiss Goodnight is a strong porter, coming in at 8.2% ABV, 31 IBU. Chilean caramel malt, munich malt, and honey malt add sweetness, with a hint of roastiness from carafa. After fermentation, this beer was aged on cherry wood and vanilla bean to add to its alluring complexity.
• Upright “Blend Edmunds” – A barrel aged wheaten Four with tart cherry / barrel aged Six with dark sweet cherry
• Mt Tabor “Valencino’s Dirty Nutz” – “Valentine’s Day is a time for secrets and sweets. Surprise your taste buds with our Dirty Nutz, a stout infused with Nocino, a sweet Italian walnut liqueur. Take your time, as Dirty Nutz is built to last and some say tastes even better when warm (don’t worry, our Dirty Nutz don’t sweat). So get in the mood, grab your sweetheart and wrap your lips around our Dirty Nutz.”
• Vertigo “Raspberry Blast” – “We took our Arctic Blast Vanilla Porter and pulled out a half-barrel to which we added 6 pounds of raspberries.”
• Fort George “Mexican Chocolate Stout” –  “What does a revolution taste like? Smooth, creamy, and with a kick of cinnamon! Our Mexican chocolate stout starts off with a smooth chocolate taste and balanced body. The different chocolate malts give off not only a creamy dark roasted chocolate flavor, but also a bit of bitterness to help prepare you for the wonderful spices that come at the end. With cinnamon, vanilla, and almond spices blended in the chocolate that we put in the kettle and the bright tank, this potent brew is great to enjoy before or after the revolution. Enjoy this sweet yet spicy new stout from the Fort George and celebrate the revolution that is Stout Month. Viva La Stout!” 7.6% ABV
• Cascade  “Live From the Barrel: Bourbon Apricot” “This NW-style sour ale is a special one. Apricot nectar was barrel aged for four months then blended with spiced Bourbon Quad and Noyaux shells. Apricot skins, brandy and charred notes from the Bourbon barrel greet you in the nose. Tart rich notes of apricot flesh and oak on the palate lead to a complex finish of apricots, cherry pits, oak and vanillin. Servus!” 7.14% ABV
• Laurelwood “Hugh Heifer Milk Stout” “Made with British Maris Otter, Brown, chocolate malts and Roast Barley, Domestic Crystal 60 and 150 as well as oats and Black Prinz Malt, Lactose, Northern Brewer Hops and finished with Cacao Nibs and Coffee. This beer is a luxurious an velvety stout with a with a mature, rich and complex body. The nose is dominated by layers of Chocolate, Coffee, and lightly roasted Coco Puffs. The body is voluptuous. ’nuff said?” 5.2% ABV
• Alameda “My Bloody Valentine” – “This is the second incarnation of this farmhouse style Saison. It is dry, citric, tart, spritzy, and incredibly drinkable. The orange essence comes from the use of dried orange peels and blood orange juice.”
• The Commons “Brotherly Love” – A Belgian Dark Strong Ale aged in a Heaven Hill bourbon barrel. Red tart cherry and roasted Peruvian cocoa nibs were added to the barrel and allowed meld with the beer. 8.7% ABV
• Block 15 “Love Potion #9” – Sweet stout conditioned with locally grown black Raspberries from Stahlbush Island Farms and matured on house roasted Fair Trade cocoa nibs. Developed by Gypsies & guaranteed to help you find love. 6.3%ABV, 30 IBU.

The label says Spring 2012 and I might be more excited about this beer than I am about the Spring season itself.

American Brown Ales should be big on chocolate, caramel, and well-roasted malts, creating a medium to high viscosity sweet body, balanced out by some nice hop bitterness. Gentle aroma and flavor hops can be used by professionals of balance, but these can often muddle what should be a clear malt showcase. Well, that’s what I like to see anyway. Laurelwood Brewing’s Hooligan Brown Ale is a great example of an American Brown, and lucky for us, you can find it year round here in Portland.

I stumbled across this recently approved label for Widmer Brothers’ Kill Devil Brown in the Brothers’ Reserve Series. There are a few things on the label that have the potential to make this beer one of the best American Brown Ales around:

• It’s imperial, weighing in at a lofty 9.5%: A huge beer, great for aging
• Aged in rum barrels: Lots of wood and rum sweetness
• Brewed with molasses: Great dark caramel sweetness
• Brewed with palm sugar: More caramel and maybe some butterscotch

The more I read and think about this beer, the more excited I get. It has the potential of attaining greatness. If this beer turns out to be as bold as the label suggests, you’ll see more posts about this beer as I crack one open every year for the next several years. Prost! More from the label:

Kill Devil Brown Ale

• 90% ale brewed with palm sugar and molasses and aged in rum barrels and 10% ale
• 9.5 % ABV
• 22 FL OZ.

These are one-of-a-kind beers made for enthusiastic beer lovers. Each run is limited and personally crafted by some of the most enthusiastic beer lovers around.

Sweet Barbados and blackstrap molasses provide touches of toasted sugar, black licorice, and blackened toffee to this brown ale while the palm sugars invite notes of subtle sweetness. Conditioned in Puerto Rican rum barrels, the vanilla and oak flavors and aromas integrate with the Calypso hop’s soft tropical and stone fruit aromas.

Take a look around, we’ve been pretty busy. We’ve stripped out years of cruft so that we can deliver our Portland beer goodness cleanly, and at faster speeds. We’ve kept all of your favorite content, but we have also made some great changes:

• We have removed the superfluous parts so that we can deliver the content to you, quickly and cleanly. These things included unnecessary bells and whistles that either got in the way or slowed the site down, non-optimized code, and redundant information.
• We have removed all advertising. Instead, we will be proving you with ways to support the site through purchasing cool exclusive gear from us. We hope this model will be beneficial to both sides of the equation: you get cool stuff and no intrusive ads, and we get some money to help keep this site afloat.
• We have integrated features to make our site more interactive. You can now interact with all of our Twitter feeds directly on our site.
• We have temporarily disabled the beer ratings system.  This feature will be back within the next two weeks.

It’s about to get really geeky around here though, so if you don’t care about the coding, just take a look around the new site. Of course, if you have any suggestions, questions, or concerns, please let us know! If you’re feeling brave, and know what all of the ones and zeros do, continue on.

The main impetus behind the redesign was to separate out the design and data layers. As the site has grown over the years, the two have become intertwined, creating sluggish response times and limiting our flexibility. By separating these layers, the site becomes much more modular and we can make changes and additions more easily. For the first step in this process, we’ve taken our huge database of Portland beer related objects and created a RESTful API, separate from our website. This API holds all of the beers, breweries, statistics, events, etc. Our site now holds no data, but rather makes calls to this API to get the data. This separation also allows us to use our beer data for things like our Android/iPhone apps. As we move formward, we will also be moving the API behind Varnish Cache, which is a caching HTTP reverse proxy. With several applications hitting the API, this process will be able to make the API lightning quick and the speed of the returned data will be much less dependent on website and app traffic. We will be making other  code changes to the site as we move forward. Right now, we’re going to keep an eye on the response and render times of the site during different traffic loads to target our next updates. We have also initiated a rolling effort to keep everything as lean as possible and really think about how we implement new features. This should force us  to maintain high standards when we roll out new offerings.

Rob Widmer, talking about the upcoming releases from Widmer Brothers Brewing: W’12 Dark Saison and the Rotator Series Spiced IPA. I’ve seen the Dark Saison on store shelves already, but the new Spiced IPA hasn’t displaced the current delicious Rotator Series O’Ryely quite yet. Both beers are quite unique. The Dark Saison lives up to it’s name, showcasing the Belgian yeast strain, while finishing long and sweet from the caramel and dark chocolate malt. The Spiced IPA was brewed with a custom tea which includes: Malty Assam Black Tea, Ginger, Cinnamon, Clove, Star Anise, Black Pepper, and Cardamom. This release is also a collaboration with QUAFF, a San Diego homebrew club. The result? Imagine a NW IPA with floral and pine notes, mixed with the aromatics of a light Cardamom perfume from the tea, and then Cinnamon and Clove blending with the flavors from the hops. Sounds bizarre, tastes delicious! Check it out for yourselves when it hits the shelves soon.

Brewligans Bottle Shop
275 E Historic Columbia River Hwy
Troutdale, OR 97060
Find them on Twitter and Facebook

The grand opening for Brewligans Bottle Shop has just started. Doors opened at noon today for the Troutdale shop, and they are eager to get great beer into your hands and mouths. Brewligans is starting out with about 75 different bottled beers and five rotating taps. Also avaiable during your visit: gourmet hot dogs!  Check out the photos on their website and keep an eye on their Twitter and Facebook accounts for updates. We’re planning to stop by soon and talk to owner John Griffin, so we’ll post more info as soon as we get it.  Best of luck Brewligans!

Here is the current taplist for the grand opening:

• Union Jack – IPA: Firestone Walker
• Seven – Saison: Upright Brewing
• Yeti – Imperial Stout: Great Divide Brewing
• Skunk Ape – IPA: Boneyard Beer
• Red Chair – Northwest Pale Ale: Deschutes Brewery

On Deck: Bitter American – Pale Ale: 21st Amendment Brewing, 2x – IPA: Southern Tier Brewing, Urban – Farmhouse: Commons Brewery.

Everything seemed standard upon arrival: a tent set up outside for ticket purchasing, $10 for a keepsake glass, 4 taster tickets, and a mysterious square piece of paper labeled “Best Of Fest”. After wondering about this “Best of Fest” paper, I turned to see a booth set up—conveniently marked “Best Of Fest”—with bowls for each participating brewery. Allowing attendees to vote for the best brewer is a creative way to give the Buckman-Kerns Brew Fest some originality.

My  next goal—after acquiring some beer, of course—was to find out more about the fest. Several booths had their employees or brewers pouring their own beers, a great personal touch. So I thought, who better to ask than someone directly involved? I approached the Cascade Brewing station, got a beer, and struck up a conversation. The only real answer I got about the fest was that it was organized to feature breweries in the local Buckman-Kerns area. That answer still left me wondering a few things. Why these beers? Why the voting? Is there a prize? I found out later that Migration Brewing took home the title of Best of Fest and a fancy little trophy after they featured three great brews: Black Hearted CDA, the trusty Old Silenus and Luscious Lupulin IPA.

Two of my favorites from the festival:

• Cascade’s McShagger Scottish Strong Ale: “Sweet malts with hints of chocolate and smoked peat greet you in the nose. Dark malts and hints of molasses and chocolate on the palate lead to a creamy finish with notes of peat and whiskey.”
• Buckman’s Ginger: “A grown up ginger ale brewed with fresh ginger.”

All unanswered questions aside, East Burn is a great location for a small fest like this one. It was exceptionally well organized, ran smoothly, and featured some very tasty brews. There was food offered for tickets, and plenty of free stickers to snag. I can see a lot of potential in this fest. My big question of “why?” was answered with smiles, hospitality, and good beer. In the end, theme or no theme, a good fest simply offers us a place to try a bunch of new beers in a safe and social setting. But don’t wait until the 3rd Annual Buckman-Kerns Brew Fest to stop in at East Burn. They feature great beers on tap every day, games to play, and you’ll find on their calendar a variety of events to attend.

Tired of seeing heart shaped boxes full of chocolate? Sick of sales on roses? Or maybe you just need a good excuse to drink great Portland beer on a Tuesday. Brewvana Portland Brewery Tours feels the same way! They’ve created a great package which includes beer, dinner (and more beer), and a movie (and more beer)! Check out the details from the official press release:

BREWVANA Portland Brewery Tours is hosting a Valentine’s Day BEER LOVE Tour for beer lovers in Portland. Taking place on Tuesday, February 14th from 5:30 – 9:30 p.m., the tour will feature two breweries and a screening of “The Love of Beer,” a documentary about women in the craft beer industry.

“For many of us, beer is what we love unconditionally day in and day out,” proudly states BREWVANA founder Ashley Rose Salvitti. “Turning Valentine’s Day into a celebration of beer is the perfect way to embrace the liquid that we love with the people that we love.”

The tour will begin at Cascade Barrel House for their weekly Tap it Tuesday event where a barrel is tapped in front of the crowd. Cascade specializes in very unique barrel-aged and sour beers. Tour participants will sample beer and get a behind-the-scenes tour of the brewery and barrel room with Preston Weesner, Cascade’s Barrel Tender & Blender.

The second stop will feature dinner and a sampling of several beers at Breakside Brewery. Releasing 92 different beers in 2011, Breakside produces more beer on their small seven-barrel system than any other brewery in Oregon.

The final stop will be at Saraveza’s Bad Habit Room for an 8 p.m. screening of “The Love of Beer”, a documentary about women in the craft beer industry filmed in Oregon. Donations will be accepted and BREWVANA will be raffling off T-shirts to raise money for the film’s producer.

Tickets for BREWVANVA’s BEER LOVE Tour are $69 per person and are all inclusive, consisting of the tour of Cascade, the dinner at Breakside, the screening of “The Love of Beer”, and beer at each location. Tickets are available at BREWVANA’s website.

Seating is limited and reservations must be made in advance. Pick-up locations and times for the tour are 5 p.m. at SW Salmon Springs Fountain, 5:15 p.m. at the Oregon Convention Center and 5:20 p.m. at APEX, a beer bar located at 1216 SE Division. Drop-off at the same locations at the conclusion of the tour.