The Year in Review

As a winter snow settles on the Northwest in this last week of the year, it turns a person to reflection. A year is a nice enough interval, at once short enough to live in one’s recent memory, but long enough to offer perspective. And 2021, whatever else you might think of it, offers a lot to reflect on.

To put you in mind of what it was like a year ago, we had just ended a bruising election, and lived through a very dark ten months of pandemic. Ah, but hope beckoned: a new vaccine was rolling out, and we had good reason to think that it, combined with the warmth of spring, might offer a way out. For those of us who love beer, visions of pubs danced in our heads.

Events

Late Winter
The new year was not a very beery time, and much of the noteworthy events seemed to capture the dissipation of the moment. In January, a report announced the departure of the last monks of Achel, one of the fourteen certified Trappist breweries. That should mean it falls from their ranks, though the official body still lists the abbey as a member in good standing. Closer to home, Portland Brewing brewed its last batch—though it emerged that the closure of a founding Portland brewery had nothing to do with Covid, their earlier buy-out, or falling sales. Not long after that, Bailey’s, one of the first craft beer bars, announced its closure. It was a Covid casualty.

Spring
Things really started to improve by April, and in May cases hit a pandemic low. Nevertheless, the fallout continued. In March, Deschutes announced it was acquiring Boneyard, an all-draft brewery that couldn’t survived the virus. In May, Brienne Allan began posting about sexism and harassment in the brewing industry, with shockwaves that continue to reverberate. In April, I launched the Diverse Breweries Database as a tool for those who want to support underrepresented brewers and breweries in the industry.

Summer
In June, the Pacific Northwest was hit with a “heat dome” that obliterated all-time heat records and singed young barley and hop plants. That seemed ominous, but the pandemic was in retreat and we returned to pubs. Thinking people might actually start traveling again, I provided my annual list of Portland’s best breweries—though that travel part really never got off the ground. We might have been back in pubs, but events like the annual Oregon Brewers Fest (and fests in general) were canceled for another year.

Fall/Winter
My own fall was not bad—I had a new edition of The Beer Bible out, along with a tour supporting it. 2021 continued to be a drag, though. The fallout from Allan’s social media campaign continued, and we learned that beer-geek darling Mikkeller was a serial offender. And as I traveled around, I noticed that despite getting used to the pandemic, things weren’t normal. In town after town that I visited, I found the same thing: empty downtowns. In November, when Larry Bell announced he was selling his beloved Michigan brewery, it felt so 2021.

It was a transitional year, but also one that never got out of second gear. Things went back to a kind of new normal, but nobody has been very happy about what that looks like.

Great Beer, Still

Amid all this, breweries continued to brew, and many were making some of their best stuff in years. I speculated last spring that this had to do with the long months of hunkering, in which brewers were able to let their imaginations blossom. It was certainly the bright spot for me—and I hope you, too. I can honestly say I can’t remember a year when I’ve had so many excellent beers. (If you’d like to see a few of the recommended offerings—and I actually highlighted around forty of them—you can thumb through my comments here.)

But let me highlight the beers that were most memorable from a year in which I had many memorable beers.

Gigantic LP Stout (Portland). In those dark days of winter, LP stout got me through. It contains four points of flavor, and they all sing in wonderful harmony: the first flavor to arrive is dark chocolate, slightly bitter but rich, followed quickly by a hit of red fruits, one that persists throughout. Though full-bodied, the beer finishes dryly, which provides the moreishness. Amid the roasty chocolate and fruitiness is a subtle hit of sweet caramel, tucked like a bit of nougat in the center of a truffle. It arrives mid-palate, but really pops with the final swallow.

Pelican 25th Collab #1 (Pacific City, OR). Darron Welch and 10 Barrel’s Whitney Burnside collaborated on a stout brewed with passionfruit and cacao nibs. But this was no modern pastry stout. I strained to find overt notes of either in this beer. Instead, the cacao deepened the rich, indulgent bass notes even while the acid of the fruit brightened and sharpened the highlights.

Fremont Ollie (Seattle). This beer comes with a caveat. The first batch, which I describe below, was tremendous. A later batch was oxidized and had chunks floating in it. A huge shame, but the memory of the first one lives on. It had a sunset-orange hue and familiar citrus/pine on the tongue, arriving first in what our Bohemian friends would surely concede is a “fine” bitterness. The modern touches arrived at midpalate: a saturated Mandarin orange with a mango fringe, a sweetness that harmonized perfectly with the bitterness.

Upright Summer Ale (Portland). Alex Ganum never rests. His fancy always leads him down some new road, and this year that was cask ale. One of the firkins to debut at the new brewery pub was this summer ale, the kind of beer that wouldn’t have worked on regular draft, but was ideal on cask. The malts have a summery honey sweetness, but they’re very light and delicate. It had lush, scone-like malts sprinkled with just enough floral hops to scent the beer and add a hint of bitterness.

Otherlands Polish Lager (Bellingham). Brewer Ben Howe described this beer, made in honor of his wife and business partner Karolina, as basically a decocted Czech pilsner with Lubelski hops. The beer is a slight 4.4% but has a medium body and crackery malt flavor. The hops are spicy and assertive, and their Franconian house yeast gives it all kinds of character.

Bonn Place Mooey (Bethlehem, PA). Vying for the most surprising discovery, I had not anticipated finding a dead-on Manchester bitter in a tavern amid the ribs of abandoned steel plants in Bethlehem. But there was Mooey, Sam Masottto’s cask triumph, poured by his wife, Gina. Mooey is a classic bitter made with American hops, Cascade and Centennial. The result is a totally English-tasting pint with an especially bright (but not intense) citrus top note.

Fair State Citra IPA (Minneapolis). I am pretty sure this had a proper name, but I failed to record it. A simple, all-Citra IPA, it was a perfect showcase for the versatility of the country’s most popular hop. In this case it was bright and lemony, and the pale malts added a sweet balancing note so that the effect was something like a lemon lollipop. It wasn’t layered or dense with mystery, just straightforward and irresistible.

Border X Horchata Golden Stout (San Diego). This Latino-owned brewery makes a lot of interesting beers, but the 9% horchata-inspired boomer was the one that knocked me out. The base tasted something like malted milk, and there were subtle hints of cinnamon and vanilla, but it was boozy like a cocktail and surprisingly dry. It would fall, I suppose, in the pastry beer camp, but rare are the examples that are as accomplished as that one.

Will Golden and I (not pictured: Fire Eagle)

Halfway Crooks Pintje (Atlanta). An extremely rare example of the Belgian pils (think Dupont’s Redor), a style I hope lager-makers embrace the way they did Italian pils. Halfway Crooks was co-founded by Belgian Joran Van Ginderachter, and this beer captures a certain Flanders flair. It had that same rustic quality of Dupont, with unusually expressive yeast, soft, lightly sweet malt, and a bright, mineral finish.

Austin Beerworks Fire Eagle (Austin). At one of the most entertaining stops on the tour, brewer Will Golden and I did a guided tasting and historical overview of IPAs, using Austin Beerworks’ own lineup. I have evolved with the rest of the world, but the beer that blew me away was Fire Eagle, their original, now old-school caramelly IPA. It had the unmistakable mark of cræft—a beer that has been honed and polished until it is a masterpiece. It was also surprising. Caramel malt does add a nice balancing note to punchy old-school American hops, but it can cloy. Will combats this by dropping the finishing gravity to a startling 2.5 Plato—sweetness with a dry snap.

Notch The Standard (Salem, MA). Okay, I realize there are a lot of pilsners on this list, but there’s no way I can leave The Standard off the list. Some years I have a lot of IPAs on the list, other years disproportionate wild ales. This is the year of the pilsner, I guess. Well, Notch’s is a tremendous example A mostly-Czech pilsner, Chris Lohring makes it with double decoction and open fermentation, giving it loads of rustic quality. The malts are fluffy and grainy, and the hops are quite stiff. And here’s the “mostly” part: they’re American Sterlings rather than Saaz. It, too, has clearly been dialed in over the years.

Jeff AlworthDecember 28, 2021