Author

Alex

A Love Letter to the Festival of Dark Arts

The dark clouds close in, bringing a splatter of drizzle. The slate, almost still mirror of the Columbia River belies the turbulent entrance to the Pacific ocean a few miles down. Bland industrial buildings are broken up by brightly colored Victorian homes. It is a sleepy Saturday with only a few people braving the elements to trod along the riverwalk. However, a few blocks from the water something is stirring. There is the clatter of metal kegs being put into place. The smell of woodsmoke fills the air, followed quickly by the scent of bacon. As you approach this spot, a sense of anticipation grows. You see small groups of people bundled up, talking excitedly, many wearing clothing items bearing the name of some brewery or other. Some familiar, some not. They all are moving toward the same destination. That is when you see a line, snaking around a building that takes up an entire block. The small groups have gathered into a horde, all clutching small fluted glasses. Many look at lists, some on their phone, some printed out. You glance over someone’s shoulder to spy the list. It is a list of beers, all dark, all malty, but all different. It is time for the annual ode to the stout. It is time for the Festival of Dark Arts.

For those unfamiliar with what I’m talking about Fort George Brewery (located in Astoria, Oregon) hosts an annual beer festival in February that is devoted to the art of the stout (a “carnival of stouts” if you will). As a craft beer nerd, I am a fan of beer fests in general, but ever since I first attended the Festival of Dark Arts in 2018 it has been far and away my favorite. Why? How different could a particular beer fest possibly be? Let me tell you.

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Ex Novo’s Blue Bucket of Gold and the Mysterious Mine That Inspired It

Note: I wrote this a long time ago and never posted it (I’m not sure why). I think the beer if references was a one-off that you won’t be able to find anymore but the story is still super interesting. Enjoy!

In case it has become entirely obvious, I love craft beer. I also love discovering weird stories, especially about places near where I live. Ex Novo’s Blue Bucket of Gold allowed me to partake in both things.

What is a Blue Bucket of Gold, you may wonder? Well, I am so glad you asked. The western half of the United States’ history is littered with stories of gold and silver rushes (and as someone who grew up in California, I learned about a lot of them in school) but the legend of the Lost Blue Bucket Mine was a new one for me.

The story of this lost gold mine starts in 1845 (several years before the California gold rush started in earnest) somewhere between Vale and The Dalles in what is now Oregon. For those of you unfamiliar with Oregon geography, these two places are not close together. At all (to drive, it’s about 306 miles). Vale is almost in Idaho, while The Dalles is a river away from Washington. In short, we’re talking hundreds of square miles.

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Hop Hellions: Ninkasi

A series about the women who have made craft beer

The First Lady of Beer (Literally)

In the Beginning

As I begin this exploration of women in beer, I figured it made sense to start with the very first woman in beer: Ninkasi, the ancient Sumerian goddess of beer. The Sumerian people lived in southern Mesopotamia in what is now southern Iraq from approximately 4500 BC to 1900 BC. They practiced anthropomorphic polytheism (worshipping many human-like gods) and one of those gods was Ninkasi, who has one of the best origin stories I’ve ever heard.

Enki, the god of wisdom, seduces his great-granddaughter, Uttu (the weaver or spider). Understandably upset about this, Uttu visits her great-grandmother Ninhursag, an Earth goddess, who, also annoyed at these proceedings pulls Enki’s semen from Uttu’s womb and uses it to grow fruit plants in eight different spots. Enki loves fruit so he eats the semen-fruit and finds himself pregnant in eight places because of course. Ninhursag lets her husband suffer for a bit before going to him and pulling his semen out of his body and into hers. She then gives birth to eight gods who each represent the healing of one of Enki’s wounds. The god representing the mouth is Ninkasi whose name translates as “the lady who fills the mouth,” which sounds dirty but isn’t in this case. Crazy story, right?

Statue of Ninkasi
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Hop Trip: Astoria

Day 1: Portland

As we rolled into Portland after a three-hour drive from Bend, we headed for an old favorite, Hopworks. I have discussed Hopworks on this blog before so I won’t repeat myself too much and only say it is awesome and if the Velvet ESB is on tap, try it because it is a deliciously underrated beer (and ESB’s in general are an underrated style).

Velvet ESB @ Hopworks, also my little hop friend, Brewce Hoppington

As our next planned stops opened a bit later in the afternoon, we dropped in at Gigantic Brewing, always a good choice and one of my husband’s favorites. I was really excited to try their new Project Pilsner beers because I love a clean, simple, delicious beer when I can find it. I ordered the Project Pilsner Citra. One of the things I like best about Gigantic is that they like to take big swings when it comes to their beer. Often this works out well for them, but I feel like they fell a little short of the target with this beer. While the beer was in no way bad (I don’t think they make a pour down the drain beer) the Citra overwhelmed the Pilsner to a distracting degree (citra is a very flavorful hop and pilsners tend to be more understated beers).

Gigantic Brewing Company
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Hop Trip: Hood River

One of my goals for 2020 was to do one Hop Trip per month. However, COVID-19 seems to have put the kibosh on that idea, at least for awhile. Since I can’t go anywhere, I figured I should finally post about the two I did go on before everything became weird all the time (hooray!). With that in mind, here’s the first one: my short excursion to the beer capital of the Columbia River Gorge: Hood River.

Day 1

After a couple hours drive north from Bend, we arrived in Hood River. After checking in at the Best Western (a really nice hotel btw) we headed over to Ferment Brewing.

Ferment Brewing Company
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Hop Trip: President’s Day Weekend 2019

Day 1: Portland

I feel a little unoriginal writing about Portland so often but with the number of breweries within its city limits, it should hardly be surprising. So without further ado, here are the places I visited this time around:

Breakside Brewery (Dekum location) is an old favorite that I haven’t been to in awhile (I used to live within blocks of it). They have had a solid and award-winning line-up of beers since they first opened in 2010, and the beer quality remains top-notch. Their restaurant is also excellent, and I cannot recommend their blue-cheese fries highly enough.

Beers @ Breakside

This time around I went with their classic Pilsner (one of the better ones produced in the northwest) and one of their experimentals, called Basic Witch. This saison, while slightly high in ABV for that style (6.4%), was very light overall with flavors of honey, rose water, and pepper. The pepper almost turned me away from ordering it as I have sampled pepper saisons where that’s all you can taste and it has made me a little leery of the style. However, the pepper in this beer is very subtle and you really only taste it on the back end.

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Top 10 Beers of 2018

Please note these beers appear in no particular order (i.e. are not ranked) and include beers I drank for the first time in 2018 (they didn’t necessarily have to be released for the first time in 2018). This list was way harder to put together than I thought it would be. After perusing my Untapped check-ins for 2018 I had a list of around 40 excellent beers that I then had to whittle down to this. Hopefully I included some of your favorites. Enjoy!

Barrel Aged Motherland Russian Imperial Stout by Hopworks Urban Brewery: Hopworks is a consistent favorite of mine and this beer is a bourbon barrel aged version of one of their regular seasonals, the Motherland Russian Imperial Stout, which they released in cans for the winter season. It has the rich flavor of the original with the added punch of the bourbon to make it a boozy delight. Even my husband, a noted hater of bourbon, loved this beer.

Best Bitter by Porter Brewing: This entry is indicative of both my love of this beer and my love of this newcomer to the Central Oregon Brewing scene. My love of beer first presented itself in the UK so I have a soft spot for cask beers and Porter Brewing of Redmond, Oregon does cask beers exceedingly well. In fact, I need to make a return visit to try their ESB.  

Porter Brewing, Redmond OR

Way Too Fresh (2018) Fresh Hop Imperial IPA by Crux Fermentation Project and Bale Breaker Brewing Company: To put it simply, when I first checked in this beer on Untapped I wrote: “I am in love with this beer.” This excellent seasonal from two wonderful PNW breweries is what all fresh hop beers should aspire to be.

Anything Gold Brut IPA by Three Magnets Brewing Company: Many craft beer drinkers quickly lost enthusiasm for the Brut IPA trend that stormed the craft beer world in 2018, but I was not one of them. I’ve always loved a good dry IPA so this was a trend I couldn’t help but be on on-board with. This led me to drink a lot of Brut IPAs and this one was my favorite. Dry, tart, and smooth-if you haven’t hopped onto this trend yet, this is a good one to try if you can find it.

Seeds of Infinity by ColdFire Brewing: I was already a fan of ColdFire Brewing when I walked into their tap room in Eugene, Oregon but when I tried this Foeder aged Brett Saison I was well and truly hooked (probably because Foeder, Brett, and Saison are all words that grab my attention when they appear on a tap list). I had a glass there and took a bottle home, and it was delicious both times.

Tap List @ Coldfire

Mod Pod IPA by Fremont Brewing: One of the icons of the Seattle craft beer scene, Fremont Brewing consistently makes great beer and their new Mod Pod IPA is no exception. In fact, this beer has quickly become one of my favorite IPAs full stop. If you haven’t tried it, go find some. You won’t regret it.

Vesper by Holy Mountain Brewing: This table beer is light and funky, just as a good table beer should be. I visited Holy Mountain Brewing’s tap room (located in Seattle, WA) for the first time this year and they make a lot of good beers but this low ABV darling is the one I remember the best. Often it is hard to find excellent beer that is low ABV and if nothing else Vesper shows that it is possible, and then some.  

Vesper @ Holy Mountain Brewing

Lemon Crush by 10 Barrel Brewing Co.: Okay, story time: I am a member of a craft beer social group called the Central Oregon Beer Angels and one of this year’s events was a sour tasting put on by 10 Barrel Brewing, led by famous sour master Tonya Cornett. During the event we did tastings of the different entries in the brewery’s kettle sour series, Crush, to help them decide which new flavors should go into their Crush variety pack alongside their already popular Raspberry and Cucumber Crush. While they were all pretty tasty the Lemon was my favorite and I obsessed about it for several months until I was able to get it in the variety pack. This beer won’t do it for everybody but it you like a subtle sour, I highly recommend it.

10 Barrel Brewing Crush Tasting

Marryin’ Berries by Ex Novo Brewing: Originally brewed for the assistant brewer’s wedding, this gose with marionberry and raspberry was my favorite beer of the summer. It was just the right combination of sour and fruity and I probably bought more bottles of it than I should have.

Four Devils by Monkless Belgian Ales: Fun fact about me, when I see the phrase ‘Belgian Strong Golden’ on a tap list I tend to order it. When I see those words on the tap list at Monkless Belgian Ales (probably the best brewery in Bend, don’t @ me) you know it is something special. While it is draft only and will probably be hard to find, it is too delicious to not include on this list, so you’ll just have to make the trip to Bend to try it.

Honorable Mentions

Burgundia by Seven Brides Brewing: A delicious Flanders red from Silverton, Oregon’s dearly departed Seven Brides Brewing.

100% Brett Dissident by Deschutes Brewery: I love Deschutes’ Dissident series and this is one of their best. I found it randomly on tap at a restaurant in town and this Flanders Oud Bruin was a delicious surprise.

Total Blackout Fresh Hop CDA by Hopworks Urban Brewery: A fresh hop take on the Cascadian Dark Ale they brewed for the eclipse. An unexpected pairing that was oh so good.

Quality River by Ancestry Brewing Company: This IPL was another great hot weather beer I discovered this year and turned out to be indicative of the quality (hah, see what I did there?) of Ancestry’s overall brewing program.

Sounds Like Summer by Sunriver Brewing Company: Sunriver Brewing is so good at making beer that sometimes it feels like there’s some kind of witchcraft going on. This seasonal summer pale ale was no exception with basil and lime flavors that made it perfect for sultry summer weather.

There you have it, my best beers of 2018. Did I miss any? Any I should try in 2019? Let me know @hophellion on Twitter.

My Craft Beer Story: Matt Link

Title: Senior Analyst, GP Analytics LLC
Favorite Beer Style: Farmhouse Ales
Fun Fact: Once brewed a Belgian Ale that accidentally soured and ended up being delicious
Beer Snob Scale (1 to 10, I’ll drink whatever to Cicerone): 5

HH: What is your title/job?
Matt: I am now a senior analyst, Ross tells me. [Ross is one of the principals/founders of GP Analytics]
HH: What is your favorite beer style?
Matt: Let’s go with the broad category of farmhouse ales.
HH: What is a fun fact about you, beer or non-beer related?
Matt: Okay, I have a Belgian ale that is accidentally soured after spending three months in a barrel and is tasting fantastic. It was a complete accident and it turned out great.

HH: Where would you put yourself on a beer snob scale, one being I’ll drink whatever to 10 being Cicerone level beer snob?
Matt: I like to think of myself as lower on the scale than I probably actually am. I think there’s a time and place for every beer, so I’ll drink the macro lagers and you know, the big beers, but I think I’m harsher when it comes to you know poorly executed craft beer (like you guys should be trying harder than the big guys). So, I’m going to put myself at an even five.

HH: What was your first experience with craft beer?
Matt: When I was 16, I think it was on my dad’s birthday. He’s not a big beer drinker these days, and hasn’t been for most of my life, but every now and then he’ll have a beer. Anyways, it was his birthday and he was drinking an Anchor Steam. He told me about when he was stationed in Germany when he was in the army and how he lived there for a couple years afterward. He’s 72 so this was back in the Vietnam era. He drank a lot of German beer during that time and then when he came back to the United States it was like the prime era of American big beer. I mean there was hardly any American craft breweries if at all and I tend to agree with him that Anchor Steam was the first craft brew. Wanting something more similar to the good German beer he was used to, my dad found Anchor Steam even though he was living in the Midwest at the time. They were starting to distribute out there and that was his first American craft beer. He would drink it whenever he could get his hands on it. His love of that beer continued and on that birthday, he poured me a little cup of his Anchor Steam and told me that story. That was my first real experience with craft beer.

HH: So, after that first experience were you hooked from there or was it more of a process?
Matt: I mean in the first few years of college everyone’s drinking, but it wasn’t really drinking craft beers. Money was an issue, so you know it was just cheap, cheap, beer all the time. However, I had a friend from high school who home-brewed with his dad so I used to go over there and hang out with them while they were brewing. It just was kind of fun, you know. I didn’t learn much, we were just hanging out. Then I went with a friend to the local homebrew shop in San Francisco and we kind of perused around. It looked like a lot of fun, but it wasn’t actually until maybe a year later that I got my first in your kitchen home brew kit and it was kind of just on a whim. I kind of wanted to just like find some new hobby (I think it was I was 22 at the time). I quickly elevated from the kitchen brewing into buying propane burners, going to the all grain from the partial mash, mostly in a way for convenience because the brewing in the kitchen was just becoming like really difficult. I wanted to just get out into the garage and so invested a little bit of money. From there it just snowballed. It started with the home brewing and because that was fun I start reading about the ingredients and beer styles. Then I was buying and trying bottled beers and going to breweries. This was around 2012 and at that time breweries were opening left and right in San Francisco and in the bay area in general. So that was how I got hooked on craft beer.


HH: How did you transition from craft beer as a hobby to working in the industry? Especially with an economics degree?
Matt: I finished my undergraduate degree but had no idea what I wanted to do. I liked economics and I was getting into the math more heavily towards the end of my undergrad program, so I thought ‘I’m going to go to grad school.’ It was pretty cheap at San Francisco State with in the state tuition and, like a lot of people who go to grad school, I figured I’d learn what I wanted to do later. Unsurprisingly it still didn’t happen, so I finished that program.


That was 2014 and after years of studying very theoretical stuff I was kind of craving more practical, some hands-on sort of work. I had lots of my peers from school going into tech and finance and all these things and I was a little intimidated by it all. I just could not picture myself jumping into that world. The job market was hot back then, I mean I’m sure I could have got something, but I just didn’t feel like I was ready, so I spent the summer after graduating not working and home brewing like a madman. I had so much beer I didn’t even know what to do with it. I was inviting friends over all the time just to empty kegs.


At the time, I had a friend who worked at Anchor Brewing in the packaging department and she invited me to come on a tour with her and her boyfriend. We had this awesome day touring Anchor and checking it all out and drinking in the tap room. Then she was like you’re not working right now, I could get you a job here. It wasn’t the best job, but it was a foot in the door in the industry and it’s a big company, so I thought maybe they’ll have some roles where they could utilize some skills I learned in school. That’s what I told them when I interviewed because they were hiring people in packaging which everyone wanted whose dream was to become a brewer or something. I told them I just wanted to start so I got that job and started working in bottling and canning and sweeping floors and doing all that kind of stuff which I think is typical for the beer industry. The problem is you’re competing with thirty other people on the packaging team that want the same thing, so it was like a kind of a competitive environment. They just did not have the spaces opening for the number of people that they had but I was happy to be in a brewery and I was happy to be in an iconic brewery like Anchor. I mean they’re a cultural icon in San Francisco and I love their story and I loved being more connected to the city that I lived in.


I was originally hired on seasonally but soon I was a regular part time. At some point I was promoted to canning lead. By this time, I had discovered that I didn’t want to be a brewer, so I began wondering about the operations and management administration, the business side of the brewery. They gave me an opportunity to shadow someone in the supply chain, but it didn’t really look like there was going to be any opportunity there for a while and I got impatient. At this point I was broke and had no health care so I needed to find another job.


HH: Where did you end up next?
Matt: That’s whrn I applied to Speakeasy. They had a production assistant position and I applied but I wrote this cover letter where I said I’m looking to utilize my skills from school, I have a strong analytical math background, and I have Excel skills. I also said I’m looking for something with an opportunity for growth and they ended up calling me and saying look we actually have another position we haven’t listed yet we were thinking about hiring for. They didn’t really know what to call it, but their head brewer needs some help. He’s really busy, we just expanded the brewery, brand new brew house, brand new fermenters, brand new canning line, all this new equipment. He was so swamped with all of it that he didn’t have time to keep his spreadsheets, things like raw material management. They had a lot of metrics from the brewhouse that they were tracking but it all had to be done by hand. They were dumping all the metrics by hand into an Excel sheet and it was a mess. He didn’t know what he was doing in Excel, so I walked into the interview and showed him a pivot table and it blew his mind. The interview wasn’t very long, he sat down at the bar and he asked if I wanted a beer and I was like is this some sort of like Jedi mind trick do I say yes or no? And he’s like don’t worry this isn’t a trick, I’m having a beer too, okay? So, we had a beer and I showed him a little bit of stuff in Excel and he showed me the brewery and I was there for maybe 45 minutes.


So, I got that job which was cool, and it was really open-ended when I was hired. Kushal Hall was the head brewer at Speakeasy at the time. He was a really great guy and is now running a brewery down in LA now called Commonspace. He was looking for someone who’s self-managed, like you know I want you to come in and clean up these spreadsheets and do some other things but find projects. Find things that need to be done in this brewery and find ways to help. The first few months was just kind of organizing raw materials, tracking all the production, kind of getting that stuff in line. Even things like reporting finished goods that came off the packaging line, that stuff needed to be cleaned up. They were tracking everything once it got on the truck to leave the brewery to go to the cold storage but they weren’t able to trace things like packaging, what their yield coming off the canning line was, because all they knew was what went out and they weren’t relating that back to how much volume was in the bright tank and things like that. This is a newly expanded brewery and they had a lot of little practices that weren’t in place yet, so I was able to kind of come in and find some neat little projects like that to work.


I don’t know how much detail you want to go into about Speakeasy because that was a long, interesting story.


HH: Let’s hear all of the nitty gritty.
Matt: I think it was about six or seven months into the job and I was pretty happy. I was kind of running out of stuff to do and Kushal started handing me all the raw material management piece which was pretty fun, so I started doing all the ordering for the hops and malt and started working with him on the long-term contracts for the hops. They were extremely bullish coming into the new brewery and after seeing huge increases they’re jumping from 8,000 to 12,000 to 15,000 to 20,000 and then we got up to the 35,000 mark. They were expecting to see 50,000 barrels the following year and I think they projected that within five years they were going to hit a capacity of 90,000 barrels out of that facility. They had three-year contracts sitting out in 2018-2019 to basically be brewing 60 to 70 thousand barrels and this just wasn’t going to happen. There was a lot of things that went into that, they had planned on opening a lot of new markets and we did, but the the supply chain wasn’t there. I learned about supply chain a whole lot later but at the time I didn’t really understand why it didn’t work.


So, they’re opening new markets but if you can’t get the beer there on time and you can’t keep the wholesaler in stock and you know all sorts of problems like that. I’m assuming that’s partially what happened with the sales side and then also the industry started consolidating at that time, so a number of factors came together to really start bringing problems in for the brewery. It was right around that time that unfortunately Kushal’s dad got sick, so Kushal left to go to LA to be with his family his dad. He passed away about six months later which was really sad. It was hard because Kushal had been one of those people who started on the bottling line and moved up to the head brewer. He was a huge piece of the brewery and the designer of this expansion of the brewery, so it was really hard for him to leave. He even told me this is more than a job. So, he left and at that time the financial situation the company was getting dire. He left, and a couple of other key people left, and it ended up just being this team of young people left with no experience trying to run this company. Money was really tight, and we were waiting for checks to clear from wholesalers before we could order raw materials. It became a mess.


They hired a new head brewer, but he didn’t work out very well. He was an extremely talented brewer, but it was a brewery where the head brewer is more of a manager and administrator, an operational manager not really a brewer. He just wanted to brew and didn’t want to deal with the rest of it. I think that he didn’t really have the perspective or the skills necessary the job but on the other hand it was a near impossible task. I don’t think anybody could have survived in that position. I really think the company was already in such dire straits that there was no chance for anyone to come in and rescue the place.


He was let go and they brought in a new head brewer. I was asked to step into a million different roles. I was doing the production scheduling and we also were at the same time onboarding a NetSuite based ERP. It was from a new company and they basically modified an existing NetSuite ERP platform to fit breweries. I was asked to head that and then also step into this production planning role which the owner assumed that this ERP was going to take care of all that. It didn’t. It helped me with raw materials and it helped me track production a little bit better but as far as planning goes, I mean there was no forecasting, there was no demand planning, it’s still like I was still running the same spreadsheet as before. We were maintaining QuickBooks during the transition and we never got to the point where we were running the ERP as the sole accounting platform. The whole thing was a mess but it kind of led to my understanding of the importance of software technology in beer. After things finally came to a head, the bank came in and closed the brewery and laid everyone off.


HH: All told, how long were you at Speakeasy?
Matt: That was all in the space of a year and a half. It went really fast. Kushal and I are still in touch, so we talked in depth when all this stuff was going on. He said he felt kind of bad he hired me at that time when he knew the company was in trouble already. I said don’t feel bad, I mean look at the opportunity that it’s handed to me. I came in to fix spreadsheets and by the end of it I was managing an onboarding of an ERP, doing production planning, and managing all the raw materials and contracts. There were some bad parts but I also happy with the experience it gave me.


HH: So, what came next?
Matt: I took some time off. I wasn’t in a rush to find a job. I was on unemployment and I had some savings. I also ended up getting a settlement from Speakeasy because they didn’t pay us for our last two weeks of work because the bank shut down all the bank accounts. In California if you’re laid off and not paid on your last day you can get up to 30 days of your wage. I had a vacation planned like literally the week after I lost my job for two weeks, so I had two weeks of PTO, so I got those two weeks of PTO, two weeks of pay, and then several months later I got another month a pay. So, I hung out, traveled, kept homebrewing a lot. I also spent some time thinking about the role of technology in beer, did some research into what software systems are out there, and stumbled across GP.


HH: As we all have. [Note: Matt and I are coworkers and both sort of found about of current jobs by accident.]
Matt: Right? Before I applied at GP Analytics, I interviewed at Deschutes Brewery for the raw materials manager job. They flew me up and I got to see Bend, but I didn’t get the job. I started looking for beer jobs in Bend and I kind of stumbled across GP Analytics. I thought this looks awesome, but I couldn’t really figure out what the hell they did based on the website. There wasn’t a lot of information out there, so I was like MRP, I’ve never even heard of that. So, I’m like googling MRP and I’m like trying to figure out what it is that they do but it seemed interesting. I thought I should just blindly drop in a resume, but I didn’t because I was leaving for Europe in like a week or two. I figured I would wait till I got back before I did that and then like two days before I was leaving, I was on Indeed.com and I saw the data analyst position pop up for GP. I applied, and they called me the next day. I did the Excel test the day before I left for Europe and then I got the call from the Megan (recruiter for GP Analytics) while I was in Belgium and did an interview from Brussels.


I interviewed again the day I got back still jet-lagged. Two weeks later I was in Bend. I think what GP is doing is really interesting and I think we’re going to continue to see an expanded role of technology and data in the beer industry. Beer is a particularly interesting industry in that it’s kind of lagged behind a lot of others in its use of data specifically. It will also be interesting to see what it will mean for craft beer culture. Craft beer has always been a fun industry because it’s been very neighborly, people help each other out, and practices as far as actual brewing and production have always been shared. There are very few secrets when it comes to production methods of brewing and if technological knowledge is shared the same way that would be great. I just hope that we aren’t entering an era of increased competitiveness and I hope that that doesn’t start to drive a culture apart.


HH: What has been the biggest learning curve with your current job?
Matt: I think for me the biggest learning curve was having a client-facing job. I’ve never been in that kind of position. That was a big learning experience for me, being on weekly calls, answering questions and, having to be on point.


HH: Do you have any beer-related goals, career or otherwise?
Matt: Oh yeah, sure. Let’s start with the easiest which is home brewing. There are a number of styles I’d like to continue mastering. I’d also like to learn a lot more about the chemistry behind the beer. I know very basic stuff, just enough to get me through home brewing, so I’d like to learn more about the water chemistry, the mash chemistry, etc.


For travel goals there are a million places I want to visit to drink beer. I would really like to go back to Belgium and northern France. I went to Fantome when I was in Europe, but I want to explore the origin of those farm house beers plus I didn’t get to any of the Trappist breweries when I was there, so I definitely have to take a trip someday back to Brussels.
And just kind of like we were talking about, I want to continue to explore the role of data and technology at breweries. I think there’s room to help them run better businesses which would allow breweries to focus on their beer. As the industry begins to consolidate and you see things slowing down the businesses that operationally are running efficient can put more effort into making better beer.


HH: Here’s a big question: favorite beers/breweries?
Matt: This is a hard question. I know there’s so many. Oh geez, well since we talked a lot about farmhouse, I’m a big fan of those. I guess we could start locally. I like a lot of Logsdon beers. I’m also really like Boulevard and Stillwater Artisanal.


I’m a big fan of Fantome mostly because I like the guy who runs it. I was lucky enough to spend some time with him when I was in Belgium. He only speaks French and like broken English, so we had a very interesting conversation. He spoke enough English that we were able to you know spend an hour together, which was really cool. He’s only open on the weekends and I could only come see him on a Friday, so I emailed him and he said yeah, just come by. They’re about an hour and a half outside of Brussels so I just spent the night nearby, hung out with them, and got to see the brewery. He’s very independent and just kind of does his own thing, experiments and sometimes it doesn’t work out and it’s like who cares because it doesn’t matter. They cultured their own yeast strain which is proprietary. I think he said it was his brother or brother-in-law who helped him do that and now it’s stored at White Labs so if his batch ever gets old or messed up, he could call them and have them send a new one over. I just love his independent streak and he stands by what he does, and he has no shame about it. When I was there, he said people have approached him with money to expand but he’s like you know a very French man and thinks this is fine, this enough. The taproom is just like two little taps. It’s tiny but a really cool spot. Really cool guy, I love that he stands by what he does and doesn’t care what other people think.


HH: What about one here in Bend?
Matt: It’s hard because I like different breweries for different reasons. Sunriver Brewing for their hoppy beers. For anything hop forward its Sunriver and in my opinion they are pretty decently ahead of everyone else and I think by a pretty wide margin. I like Crux Fermentation Project for lagers and various styles. I think they do lagers really well and you can go there get out of the box things no one else in Bend is brewing. I really like Ale Apothecary although I’d hardly ever drink it, unless I’m ready to spend a bunch of money. I don’t blame them for their price point, I understand that their process is expensive and what they do is extremely difficult and time-consuming you know. It’s the same as Cascade in Portland. It takes time to make the beers that they’re making, and I love that they’re super connected to their region.


HH: Got to love some quality terroir.
Matt: Yep. They’re some of my favorites because of the really interesting stuff that you’re doing. Someday when I make much more money I’ll buy more of their beer and again not dissing them. I can understand their price point. I always bring it back to wine it’s like 30 bucks a bottle online, which is along the same line. Beer is just as good as your expensive wine.
HH: Thanks for your time, Matt!

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Hop Trip Eugene

As far as I’m concerned there are three powerhouse beer towns in Oregon: Bend, Portland, and Eugene. I am very familiar with the first two (having lived in both) but my knowledge of Eugene breweries has come more slowly. Why? No offense to the beer loving citizens of Eugene, but I kind of hate Eugene. Now hear me out. My first few trips to Eugene were for work for a job I didn’t really like and since the aforementioned company was based in Eugene, I worked with many Oregon Ducks fans who are often really annoying. Most of them were wonderful people otherwise but when the conversation turned to college football, ugh, it was annoying and tiresome. It probably also doesn’t help that I earned my master’s degree from the University of Washington, a noted rival of the University of Oregon. Is all of this Eugene’s fault? No, not really, but I want to get my rant about this damp, patchouli scented den of homeless people and college students out of the way before I talk about the beer. Let it also serve as an explanation as to why I don’t really go into further detail about the city outside of the beer. Citizens of Eugene, feel free to call me out on this but I’ll warn you that I have two friends who live in Eugene so I have heard all of the defenses of your fair city already. Now with that out of the way, onto the beer.

 

 Southern Food? Yes please.

While doing my research for these trips I take deep dives into each brewery’s website, seeing not only what beer they have on offer but what food options they have going on. The latter is what drove me to Elk Horn Brewery (also the fact that I’d never had their beer before). Elk Horn specializes in southern food, from BBQ to fried chicken to gumbo and fried okra. I had the Cajun Chicken sandwich (basically fried chicken on a bun) while my husband tried their pulled pork sandwich. Both were delicious and this place has really good fries (I am a connoisseur of fried potatoes so I like to think I know a good fry when I taste it).

There’s a lot of dead stuff on the walls which is…interesting

An array of beers

Elk Horn also has a nice selection of brews on tap. I sampled the Velvet Antler Red, a balanced red ale that was perfect for the start of fall, and the Scoggin’s Common, an easy drinking California Common. Side note: I love a California Common and wished more breweries brewed that style. My husband had the Hoppy Kettle Sour and the Lemon Blonde both of which were pretty tasty (especially the Lemon Blonde).

Hoppy Kettle Sour and Velvet Antler Red

 

No Sir, I will not fall in that hole

Our next stop was Coldfire Brewing which is currently surrounded by some street construction (including the nice man with the Ditch Witch who warned me to not fall into the giant hole they had just dug near the sidewalk). Coldfire’s tasting room is a little hidden away, sandwiched between Skinner Butte Park and the Willamette River. The space is similar to a lot of newer tasting rooms: open floor plan, small patio, a nice view of several of the fermentation tanks, and a food truck out back. By calling it similar, however, I am not trying to infer that it is bad. Far from it. The tap room has a nice chill feel while still being industrial (a combination I thoroughly enjoy) and most importantly, serves some excellent beer. Also, fun thing to note about the industrial style: the fermentation tanks are all named (and are all ladies). Forgot to ask if there was a meaning behind the names so fair readers, if you know, drop me a line.

Tap List @ Coldfire

Hello Ladies

I had sampled some of Coldfire’s beer prior to this visit as they do some distribution to Bend. I bought a four pack of their St. James IRA a few months back and enjoyed it very much, so I knew that this was definitely a place I wanted to visit next time I was in Eugene. I knew that Coldfire was the place for me as soon as I spotted the tap list and saw a dry hopped Brett Saison on there (a Brett Saison is one of my favorite styles and I will sample one whenever I see it). Their Brett Saison Seeds of Infinity did not disappoint either. So fucking good, you guys. They also bottle this beer so you can bet that I also bought a bottle to bring home with me. While visiting I also sampled the Stylish Kolsch which is crisp, clean, and delightful on a warm day (also bonus points because they served it in the appropriate glassware). My husband went with the Cumulus Tropicalus (a hazy IPA, a four pack of which also came home with us) and Peaches and Dreams (a peach sour which was very subtle and not overpowered by peach flavor).

Stylish Kolsch and Peaches and Dreams

These penguins were above our table and I liked them

 

The Hoppiest of Valleys

Now, I am fully aware that some beer nerds have a serious issue with macro breweries of any kind. I am not one of those people so be forewarned that I am about to say some nice things about a brewery that is owned by Miller Coors. Everyone prepared to deal with that? Good. Hop Valley Brewing has been a favorite of mine since I started drinking craft beer (back when they were still technically a craft brewery) and as far as I’m concerned still make some of the best widely distributed IPAs in the Pacific Northwest, which was why their downtown tap room was our last stop of the day. (I also have two friends that work there who I was meeting up with). This was my first visit to this location (I have previously visited their pub in Springfield, OR which I would also recommend) and was pretty impressed. This location has a large patio out front, a wood paneled tap room near the main bar, and another space that is primarily utilized for private events. It’s definitely a good place to chill and have a beer and a snack (I would recommend the soft pretzel).

Hop Valley Taproom

Tap list

Tap list continued

 

If I have an issue with some larger breweries’ tasting rooms, it can be a lack of experimental beers. Unlike their close neighbor Ninkasi (who I love and makes one of my favorite reds but who only serve their core beers at their tap room-although I’m hoping this may change with their upcoming expansion) Hop Valley has an excellent experimental program and has a number of those beers on tap at any given time. While there I sampled their Mango and Stash, a fruiter version of their core offering Bubble Stash, and Ripple, a pale ale. I may have had a third beer as well but at this point I was neglecting my reporting duties in lieu of having fun.

 

To finish off the evening my husband and I headed over to Cuthbert Amphitheater where we had tickets for Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphys. Great concert, nice outdoor venue, and the fourteenth time I have seen Flogging Molly (side note about me: Flogging Molly is one of my absolute favorite bands and I have loved them since I discovered them my senior year of high school). If you have not had the pleasure of hearing their music before, let me share. They always put on a great live show and that night was no exception.

Flogging Molly (yes, that is the guy from Fastway)

 

One last word to the wise about Eugene: do not visit on a weekend when there is a University of Oregon football game happening. It is busy everywhere and good luck finding a hotel. Also don’t be a dumb dumb like me and get tickets for a concert the weekend before school starts at said university.

 

Happy drinking, my friends! Prost!

 

Hop Trip PDX

Ah Portland. My former home and a place I have come to love and hate in just about equal measure. However, I will exclude the hate from this post and talk about one of the reasons I love Portland so very much: beer! It is one of the American beer meccas and with good reason. It has 75 breweries and counting within city limits and some of the biggest names in the industry work, or have worked, for one of Portland’s breweries. I mean they call the city Beervana for a reason. You get it.

In short, Portland is all about the craft beer and this is the first of what I assume will be many Portland Hop Trips. So let’s get going!

 

Why Camas?

Our first stop isn’t technically in Portland but as it is counted as part of the Portland Metro area I’m going to include it. Camas is a smaller city on the eastern side of Vancouver, Washington and comprises part of the Portland Metro that resides on the Washington side of the Columbia River. So why Camas? Two reasons: my sister-in-law lives there and there’s beer. My husband’s youngest sister lives on the edge of Camas in the middle of nowhere (because she hates people and wants to make it very difficult for people to come see her-sorry, Mary, but it’s true) so our Hop Trip started there to see her and get in some baby cuddles (her son is a year and a half).

While you may not guess it driving around Camas (especially with the paper mill which likes to stink up the entire area if the wind is blowing in the right direction) there are a couple of top notch breweries in town. Our first stop was a place I’d been before in the heart of downtown Camas (which is like 3 blocks long): Mill City Brew Werks. It looks like any other pub style restaurant (i.e. not terribly exciting) but don’t let looks fool you, these guys make some quality beer. They also have an adorable intro video you can watch here. This place is not about fads and tend to stick to more Germanic beer styles (the last time I was here the owner told us all about the yeast strain that their family brought over from Germany so I suppose that focus makes sense). As such we stuck with those styles in our sampling: I had the Kolsch while my husband went for the Hefeweizen. The Kolsch was crisp, clean, and absolutely perfect since it was way too fucking hot that day (more on that later). I also recommend their food which is all sourced locally and pretty damn delicious.

Mill City Brew Werks Kolsch

Best beer in Camas

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