Stylish beer in Oregon

In Oregon, as in Colorado, just about every small town has its own brewery, and the larger cities have several.

I just spent more than a week traveling around Oregon, getting a sense of the beer landscape along the way. Things are good, and in some ways a step ahead of what Colorado craft brewers are doing.

Craft brewers in Oregon, having mastered the arts of the hop bomb and barrel-aged strong ale, are looking farther afield for inspiration. Most remarkably, I had three beer styles I'd never before encountered: Gruit, Gose and Berliner Weisse.

Gruit is perhaps the strangest and most unusual of the three, a hopless beer with a markedly different flavor profile from most ales. Gruit needs something else to stand in for hops, balancing the malt and making the beer drinkable.

Oakshire's Mountain Rose Gruit

The Gruit I had was Mountain Rose Gruit from Oakshire Brewing in Eugene. Oakshire used a crazy variety of herbs to spice the beer: mugwort, dandelion root, dandelion leaf, burdock root, licorice root, milk thistle seed, blessed thistle, chamomile flower and grapefruit peel.

The result was an herbaceous, almost sweet beer that finishes dry (7 percent ABV). It's not totally dissimilar from a saison brewed with herbs, or even rose tea, but you do notice the lack of any hop flavor whatsoever. Interesting, and a good sipping beer, but not a beer you want to toss down your gullet.

The Oakshire Gruit was pouring at The Bier Stein in Eugene, which beer journalist Lisa Morrison says has the biggest selection of bottles between Portland and San Francisco. Gazing at the stocked refrigerators, it's easy to believe. 

Perhaps the best beer I had on the trip came from Upright Brewing, a small brewery in Portland that makes innovative farmhouse ales meant to be paired with food. The Gose, a spring seasonal, is a slightly tart wheat beer brewed with a light touch of salt and coriander. An old German style (detailed information here from the Portland blog Brewpublic), Gose is seeing a minor comeback on the West Coast.

Upright Brewing's Gose

Upright's version (5.2 percent ABV) was fascinating: refreshing like a hefeweizen, but much more complex and flavorful due to the lactobacillus tartness. The salt and coriander were deftly restrained.

I've had about a half-dozen Upright beers now and been impressed by each, but I think the Gose was the most interesting.

Finally, Block 15, a relatively young brewpub in the college town of Corvallis, had several noteworthy beers on tap but most unusually a Berliner Weisse.

A very pale and low-alcohol summer beer style that also hails from Germany, Berliner Weisse looks and tastes a little like lemonade. In fact, it's popular to mix with syrups.

At only 3 percent ABV, Block 15's Berliner Weisse showed that beer doesn't have to be strong to be flavorful.

Block 15 Berliner Weisse

Rest assured, ridiculously good IPAs continue to proliferate in the homeland of American hops. But I quickly found myself tiring of hop bombs after visiting Double Mountain Brewing in Hood River and Walking Man Brewing across the Columbia River in Stevenson, Wash.

After a couple of sampler glasses, my palate could barely distinguish anything. Walking Man alone had a strong pale ale, two IPAs and an imperial IPA on tap. My taste buds were beaten into submission.

Fortunately, some of the little craft breweries in Oregon continue to stretch the definition of craft beer by reintroducing and reinterpreting some very old beer styles. After all, given the highly evolved state of American craft brewing, what's left to be discovered?

Another trip to Beervana

It's a wonderful thing to be from Oregon, that state that has served as a cradle for the craft-beer revolution. A visit to the ol' family for Christmas reintroduced me to some of the Beaver State's beers.

I tried a number of beers during my week there, but perhaps the most notable trend was one I first alluded to in September: Oregon brewers' continuing experimentation with IPAs.

Oregon breweries were on the forefront of releasing face-puckering, hoppy IPAs. Because of this, they are beginning to experiment with getting other flavors out of hop-forward IPAs besides bitter. It's a natural evolution of the IPA, and one that I find entirely welcome.

Terminal Gravity IPA (6.9 percent ABV) has a wonderful fruity taste bordering on sweet, from an up-and-coming brewery in Oregon's rural northeast corner.

A pub-only special at Deschutes Brewing Co.'s Portland pub, Fresh-squeezed IPA, had a sublime floral taste to go along with a gentle hop bite. Here's how Deschutes describes the IPA, which comes in at 6.5 percent ABV and 60 IBUs: "This experimental hop IPA is a 'citrus bomb' in every way. The aroma and flavor scream citrus. Three types of malt, one type of bittering hop and a whole lot of experimental aroma hops were all it took to create this delicious offering."

Other very impressive beers were Upright Brewing's Flora Rustica, an earthy, rustic saison brewed with Calendula flowers from the new Portland brewery; and a Marion Berry Wheat from the Block 15 brewpub in Corvallis. Marion berries are a blackberry hybrid, developed locally at Oregon State University, that imparted a pleasant, mild sweetness to this subtle fruit beer.

Durango breweries make a lot of fine beers, but sometimes it's rewarding to get out of the bubble and see what other brewers are doing. Cool stuff, it turns out.

Oregon brewings

I hope you'll excuse a long post about beer at sea level.

I grew up in Oregon before leaving in 2005, when I made a beeline for Durango.

Oregon proclaims itself "Beervana" for the huge number and variety of beers brewed there. I lived there long enough to appreciate some of the pioneering beers of Oregon brewing, like Mirror Pond Pale Ale and Widmer Hefeweizen.

Since I left, the old stalwarts - Deschutes, Rogue, Widmer - have gotten better, adding big, interesting beers to their lineups. (The Dissident, anyone?).

Meanwhile, numerous small breweries have opened. Ninkasi opened in Eugene in 2006 and has won respect for its relentlessly hop-forward ales. Hopworks Urban Brewery opened in southeast Portland in 2008, offering a full lineup of organic beers. Even my old hometown, Corvallis, got in on the party when Block 15 opened in an old pizzeria downtown.

I love Durango, but it's fun to visit where I came from. I recently had the chance to do just that, and check out several breweries along the way.

In Oregon, brewing is part of everyday life. Nearly every restaurant has a good selection of Oregon craft beer.

The day after arriving, we visited my girlfriend's uncle in east Portland. He had recently had a party, and of course he had two kegs of superior Oregon craft beer. What could be more natural? Of course one of them was a superb IPA, in this case Terminal Gravity IPA (6.9 percent ABV) from the tiny, isolated Eastern Oregon town of Enterprise.

For lunch, we went to Hopworks Urban Brewery, an all-organic brewery on Portland's east side. There I enjoyed a seasonal, Whoop Whoop Wit, a very light Belgian wheat that reminded me of New Belgium's Mothership Wit. I also enjoyed a pint of their HUB Lager (pictured, 5.1 percent ABV, 32 IBUs).

After that, it was down to Corvallis for a few days. My old hometown now has a brewpub, Block 15, in a downtown space that was formerly a pizzeria/college bar. During two visits, I tried Block 15's Printmaster Pale Ale (meh, 5.5 percent ABV, 34 IBUs), a strong ale called Aboriginale (yummy, 7.1, 50) and a "One Hop Wonder" IPA. Unfortunately, they were out of their Belgian Blonde, which I had looked forward to trying.

Of the three Block 15 beers I tried, the One Hop Wonder IPA was by far the best and most interesting. Most IPAs combine three or more types of hops. Block 15 showcases one hop at a time in its rotating One Hop Wonder IPA. When I visited, the featured hop was Sorachi Ace, a variety of which I was unfamiliar. The IPA (7 percent ABV, 60 IBUs) was bright, floral and excellent, a refreshing effort to showcase one hop rather than a muddle of varieties.

Block 15 was barrel-aging several interesting beers, so I look forward to a return visit.

In Eugene, I enjoyed a couple of beers at Steelhead Brewing while the Ducks embarrassed themselves against Boise State. The cask IPA was an excellent treat.

Then it was on to the coast. Rogue Brewing in Newport is among Oregon's oldest and largest breweries. It has to have one of the best settings for a brewery in the country, on the docks of Yaquina Bay. It's absolutely beautiful. (Don't bother with Rogue's tourist outlet downtown).

The tasting room is upstairs; one has to tromp through a smelly, wet brewery to get to the staircase. I found a seat near the window - where the above photo was taken - and opted for a sampler.

Since Rogue distributes several of its beers in Colorado, I chose rare and seasonal beers among the 27 on tap: Latona Pale Ale, brewed for the Oregon Brewer's Festival; Sesquicentennial 150, brewed to celebrate Oregon's birthday; Double Dead Guy, an imperial version of their Dead Guy Ale; and Russian Imperial Stout.

All of the above beers were fine; none were superb. I liked the Latona best. It was light in color and exhibited a malty body and pleasant hop bite.

Rogue is worth a visit for the view alone. They make some fine, hoppy ales, but other Oregon breweries have surpassed Rogue's quality.

One of these is Pelican Pub and Brewery in Pacific City, on the north coast. The beach adjoins the pub, and diners have a view of Haystack Rock, dory boats and surfers.

I tried a Kiwanda Cream Ale (pictured, 5. 1 percent ABV, 25 IBUs), one of Pelican's signature session beers. It pours a pale golden color with a big, fluffy white head, and a creamy texture. It was good, but I preferred the cask IPA my friend had. I bought several Pelican bottles, including a biere de garde and a Belgian-style brown ale, to enjoy later.

Pelican isn't cheap - pints run about $6 - but it's one of the best brewpubs in the country. Pelican is pushing the intriguing frontiers of Belgian-style craft brewing in America.

Lastly, I visited Fort George Brewery in Astoria, on the northwest tip of Oregon, where the Columbia meets the Pacific.

Fort George had a substantial selection on tap. I enjoyed a Quick Wit (pictured) and a Spank Stout. The beers were served in nearly overflowing mason jars. The wit was good, but I really liked the Spank Stout, a chili-infused, deep, black abyss. The spice had a pleasant kick.

Unfortunately, I missed Deschutes' brewpub in Portland, one of my favorite breweries around. Others were also neglected. When in Beervana, one simply cannot try everything.