Breakside Brewery's Woodlawn IPA

Bono from U2 still may not have found what he’s looking for, but I think I did. I stopped by Breakside Brewery on Sunday for a pint; a place I don't frequent often just because it's a little off the radar from the small radius I’ve defined around my house. At Breakside, I ordered one of their fairly new additions, an IPA appropriately named ‘Woodlawn’ for the neighborhood the brewery resides in. My first sip had me. This was the summer session-like IPA that I‘ve been after. It had the perfect balance of hops and a crispness to it that assisted in quenching my thirst on the warm day I was there. I’m no expert at describing beer, so here’s an excerpt I snagged from Breakside’s website:

Woodlawn IPA
A new addition to our full-time lineup, this second IPA showcases four pungent American hops that we don’t use in our regular IPA: Newport, Amarillo, Cascade, and Chinook. It is slightly darker, more full bodied and less bitter than our flagship beer, and at under 6% ABV, it’s a hoppy beer that you can drink all day long.

5.4% ABV
49 IBU

Until we meet again my new, dearest friend, Mr.Woodlawn.

Beer, The Food Scrap Compost Bin and Fruit Flies

Ever since we started using the food scraps compost bin provided by the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (www.portlandcomposts.com) I have noticed an ever increasing presence of fruit flies in our house. Prior, we had hardy an issue. Yes, occasionally one or two of these small, winged flies, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, would come out of the wood work and make an appearance when a bottle of wine was uncorked. Today, they're now permanent members of our household. I blame the food scrap bin for these additional free loading “fifteen hundred bass drum-lugging bug-eyed monkeys”*. We empty the bin into our green roll cart on a daily basis and wash it frequently, but that hasn’t made a dent. We now have official occupiers living in our house. They enjoy sipping on my beer too and that’s where I draw the line. Let the battle commence. Mayor Sam Adams, what would you do?

Our new, free loading tenants.
(Image: Wikipedia)

*PUSA - Back Porch

Humulus Maximus Festivus 2012

Plew’s Brews, located in the lovely St. John’s neighborhood of Portland has another great event taking place on August 10th and 11th dubbed Humulus Maximus Festivus. If you love your IPAs then this is a must attend event. Plew’s will be serving up 22+ single, double, and imperial IPAs from Oregon and beyond. We’ll be there as well on Saturday manning the Eyeluvbeer Mobile Headquarters. A big thank you goes out to Plew’s for having us back!

Event:	Humulus Maximus Festivus
Venue:	Plew’s Brews
Address:	8409 N. Lombard St., Portland, Oregon 97203
Date:	Friday, August 10th and Saturday, August 11th
Time:	Noon until Midnight

Here are details from the press release provided by Thurston Beervents:

Ninkasi Brewing, Plew’s Brews, and Thurston Beervents present the first annual Humulus Maximus Festivus. A celebration of hops in the most extreme to mild IPA’s!

We present to you over 22 single, double, and imperial IPA’s from across the U.S. and beyond. These range from four local favorites by Ninkasi to Aegir IPA from Denmark, the only keg to come into Oregon this year!

Plew’s Brews is located in the beautiful St. John’s neighborhood. In the cut and on the front lines of the craft beer revolution, Plew’s has defied the status quo at the edge of Portland. Plew’s Brews is at 8409 N. Lombard St., Portland, Oregon 97203.

August 10th and 11th, we’ll get things started at noon and close at midnight. Glasses will be $5 and tickets are $2 a piece for a taster. Some of the more expensive beers will be double-price, but most will be a single ticket.

The lupulin awaits!

IPA Day 2012

Are you ready to get your IPA Day on? It’s happening this Thursday, August 2nd. This will be the 2nd time for this annual calendar event to make an appearance. The famed Beer Wench, who maintains the well written and thoroughly enjoyable blog ‘Drink with The Wench’ along with Ryan Ross of Karl Strauss Brewing Company, established IPA Day. So what’s IPA Day? I'll let the Beer Wench fill you in. Below is an excerpt from her blog:

“IPA Day is not the brainchild of a corporate marketing machine, nor is it meant to serve any particular beer brand. IPA Day is opportunity for all breweries, bloggers, businesses and consumers to connect and share their love of craft beer. It is an opportunity for the entire craft beer culture to combine forces and advocate craft beer through increased education and global awareness.”

IPA is my go to beer as I’m sure it is for many of you. Why then have a special day to celebrate it? I think you should always celebrate what you love. There’s a history behind every beer and IPA has an interesting one. Do some research and see what you find. Here’s a great post I came across on Martyn Cornell’s ‘Zythophile’ site concerning the myths surrounding IPA: http://zythophile.wordpress.com/2011/08/04/four-ipa-myths-that-need-to-be-stamped-out-for-ipaday/

IPA Day will be a regular international occurrence for years to come and certainly something to look forward to. I highly recommend hitting up The Beer Wench’s fabulous site for all of the details on this 1st Thursday of every August event.

Cheers fellow and future IPA lovers!

IKEA Beer?

I might just go to IKEA with my Fiancé if they start serving beer in their US stores. Yeah right, who am I kidding. I highly doubt that would convince my somewhat sane mind to go shopping at the mega-limited directions included-mega store. First off, who even eats at IKEA? I know I haven’t. I’m not saying their food isn’t good. It could possibly be some of the finest culinary cuisine. Tripadvisor gives Portland’s IKEA Café a 4 star rating. I just think it’s a strange concept that’s all. A lot of big box stores serve food, and a majority of it doesn’t look very appetizing. I look at it as filler material. It’s there to give you additional fuel when you feel you just don’t have enough stamina left to conquer their massive store. It also keeps you from leaving. They want you to stay. Hell, why not just move in. I will confess I do love the soft serve ice cream cones from Costco’s snack bar. They alone occasionally lure me in on a hot day. The cone costs about a $1 and tastes amazing. What’s not to love? Perhaps that’s what IKEA is banking on by now offering (2) styles of beer at their UK locations. If they can make a decent, inexpensive “Swedish” beer maybe that’s enough to entice a few of us non-shopaholic hop lovers into their massive blue and yellow buildings. If this idea is successful in the UK I’m sure we’ll see IKEA’s beer in stateside stores soon.

Mississippi Street Fair 2012

We had a great experience working at the Mississippi Street Fair last Saturday. It was our first time participating as a vendor. In previous years we hosted breakfast at our house for friends and then walked 4 blocks over to the main event. I will admit, I did miss meandering the street and checking out the sights, but it sure was nice to be under a canopy somewhat protected from the heat of the sun. However, this year’s weather was rather mild compared to the sizzling temperatures that are typically present. No matter how hot it gets though, people still flock to Mississippi Ave. for this special event. It’s definitely one of the best street fairs in Portland! Of course I’m bias, because I live in the neighborhood. Seriously though, with 275+ local vendors, an amazing food selection, great live music on five different stages and a craft beer garden you certainly can’t go wrong. Speaking of beer, since this supposed to be a blog about it, the craft beer garden was selling 16oz. brews for only $4! I was pleasantly surprised as I’m sure a lot of other people were. I was expecting Rose Garden prices.

$4, 16oz. Double Mountain
Vaporizer pre-crowd.

Our whole day was spent talking to our neighboring vendors and the attendees. Everyone was very nice, including the Mississippi Street Fair staff that would stop by every now and then to ask how things were going. Overall, it looked like it was another successful year of celebrating what the Mississippi Avenue neighborhood has to offer. The best part is that a portion of the event’s proceeds went to Boise-Eliot Elementary and the Boise Business Youth Unity Project.

My buddy Mark volunteered to help me out.  Thank
The Lord , and Mark of course!

The Rainier Beers stopped by to say hello with their owners.

Bowser Beer. A Dog's Best Friend.

My sister emailed me a MSN article on a new beer that made me chuckle. It’s a beer for man’s best friend. Yes, it’s for your dog and it’s called Bowser Beer. Bowser Beer is a non-alcoholic, hop-free malty concoction that comes in beef or chicken flavor. It even contains glucosamine to help keep Fido’s joints in good health. My dog wants nothing to do with our human beer, but I’m really tempted to purchase a six pack to see what his reaction would be to Bowser Beer. As mentioned, this beer is hop-free. Hops can be potentially toxic to dogs. So, if your dog does like beer, you may want to email your furry friend a link to Bowser Beer so they can enjoy their frothy beverage responsibly.

You can even add a custom label!
Add your dog's pic and name the beer!