Oregon Beer Awards, Version 2018

The 2018 Oregon Beer Awards ceremony took place at Revolution Hall on Wednesday evening. It was a packed house of mostly industry-connected folks. There may have been some independents who attended because they thought it might fun...and they were rewarded.

Organizers have fixed a lot of the issues that made this event less than perfect in the past. Getting into the building was a problem in each of the last two years. I didn't see much of that this year, maybe because I was in the building early. Things seemed to have a better flow.

The two MCs did a good job keeping the awards on schedule. Presenters got onstage and mostly focused on the award they were handing out. There wasn't as much in-between fluff as what I recall from past years. Yet the ceremony still lasted nearly three hours.

This is the third year in which the award winning beers were selected by way of objective judging. I was part of that again. Judging (with the exception of the fresh hop beers) happened in late January at Maletis Distributing headquarters on Swan Island. Very nice facility there.

Judging was done over two days. We tasted a gazillion beers in 24 style categories. The Oregon Beer Awards are establishing themselves as our own version of the Great American Beer Festival, but the number of categories is a far cry from the 90+ judged in Denver. That's good and bad.

I was on the panel that selected winners in Classic UK Styles. That category included English-style IPAs, porters and the gold medal winner, a barleywine (Femur) from Boneyard. Having all these sub-styles in the same category was, like a friend of mine, a little awkward. My understanding from competition director, Ben Edmunds, is they hope to adjust for that next year. That would be good.

This year's actual judging was nicely arranged. The space at Maletis was an improvement on what we had in previous years. Then there were the countless behind-the-scenes people who volunteered their time to pour and schlep samples around. Big thanks to those folks. In contrast, those of us who judge are on easy street. Honest.

No need for me to dwell on the winners. Ezra posted a recap within hours of the event winding up. He's a co-founder of the competition and director of the awards ceremony. Unlike the rest of us schmucks, he surely had the results in hand prior to the time winners were announced on stage. Regardless, you can read his article here.

One of the complaints I've heard several times around town is that the OBA is the Breakside show. That's due to the fact that Breakside has been pretty dominant since judging began in 2016 and that Ben Edmunds, Breakside brewmaster, has somehow fixed the competition.

That's a pretty outrageous suggestion, right? And it's all the more outrageous if you know Ben, who is one of the most honest and genuine people you'll meet in this business. Breakside was tied with 10 Barrel for the most medals this year with five each. Maybe Edmunds was a little off his fixing game this year. Maybe.

Another part of the OBA schtick is an academy that votes on a bunch of things, like Best New Brewery, Best Brewpub Experience, etc. I plead guilty to being part of that academy and I voted for  the winners, for better or worse, in most categories (the results are part of Ezra's piece).

One area where my vote differed from the academy was the Hall of Fame choice. John Harris was inducted and he is certainly deserving of the honor. Harris started his career at McMenamin's and became an icon at Deschutes and Full Sail before launching Ecliptic several years ago. He's a great fit for the Hall of Fame.

My vote went to Art Larrance, one of the founding fathers here with Portland Brewing. Art has been director of the Oregon Brewers Festival since the beginning and, of course, founded Cascade Brewing in 1998. Along with the Widmers, the Ponzis and the McMenamins, Art was instrumental in getting the Brewpub Bill, passed in 1985. These folks should all be in the Hall of Fame ahead of brewers who benefited from their efforts. My opinions on this issue are informed mostly by history. Thus, I hope all of the founding brewers are inducted before they're gone.

As has been the case for the past several years, the Oregon Beer Awards coincided with release of Willamette Week's 2018 Beer Guide. I wrote some snippets and a short article for the Guide again this year. The 2018 focus is a little different, as we switched from covering breweries within 50 miles of Portland to covering the Top 100 Oregon breweries. That actually aligns with the OBA judging. Copies are available around town and there will be an online version soon.

There's no particular need to review the Guide here. It is what it is. One thing I do want to mention is the list of Top 10 beers. That's a highly subjective list, compiled by WW staffers and beer freelancers during a December bottleshare. The top beer listed is Upright's Pathways, a unanimous choice. Coincidentally, Pathways won a gold medal in objective judging. Hmmm.

So that's about it. As in past years, thanks to Willamette Week for sponsoring the competition and to Ben Edmunds for running it. Finally, special thanks to Martin Cizmar, WW arts and culture editor, who drove the editorial portion of the Beer Guide and invited me to participate several years ago. Martin is moving on to new digs at RawStory. Good luck, man.

Thoughts on the Oregon Beer Awards

Last night's Oregon Beer Awards at the Doug Fir Lounge provided a nice, if brief, look into the soul of the state's craft beer scene. The event was organized by Willamette Week, with help from a few others, and coincides with the release of its 2015 Beer Guide. Get a copy.

Maybe the most shocking thing about last night's affair is that it's the first event of its kind. Oregon's craft beer industry is more than 30 years old, yet there had never been any kind of pubic awards event like this one. Pretty hard to believe.

Inasmuch as this was their first time out, you can understand that there were some issues. There were long lines to enter the building and more long lines to get a beer. Organizers clearly did not anticipate the level of interest this event would generate. I suspect they will do better next year.

There's no reason to list the winners here. Results have been posted over on the New School site and on Brewpublic. As well, I'm quite sure WW will have a web version of the Beer Guide live in the next few days. [Ed note: it's here.] Redundancy is not a virtue, at least not here.

How they determined winners is another matter. It was not by fiat. Instead, group of some 20 experts came up with 15 categories and pared the nominees to roughly 10 in each category. Voting was done by a pool of industry-connected folks...brewers, pub staff, distributors, writers, homebrewers, etc.

Although I wrote a covey of snippets for the Beer Guide, I was not one of the 20 or so "experts" who chose and narrowed the categories. Possibly that was an oversight, possibly not. What's an expert, anyway? Regardless, the ballot was pretty consistent with what I would have included.

Looking out on the crowd of attendees got me thinking about an article that appeared on the Aljazeera America website the other day. The article outlines some of the significant challenges faced by craft beer as it deals with increased competition from within (a doubling of the number of craft breweries since 2008) and from without (buyouts, AB branch distributors, etc.).

For big beer, the writing is on the wall. Part of the reason the Oregon Beer Awards attracted such a sizable crowd is that younger drinkers are moving away from crap macro and toward craft beer in droves. More than 40 percent of Americans aged 21-27 have never even tried Budweiser...this according to AB's own stats. That's scary for the guys that brew "The Hard Way."

The fallout of this situation is financial opportunity. With Anheuser-Busch actively looking to buy craft breweries and with craft growing by leaps and bounds, there is a boatload of money floating around in the marketplace...certainly more than we've ever seen.

A significant downside to that reality is we have people entering craft beer mainly because they see an opportunity to make money. Some see it via growth of their own brewery over time; others see it via getting established and cashing in within a few years.

As I looked out on the crowd at the Beer Awards, I wondered how many of the attending brewers will be content sticking to the ideals of integrity and quality, and how many are mainly in it for the money. I suppose we'll have the answer in a few years.

Maybe sooner in some cases.

Who Killed Dean's Scene?

Many who stop by here surely know of Dean's Scene. If you aren't in the know, Dean's Scene is located in the basement of a home on Northeast Fremont Street across from the Alameda Brewpub, where it operated as a speakeasy for a number of years. Owner Dean Pottle closed the joint this week after the OLCC notified him of probable violations.

The story announcing the closure of Dean's funhouse first appeared on the Willamette Week website. There's a reason. Several months ago, WW ran a story that delved into the goings on at Dean's Scene. It was a decidedly positive story written by Martin Cizmar, arts and culture editor at WW.

At the time, many beer geeks thought the story a bad idea...thinking it drew attention to a well-kept secret  that needed to stay that way. With the announcement that Dean has shut things down, those folks are piling the blame on Cizmar and WW. This is what declining attention spans do for us.

There are several points that need clarification and, apparently, explanation. Because there are details in this mess of a story that are being horrendously overlooked.

For the record, I have no loyalty to Cizmar or WW. We run in some of the same circles, but I've never met Cizmar. I exchanged emails with WW editor, Mark Zusman, Cizmar and others as part of last year's book project. That's it. In fact, I have criticized some of Cizmar's work at WW and it stuck in his craw. Even though I often disagree with his opinions, I think he's a good writer who produces entertaining stuff. But I have zero loyalty to him or WW.

Who's responsible for the closure of Dean's Scene? Definitely not Willamette Week. The original story was a great example of providing information of interest to the community. See, that's what journalists are supposed to do. Newspapers and news weeklies pay their bills by building readership that helps sell ads and subscriptions. Cizmar's story on Dean's Scene was a dialed-in fit for those objectives.

There's more. It was not Cizmar's job to investigate the legality of the operation at Dean's Scene. Or, more to the point, to evaluate the impact of the publicity. His job was to write a story that reported on what the place had to offer, good or bad. It certainly was not his job to keep Dean's Scene secret or write a negative story so the beer geek community could keep the place all to itself.

If you want to place blame, look no further than the owner of the establishment, Pottle. He agreed to be interviewed for the WW story. If he was remotely concerned that publicity might attract the interest and ire of the OLCC, he should have declined to be interviewed. Cizmar may have still written the story, but it would have been less detailed.

Another thing to consider is this: Dean's Scene is not closed permanently. In response to the OLCC notices, Pottle filed an application for a home brewers and private club license in mid-January. He closed up shop this week to prevent the possibility of OLCC action while he waits for that license. Assuming the application goes through, he will eventually reopen with some guidelines in place.

What was the OLCC's beef? A letter to Pottle dated Dec. 9 (and acquired by WW) outlines the agency's concerns in several areas. The most prominent issues involve production levels and fees.

The OLCC had discovered evidence that Pottle was brewing 30 gallons of beer every week...more than 1,500 gallons annually if extrapolated out. By the way, this fact was not revealed in Cizmar's story. It was evidently included in a TV interview Pottle did for the Esquire Network's Brew Dogs. The law limits unlicensed beer production at home to 100 gallons a year (200 in a house with two adults).

Donations, required or otherwise, were the other major issue. When I visited Dean's Scene more than a year ago, a sign on the wall said "No Beer Without Donation." Cizmar's story indicated that donations were optional. Wall signage shown in a photo published with the story contradicted that statement, but never mind. It doesn't matter to the OLCC if a donation is required or optional. You cannot charge or accept a fee for beer unless you have an OLCC license. Period. Some will quibble with this requirement, but it is clearly the law.

So Pottle was in clear violation of at least two OLCC regulations. It seems to me he should have acquired the appropriate OLCC license long ago, assuming he intended to brew 30 gallons of beer per week and offset the cost of that production via donations. By operating outside legal guidelines, he was inviting scrutiny. Why shouldn't he comply with the law? Other people do.

If the Willamette Week story and the Brew Dogs piece helped bring Pottle into compliance, perhaps that's not such a bad thing. Go ahead and turn Martin Cizmar into a virtual punching bag if you want, but what happened to Dean's Scene ain't his fault.

The Origins of Beervana

You have to give the folks over at the Willamette Week credit. After many years of poo-pooing their beer coverage, they're getting serious again. Their 2013 Beer Guide, released last week, is a solid piece of evidence along those lines.

1994

The Guide contains some nicely written content and photos from the local beer scene. Lots of knowledgeable, talented people contributed. They're billing this thing as their first Beer Guide in over a decade...which I suppose sounds better than saying it's the first in nearly 20 years. Because 1994 is when the last one appeared. More on that shortly.

The reality is, WW was once a great source of beer information. They published a weekly column on beer, written for several (if not many) years by William Abernathy. Later, Jeff Alworth, whose Beervana is perhaps the oldest Portland beer blog, took over the beer writing post. But the column was splitting time with wine during most (maybe all) of his run there and was headed downhill.

Not to get into a deep discussion of the 2013 Beer Guide, but it's worth picking up if you haven't already. I suspect copies can be found in pubs around town. A lot of people have quibbled about the Top 10 list, but such lists always attract attention for what is and isn't included. Nature of the beast, if you will. Pick up a copy and see for yourself.

Perhaps just as important as the recent Beer Guide is that WW has made available the original 1994 Beervana insert on their website. You can download the PDF and discover what the beer culture was like in those days. We've come light years.

I remember reading the insert from cover to cover several times back in the day. I always intended to keep it, but I suppose a dog must have eaten my copy at some point. So I had to look at it on microfilm last summer as part of book research. Not very handy. Now I've got a PDF on the computer. Very handy.

Beyond the interesting, funny stuff in the 1994 piece, it is apparently also where the descriptor "Beervana" came from. Read Martin Cizmar's explanation here for more details. I can't vouch for the accuracy of this claim because I wasn't there. But it sounds right...and we did start calling this crazy place Beervana in the mid-90s.

The 1994 Guide appeared at a good time. The craft beer movement in Portland was more than 10 years old and it seemed stable and here to stay. It's entertaining and quaint to see what was happening and what the writers were thinking. The old ads are fun, too. I recommend downloading this piece of Beervana history. It's not like you have to pay for it.