Cargo, Revisited

Another trip to Portland, a month after the last one. Extraordinary. Sometimes it takes a couple of months before I can get away. I have yet another opportunity to revisit last month's fantasy, but I suspect I'll just forge ahead and do The Right Thing (tm) and deliver the goods as promised. This time I'm off to a Meet-the-Brewer event at the Green Dragon that I was talked into against my better judgment, and then another cask over to the friendly folks at Belmont Station.

I hope Portland is ready for this stuff. It's plain, ordinary, mundane session beer. Nothing ridiculous, over-hopped, mega-gravity or imbued with lynx droppings. Nothing aged in one of Leo Kottke's old Taylor 12-strings for eight months. No exotic herbs flown in from Ouagadougou. No cold-filtration through artisan-designed glassware embracing dust from the tombs of the Pharaohs. These ales were designed for quaffing. Six pints (UK) in a long evening session would be typical. Get ready for a nice easy session Porter that uses, get this, chocolate and crystal malts. And don your sensible, sturdy pub trousers for a malty special bitter. And buckle your seatbelts, because I also have a 3.6% mild that uses a dash of peated malt. This last tipple is a pilot batch for a Welsh Mild that didn't come out quite as malty as I'd like, underscoring the difficulty in producing flavorful sub-4% ales. I'll be revisiting it this summer with some tweeks. Try a pint on Thursday and tell me (really) what you'd do to make it better.

This blog entry is brought to you by snacks, snifters and samples (thanks Steve) at Block 15. Lessee: a Chipotle Chocolate Stout, Hoppy Session Red, Super Aboriginale freestyle and the Ferme de La Villa Saison. These guys are monsters. Additionally, I'm here to swap off some Brewers Union casks for some B-15 casks. In about two weeks "This Time For Sure" might be on the B-15 pumps, and we'll be dispensing some of the Corvallis gold.