C OV ER S T ORY
C4 Sunday, November 14, 2010 • THE BULLETIN
Portland brewpubs
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99E
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PORTLAND
42nd Ave.
Killingsworth St.
Alberta St.
Fremont St. 33rd Ave.
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15th Ave.
1
Dekum St.
Broadway 84
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Glisan St.
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Burnside St. 4
Stark St. Morrison St.
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New spins on old beers
Hawthorne Blvd. 99E
405
11th Ave.
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Martin Luther King Blvd.
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5
Grand Ave.
3
30
Albina Ave.
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Amnesia Brewing Company: 832 N. Beech St. (North Mississippi); 503-281-7708 Breakside Brewery: 820 N.E. Dekum St. (Woodlawn); 503-719-6475, breaksidebrews.com Cascade Brewing Barrel House: 939 S.E. Belmont St. (Belmont); 503-265-8603, www.cascadebrewingbarrelhouse.com Coalition Brewing Co.: 2724 S.E. Ankeny St. (Laurelhurst); 503-894-8080, www.coalitionbrewing.com Columbia River Brewing: 1728 N.E. 40th Ave. (Hollywood); 503-943-6147, www.columbiariverbrewpub.com Hair of the Dog Brewing Company: 61 S.E. Yamhill St. (Inner Southeast); 503-232-6585, www.hairofthedog.com Hopworks Urban Brewery: 2944 S.E. Powell Blvd.; 503-232-4677, http://hopworksbeer.com Migration Brewing Co.: 2828 N.E. Glisan St. (Laurelhurst); 503-206-5221, migrationbrewing.com Upright Brewing Company: 240 N. Broadway, Suite 2 (Rose Quarter); 503-735-5337, www.uprightbrewing.com Widmer Brothers Brewing Company: 929 N. Russell St. (Albino); 503-281-2437, www.widmer.com
Interstate Ave.
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Greg Cross / The Bulletin
Portland Continued from C1 Burkhardt said his enthusiasm for brewing began more than 30 years ago when he and his wife visited her family home in England. Beguiled by Old World beers at a time when the American craft brewing industry was in its infancy, he began experimenting with blends of malts and hops. He has quickly earned a strong local following, thanks both to his quality beers and to a kitchen that turns out everything from burgers to fish and chips, Italian pastas to sushi rolls. The chef, Josh Pickles, is a graduate of the Western Culinary Institute and the Burkhardts’ son-in-law. “We want to stay true to this location,” Rick Burkhardt said of the spacious pub, just a half-block off Sandy Boulevard. “Our goal is not to expand our number of pubs, but to expand our production with commercial accounts.”
Oregon Brewers Guild Retail beer sales, of course, are what enable all of these small brewing operations to succeed. That’s where the Oregon Brewers Guild comes in. The trade organization was established in 1992 to cooperatively promote the state’s smaller breweries. According to Executive Director Brian Butenschoen, that includes every Oregon brewery, even large producers with national distribution such as Portland’s Widmer Brothers Brewing Company and Bend’s Deschutes
Photos by John Gottberg Anderson / For The Bulletin
The Widmer Brothers Brewing Company is Oregon’s largest beermaker, with a production of 286,000 barrels in 2009. It recently merged with Seattle’s Redhook and Hawaii’s Kona brewing companies to form the Craft Brewers Alliance. Brewery. “Any brewery that produces under 2 million barrels a year is considered ‘small,’ ” Butenschoen said. Widmer is the state’s largest producer. Now the flagship brew-
ery of the Craft Brewers Alliance, whose other companies include Seattle’s Redhook and Hawaii’s Kona, it turns out 286,000 barrels a year. Deschutes is next with 185,000, followed by Full Sail Brewing (Hood River), Rogue
A bar attendant at Coalition Brewing awaits a patron’s verdict on a tasting flight of eight beers. The Laurelhurst-area pub encourages home brewers to design and brew their own ales with the assistance of head brewer Bruce MacPhee.
No longer are brewers sticking to classical styles of lagers, pale ales, porters and stouts, said Brian Butenschoen, of the Oregon Brewers Guild. Metropolitan Portland is seeing a trend to more sour, farmhouse, barrel-aged and Belgian-style ales.
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Ales (Newport) and BridgePort Brewing (Portland), according to statistics provided by the Colorado-based Brewers Association. One barrel is equal to 31 gallons. “Last year,” Butenschoen said, “a total of 1.05 million barrels of beer were made in Oregon. That is only one-half of 1 percent of all the beers made in the United States.” Butenschoen said half of all U.S. beers are produced by AnheuserBusch, including Budweiser and Michelob. The recently merged MillerCoors corporation, he said, is a not-so-close second. But with 67 of Oregon’s 79 breweries enrolled as members of the Oregon Brewers Guild, Butenschoen has little time to focus on what the “big boys” are doing. Nor, quite frankly, does he care.
“What’s happening in craft brewing in Oregon is unique in the United States,” Butenschoen told me over pints of Beck Berry beer at the Cascade Brewing Barrel House in southeast Portland. “Nobody is doing as many things in one place at one time.” No longer are brewers sticking to classical styles of lagers, pale ales, porters and stouts, he said. The metropolitan area is seeing a trend to more sour, farmhouse, barrel-aged and Belgian-style ales. Cascade Brewing (not associated with Central Oregon’s Cascade Lakes Brewing Company) is a perfect example. Owner Art Larrance, co-founder of the annual Oregon Brewers Festival, and his brewmaster, Ron Gansberg, broke away from the “traditional” beer trend about five years ago. Investing in used wine barrels rather than stainless-steel tanks, they chose to focus on a sour style of beer while steering clear of the popular Belgian style. Lactic bacteria (lactobacillus) is used in place of yeast to ferment the beer, producing moderate acidity but leaving residual body and sweetness. “Their techniques are more akin to winemaking than beermaking,” Butenschoen explained. “It’s actually like a day of beermaking, using regional hops, and a year of winemaking.” Larrance has operated the Raccoon Lodge & Brew Pub in southwest Portland’s Raleigh Hills neighborhood since 1998. But the showcase for his sour production, the Barrel House, opened less than two months ago, on Sept. 22. It’s a handsome spot, occupying a former produce warehouse
at the corner of Southeast Belmont Street and 10th Avenue. A brick exterior faces upon a streetside courtyard of picnic tables; the light-wood interior features a wall of taps dispensing sour beers directly through the wall of the cooler. It’s a good starting point for a beer lover’s pub crawl through east Portland. On a recent weekend visit — in addition to the Cascade Barrel House and Columbia River Brewing — these were some of my favorites.
East Portland What I like best about the Coalition Brewing Co. is its “coalator program.” Owners Kiley Hoyt and Elan Walsky kindled their interest in custom beers through home brewing, and now they are encouraging others to develop their skills. Amateur brewers may sign up to work directly with head brewer Bruce MacPhee in designing and brewing a beer of their chosen style: a pale ale, for instance, or a porter. The first batch is evaluated and tweaked, then brewed a second time and served at the pub. If it is well-received, the home brewer may be asked to brew a new batch
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on the pub’s 10-barrel system. Coalition Brewing is an intimate spot located in the former digs of the Noble Rot wine bar, in the Laurelhurst district off East Burnside Street. The staff is so friendly, you’re likely to be introduced to their resident dogs and other pets, after whom some of the beers are named. I sampled a tasting flight of eight beers; my favorites were Bump’s Bitter ESB, an Englishstyle bitter, and Two Dogs IPA, a hoppy India pale ale. The selection also included a stout, a maple porter, a cream ale, a red ale, a pale ale and a new-release freshhop ale. The food menu (priced $5 to $10) featured mainly hot sandwiches, salads and bar snacks. Continued on next page
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