Archives for June 2011

The first annual Portland Fruit Beer Festival takes place Saturday and Sunday, June 11 and 12, 2011 at Burnside Brewing (7th and E. Burnside).

Fruit beers are the red-headed stepchild of craft beer, often overlooked by beer lovers because of preconceptions that they are sweet, boring, or artificially flavored. The first annual Portland Fruit Beer Festival aims to change all that and open minds to the strange and exotic possibilities that fruit beers can offer.

Featuring more than 20 different beers from over 15 breweries from the Northwest and beyond, the Portland Fruit Beer Festival is a celebration of the wonderful variety that fruits offer and the incredible and unique beers brewers can make with them.

The Breweries

Burnside Brewing, Hopworks Urban Brewing, Ninkasi, Dogfish Head, Widmer Brothers, New Belgium, Upright, Cascade, Oakshire, Block 15, Laurelwood, Fort George, Breakside, Lompoc, Alameda, Double Mountain and Beetje Brewing.

The Challenge

The challenge to brewers was to make original beers using real whole, pureed, or juiced fruits without using any of the extracts or flavorings that have contributed to giving fruit beers a bad name.

The Beers

Alameda Brewing: Huckleberry Hound – Yellow Wolf Imperial IPA aged and “dry-hopped” with huckleberries. ABV: 8.2% IBU’s : 103

Beetje Brewing: Zure Krenten – A blend of fresh farmhouse ale, and a pale ale stored in a Pinot Noir barrel with champagne currants and dosed with lambic blend. Brewed with Pilsner, 2-row, wheat, crystal malts, and light. Touch of noble hops. ABV: 6%

Block 15 Brewing: Psidium Rustic farmhouse ale matured with guava fruit. Brewed with Belgian Pilsner, French Pale & Wheat malts; Saaz & Citra hops; French farmhouse yeast. 6% alc/vol

Breakside Brewing: Mango IPA Our flagship IPA brewed with a twist: we tweaked the recipe on our best selling beer to suit it to the flavors of fresh mango. Mango additions in the mash, kettle, hopback, and conditioning tank allow this otherwise-mellow fruit to complement and enhance the Citra, Cascade, and Ahtanum hop profile of this IPA. OG: 1.063 FG: 1.010 ABV: 6.8% IBU: approx. 55

Burnside Brewing: Gooseberry Berliner-Weisse – A slightly tart wheat beer with a mild fruitiness. This brew is lowly hoped ( 2ibu’s ) and fermented with a lactic bacteria in addition to the German ale yeast resulting in the slightly sour finish. A percentage of this beer was put into french oak barrels and aged with 50 pounds of Washington grown Gooseberries. ABV: 3.35% IBU’S: 2.1

Dogfish Head: Festina Peche
A refreshing neo-BerlinerWeisse fermented with honest-to-goodness peaches to (get this!) 4.5% abv! Because extreme beers don’t have to be extremely boozy!

Fort George Brewing: Badda BOOM! Cherry Stout – Coming in at 6.9% abv, rich and dark as a moonless night in the orchard, Badda BOOM! has 40 pounds of raspberries and Cherries mingling famously with the Belgian yeast esters and black barley bitters.

Hopworks Urban Brewing: Red Delicious Belgian Applebiere – An Abbey Ale crossed with a Cider and fermented with Chimay yeast. 51% Organic Wheat 49% fresh pressed Organic Apple Cider 6+% abv.

Laurelwood: TBA – Pale Ale brewed with Southeast Asian Fruit and Spices.

Lompoc Brewing: Cherry Wheat – A golden ale fermented with sour cherries.

New Belgium: Ooh La La – Ale brewed with Rasberries 8.5% abv.

Ninkasi Brewing: Pinot Barrel-Aged Oatis with Cherries – Oatis Oatmeal stout with cherries aged in Pinot Noir Casks. 7.2 % and 50 ibus.

Oakshire Brewing: Blind Date – An Oat Brown Ale made with Organic Dates, Blind Date is a medium bodied Belgian Brown Ale with a balanced bitterness from Calypso Hops. It is crafted with juicy Organic Dates. It has hints of fruit, a touch of roast and a smooth silky texture from the oats. The beer finishes with a mild sweetness from the dates. 6% Abv.

Upright Brewing: Barrel-Aged Pure Wit with Orange – A single cask version of our seasonal Belgian-style wit with a pound of dried sweet orange peel added to the barrel. This tart and hazy wheat beer has a tremendous nose but remains light and snappy on the palate. 4.5%

Widmer Brothers Brewing: Himbeere Gose mit dem Eibisch – Gose with raspberries and hibiscus ABV: 5.3% OG: 11.7P AE: 2.3P.

The PFBF is free and open to all ages and features live entertainment. Saturday June 11 the festival runs from 11am-9pm and Sunday June 12 from 11am-6pm. The Burnside Brewing pub will also be open for regular business while 15 beers pour in the partially covered parking lot (a few special few taps will be offered next door in the brewery’s production space). The required tasting glasses are $6 and taster tickets are $1 each (1 ticket = 1 4oz pour, with some beers double or triple tickets) – pints available for 4 tickets on the primary beers.