The Great American Ale Trail - Christian DeBenedetti [7]
UPRIGHT BREWING CO.
240 N. Broadway, Ste. 2 • Portland, OR 97227 (503) 735-5337 • uprightbrewing.com • Established: 2009
SCENE & STORY
You know you’re in a serious craft beer town when NBA fans cram into your subterranean taproom for every home game and sip barrel-aged beers before heading to the stadium. Alex Ganum’s Upright Brewing Company is located a few paces from the Rose Garden arena, home of the Portland Trail Blazers. Ganum moved to Portland (he’s from Michigan originally) for culinary school but fell in love with the beer scene instead. After an internship at the celebrated Ommegang brewery in Cooperstown, New York, he drew up plans for Upright, and these days his beers are all over town, and his brewing capacity is maxed out.
Still, the brewery (named for Charles Mingus’s stringed instrument) remains low-key, with just six wall mounted taps, a couple of picnic tables, and barrel racks of aging ales to admire as you sip away. Be sure to check out the open steel fermenters behind glass. The five year-round beers are Four (4.5% ABV; light/wheat/lightly sour), Five (5.5% ABV and markedly hoppier), Six (spicy and caramel tinged at 6.7% ABV), Seven (8% ABV and floral, aromatic), and the delicious, draft-only Engleberg Pils (5.5% ABV). My advice: order a tasting tray and try every one.
PHILOSOPHY
Urban farmhouse—Ganum’s beers exhibit the spice and earthiness of styles Portland brewers haven’t explored much until now: Belgian saison, bière de garde, and other, sometimes wild barrel-aged experiments resulting in funky, sour, earthy ales. But rather than just try to mimic Low Country classics, Ganum is also stretching out with experiments that place these beers firmly in Oregon soil.
KEY BEER
Upright’s April seasonal is Gose (5.2% ABV), based on a near-extinct German style developed in Leipzig, which incorporates salt and ground coriander seeds. The result is an unfiltered wheat beer with a cloudy yellow color and appealingly tart, dry finish. The beer put Ganum on the podium at the 2010 World Beer Cup in Chicago.
WIDMER GASTHAUS PUB
955 N. Russell • Portland, OR 97227 • (503) 281-3333 widmerbrothers.com • Established: 1984
SCENE & STORY
Kurt and Rob Widmer are the paradigmatic home-brewers-gone-pro, with a handsome bierstube (across from the big brewery HQ) and a national brand built by their American-style hefeweizen, a cloudy gold refresher. Their Gasthaus (which in German means “inn” but is really just a brewpub) is a Portland institution. With fifteen taps, you can try all the beers in their catalog, which has taken a turn for the more adventurous lately, keeping pace with Portland’s many beer innovators.
Credit goes to the brothers for not forgetting their roots: they’ve sold enough beer to be playing Baccarat in St. Tropez, but instead, the Widmers still hang out at home brew meetings and keep an eye on their pilot brewery, where Widmer sponsors a project called Collaborator with a local home brewing group (“The Oregon Brew Crew”), started in 1998. About four times a year, a member’s recipe gets selected for a run on the big boys’ equipment under pilot brewer Ike Manchester’s watchful eye. Then beer goes on tap at select area pubs, and can even hit the big time: Snowplow, a 1998 Collaborator beer, was tweaked in 2004, released commercially, and won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival.
PHILOSOPHY
“Keep learning,” says Manchester, who works closely with the brothers. “You can’t know everything there is about brewing. When it comes down to the beer, it’s always evolving. It’s a living thing.” Refreshing words.
KEY BEER
Manchester loves brewing (and drinking) the nutty, limited-production Alt Bier (5% ABV) on tap at the Gasthaus. Because it was the Widmer Brothers’ first recipe, and was also a favorite of the late, legendary beer writer Michael Jackson, the beer is a cult classic in Portland.
SARAVEZA BOTTLE SHOP & PASTY TAVERN
1004 N. Killingsworth St. • Portland, OR 97217 (503) 206-4252 • saraveza.com • Established: