NDSU vs Ducks Drink Beer in Oregon.

[Ode2Luke]

I’d forgotten about this website. It’s a pretty complete map of the state and worth a look if you’re serious about making/forgetting beer memories on your visit out here.

https://www.brewtodolist.com/oregon

[Ode2Luke]

We’re starting in Astoria Wednesday afternoon and making our way down, then over to Eugene Friday evening. One night in Seaside, the other in Newport. Thanks!

I mentioned some of the beer stops along the way, but as you get further south the options really “dry” up, there’s some good spots and you won’t be spoiled like you were in Astoria.

That said the southern coast of Oregon is beautiful. Newport is about an hour and a half north of Bandon and if you’re a golfer it’s a must stop. Rated in the top 3 courses in America a couple times now. The coast itself is gorgeous. The sea stacks and coastline are superior IMO to the northern coast, and if you’re into 4 wheeled adventure check out some of the options for racing around on the Oregon Dunes. 4 wheeling is about as close as we get to NASCAR out here and people take it seriously for a reason.

In Newport if you haven’t got plans and love fishing I’d highly recommend chartering a deep sea trip, halibut and salmon are mostly done, but Ling cod should just about be in season and albacore Tuna if you want a workout/adventure. You might end up exhausted with 100# of fresh tuna so plan accordingly. Fresh tuna if you’ve never had it vs canned Chicken of the Sea, is like comparing a fresh ear of sweet corn from your Grandma’s garden, to a can of mushy crap corn from Wal-Mart.

What I’d really suggest though for a short fishing and culinary experience is to take a short trip out and go crabbing for Dungeness crab. They’ll cook it on the dock for you and I’ve yet to find anything out of the sea that is as tasty as fresh Dungeness crab that you eat on a dock after fishing all day. If you show up with a cooler full of it at Autzen for a tailgate _EVERYONE_ will love you.

[scottietohottie]

Hey ducks if you got any bigfoot info check out the sasquatch thread and leave it there.

[Ode2Luke]

Junkyard and Drekker out here do a variation of these called “Milkshake IPAs” where they add vanilla, lactose, and sometimes some fruity adjuncts. Really fun.

Are these still popular in the Midwest? They popped up out here for a couple months last summer it seemed like, but got buried and discontinued pretty quickly. The “Brett” or sour IPA had a similar life cycle. I’m fascinated about regional tastes and styles.

[heffray]

Hey ducks if you got any bigfoot info check out the sasquatch thread and leave it there.

Lol yesssssss!!!

[heffray]

Are these still popular in the Midwest? They popped up out here for a couple months last summer it seemed like, but got buried and discontinued pretty quickly. The “Brett” or sour IPA had a similar life cycle. I’m fascinated about regional tastes and styles.

You’re right, I don’t see many of the milkshake ones from Junkyard anymore. They had a series they called “Shake-o-matic” with different varieties of adjuncts, but they are focusing more on regular NE IPAs and hop varieties, along with much better barrel program with a few imperial stouts. Drekker consistently has Lactose Double IPAs on tap and I haven’t seen too much new from them lately, although they just released some BA stouts but I didn’t get a chance to try them and they sold out quickly.

The sours are still going strong here. Junkyard just released a Double Smoothie Sour with raspberry and peach and it was really good. I’m not as big of a fan of the Sour IPAs, and again you’re right, I haven’t seen too many lately.

Damn I could talk about beer for hours.

[Ode2Luke]

The sours are still going strong here. Junkyard just released a Double Smoothie Sour with raspberry and peach and it was really good.

Damn I could talk about beer for hours.

I’m curious about your thoughts on sours and I’m wondering if there’s distribution overlap of some brands we can base a common palette off of. New Belgium is probably the best chance. Do they make it back East? 10 Barrel is InBev now so their Crush series might have a chance make it over to you. Wondering what breweries you find good, sours etc?

For me NB’s La Folie was my first introduction to sour beer, so it kind of has that 1st love attraction and the best sour I’ve EVER had was a glass of an ‘07 La Folie in 2015. It had aged like the finest wine and was sublime. My mouth is watering now just writing about it. I still think NB has one of the best sour programs of any larger brewer, their Apple Felix 2 years is probably my #2. Heck NB probably has 5 of my top 10 sours. Hopefully their program doesn’t change with the recent change of ownership. We had people crying when they heard about ballast point dumping 10000gallons of BBA and one off beers into the sea, while Constallation was ruining that brand. (Const. bought BP for $500 mil 4 years ago, sold to a group of literally home brewers in Chicago last year... For $29 mil! But still, the brewery that bought BP produced less beer than some local home brew groups do in their garages.)

[heffray]

I’m curious about your thoughts on sours and I’m wondering if there’s distribution overlap of some brands we can base a common palette off of. New Belgium is probably the best chance. Do they make it back East? 10 Barrel is InBev now so their Crush series might have a chance make it over to you. Wondering what breweries you find good, sours etc?

For me NB’s La Folie was my first introduction to sour beer, so it kind of has that 1st love attraction and the best sour I’ve EVER had was a glass of an ‘07 La Folie in 2015. It had aged like the finest wine and was sublime. My mouth is watering now just writing about it. I still think NB has one of the best sour programs of any larger brewer, their Apple Felix 2 years is probably my #2. Heck NB probably has 5 of my top 10 sours. Hopefully their program doesn’t change with the recent change of ownership. We had people crying when they heard about ballast point dumping 10000gallons of BBA and one off beers into the sea, while Constallation was ruining that brand. (Const. bought BP for $500 mil 4 years ago, sold to a group of literally home brewers in Chicago last year... For $29 mil! But still, the brewery that bought BP produced less beer than some local home brew groups do in their garages.)

We may disagree about New Belgium's sour series, I think they call it "Lips of Faith" or something. Maybe I had a bad experience with some of them early on and now I just steer clear. The big hitters for sours in my experience (outside of Cantillon, because, well, ya know, they're fucking Cantillon) are The Bruery and Cascade. We get both of them in Minnesota, more so in the Twin Cities area. The Bruery makes a bunch that I like, but a few that stand out are Sour in the Rye and Tart of Darkness. Anything by Cascade is fantastic and they only do sours. Russian River also does a great job with their Sanctificiation, Justification, etc (I think there are like 5 of them). Last one I will mention is New Glarus in Wisconsin. Normally I try not to say anything nice about that state, but they do make some good beer, and New Glarus makes a sour called "Strawberry Rhubarb" that is fantastic. But you can only get New Glarus in Wisconsin, so, obviously they suck for that reason only.

[Ode2Luke]

We may disagree about New Belgium's sour series, I think they call it "Lips of Faith" or something. Maybe I had a bad experience with some of them early on and now I just steer clear. The big hitters for sours in my experience (outside of Cantillon, because, well, ya know, they're fucking Cantillon) are The Bruery and Cascade. We get both of them in Minnesota, more so in the Twin Cities area. The Bruery makes a bunch that I like, but a few that stand out are Sour in the Rye and Tart of Darkness. Anything by Cascade is fantastic and they only do sours. Russian River also does a great job with their Sanctificiation, Justification, etc (I think there are like 5 of them). Last one I will mention is New Glarus in Wisconsin. Normally I try not to say anything nice about that state, but they do make some good beer, and New Glarus makes a sour called "Strawberry Rhubarb" that is fantastic. But you can only get New Glarus in Wisconsin, so, obviously they suck for that reason only.

Bummer about your experience with NB LoF sours. We’re they on draft or in bottles? It could just be a palette/taste difference between the two of us (We disagree about something? NOWAI! ��) I’ve found their La Folie. La Terrior, Oscar and Felix to be pretty spot on for what I like in sours. Transatlantic Kriek if your into Krieks, others maybe Dutchess de Borgenes Flanders Red?

I’ve had Russian River Consecration, supplication and .... seems like one or two others, only from bottles. Seems like I’ve got one laying around somewhere. I’ll remind myself about what it tastes like later. I’m surprised you get them in MN, they stopped distributing to WA 6 years ago and Oregon 5 so until about 2 months ago they’ve been very, very rare. I haven’t been about to get more than 2 random cases and a keg of PtE, in 4 years, and suddenly I’ve had 2 kegs of PtE and 3 kegs of Blind Pig in the last 3 months. That they’re back says more about the overall health of the “Macro” Microbreweries than anything else I think. I’ve been really sad to see some long time favorites stop distributing out here. Boulder and Southern Tier hurt a lot, Oskar Blues even teased us a little, going cans only for the last 9 months.

I haven’t had Cantillon or Bruery yet or any of the locals you mentioned obviously. Had someone want to trade a Cantillion for some BBA Fremont but nothing’s come of it yet. I seem to recall a Bruery tap handle in storage so they may be distributed out here. I’ll look into it.

Crooked Stave out of CO? If you’re a fan of fruitier sours Almanac Brewing out of San Francisco is good. They’ve been really hard to come by lately. Again no known reason why but the microbrew market out here is going through some interesting changes. The overall market is expanding but the “bigger“ local breweries are being heavily pressured by smaller ones popping up from below and big beer buying up “micros” Goose Island, Kona, Elysian, 10 Barrel, Ballast Point... and killing them with marketing and taking up all the “micro” shelf space in the retail stores. Toss in the low carb hard seltzer craze pressure (I think it’s eaten 15-20% of my ”beer” sales.) and it’s a really tough time to be a big fish in a little pond. Weve seen a lot of closures or significant reductions of older bigger brands in the last year.

[heffray]

Bummer about your experience with NB LoF sours. We’re they on draft or in bottles? It could just be a palette/taste difference between the two of us (We disagree about something? NOWAI! ��) I’ve found their La Folie. La Terrior, Oscar and Felix to be pretty spot on for what I like in sours. Transatlantic Kriek if your into Krieks, others maybe Dutchess de Borgenes Flanders Red?

I’ve had Russian River Consecration, supplication and .... seems like one or two others, only from bottles. Seems like I’ve got one laying around somewhere. I’ll remind myself about what it tastes like later. I’m surprised you get them in MN, they stopped distributing to WA 6 years ago and Oregon 5 so until about 2 months ago they’ve been very, very rare. I haven’t been about to get more than 2 random cases and a keg of PtE, in 4 years, and suddenly I’ve had 2 kegs of PtE and 3 kegs of Blind Pig in the last 3 months. That they’re back says more about the overall health of the “Macro” Microbreweries than anything else I think. I’ve been really sad to see some long time favorites stop distributing out here. Boulder and Southern Tier hurt a lot, Oskar Blues even teased us a little, going cans only for the last 9 months.

I haven’t had Cantillon or Bruery yet or any of the locals you mentioned obviously. Had someone want to trade a Cantillion for some BBA Fremont but nothing’s come of it yet. I seem to recall a Bruery tap handle in storage so they may be distributed out here. I’ll look into it.

Crooked Stave out of CO? If you’re a fan of fruitier sours Almanac Brewing out of San Francisco is good. They’ve been really hard to come by lately. Again no known reason why but the microbrew market out here is going through some interesting changes. The overall market is expanding but the “bigger“ local breweries are being heavily pressured by smaller ones popping up from below and big beer buying up “micros” Goose Island, Kona, Elysian, 10 Barrel, Ballast Point... and killing them with marketing and taking up all the “micro” shelf space in the retail stores. Toss in the low carb hard seltzer craze pressure (I think it’s eaten 15-20% of my ”beer” sales.) and it’s a really tough time to be a big fish in a little pond. Weve seen a lot of closures or significant reductions of older bigger brands in the last year.

You must own a store then?

The LoF stuff was bottles, and they were vintages of late '00s, early '10s... so there's a chance I got a couple bad ones. I honestly don't see them much around anymore, but I'll give one of them a shot. La Folie rings a bell, I'll look for those.

Yeah, sorry for the unintended misguidance on the RR stuff. I had a pilot buddy who used to fly down there a lot so I got to try all of them, he would come home with cases of PtE, and this was back in 2013-14 before everyone seemed like they were making an IPA of that quality. They even went to Younger days once and got to try that (I didn't get to go. It still hurts).

Boulder and Southern Tier have really fallen off the map (I haven't seen a Pumking in a long time). I still see a ton of OB up here though. We even get BA TenFidy up here now, and it doesn't sell out, you can basically grab it off the shelf year round if you want.

I got to try Cantillon Fou' Foune at a beer festival last year. Best sour I've ever had and I don't think it's close. If you can make that trade work I would pull the trigger in a heartbeat. I love the Bruery stuff. Especially their gigantic BA Imperial Stout series they do: Grey Monday, Black Tuesday, Mocha Wednesday, and there's a Thursday one too. These puppies weigh in at 18% abv and they are otherworldly. I cannot recommend them enough. Some of the best beer I've ever had.

I have tried Crooked Stave and I think Almanac as well, it sounds familiar. Once again, most of my beer tasting escapades benefit from having a group of roughly 6 guys who get stuff from all over the US when they travel for business and bring it back to share, they don't distribute up here. I'm very lucky, but I'm also scaling back a bit (I'm not as young as I used to be). Weirdly enough, though, it looks like we do carry 10 Barrel here in Fargo, but I cannot recall if I've ever tried it. Will do asap. Thanks for the rec.