I've been tipping back pints of Southern Oregon Brewing Co.'s Le Freaqué Cascadian Dark Ale rather religiously for the past month or so, and I keep finding myself espousing its excellence to curious beer drinkers around me.  It's probably time I wrote about it here.

I was fortunate to receive a bottle of Hopworks Urban Brewery's relatively new Secession Black IPA.  Now, I don't want to talk too much about the hubbub surrounding the name of this style, but H.U.B. makes a clever nod to the Casdadian Dark Ale camp with a nice map of Cascadia on the bottle.

Last week we had the pleasure of sampling the Smokestack Series from Boulevard Brewing Company.  This brewery, while well-known in some parts of the country, is just beginning to make its way to Southern Oregon, so I was quite excited to sample their beers.  Because my sour beer palate has finally begun to develop, I was particularly looking forward to their Saison-Brett, which is not the same as the Saison listed on their website.  We also had their Double-Wide IPA, Long Strange Tripel, and Sixth Glass Quadrupel to sample.  All four of these beers came in 750mL basket-corked bottles.

The one thing that struck me as curious about all four of these beers was the style of carbonation.  I was able to pull a nice head on each beer, but never anything thick and meringue-like, and neither did they have the champagne effervescence of, say, Meantime London Porter.

We tried the IPA first, and it poured a cloudy, unfiltered gold with a nice off-white head.  It struck me that it had sort of an old malt flavor, probably indicative of a little bit of age, and strongly astringent hops.  It was not as hoppy as a Pacific Northwest IPA, and had a nice complexity to it.  But I am not much of an IPA guy, and was eager to move on to the other three beers.

Down at Elements I was happy to find Firestone Walker Double Barrel Ale on tap.  This is a great English-style ale from a very interesting brewery that recently won the World Beer Cup for the third time.  They are, it seems, the overachievers of the beer world at the moment, and for that, I praise the beer gods.  Unlike so many other breweries, they have not been putting forth gigantic hop bombs and sugary extreme beers (their website, for instance, calls 38 IBUs "medium-high"), but instead produce a line of really excellent pale ales.  Those I have tried are all wonderfully drinkable, pair great with bar food, and make me long for a second pint.

The DBA pours an unassuming amber-brown with a pale, whitish head.  There was not a lot of retention, as you can see in the photo, but there was some very nice lacing.  It has a clean, faint aroma that just barely hints at its 32 IBUs worth of hops, and promises a mellow, malty happiness to the eager palate.

Indeed, this beer has a nice, sturdy body with notes of hazelnut and a malty smoothness that work well together and do not overwhelm the palate.  There is a slight fruity flavor accompanying very mellow hops and a tiny amount of dryness.  Overall, it is a well-balanced, highly drinkable beer that made me yearn both for fish and chips and a second pint.  This is a great beer to pair with brisk spring days, a bushy moustache, or spinning fantastic yarns to your pals.  Highly recommended!

I got a call the other night at around 11PM from Bert, the owner of Bear Creek Beers.  "Erik," he said to me, excited, "Have you tried the Gubna yet?"  I tried to explain that I was trying to go to sleep, but he kept going.  "I think it's going to be the next Pliny the Elder!  I swear, it tastes just like Pliny!"  He has a reason to be excited, of course.  Pliny the Elder is very hard to get in Southern Oregon, and every time Bear Creek Beers gets it in stock, it sells out in hours.  It is hard to see all of those sad hop-heads lusting after their Pliny, lurking outside the doors to the shop day after day.

So anyhow, at that point I had only had a couple sips of the Gubna Imperial IPA from Oskar Blues, and hadn't really given it a lot of thought.  I realized I should go back and take another look at it, so I did.  I have to say, it's a pretty good imperial IPA, but it's still not quite Pliny the Elder.  Where Pliny hits the nose with a fresh, grapefruit-laden blast of hops, Gubna tends more toward a grassy, floral smell.  And even though Gubna is 100 IBUs, I didn't find that the hops really stood out as strongly on the palate as they do in Pliny.

But do not be fooled, for Gubna is a hop bomb.  It has a nice medium body, and a good maltiness that helps hide its 10% ABV, and it's far easier to drink than I'd assumed it would be.  It pours a golden-copper color with an off-white head, but the head tends to be thin and difficult to coax from the can.  The hops, though big, are balanced nicely against the malt, and overall I found this to be a nice imperial IPA.  Not too sweet, far too hoppy (which is how they're supposed to be, of course), and easy---but not effortless---to drink.

I haven't been able to find any information on the web about the muddy brown lager I had at the McMenamins Roseburg Station Pub & Brewery the other day.  On the special draft board, I think it was called the "Get Up Your Schwarz Lager", but I could be wrong.  I always want to like McMenamins so much more than I do.  They have a great aesthetic and do great things with historical buildings, and that makes me really love them.  But their beer so often fails to impress that it's hard for me to get excited about visiting their locations except to enjoy the weird art and creative vibe.

The photograph does a pretty good job of showing off the murky brownness of what was described to me as a dark lager.  It really looked like watery mud, but it tasted all right.  It had a slightly astringent note, however, and was perhaps a bit too heavy on the roasted flavors, but overall it was a passable dark lager.  In reality, this was a Braunbier instead of a Schwartzbier.

In Southern Oregon we are blessed with a number of really excellent local breweries.  Some are well-known outside of the area, such as Ashland's Caldera Brewing and Medford's Southern Oregon Brewery (SOB).  Others, like Walkabout Brewing in Central Point, are primarily loved by the locals.  This weblog is loth to pick any one as a favorite, but does wish from time to time to single out one of these breweries for a job well done.

The 2008 Barleywine from SOB is a beer we would particularly love to call your interest to.  This bourbon oak-aged beauty was just bottled and released this year, and a scant two dozen cases were all they produced.  Inspired by the more traditional English-style barleywines, this beer eschews the heavy-handed hops that have become characteristic of the American-style, and instead adds such treats as the oak aging and plum purée.

The flavors combine spectacularly.  On the nose, this beer promises a rich, warm draught, and it does not disappoint.  The oak blends well with the sweetness of the malt, and if the brewery hadn't admitted to the plum purée on the bottle, one would assume the hint of dark stone-fruit was just another bonus flavor.  It is rare that one comes across a beer that longs to be savored so slowly.  It begs to be enjoyed in a snifter, perhaps shared with food, or perhaps as just a dessert beer.  And though the oak may still be a wee bit overpowering, with a few more years in the bottle it should mellow out and sink pleasantly into the brew's rich, malty warmth.

Tom Hammond, president of SOB, recommends wax-dipping any bottles one plans on aging, to guard against oxygen seepage through the bottle cap.  Presently this beer is available in extremely limited quantities at the brewery and perhaps throughout the rest of the state.