Week 5 Virtual Tasting Series for Charity - Craft Beer Intermezzo for McMinnville Education Foundation

Always popular, the Beer Intermezzo!!! We can’t live by wine alone, and a good crisp lager can make an excellent palate reset after a day of wine tasting. This challenge runs through December 26. I think I may have another donor, and I will add that as soon as I can confirm it.

My donation will be:
$5 for a Craft and/or German/Czech lager TN
$10 for a Heater Allen TN, and $20 for a Heater Allen Sandy Paws TN (this means you, Scott!).
Add $5 if you post a picture of the Heater Allen beer.

Heater Allen beer can be hard to find outside Oregon, which is why I’d like to see other craft lager TNs as well. We do ship several pallets a month to California and a similar amount to the Puget Sound area.

About this weeks charity, McMinnville Education Foundation.

Our mission is to expand the range of educational opportunities available to students in the District and to encourage excellence, innovation, and creativity in our educational system.

The founding directors contributed funds to establish the endowment. Many additional, very generous community donations and supporters have boosted the endowment to over $500,000 in 2017.

I’ve been involved with the Foundation for ten years, and it does great work in exposing kids to activities and experiences outside of the standard math and reading (though we support those as well). Keep in mind that many of the people working in the Willamette Valley wineries live in McMinnville. Over 80% of the kids in the district are on free or reduced lunch. So drink that beer and make me pay!

Krombacher Pils
from a pint can purchased at an Rewe outside Frankfurt a couple weeks ago.
my TN skills are not great. this has some taste at the forefront that I can’t quite identify from memory (this was last nigth). Maybe Rick knows what it is. Or maybe I’ll crack the second can later tonight and try again.
Quaffed it with some baby back ribs.

Mark, thanks for breaking the ice! You are probably tasting staling/oxidative notes. We frequently find it in bottled beer in Germany, especially among large producers. Some people begin to think that German beer is supposed to taste like that, and they are pleasantly surprised when they taste the goodness of a fresh German beer.

Torres Pines IPA. Nice hops but fairly heavy clove and baking spice. It’s a food beer for me because of the richness. I needed two glasses to confirm. [berserker.gif]

Has this already started? I’m hanging out in Austin, Texas and I’m drinking a lot of craft beer. If you are ready, so am I! Please confirm.

What fortuitous timing! Would have been even better if this started Sunday as I had a bottle of Heater Allen on both Sunday and Monday nights. But tonight Kevin from Wayfinder Brewing (Portland, OR) was in town with a few beers on tap and in cans. Returned home to pleasantly and unexpectedly discover that Sheela had cracked a Sandy Paws.

Thanks for doing this Rick. Will convert some of my planned holiday wine drinking to beer drinking. For the kids! champagne.gif

  • Wayfinder Czech Pils (draft) - malt forward on front and mid palate, which transitions into a crisp, hoppy & long finish; this is a lager I’d prefer to drink in cold weather as a more robust/full bodied Pils

  • Wayfinder Hell Lager (draft) - hint of malt and grass with a touch of hops evident on the medium, crisp finish; goes down very easy; at 4.7% abv, this is a Lager to crush in warm weather

  • Wayfinder BeYOB Quadruple Decocted Dopplebock (from can) - Christmas spice nose; spice carries over to palate with a nice dollop of sweetness; medium body with medium finish; another beer best suited to colder temps

  • Heater Allen Sandy Paws 2018 (from bottle with Noci label) - chocolate malt nose; espresso grounds & dark chocolate with medium body; long finish with a zesty hop kick; probably my favorite Sandy Paws yet (since 2014)
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Oooooo should be fun. In how broad of a stroke are we defining the term “craft”? =P

Well, my definition is different than the Brewers Association, which is basically everything but an ABInbev brand. If it’s local and not in national distribution or made by ABInbev or MillerCoors then I would consider it craft for this event. Personally I don’t consider any brewery making over 50,000 barrels a year to be craft (this may be too high) but that’s another discussion.

Scott, thanks for costing me some money! BTW, I had the Wayfinder Pils on Saturday and I thought it was a little out of balance on the bitter side but I was being super-critical and had my beer judge hat on. Lisa says that she detects a little diacetyl in the Helles - again, with her beer judge hat on.

does Stone count? might be nationally distributed actually, and I think they make >50K barrels/year.

For the purpose of this, yes, they count. Personally I don’t consider them a craft brewer.

I’ll be costing you even more in the coming days!

I would never put my palate against yours or Lisa’s, but I agree with your note about bitterness on the Wayfinder Pils. I noted hoppy, but should have said bitter. It was not offputting, but I do think the beer would be better if the bitterness were dialed back.

Apropos of your comment about what constitutes a “craft” - kudos to you for your comment on the Beervana post about the BA once again bending over to accommodate Boston Brewing. [thumbs-up.gif] The latest change is IMO by far the worst accommodation yet, and totally nonsensical. Thread drift over.

Good enough for me. Now to go and do another local craft beer tasting with my friends… I shall be back.

  • Heater Allen Pils (from bottle) - bread-y nose; malt forward but less so than the Wayfinder Pils; medium body with subtle hop kick on long finish; as it has been for awhile, this is my go to Pils irrespective of season

  • Matchless Dallah Breakfast Stout (from can) - It’s stout weather, so I’m looking for some non-barrel aged versions to get me through the winter months. Per the can label, this Stout was made with Warrior hops; Copeland Dark, Copeland Munich, Flaked Barley, Chocolate Wheat, Carafa Special 3, and Copeland C-80; Foursquare yeast; Herkimer Coffee; and cardamom. Coffee grounds leap out of the glass; the palate is thick and sweet with hints of coffee grounds and loads of cardamom; medium, slightly bitter finish. I’ve enjoyed other Matchless beers, but found this too sweet with way too much cardamom.
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Here we go!

  1. Trillium Brewery - Gay Head Lighthouse - DIPA - Juicy… almost too juicy. Slight bitter hops at the finish, but the body was super heavy. I like it just a bit lighter.

  2. Treehouse Brewing - Doppleganger DIPA - canned 11/13 so it was a bit dated. Medium body, huge amts of head. Love the palate weight and juicy notes. Slightly too bitter as the fruit has faded a bit. delicious tho. Big fan of Treehouse

  3. Hill Farmstead Brewery - Ligitimacy IPA - lightest body of the three. orange and citrus. So easy to drink, definitively crushable.

NE IPA night… fun times.

Edit: adding a photo of 2/3. Does photo count for anything?
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Very fresh clean cracker malt nose with a little bit of grass. A little light on the carbonation for my taste, as I prefer my Pilsners super crisp and carbonated. But overall, a very easy drinking, crushable german style pilsner.

Rick, Is this tasting restricted to “craft lager” or is anything in the “craft” category fair game? -Jim

Did I get points for a craft german-styled lager?

I too had a question since the OP was written as “$5 for a Craft and/or German/Czech lager TN”…

Is it:
a. $5 for a Craft beer (of any kind), and/or, a Germany/Czech lager (even if not craft by nature).
or
b. $5 for a Craft version OR a germany/czech version of a Lager.

I assumed A (craft beer of any kind) b/c the title of the event is “Craft Beer Intermezzo”, not Lager Beer intermezzo. If i’m wrong, ah well, still had some good NE Hops. :wink:

I’ll take any craft beer, even an IPA.