Zwickelmania, a statewide celebration of the Oregon craft beer scene, continues for a second weekend on Feb. 22.
Organized by Oregon Brewers’ Guild, Zwickelmania involves more than 100 breweries across the state opening their doors for tours, tastings, meet-the-brewer sessions, and, of course, free samples.
The zwickel is the name of the tap fitted the side of fermentation tanks that allows brewers — and in this case, the public — to sample beers as they are in development.
This free event runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The guild turned Zwickelmania into a two-weekend event a few years back; Feb. 15 was Portland area, this weekend is the rest of the state, including seven breweries in the Gorge:
Double Mountain Brewery and Cidery, 8 Fourth St., Hood River, offers guided brewery tours, and Zwickel samples.
Ferment Brewing Company, 403 Portway Ave., Hood River, offers free samples, guided brewery tours, “Meet the Brewer,“ and a new beer release — a whiskey-barrel-aged imperial Farm Stout (10.5 percent ABV) offered in the tasting room. The Farm Stout should be available for a time, brewmaster Dan Peterson said.
Freebridge Brewing, 710 E. Second St., The Dalles, offers food specials, zwickel samples, guided brewery tours, “Meet the Brewer,“ and a new beer release.
pFriem Family Brewers, 707 Portway Ave., offers guided brewery tours and small bites paired with beer samples
Sedition Brewing, 208 Laughlin St., The Dalles, offers samples, guided brewery tours, and “Meet the Brewer.”
Thunder Island Brewing Co., 515 NW Portage Road, Cascade Locks (enter Marine Park, take a left just after the trestle), is dog friendly, and will offer food specials, zwickel samples, guided brewery tours, “Meet the Brewer,” and a new beer release.
Heading east? Ordnance Brewing in Boardman will offer samples, tours, “Meet the Brewer,” a new beer release, and Zwickel samples.
Backwoods adds distillery
More than beer is on the way in Carson, from Backwoods Brewing, according to Tom Waters, co-founder and chief operating officer. Backwoods has had a distilling license for three years and its high-proof product is aging and nearly ready to go.
I caught up with Waters at the Jan. 25 Holiday Hangover Beer Festival at The Ruins, organized by the Brewers in the Gorge alliance, of which Backwoods is a member.
Waters and his father, Jim, and brother, Steve, founded Backwoods in 2012 and have since expanded to a tasting room in the Pearl District in Portland. (Helping at Hangover Fest was “man of many hats” Dale Bybee.)
Next up is bourbon and whiskey, under Backwoods’ new Whiskey Tree Distillery name; the labels, still in process, will utilize the brewery’s distinctive “beer tree” logo motif.
The Waters hope to have their bourbon and whiskey on the market this year, but label design has not been finalized with the Washington State Liquor Control Board, and a new back bar for hard alcohol needs to be installed at the Carson pub.
“We met with Washington Liquor Control Board to figure out how to do it the way they want,” Waters said.
As to the product itself, “We’re still figuring out what we want to do and how. We just added a third still to our existing pot still and column still. Some of the stuff we had that was older we can blend with the newer but right now what we have in barrels we’ve tasted and it’s very smooth, with real vanilla flavors and characteristics.”
Backwoods’ new head brewer is Cody Jackson, formerly of breweries Ballast Point and Lightning in San Diego. Tom Waters stepped aside as lead brewer in order to oversee operations.
Of the Hangover Fest, he said, “This is a treat. When we first got going we reached out to these older breweries to help us, guys like Jess Caudill (now with Imperial Yeast) and Greg Doss (of Full Sail.) We leaned on those guys and they helped us out so much, going from a home brew setting to a commercial setting, to get us to the next level. It’s a family here.”
Connoisseur touts pFriem
Fourteen seemed to be the lucky number for pFriem Family Brewing as the 2020 Beer Connoisseur magazine extolled it as brewery of the year, and “possibly best brewery ever.”
Fourteen of the magazine’s listing of 200 top beers of 2019 went to pFriem. (The more beers a brewery submits, the greater the odds it will have a larger number ranked.)
Oude Kriek, Brouwer’s 14th Anniversary ale, and Golden Coffee Pale (12th overall) gained highest marks, with Oude Kriek at fourth overall and Brouwer’s 14th fifth, and the two beers also ranked as the top two fruit lambic beers.
Another 14: pFriem’s Belgian-Style Blond ranked in that place among the top 200.
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