|
|
Cascade Brewing Wins Gold & Silver at GABF!
Cascade Brewing continued its winning ways at the 2009 Great American Beer Festival (GABF) competition, taking home the top two medals in the Wood- and Barrel-Aged Sour Beer category: a gold medal for Bourbonic Plague and a silver for Vlad the Imp Aler. The competition was stiff, with a total of 45 beers were entered in the class. This marked the second year Cascade Brewing has entered the GABF – in 2008, it took home a Bronze medal for its Cascade Kriek, a Flanders Style Red Ale refermented with a sweet blend of fresh whole northwest cherries.
Ron, Curtis and Art were all in attendance for this year’s announcement, and were obviously thrilled
with the outcome. According to Ron, “It’s accreditation and acknowledgment of what we’re doing
across the broad field of our industry at this moment. Assessing these beers is a very serious endeavor
for the judging panel and it’s completely altruistic. There’s no agenda: it’s about tasting beers and
selecting the best.”
What “they’re doing” is creating full-bodied, sophisticated barrel-aged Northwest sour beers. Beer lovers in Portland have long recognized Cascade Brewing as a brewery to watch as it creates masterful sour beers through yeast and barrel-aging under the direction of Brewmaster Ron. These medals underscore the brewery’s burgeoning reputation.
The Bourbonic Plague is a Belgian Spiced Double Porter aged for more than six months in bourbon
barrels filled with dates. The hearty sour beer weighs in at 11.5% abv. Vlad the Imp Aler is a
wild-yeast blended Belgian Strong Pale Ale derived from a blend of oak barrel-aged 23- and 25-
degree Plato sour blonde quadruppel, sour bourbon barrel tripel and sour strong spiced blonde.
The beer contains 9.5% abv. Sour beer lovers are anxiously awaiting word on when both beers
will be bottled for the general public, and we can tell you that it’s looking like it will be late fall or
early winter. Readers of this newsletter will be the first to know!
For those of you not familiar with the GABF, it’s the largest commercial beer competition in the world with 3,308 entries. This year’s competition attracted 132 international beer judges from 10 countries. Brewers received prestigious gold, silver and bronze medals in 78 beer categories, establishing the best examples of each style in the US. Cascade Brewing was in stellar company, joining 21 other Oregon craft breweries with its medal wins. Congratulations to all the winners! |
| Cascade Brewing Acquires Building for Cascade Barrel House
It’s official! We’ve signed the deal on our new blending and barrel house, located at
935 SE Belmont St. in SE Portland. We’ve already started moving in the barrels, and are
working with an architect firm to get through plan review for the design of the interior.
The building features 7,000 square feet of space; the majority will be used for barrel
aging, blending and bottling. We will also have an on-site pub serving great food to
complement our beers – we plan to offer up to eight sour beers on tap at any one time, as
well as one-off specialties, seasonals and select regulars.
Our goal is to open sometime next January or February. In the meantime, here are some
shots of the facility in its current state (thanks to John Foyston of The Oregonian for the
exterior shot!). We’ll keep you posted on the progression – or, the next time you’re in the
area, pop your head in and say hello – but be warned, we just might put you to work! |
What’s Brewing
Currently on tap at the Raccoon Lodge, we are pouring our Autumn Gose, a centuries old recipe featuring orange peel, nutmeg, cinnamon and a slight salty top note that conjures up warm kitchens and wood fires; Mouton Rogue, a NW style sour red blend of barrels with up to 16 months of oak barrel lactic fermentation and oak barrel aging; our cask conditioned Fresh Hop Ale, a Cascadian Dark Ale served on nitro; Ipanox 2009, a well balanced IPA with a malty start and a hoppy finish; and our new rich, chocolate Cascade Porter.
There’s always something exciting going on in the brewery! The brewers just completed brewing a spiced quad, the fourth in a series. The first quad has been laid down in bourbon barrels and is aging, picking up oak characteristics while the malt comes together and the spices taper off and blend. The second quad has been put into oak wine barrels for aging and lactic fermentation. The third quad is currently in yeast fermentation. These beers are being set up for the 2010 Vlad the Imp Aler, and will also be used for blending in with other big beers.
We’ve brewed Dark Day IPA, our seasonal offering in honor of the winter solstice; and a Belgian Rye Red, which should be available in November. And we’re working on a Winter Gose, a lighter version of our fall offering; this one will use wheat, cranberries and will be spiced with hibiscus and cinnamon. Its rich, red color will be ideal for the holiday season.
Perhaps most interesting is that last week, we received one ton of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes, which will be used to create a Port Beer – look for this exciting offering in 2010 or 2011!
|
Are You Ready for Some Football?
The Raccoon Lodge is the best place in town to watch the games this season. With both Direct TV NFL Sunday Ticket
and Comcast Sports Net, we’ve got all the choice sports covered. Our customers love watching the games in high
definition on the big screens in the Den. The comfy booths offer lots of seating, making it the ideal place to grab a
burger and a pint, and root for your favorite team. Or, watch games on the rafter-mounted video projection screen
upstairs in the dining room. Either way, we’ve got you covered! |
|
|
|
|
|
