What does it take to be a truly dedicated fan of craft ale and liquor? A well-trained palate? A temperature-controlled cellar? A bank account the size of the moon? All three help—but exploring the upper tier of alcohol requires some education, too.
When it comes to beer, the biggest indulgence purchase you can make is undoubtedly Utopias. Produced on an on-and-off basis by Samuel Adams in Boston, Utopias is a barley wine-style ale, a blend of several beers aged in a selection of different barrels. Poured out of a metallic, potion-like bottle, it may technically be a beer, but it drinks more like a rye or some other sipping liquor—not the kind of thing you chug for summer refreshment, but a a drink meant to be savored over a roaring fire and a good book. It also costs $200 a bottle, ensuring that you’ll look very refined (or very rich) if you leave it laying out on the table for your friends to gawk at.
On the local side, similar indulgent experiences can be found with barrel-aged or sour ales. The Abyss, Deschutes Brewery’s annual imperial stout release, is due out in November, offering heavy oak/wine flavors and a heavier hangover if you attempt to complete a 750-milliliter bottle by yourself. (Hit the pub when it comes out—you’ll get to enjoy it alongside the past several years’ Abyss releases, giving you an insight into what aging certain beers can accomplish.) The Ale Apothecary’s lineup of wild-fermented ales is an exotic mix of flavors you’ll see with few other beers, and each one of them is worth the $20-30 a bottle. If you really want to exercise your wallet, however, Cascade Brewing is your jam—their line of sour fruit-flavored beers frequently cost over $30 a pop, and while the intense fruit and sour notes in their lineup is a love-it-or-hate-it thing, there’s no denying that it’s unique.
Why stop at beer, for that matter? The Distiller’s Choice line from Oregon Spirit Distillers features a range of heady spirits, from a vodka flavored with Trinidad Scorpion peppers to a straight bourbon whisky aged in new American oak. If you want to go hardcore with it though, look up their Adopt-a-Barrel program. For a mere $1,300, you can purchase your own barrel, have them age whiskey in it at their facility, then reap the rewards when it’s ready for tapping. (Thriftier drinkers can just sample OSD’s line at their new Barrel Thief tasting room, staging their grand opening next Saturday.)
Barley wine
Not a wine at all, but a type of very strong ale originating from England. Mirror Mirror from Deschutes is a barley wine, a sort of “mega” version of Mirror Pond Pale Ale featuring earthy toffee-like favors and an eye-popping 11.2 percent alcohol by volume. Anchor Brewing in San Francisco was the first to reintroduce the style to the American craft scene, but Sierra Nevada’s Bigfoot (an annual release since 1983!) is the most well-known barley wine in the country right now.
Barrel aging
Certain types of heavier beer, such as barley wines or stouts, can be aged in casks that once held bourbon or wine, granting it a woody oakiness and flavors from whatever liquor it used to hold. The Ale Apothecary ages all of their beer in oak, and Deschutes’ annual Abyss Imperial Stout is a blend of several beers, partially aged in bourbon, Oregon oak, and pinot noir barrels. Goose Island’s Bourbon County Brand Stout lineup is the stuff of dreams for beer fans, and it’s now regularly available in Oregon every fall.
Sour beer
Using funky yeast strains and wild fermentation allows brewers to add hints of puckering funkiness to their beer, making it unlike any other style on the market. Portland’s Cascade Brewing is Oregon’s king of sour, with their $30 Kriek tasting precisely like liquid cherry pie in your mouth. Bay Area-based Almanac Beer Co. also provides a line of “farm-to-barrel” sour beers, all readily available around Bend.
Single-pass spirits
Distillation is the step between fermentation and maturation when making whiskey. Phrases like “triple-distilled” often get bandied around by spirit makers, but generally speaking, the more distilling you do, the “lighter” and more aromatic the resulting liquor is. Oregon Spirit Distillers’ Straight Bourbon Whiskey is a single-pass drink, one matured in a smaller 30-gallon barrel to allow a larger surface area of contact between the bourbon and the oak.
This article appears in Sep 23-30, 2015.
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ok , peeps . its time for the breakdown . Im off tuesday and wednesdays , so , tuesday is the action day and wednesday is the relax day when I fire off the e mail of the past weeks events . continue to rock out at kindergarten . I would imagine that kindergartens have much in common with lunatic asylums . high volume . random , incoherent babbling . anti social behavior . spastic outbursts . and then there is the students . any way , love kindergarten . so funny . some of them get it . some of them dont . some of them think they know whats happening but are not completely sure . this is the nose . this is the ear . sing and dance time . so I got two turtles and I also got a crab . dont know what to feed the crab . had two hermit crabs but I fed them a bit of pear and that appeared to have led to their untimely demise . do you let white wine breath ? what if you let red wine breath for over a day ? so , the market . wow . saw a cucumber as big as my leg . I think the noodles I worship are called LAMPUR . more on that in the future as I have decided to deconstruct these noodles with an interpreture eventually . I may end up writing a book about these noodles . I think I eat them every other day . when I say eat Im talking about 4 servings . ok , so , the market . its really all about frui]’
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t and vegtables but that will probably change as winter sets in . lots of food carts with baked goods . big , swiming fish and jumping shrimp . will have a pet shrimp soon . maybe feed the pet crab the pet shrimp . ok , so , the market . its basically a street that has been turned into a market . I pass by / through it as I enter my appartment complex . also , there are these three wheeled taxi’s right there , which is really good because I use them to get to and from my kindergarten . its a buck ( five yuan ) and it saves me a 20 min. walk . I dont think I have ever walked it but I should just to see how long it takes . so , I take the 208 bus to get to the jinnan library where I work on the weekends . when I say work I mean bullshit with the crew and students for a few hours . thats a 20 minute bus ride . 50 cents ( three yuan ) . but I catch a ride to there from the kindergarten with my boss lisa . she is really cool and dates my homie gary and has a six year old kid with some other guy . so , another bus , the 652 , takes me downtown . this takes like 2 hours or more and Its often packed . its really a crap shoot . I guess during rush hour in the morning and evening its packed . but seriously , its like , man , you just cant fit more people on to this fricking bus , and then more people get on . talk about getting to know the chinese . same with the sub way . last year I was all about the sub way . not this year . tomorrow I will probably go downtown . today I actually hit the sea . yep . the pacific ocean . stuck my finger in it . for real . it was great . wrote a song about it . wanna hear it . ok , here it goes . left at six am . took the 652 south , the opposite direction . the highway I like next to is called the jinqing highway or S 106 . any how , it goes from downtown , past my place , all the way to the sea . pretty far out . so , the mantra was stay on this road . if the bus goes off the road , get off the bus and get back on the road and get another bus . I also had my beloved i phone 6 + with me to look at my g.p.s. position on my maps application . I love my phone . the ring tone is bark . so , after , like , my 5th bus , I got off the road because now the coast was due east and the road headed south . so , I walked through this big intersection , dreads flying everywhere , and these dudes in a black caddilac pull me over . I show them my i.d. , which is a xerox of my passport photo that I keep in my wallet ( this was the first , and maybe last time I have ever used it ) , then pulled out my phone and said , this is where I am , blue dot , and this is where Im going , blue sea . they spoke no english . they were like , ok , fine . so , I got a cab and blasted to the sea . so , I got there , and it was just this empty , new , 8 lane high way , maybe one car every five minuets , and no cabs or busses , then a closed off six lane high way , surrounded by marsh land , a giant oil refinery , a nuclear plant . so , I walk through this marsh on a dirt road . if it rained on me I would have been looking at a half mile walk through mud . very happy it did not rain . finally get to the ocean . clear . warm . would not have jumped in you paid me . it was a huge breakwall . looking out to sea a few miles and there was another huge break wall . that one was not on any map and I dont know why it was there or what it does . very strange . so , hung out for a while . again , no one there . no one . totally empty . no body . so , mission accomplished . great . wanted to check that box off for a year and a half . now how the hell do I get out of here . back to the road . no bus . this is the only place in the whole city where there is no taxi . ok . so , hitch hike . after about half and hour and having a few people slow down a little but not enough for me to stand up, this cat come driving down the road , the wrong way , like in the wrong lane and stuff , does a u turn . Im like , thank god , because I would have had to ” comondeer ” a vehicle at some point . so I get in and we haul ass out of there . I offer the cat a 50 spot knowing he would be like , no thanks . I get out and have a great lunch , spicy calamari and beer . then its back on the bus . some old folks help me get out at the right spot . then Im talking to some high school kids . this was really funny because whenever I talk to high school boys in china its just basically telling each other the names of n.b.a. stars . so then I make it back home and here I am . got the air conditioneer on . wonder if I will be using the a/c in october . that would be pretty strange . have been having trouble streaming music so now I listen to all my music on youku.com . this is the chinese youtube.com . no youtube.com for me . when I do have access to youtube.com then thats how I listen to all my music . dont have chess.com but now play on chessclub.com . also , cant seem to find any info on the world chess championship 2015 . hmmmm . world chess championship 2014 was last november in sochi won by the 25 year old norweigian number one dude magnus carlsen . but I digress . on chess . love chess . so , at the kindergarten its me and about 20 super hot young chinese ladies so , uh , cant really complain about that . when someone dies in china they get in a truck and drive around firing these giant cannons . Im not kidding . it sets off car alarms . also , anyone who does have a car alarm should be shot immediately . so , Im getting ready for the autumn festival soon , to be followed by a week of national day celebrations . I think october first 1949 was the birth of the nation . china is like 4000 years old but the chinese think that china is , like , 66 years old or something . for some reason Im saying like more than a 14 year old girl . I appologize . I have no explanation for this . any way , everything is great , except for my internet , which sucks , but , I am aware that there are real people out there who have actual problems , so I wont whine to you about the fact that MY INTERNET SUCKS . at least I got it . I also wont whine about my V P N limbo . seriously , if anyone wants to talk about football . . . . . really . . . . football . . . . anyone . . . . . cwb out . LUV YA .