No Need For Modesty: Modist Brewing Review

Based on the number of disappointing first visits to new breweries I've suffered through over the past few years, I now rarely visit a brewery unless it's been open over 6 months.  Every once in a while I hear enough positive reviews from people I trust, that I'll break this rule and check them out.  Modist Brewing is one of these breweries.  Open since April 2016, this North Loop brewery is located very close to Fulton's taproom--giving you just one more reason to visit the area!

The brewery was started by four friends: Keigan Knee (head brewer), John Donnelly (head of sales), Eric Paredes (chief manager), Kale Anderson (operations manager).  I haven't met these guys but I'd like to!  Their website set-up and pictures certainly point to a great sense of humor...

This particular Saturday, we had two friends in from Colorado and wanted to show them around some of our favorite watering holes.  Since we were already at Fulton, we decided to sprint through the rain to the Modist Taproom.  Why not right?

The open and spacious taproom was busy but not insane, with only a short wait for beers.  The brewery itself is off to the right as you come in the door, a colorful bluish glow reflecting up from the floor upon the shiny stainless conical fermenters.  There's also an open patio area that was empty on this trip due to pouring rain.  At one point I thought I saw someone riding a bike around inside the circle of equipment, but by the time I grabbed for my camera he was gone--like a strange hipster brewery ghost.

The Beers

I can be in the fanciest taproom ever, but if the beer doesn't please me I'm done.  Let the beers stand for themselves... I rate on a 0-5 scale with 3 being a decent beer, 4 a favorite, and 5 is the best in its class.  I'm a tough grader.

1) Toats:  A 4.8 % ABV beer made with 60% oats.  60% oats??!!  Wow.  Deep amber to orange color.  Aroma and flavor I get citrus fruit, intense maltiness.  Medium mouthfeel.  Somewhat astringent finish to it.  3.75

2) Smoove:  5.5% ABV, salted caramel lager.  A very interesting take on the salted caramel craze, using caramel malts and sea salt in the brewing process.  For this review I've brought in a guest reviewer...

Ode to Smoove Beer

By Smoove B, Love Man

"Girl, this beer was made for Smoove.  With a color and glow like your sweet caramel skin, this makes me want to take you in my arms and then into my giant round bed with the mirrors on the ceiling.  The sweet sweet taste of milky caramel fairly explodes from my glass, reminding me of you, my one true love.  You know what I'm talking about.  You remember the Love Man.  And the Love Man remembers you.  After stalking you across the veldt of my mind, taking you down with my lion-like majesty, I finish this ode to a graceful beer.  I finish with a salty surprise on the end like the leftover sweat of our love, or the briny taste of Smoove's tears as you leave me once more.  Damn!"

Thanks Smoove B!  I couldn't have said it better myself.  I like the crisp lager finish on this one.  I give it a solid 4.

3) 100% Wheat:  A wheat beer using 100% wheat.  I had to ask our bartender how they managed to make this without clogging up the mash-tun.  Bonus points to her for knowing the answer--she said they have a hammer mill and special equipment to handle the fine grind.  Wheat has no husk, so can't be used like barley to act as its own filter--making beers with more than 50% wheat very difficult to handle without creating  a thick solid mass of wheat glue.  So by using a fine grind and (I'm assuming here) a special fine filter, they can get better extraction of sugars and get around the clogging issue.  Some of the large macro breweries use this technique, but I don't know of many other craft breweries doing it.  I'm guessing this is how they managed the 60% oats in Toats as well.

The beer was well hopped and citrusy with a hazy appearance.  4



4) Phresh: 4.5% ABV tart ale with Ella, Equinox, and Hull Melon hops.  I picked up crazy melon flavors like honeydew, as well as grapefruit, with a hint of melon rind funkiness.  Slight tartness.  A unique beer for sure and very rePhreshing (trademark that!)  I actually hate melon, but this beer uses that flavor in a perfect way. 3.75

5) First Call: A pale lager infused with Two Cousins Espresso.  This version was also infused with vanilla bean.  I picked up insane light roast coffee aroma off the bat.  Flavor was similarly overtaken by fresh cold-press coffee.  I picked up mild vanilla and some maltiness on the tail end.  Wow!  Other than Birch's Coffee Chocolate Golden Ale I haven't had a better light colored coffee beer.  This was the winner for the whole group of us.  4.5

6) Wasteland:  Made with 60% Rye (see a pattern yet?) and Apollo, Cascade, and Columbus hops.  This is a rye IPA with a dry spicy and citrus zing.  The finish is a bit rough and astringent for me.  My least favorite of the group but still decent.  3.5

Forget being polite to new breweries.  These guys had been open 3 months at the time of this tasting and and are putting out high quality and boundary pushing beers!  Most are lower gravity beers, allowing one to have a couple beers before rolling out, and all are very drinkable.  They are making good use of their special brewhouse to use those accessory/adjunct grains to their utmost.

We had a great time here, hiding out from the increasing rainstorm, sipping finely crafted beers.  I would love to go back and highly recommend them.

We'll Cross That Bridge When We Come To It: Lift Bridge Brewing Review

Not long ago my wife (Sarajo) and I took a day trip out to Stillwater, Minnesota for a little visit of the sites and breweries in the area.  It's actually been 14 years since we last stayed in Stillwater for our first anniversary...wow does time fly!  I've been meaning to get to Lift Bridge Brewing for years, ever since they built their own brewery.  Not too long ago one of my friends--Randy Ust--formerly of Midwest/Northern Brewer and then Herkimer, started working for Lift Bridge and was willing to give us a tour of the place.

We showed up fairly early in the morning, before the taproom opened, and entertained ourselves for a bit playing cornhole (hey I didn't invent the name) outside until Randy arrived.  The day was beautiful and sunny with a slight hint of chill that was burning off rapidly.

Led by our bearded friendly giant (BFG), we got an awesome up-close and personal tour of the facility, located in a large but attractive warehouse building on the outskirts of town.  The facility is one of the bigger breweries in the state, but not as massive in scale as say Surly or Summit.  The brew system is a 15 barrel affair which they use to fill 11 30 barrel fermenters and 4 60 barrel fermenters.  Do the math there--they have to brew 4 times to fill one of those 60's!  I sense a bigger brewhouse or 24-7 brewing in their future!  Lift Bridge began around 2007/2008 and have been steadily growing ever since, perhaps being more cautious in their expansion plans than some, but still ever enlarging their production and distribution.  Randy showed off a new yeast propagator that was the most recent addition to the equipment as an example of a new area of growth.

They have a bottling line, a somewhat "experienced" kegging line (and Randy to lift those heavy kegs), and now a new canning line for packaging up the beers.  We also got to peek into an accessory warehouse where all the bourbon barrels filled with precious beer lie maturing and waiting to become one of the best barrel aged beers in the state--Barrel Aged Silhouette!

Home of future Barrel Aged Silhouette...

Lift Bridge was one of the early additions to the  Minnesota Craft Beer Renaissance (I should trademark that) and led with Farm Girl Saison as their flagship beer.  Back in early 2007/2008 putting out a spicy, estery Belgian style beer as your flagship in Minnesota was pretty bold.  Many of the early recipes for the brewery had additions of spices or flavors to accentuate the flavors and nod to the experimentation oriented homebrewing roots of the founders.  The current Head Brewer for Lift Bridge is Matt Hall, a storied brewer previously of Firestone Walker in California, and things have only improved since he came on board.  I've met Matt a few times at Happy Gnome beer dinners and he's not only a stellar brewer, but also a wonderful guy.

Awesome old wooden fermenter on display in the brewery.

Once we were done with our tour of the grounds (plenty of room for more fermentors!) we headed to the tasting room.  In 2011, after the "Surly Bill" allowed for brewery taprooms, Lift Bridge was the first in the state to take advantage of it.  The taproom is open and comfortable with mainly bench seating at varnished wooden tables.  A jukebox sits in the corner, and a small bar lines the back wall.  Plenty of merchandise fills some cubbys in the back corner for your swag needs.

The taproom has a lot of the standard Lift Bridge beers on tap but also hosts some small-batch taproom only beers that are worth a check.  Randy took us through the then current line up of beers and here are my pencil sketches of some of them from this visit.  I've given the beers a score between 0-5, with 3 being my average drinkable beer.

1) Shadow Effect: Taproom only German style schwazbier.  This was very roasty and dry--much more in line with a dry Irish stout than a malty lager. Still decent though.  3.25

2) The Warden: A sweet/milk stout.  I get lots of coffee, cream, and roastiness.  Very nice. Can't drink much of this since I'm lactose intolerant!  3.75

3) Mango Blonde:  The base beer for this a very respectable blonde--better stylistically than most of the big selling Minnesota examples (I'm talking to you Fulton and Excelsior!)  The addition of mango is subtle but makes this pop with some juicy tropical flavors.  I had an aunt and uncle who raised mangoes in Florida so I grew up loving this fruit, but most mangoes in Minnesota are hard little bitter things compared to those.  This beer gets the balance right!  4

4) Cowboy Jack's IPA: A session IPA brewed for Cowboy Jacks, and available there or in the taproom.  Very strong citrus hop up front on aroma.  Crisp.  Lemon and orange flavors.  Dry finish.  Quite nice.  I like this a lot more than the Crosscut and would drink it regularly if I could.  4

5) Irish Coffee Stout 2016:  A blend of barrel aged Russian Imperial stout and milk stout finished with cold press coffee.  This beer is actually one of my favorite Minnesota coffee beers and is often underrated.  Aroma of roasted grain and fresh brewed dark coffee.  I get a thick and creamy mouthfeel out of this. Flavors of coffee, malted milk, hints of vanilla and toasted oak.  I like this beer best aged one year. 4.25

Overall, Lift Bridge is putting out some very good beers.  I'd still like to see them drop or minimize the spiced beers, but think that some of the newer offerings are hitting the mark well for me.  These guys are doing some amazing things with barrels and I want more!  This trip I didn't get to try the Commander Barleywine, nor the BA Silhouette, but I'll be posting separate reviews of those beers in the coming weeks since Randy was kind enough to donate a few personal bottles of his own to my cause.

Magnetic cribbage boards build into the tables!

By the time we finished sampling beers and buying merchandise the place had filled up for a busy noon crowd of thirsty drinkers.  This was fun mix of locals and other beer tourists like us--everyone seemed to be having a good time.  Thanks go out to Randy, Sarah, and all the staff at Lift Bridge for a great experience.  I'd highly recommend visiting the taproom.  In fact, make a trip of it:  check out the cool downtown area, have dinner or lunch at LoLo, check out Oliphant in nearby Sommerset, WI across the historic lift bridge, and stay the night in one of the many B&B's (I like the Rivertown Inn).

Oliphant Brewing: Not Just for Hobbits Anymore...

Recently my wife (Sarajo) and I took a little day trip to Stillwater, MN.  We stayed at the Rivertown Inn for our first anniversary (14 years ago!!!) and haven't been back to the Stillwater since.  With our 15th anniversary looming we decided to take a little jaunt and stay the night back at the B&B!  And of course there is beer nearby...

"Mr. Frodo, look!  It's an Oliphant, no one at home would believe this."  --Samwise Gamgee

We had heard great things from several friends about Oliphant Brewing, just across the border in Somerset, WI.  With under a 20 minute drive from Stillwater this seemed like a no-brainer.  It was spitting a bit of rain when we arrived, so didn't take my real camera along--hence the below par iPhone photography of this particular post.

Awesome mural by Taylor (server and artist!)

The brewery itself is in a small warehouse right behind the Liquor Depot (convenient?)  and is decorated by a colorful mural on an outside wall.  The outside and inside of the place is painted a somewhat hideous shade of faded smurf-flesh blue.  Some outdoor seating is available out front, and then inside is a small utilitarian taproom.  The place was pretty crowded when we arrived, but we were able to snag two seats at the end of the wood-topped bar.

Mr. F!

The walls are lined with an eclectic array of artwork, ranging from strange child-like scrawlings to more professional work, much of it sci-fi themed.  A large blackboard by the bar hosts a bewildering plethora of oddly named beers, many with corresponding amazing chalk art.  Many of the beer names and artwork nod to geekery with a bit of Arrested Development thrown in for good measure.  This odd mix of comic book, science fiction, and comedy gives this place a bizarre but pleasing comfortable feel.

Our main server (Josh I believe) reminded us quite a bit of Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and was incredibly jovial, funny and helpful.  We were able to taste all of the beers by getting and sharing two samplers.  Apparently there was some sort of Groupon for a beer sampler going on so they were running low of tiny glasses, but we got 'em eventually!

These beers deserve a write up!  I'm going back over my brief notes and 0-5 scores from Untappd as a reference here.  For me a 3 is an average beer that I'd be OK drinking, a 4 is a very good example of the style, and a 5 involves angelic choruses.

1) Pizza Demon: Light English mild ale.  Fruity.  Well...mild.  Pleasant English malt character.  A good start to a sampler!  3.75

2) Anutart:  A solid Berliner kettle sour with red wine grapes.  Nice tannic bite adds complexity.  4

3) PlumBob Chamomillionaire: A lager with plums and chamomile.  I felt like the fruit esters from the plum cut the crisp lager character.  Chamomile not very apparent.  3.5

4) Turtle Lord:  Hefe.  This one was not good.  I get enteric in the aroma (fancy term for poop smell).  Flavor OK initially, with some German Hefe esters, but end is bitter and soapy.  This one is infected with something unpleasant.  2.25

5) EnniPA with TNT hops:  A bit of sulfur in the aroma.  Taste is lager crisp.  Bitter orange rind finish is astringent. 3


6) Wislard - The Lizard Wizard:  Seriously where do they get these names???  I like the Wizlard!  Aroma of white wine and citrus.  Flavor similar to that.  Bitter but pleasant IPA.  4

7) Hunk Boy: A porter.  Roasty with a hint of dark fruit.  Slightly thin on body.  Coffee finish.  3.75

8) Also-Bort: Belgian strong ale.  A bit sulfury.  Good Belgian ester character to the flavor though.  End is nice and dry like they should be.  3.5

9) Gobias Variant Cover Issue #1:  Combining Arrested Development with comics...  This was a Stout with coffee and vanilla.  Aroma bursting with those.  Flavor roasty, dark chocolate, coffee, hint of vanilla on the end.  Balance is great.  4.25

10) Teenage Muten Ninja Roshi: Double IPA.  Well balanced.  Sweet but dry finish.  3.75

11) Mothra Vs. Mothra: A decent hoppy lager.  Not my favorite style, but well done.  3.75

We also took home a crowler (can-growler) of Groot, a non-hopped gruit style ale for later.  This was a very malty and pleasant beer but could have used a bit more bittering as it got sweeter once warmed up a bit.  3.75

I can geek with the best of them...

Overall, the beers were well above average with only one having significant problems.  Out of 12 beers from a tiny (3 barrel) system, that's pretty impressive!  They're really able to brew a lot of experimental batches and seem to take great pleasure in trying new things.  Living close by would be a treat.  In fact we ended up sitting next to a semi-local member of their of version of a mug club, Matt, who extolled the virtues of getting to try all their cool new variants.

This place was a pleasant surprise for us.  I loved the geek imagery, and the fact that these guys don't take themselves too seriously.  The beers were very good and the service was stellar despite the place being very crowded at the time.

Oregon Day 3: Hair of the Dog that bit you?

Recently my wife (Sarajo) and I took a week's vacation to the Beer Mecca that is Portland, Oregon.  While we did try out a nearly overwhelming number of breweries, we also took some side trips and ate at a wonderful plethora of places.  On our third day in, two of our friends (Kathleen and Shea) met up with us from DC and joined in the fun.  I'm going to blog about the trip in some detail, mostly to immortalize it in the written word, but consider it a starting point for your own Portland area trip!  Feel free to shoot me any questions or clarifications if you like.

Portland Day 3

Dawn arrived too early, but the blackout curtains helped hide the sun's harmful rays from our blurry eyes.  Shambling down to the McMenamins Kennedy School restaurant, we met up with our friends--looking much more alert than the previous night.  I had a great and hearty dish of house made corned beef hash and about a quart of house roasted coffee for breakfast and started to feel a bit more human.

We spent some time after breakfast exploring the spaces of the old school building that hosted our hotel rooms.  One of the stamps for our McMenamins passports was a scavenger hunt for a particular painting, so we wandered the halls taking selfies with any likely and odd artwork we could find.  We also invited ourselves into the brewery (as mentioned in the previous post) for a tour (and stamp!).

Having killed enough time before the breweries opened, we headed out for our first stop of the day:

Hair Of The Dog Brewery 

Hair of The Dog is a brewery we stopped at on our last visit to Portland and was at the top of our list for places to revisit.  I won't go into too much detail here since I've covered the place before.  This brewery has been around for a long time, putting out unique beers unlike anything I've had before.  Their penchant for naming beers after people is cool but makes it difficult for me to remember which one I liked or what kind of beer it was.  The ladies split some small samplers of these eclectic beers, while Shea and I shared two vintage bottles of strong ale (Putin the Russian Imperial stout, and Matt).  Both were turbid, boozy, uncarbonated, and remarkably tasty.  Keep making amazing beers guys and I'll keep visiting!

Forktown Tours

For our first real day in Portland we had signed up for a food and alcohol tour with Forktown Tours to get a crash course on some of the local fare.  Started by Heidi Burnette, the tour company has five different walking tours--each focusing on a different neighborhood of Portland.  We took the Alphabet District Tour and were quite happy with our experience!  Heidi herself was our seasoned tour guide and with our group of four, she tailored the experience even more to our preferences.  We started with a bagel and sandwich at Kenny & Zukes deli for starters.  Then we moved on to St. Honore Bakery where we relished sweet French pastries and realized we might not have come into this with enough space in our bellies.


Next up was Bull Run Distillery, where we had a short tour and tasted through a large selection of spirits--my favorite was a whiskey aged in red wine barrels that tasted like a pre-mixed Manhattan cocktail!  Oh, and then an extra bonus trip to another distillery who specialized in making Aria dry gin where we tasted through several tasty mini cocktails.  Getting happy, we moved to Taste on 23rd--a wine bar in a converted old home that served us a really nice dish paired with a wine.  And then we finished our tour with a trip to The Meadow--a shop specializing in culinary salts, cocktail bitters, and high-end chocolates.  Yes this place is amazing!  We sampled chocolates, tasted salts and bitters, and got serenaded with a duet of banjo and guitar in a vividly Portland kind of way.  Heidi also gave us some great advice on other places to check out during our travels.  This was a fantastic way to cover a lot of ground in an area and get a sampling of some of the food, drink, and culture of the scene.  I can't recommend Forktown Tours enough!

Bluegrass jam session makes this so "Portland!"

Lompoc Brewing/Lompoc Tavern

While walking on our tour we had scoped out a few more prime places to check out while we were in the neighborhood.  Our next stop was the Lompoc Tavern, located right in the heart of this neighborhood.  This used to be the site of an older brewpub (1990's), but in 2012 was razed to add a large new building.  They reopened in 2013 in the same spot, but have since moved production of the beer to another location in Portland.  With a sunny warm day outside, plenty of folks were sitting in the small outdoor seating area, so we had luck getting a booth just inside the open doors.  Despite its relative youth, the place feels authentically old, with weathered woods and old-school pub feel.  Having just eaten tons of food on our tour we opted to avoid the beer sampler this time and just focus on a single beer each.  Shea got the Batch 69 Baltic Porter which was a well done example of the style and not overly sweet (I gave it a 3.75.)  I got the LSD (Lompoc Special Draft) which is a dark smoky strong ale and also gave it a 3.75.  Interestingly, back in Minnesota, Indeed Brewing has recently had to change the label on their beer LSD.  Small world.  Based on the two beers from Lompoc, I'd recommend checking it out, but I've heard since that the Sidebar location is the best place to visit.

McMenamins 23rd Avenue Bottle Shop

This is a new addition to the McMenamins empire (see my day 1 write up for more on them) and is a stand-alone liquor store/bottle shop.  Just a few blocks down from Lompoc we decided we needed to stop in and check it out.  We got our passports stamped and perused the over 800 bottles of liquid heaven available in the coolers.  I talked at length to one of the very helpful staff who helped me pick some of the better local bottles (and who suggested some future stops on our beer tour).  The place fills growlers off their 16 taps as well and we had a couple of samples while shopping.  On the way out I picked up a few bottles of Russian River beers sitting unobtrusively by the checkout counter.  Score!  I love the fact that you can have a tap beer at a bottle shop, fill a growler, or even pop a bottle and drink it there.  Minnesota's antiquated beer laws are cramping my style after seeing this in action!

Upright Brewing

Not to let the day end there, we headed for yet another brewery: Upright.  Many friends had put this on their top Portland brewery lists so I was excited to check it out.  We went on a week day thinking it would be less crowded, but failed in that endeavor!  The brewery is located in the basement of a large building (Leftbank) and is somewhat difficult to find--even when you're looking for it!  We discovered a ghetto hand-written sign near the entrance and still managed to fumble around the basement and back halls of the place before we followed the sound of happy drinkers to our goal.  The brewery is small and the tasting room is basically just some chairs and a few small tables thrown into the center of the brewery.  There was a charity event going on when we arrived and the place was packed with people.  With lower ceilings, iffy lighting, and chaos, this place certainly had character, but was not quite to my wife's liking.  I ordered a sampler (probably a bad idea in this crowd but I wanted to try everything!) and the two folks serving were volunteers didn't really know anything about the beers or how to fill sample glasses.  They were pleasant enough, just not experienced.

Hanging in the basement brewery!

Their beers are a hybrid of Belgian/French and American styles that really are difficult to categorize--and that's the way they like it.  Most are nominally "farmhouse" styles so saison-ish.  Tasting through Five, Six, and Seven are all standard beers for the brewery and all were respectable farmhouse ales--I gave them all 3.75 scores--but none blew my socks off.  Most had a bitter finish that was either yeast derived or possibly just aggressive hopping for the style.  Their Pilsner was OK, but a little sulfury.  The highlights were the special beers like the Anniversary and Four Play which hosted some Brett funk and added complexity (these I gave 4's).  When I went back to the taps to ask about the bottles they had for sale, I was pointed to talk to Alex Ganum who was trying to keep up with stocking glassware for the taproom.  It turns out that Alex is the owner and head brewer, so it was nice to get a brief chat with him about the beers!  Overall, coming out of the brewery, our group was a little underwhelmed by the beers and overstimulated by the crowd.  Looking back now and checking out my beer scores, these were actually some of the higher scores I had given beers up to this point on the trip so I may have just been crabby at the time.  I'd be curious to try out more of the special releases from Upright in the future (and did actually take home a bottle of the mysterious sounding Heart's Beat)...

Whiskey Soda Lounge

We got back to the McMenamins Kennedy School hotel to drop off swag and refresh--then it was time for a fairly late dinner.  This time we let Sj stop driving us and took an Uber to Whiskey Soda Lounge.  This is a bar/lounge owned by the same people as the famed local Thai restaurant Pok Pok, but specializes in "Thai drinking food" as well as whiskeys and cocktails.  We had the amazing Fish Sauce Wings and some other very spicy and authentic Thai dishes to share.  Shea had a cocktail made with Thai chili that was insanely good and also dangerous..."Tastes like burning!"  We enjoyed this place, especially the odd Thai covers of 80's pop tunes playing over the speakers.

McMenamins Kennedy School Cypress Room

We ended the day at our hotel (like you do) but weren't quite ready to call it a night yet.  The bonus of staying at a McMenamins is that most of them have multiple bars available.  We decided to try out the Cypress room this fine night.  Located in an old classroom,  a long wooden bar lines one side of the room, some scattered tables take up more floor space, and a few old wooden booths line another wall.  Reggae music plays over the loudspeakers and rum drinks abound.  This is probably our least favorite of the place's bars, mainly because neither of us are big into rum.  They still had a couple of house brews available too though, so I was still happy.  After a while we hit our wall and scattered to our rooms for much needed rest.  #TooOld.

Running Tally:
Breweries: 8
Distilleries: 2
Pubs/Bars: 5

The Coast, Bunnies, Beers! Oregon Day 2

Recently my wife (Sarajo) and I took a week's vacation to the Beer Mecca that is Portland, Oregon.  While we did try out a nearly overwhelming number of breweries, we also took some side trips and ate at a wonderful plethora of places.  On our third day in, two of our friends (Kathleen and Shea) met up with us from DC and joined in the fun.  I'm going to blog about the trip in some detail, mostly to immortalize it in the written word, but consider it a starting point for your own Portland area trip!  Feel free to shoot me any questions or clarifications if you like.

Day 2

Dawn arrived at the tiny coastal resort town of Pacific City.  Despite threats of rain, the air was clear and brisk but with a firm grey cloud cover.  Hints of morning sun periodically winked through the looming clouds, illuminating the magical view from our room of Haystack Rock jutting out of the sea.  Side bar here: this was where parts of The Goonies was filmed and I made continual quotes about One-Eyed Willie and the Truffle Shuffle though-out our entire stay.  My wife is very patient with me.  Sometimes.

Camera in one hand, my lady's hand in the other, I made my way to the beach for a long walk.  The briny smell of the sea, the crunch of barnacles underfoot, the raucous cries of wheeling sea birds, all brought home how different this world was from our home in Minnesota.  We climbed on the rocks, looking at colorful anemones and hermit crabs trapped in their shallow depths.  Soon we walked up a huge sand dune to find a spectacular view of sandstone cliffs, a large cave, crashing waves, and gulls galore.  My kingdom for a tripod!

Finishing up our long walk, just as some mild rain started spitting, we stopped in to Pelican Pub & Brewery for a hearty breakfast.  9 AM and I am splitting my attention between hot coffee and Tsunami Stout.  Life is good!

Now full to the brim with breakfast foods, coffee, and stout, we checked out of our hotel.  While doing so Sarajo discovered bags of rabbit food for sale and we invested the 50 cents in a bag.  Taking our spoils out behind the hotel, flocks of black rabbits incautiously approached us and began eating out Sj's hand.  A fun little excursion before heading on!

Salem 

We took a bit of a long-cut by way of Salem (Oregon's capital) in order to visit a couple of breweries that were totally unknown to us.  We also didn't want to try too many of the Portland breweries without our friends so this was a nice way to widen our brewery net into new areas.

Our first stop in Salem was Vagabond Brewing, which we had discovered on our taster tour of local beers at ABV in Hilsboro the day before.  The brewery was started by a group of  Marine Corps combat veterans who had traveled extensively and discovered beer in all the places they visited.  Vagabond was the culmination of those travels, and the name nods to the wanderer.  They have a cute little kitchen that served up some great Native American style frybread to clear the palate after drinking through two sampler platters.  They had a few local ciders on tap as well so Sj was happy!

The beers were surprisingly good.  I gave nearly all of them 3.75 scores (from 0-5) which place them above average in my own personal tastes.  I really enjoyed the Attack Owl IPA--named for a local owl that was apparently swooping down on unsuspecting park-goers.  We tried the Redshift IRA which was a pleasant hoppy red, (and had tried this with guava previously).  Sj and I also liked the 50/50 Kettle Sour with black currants--a well done version of this style for sure!



After our pleasing stop at Vagabond, we moved over to Gilgamesh Brewing, also in Salem.  This place is tucked into the back end of an office park--they have a cool sign and water feature out by the road, but no signs on the actual building.  The space is more of a brewpub with a large kitchen behind the bar.  The place is a little dark, but cozy.  We of course shared the sampler to try through the beers and I discovered Hoot Attack--also named for the crazy owl--but this wasn't quite as good as Vagabond's version.  All of the beers were decent, with my average score coming in at 3.5.  Their Terry Porter and Springer IPA were my favorites of the bunch, and the Mamba (a beer made with black tea, bergamot, and tangerine peel) was the most unique.  None were seriously flawed, which is always nice to find!

Other than some unusually shaped tap handles, I felt that Gilgamesh didn't play into their Sumerian name enough.  Since one of our local breweries in Minnesota (Enki Brewing) does a better job of Sumerian branding I expect a lot! This place is worth a quick stop (and the food looks great) but I enjoyed Vagabond a bit more of the two.  Why visit just one?!

Portland

After our brief sojourn in Salem, we drove back into Portland to pick up our friends Kathleen and Shea, just arriving groggily on a long flight from the D.C. area.  This part of the trip was boring and did not include any beer.  Moving on...

We checked into our hotel for the following week: the McMenamin's Kennedy School.  For those who haven't experienced a McMenamin's property I'll give a quick lesson here.  The McMenamins have been buying up old historic buildings in the Oregon and Washington areas for over 20 years years, refurbishing them and keeping much of the charm of the original structures intact.  These range from hotels, to theaters, to brewpubs, and more.  While this is a "chain" every one of these places is unique and fun to visit.  Strange paintings, hidden faces, old enlarged photos, and more, abound.  Many of the locations have their own tiny breweries (of which some are better than others).  Two locations host distilleries which furnish spirits to the other properties. They roast their own coffee which is served through the other spots.  Now, they also have a passport that you can get to get stamps at all the spots, as well as for special experiences (having a beer or wine sampler, soaking in a pool, seeing a movie at one of theaters, etc.) This really encourages you to explore the nooks and crannies of each property and seek out others.  This is an unusual and intriguing empire!

The Kennedy School is an elementary school from 1915, and has a distinct age and history to it. I love this property and this is actually our second time staying there.  A theater (with its own bar) provides a couple of movies during the week.  There's a soaking pool for the weary traveler.  Multiple bars are present on the property, each with their own specialization (more on these in future posts!).  We started out in the restaurant for a late dinner with our new arrivals.  The food here over our stay was consistently very good, and you can't beat the location.  Antique hanging lamps and paper lanterns dangle in seemingly random abandon from the ceiling and a long bar lies along one side of the room.  An old squat wood burning stove hunches over in one corner--silent this night, but pumping out heat the next morning to fight the chill.

The Kennedy School has its own tiny brewery.  The McMenamin's breweries all have a few core recipes that are brewed at each place (Hammerhead pale ale, Ruby raspberry ale, and Terminator Stout) but the rest are up to the individual brewers.  Many Oregon brewers get their commercial start at these properties before moving on to bigger things.  Last time (3 years ago) we were at the Kennedy School the beers were not so great, but this time things had improved dramatically.  The Outdoor School IPA and the Jam Session session IPA were my favorites from the sampler and I got some more full pints later in the trip.  They also served up a very good off-dry cider from the Edgefield Estate that was a hit with our group.  We ended up getting an impromptu tour of the small but well decorated brewery the next day when we barged in on one of the brewers hard at work sparging a batch of cream ale.  I really appreciated him taking time out to give answer questions.

Check out the artwork on the brewery equipment!  

After dinner and beer it was time for bed...

Running Tally:
Breweries: 5
Pubs/Bars: 1

Oregon Day 1: BOA (Beer On Arrival)

Recently my wife (Sarajo) and I took a week's vacation to the Beer Mecca that is Portland, Oregon.  While we did try out a nearly overwhelming number of breweries, we also took some side trips and ate at a wonderful plethora of places.  On our third day in, two of our friends (Kathleen and Shea) met up with us from DC and joined in the fun.  I'm going to blog about the trip in some detail, mostly to immortalize it in the written word, but consider it a starting point for your own Portland area trip!  Feel free to shoot me any questions or clarifications if you like.

Day 1: BOA (Beer On Arrival)

We arrived at PDX Airport on a Tuesday afternoon, tired from the three hour trip and ready to explore a bit.  After picking up our rental car we headed straight for our first brewery...I know you are all shocked!

Hopworks Urban Brewery (HUB)

HUB has been a staple in the Portland craft beer scene since about 2007.  They have several organic ales and take great pride in Green business practices.  They've embraced the bike culture of Portland and in fact the light fixture/chandelier over the bar in the taproom is made of bike frames!  They have expanded to include a second location and now distribute cans around the state as well.  Several friends had steered (pun intended) me to visit this spot.


We arrived before rush hour hit the city, so the place wasn't crazy yet.  We snagged a seat at the bar and ordered the BIG sampler.  This is a sampler of 15 (2 oz) beers served up in a metal pan and was quite the eye-catching sight for a weary traveler!  I tasted through them all (sharing a tiny amount with Sarajo of course).  With such a huge number I took sparing notes in Untappd.  Looking at my overall scores it looks like out of 15 beers the highest I gave (out of 0-5) was a 3.75.  Average for all of them was 3.5--putting this brewery in the decent but not great category for me.  None of the beers were terrible, but overall they just didn't wow either of us.  Probably the best was a toss-up between the Gear Up IPA and the IPX Organic El Dorado (single hop).  It was a fun stop, but didn't live up to my expectations.

ABV

Our destination for the day was to drive out of town and about 1.5-2 hours to Pacific City--a tiny quaint vacation town on the Oregon coast.  We wanted to get out Portland before traffic got rough, so went on a little detour in Hillsboro (a suburb just outside of the city proper).  Our friend Matt Messier, who hails from that area, suggested we stop at a little under-the-radar place in an office park called ABV Public House.  This was a great suggestion!  This is a bar, serving food and 34 draft lines of craft beer--mostly local. They also have extensive coolers full of bottles all along two walls of the place that you can drink in-house or take home with you.  Thank you Oregon's progressive beer laws!  We tried a sampler of beers and ciders that we'd never heard of along with some snacks there before we headed back out toward the coast.  It was tempting to buy a bunch of beers right there, but I had to limit my bottle selection for the trip (flying) and decided to hold off for now.  Based on some of the sample beers we tried and the reviews from our helpful server we added a few breweries to our budding itinerary.

Pacific City and Pelican Brewery

This was the view from our hotel!

Pacific City is tiny.  Really tiny.  But the population swells come warm weather and beach crowds for the summer.  It was still early in the season on this trip and the place was pretty deserted.  We stayed at the Inn at Cape Kiwanda, a very nice little hotel right up the hill and across the street from both the beach and Pelican Brewery.  The Inn had a Bed, Breakfast & Brew package which includes a $25 dining credit (not just for breakfast) and a free sampler of beer from the brewery.  Of course we took advantage of that!  We arrived at dusk and after checking into the hotel and taking in the most marvelous view I've ever had at an overnight stay, we darted down to the darkening beach.  A brisk (timing and temperature) walk along the beach and onto the barnacle encrusted rocks revealed by the retreating tide was our treat for the evening.  Just as a light rain started, we arrived back at the brewery for our tasty dinner and free beer sampler.

I've been a fan of Pelican since we stopped there on a trip about 5 years ago.  The place has won national recognition for their beers, including the barrel aged beast that is Mother Of All Storms (which I review HERE.)  They've recently expanded to include a production facility in nearby Tillamook as well, but that was out of our way for this trip.  The big, old-fashioned brewpub is comfortable, weathered, and relaxed, sitting literally right on the beach.  The food was good and hearty, the beers excellent.  The Kiwanda Cream Ale is their flagship--one of the best cream ales I've ever had, though it isn't my favorite style.  The Mosiac Pilsner small batch was a strange and interesting mix of lager style and ale hopping--but worked well. Most of the beers ranged from 3.75-4 for me this visit--above average for sure.  Oh how I wish they had MOAS!

Exhausted from our day of travel (and perhaps beer) we skipped across the street to the Inn for bed.  There we "rented" for free a DVD and watched a movie (this would be the last TV-type media for a full week) and fell asleep to the sound of crashing waves through our open balcony door.  This was a stellar start to an epic vacation.  Though tomorrow threatened heavy rains, we were prepared for another great day of fun ahead.  Oh, and more beer of course!

Running Tally:
Breweries: 2
Pubs/bars: 1

Sake On A Hot Tin Roof--Moto-i Review!

Last fall I won a few prizes at Byggvir's Big Beer Cup (the Renaissance Festival competition) for my homebrews and one of them was a tour for 10 at Moto-i. Now that the ice and snow has faded from our streets and people have suddenly appeared from their deep hibernation, it seemed like a good time to dust this thing off and have some fun!  Our group included several homebrewers and a couple of other beer journalists, so we were all intrigued about what we were to soon see.  We turned this event into a little pub crawl with visits to Lynlake Brewing and The Herkimer before our scheduled tour time.

With the same ownership as nearby (two doors down) Herkimer brewery, this place has been doing something very unique for the past 8 years!  I've visited a few times in the past--about once a year--just to keep abreast of any changes.  The brewer Blake Richardson fell in love with sake when frequenting a local Japanese restaurant and decided to try doing something outrageous in Minnesota--open the first sake brewpub anywhere in America.

Lets talk about sake a bit.  I'd tried warm sake at a shady Japanese steak house once in the far distant past and had not been impressed.  Moto-i is really the first place I had legitimately tried it and paid attention.  Sake is made through a somewhat complicated process that is similar to brewing beer but with some significant differences.  As a homebrewer I was able to follow most of the steps, but there were still some interesting things to learn about.  The whole process starts with the rice--only certain types work for sake making.  In general the type of rice used has most of the pure carbohydrate in the center.  The rice is milled (or polished) locally, getting rid of the layers of proteins, lipids and fatty acids, leaving that fermentable sugar core available.  The less milled the rice is, the more earthy/umami flavors in the finished product.  And apparently, the highly milled versions result in less hangovers!

Once the rice is milled it comes to the brewery--a tiny cold room off the back of the restaurant.  Our party (in two groups of 5) huddled in here for warmth during our tours from Blake.  The next step we learned of is to wash off the rice powder dust and soak the rice.  This is a laborious process requiring close supervision to not over-soak the rice.  Once the rice is to the proper consistency, its dried overnight.  The next step is to run steam though the rice.  Once this is done the rice can move on.

Koji.  One of the more unusual steps in sake making is the use of Koji--a type of mold--that helps break down the complex carbohydrates in the rice to simple sugars that the sake yeast can convert into alcohol.  A portion of the batch is inoculated with Koji and kept in a warmer room to get that going.  More of the rice is given a shot of yeast, water, and some of the Koji and allowed to ferment for several days as a yeast starter.  When ready, this will be put into a larger tank and slowly "fed" more rice and water over the coming weeks.

Once things are done fermenting, the result is a product of a strong 18-20% ABV.  From here the resulting white mess is pressed--either in a mechanical press or hung in cloth bags and allowed to drain naturally.  Bottled sake will undergo pasteurization for shelf stability, but Moto-i keeps theirs cold and served fresh.

The tour was cool, nerdy, and I could sense Blake's passion for this unusual project.  He's mostly self-taught, but has made something like 12 trips to Japan to visit sake makers there and learn from the masters.  While most of the recipes he uses follow the same steps as above, many different variations are possible to get different types of finished sake.  The type of rice, the percentage milled, the time in the fermentation tank, and the yeast type, all have an impact on the final product.  I was excited to discover that they've even done some experimentation with wild yeast inoculation by leaving some of the rice slurry upstairs on the deck overnight!

Most impressive chalk art that deserved a picture....

We ended our tour by heading upstairs to said rooftop seating area, taking full advantage of our beautiful spring day.  We ordered some sake samplers and got to try all of the 6 offerings available.  We also ordered some really good dishes including miso popcorn, several sticky buns, and more!

I took some notes on some of these sakes like I would do for beers, but found myself struggling for the right terms to describe what I was smelling and tasting.  While I'm a seasoned beer judge, I just haven't had the training in this!  I did my best and here's a few including my score on a 0-5 scale.

1) Junmai Ginjo ak12 Nama:  Aroma is redolent of apple and pear, but subtle, along with some fruity ester I just can't put my finger on.  Smells a bit hot.  Flavor is similarly fruity with some apple peel type tannin on the dry finish.  The driest of the bunch.  4

2) Goya/Genshu: Genshu is indiluted making it stronger than most sakes.  Smells bright, like a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.  Flavor is a bit sharp, young seeming.  Crisp.  Ends spicy with notes of black pepper and some hot esters.  3

3) Hanyauku/Shiboritate: Fresh.  Very young with lots of green apple--almost cidery.  A bit hot.  Not my favorite of them.  3

4) Junmai Ginjo Nigori Nama:  Nigori is roughly pressed resulting in a cloudy appearance.  This is the sweetest of the bunch, but not overly so.  Fruity and bright with a more rounded mouthfeel.  My favorite.  4.25

5) Junmai Kimoto Nama: Earthier than the others.  Sweet but not as much as the Nogori.  Grows on me as I sip it.  3.75

Overall this was a very fun and informative visit.  It was great hanging out with a bunch of different friends trying an unusual fermented beverage with about 1000 years of history behind it.  The service was good (especially the manager who gave us a quick primer on the types of sake we were sampling) and the food excellent. I think the only thing that would have improved our tour would have been a directed sake tasting either prior to or just after so we could learn how to properly evaluate the beverage.  Oh, and Moto-i also has a good selection of Minnesota craft beers for those who aren't brave enough to face the sake!

Birch's Please! Birch's On The Lake Review...

At this year's Winterfest one of the stand-out beers for me was one from the relatively new brewpub Birch's On The Lake.  I talked briefly with head brewer Brennan Greene and was intrigued enough to want to jump this place up on my schedule for brewery visits.

Greene is one of two owners of Birch's and has a pretty impressive resume.  He went to the University of Wisconsin Madison and got a degree in Philosophy.  He then learned (presumably) what most discover: that Philosophy degrees are not exactly great for finding a "real" job.  (I have a couple of friends who've been down this route.)  He ended up attending the World Brewing Academy, then started as the brewer for the Schlafly Taproom in St. Louis.  Shlafly was the first craft brewery to take on local favorite Budweiser...  I visited there in 2012 and my write-up is HERE.  I really liked the Tazmanian IPA when we visited (I gave it a 4 out of 5) and it turns out that that beer was Greene's recipe using then fairly experimental Galaxy hops.  I tried one of these in the bottle just last week and felt that the quality has dropped since it went into bottle production.  Knowing how many types of good beers Greene must have brewed at Schlafly, I was excited to try his newest venture with Birch's!

Birch's On The Lake is located in Long Lake (and yes it is right ON the lake, looking over the water.)  My wife and I arrived around 6 PM on a Tuesday night and the place was busy but we didn't have to wait.  There's a downstairs Brewhouse that's open Weds-Sunday and serves food and beers--unfortunately they were having an event down there when we visited so I wasn't able to check it out at the time.  When we entered the building and walked up a short set of stairs I was struck by the classy wine-bar or supperclub feel.  A rack of wines takes up the entire wall to the right of the host stand along with a gas fire feature.  The walls are a mix of dark woods and leather upholstery, giving the place and upscale and timeless look far different from any "brewpub" I've visited.  I felt a little shabby in my T-shirt and hoody compared to a bunch of the suited-up after-work crew.  But hey this is Minnesota, you can wear anything you like to most places!

We were seated in a high-backed booth covered in dark leather, looking out over the bar and with a partially obstructed view of the lake (until it got darker anyway).  The bar is shaped like a square, with seating all around, on a slightly lower level.  Seating at the back of the bar (by where we were sitting) is elevated and looking into the bar itself.  The bar is dark granite with white leather along the front.  The chairs are (imitation?) snakeskin and very comfortable looking.  There's a lot of space in the place for seating, and even more when the deck outside opens up for the season.

We had great service while we were there, attentive and knowledgeable.  We were served a strange little 1950's tray of radishes, celery, carrot sticks, and pickled peppers served atop shaved ice--odd but added to the retro steak-house feel.

They had 8 beers on tap, available as 2, 4, 8, or 16 ounce pours for all of them.  I had to try them all!   As usual, Sarajo tasted along with me, as well as gave me dirty looks for spending too much time taking notes on my phone.  Here are my brief impressions of the beers.  My scale is 0-5, with 3 being my standard OK beer, 4 being outstanding, and 5 being my white whales.

1) Kolsch Blonde Ale: This has a great German hop aroma.  Flavor is crisp, hop bitterness present.  Slight fruity esters of pear and white grape that put this in the top kolsch styles I've had in Minnesota.  This one is going to go fast come deck season.  4

2) Apricot Berliner Weiss:  Strong apricot aroma, borders on extract/fake.  Suitably tart but with a sweeter apricot finish.  One of the better kettle sours I've had in Minnesota this year so far.  4

3) Witbier:  Coriander and white pepper in the nose along with some Belgian yeast esters.  Coriander strong in flavor.  Perhaps too much clove and banana for Belgian Wit--more like German Hefe.  A bit sweet on finish.  Probably my least favorite of the bunch but still gets a 3.5

4) Coffee Chocolate Golden Ale:  This is a beer that should not work.  But it does!  A deep golden color with excellent clarity.  Fresh coffee and cocoa powder aroma is surprising for the appearance.  Flavor is full of bright light-roast earthy coffee, white chocolate.  Body medium--thicker than expected.  Simply wonderful.  4.5

5) Vanilla Milk Stout: Aroma is pretty subtle.  Roasted malt in flavor, hints of milk chocolate.  Mild vanilla.  Mouthfeel medium-plus.  Grainy finish.  Despite her love for stouts this was Sarajo's least favorite. 3.5

6) Simcoe IPA:  The aroma is bursting with catty (cat pee!) Simcoe hops.  The flavor is more balanced with mild caramel, but not sweet.  Lots of powerful citrus fruit of grapefruit rind and tangerine.  4

7) India Brown Ale:  Well balanced beer.  Mix of mild roasted grain with plenty of pine and earthy hops.  Very drinkable.  3.75

8) Double IPA:  Crazy aroma on this!  I get mosaic and simcoe for sure.  Flavor is sweet and fruity up front.  A bit of alcohol zip.  Honey character.  This reminds me of Hopslam about 3-4 years ago...in a very good way!  4.5

These beers are great.  Like really remarkably great!  Not since our visit to Junkyard Brewing in Moorhead last year have I been this impressed with beers from a relatively new brewery.  Brennan Greene knows what he is doing!  Tasting these IPA's, I remarked to Sarajo that they must be using reverse osmosis water and building it up--since it's quite difficult to get such a balanced flavor in hoppy beers with our hard Minnesota water.  Later we got to talk to the young and friendly assistant brewer Alex and he confirmed that guess.  Take note other small Minnesota breweries!

While I was finishing my nose-in-glass reviews of these remarkable beers, our food arrived.  I had spicy fried chicken that was quite good, (but messy to eat) served with roasted corn on the cob, sriracha honey sauce, coleslaw, and a wonderful cheddar-thyme bisquit.  Sarajo won this round of eating with her expensive but perfectly done Filet Mignon topped with marrow butter.  The food was stellar and far above what I was expecting.  For dessert, Sarajo had a 4 oz pour of the Coffee Chocolate beer and I finished up an 8 oz Double IPA.

Addendum!

On our first visit to Birch's, we found out that they do a beer dinner every month and signed up for it.  On a somewhat overcast Tuesday night (again) we trekked out to Long Lake to give the place another look.  We started out downstairs in the brewery this time, so I got to check out the mellow wood tones of the square bar, copious seating, and shiny stainless steel of brewing equipment.  We were greeted with a glass of the Kolsch (I'd like to try this side by side with Waconia Brewing's version).  While we sipped our beer, I wandered around taking pictures for this blog entry--most of which were pretty dark.  Eventually Brennan showed up and we got to talk to him a bit before the official tour began.  Once the whole group was ready, we all migrated to the brewing area and Brennan gave a really fun history-of-brewing talk that was one of the more entertaining that I've heard.  While we were on the tour, one of the servers brought us over sample glasses of both the coffee ale and the newest (tweaked) batch of the DIPA.  Yup, still just as good as the first time!

Soon we moved upstairs into a private dining room (this place is seriously huge) and were seated family style around one large table with about 10 other people. Over the course of the dinner we got to know our neighbors (this is not something I'm used to as a Minnesota native--but beer dinners seem to facilitate this process.)  One of the guys at our table--Jim--was the brother of one of my High School classmates!  Small world.  We had four courses of amazing food paired with different beers.  I've been to a lot of beer dinners, and I'd say that only The Happy Gnome and Butcher & The Boar have outdone this dinner for overall beer and food quality.  We got to try a new version of the Belgian Wit--this time with ginger and lemongrass--and I upgraded my score to a 4 compared to the previous version.  We also got to try the new Mosaic IPA that was perfectly balanced between the malt and hop bitterness and incredibly easy to drink (also a 4).  We had a sorbet made from the Vanilla Milk Stout as an apertif between the appetizer and main dish that was even better than the beer itself.  The best pairing was the most tricky: the rich and creamy lemon mascarpone cake paired with the zippy and fruity Apricot Berliner.

I almost don't want to publish this review, just to keep this place secret for myself and the other few in-the-know people who have been suggesting we visit.  The beers are amazing already at just 6 months in--far better than many Minnesota breweries that have been open for years.  The food and ambiance are upscale and somewhat fancy--not like any brewpub I've been to (other than perhaps Surly's Brewer's Table.)  The one potentially negative thing I will say is that most of the people in the restaurant were drinking cocktails and wine--so perhaps the craft beer may take a little bit of time and education for these guys.  I'm pretty sure we're signed up for the next beer dinner already!