Raising Capital at Lucky Town Brewing

Check out this list of breweries per capita. All the way down at the bottom is the State of Mississippi. That’s kind of sad for them, but Lucky Town Brewing is trying to fix that and open the next brewery in Jackson, Mississippi.

With the brewery motto of "Be Bold. Rediscover Beer." they hope to help raise some funds with their Kickstarter page.

Kickstarter is a website to connect creative people that need money to fund a project with potential donors. We’ve seen other breweries use it successfully in the past like Short Snout Brewing.

If you decide to donate, there’s some pretty cool swag and/or input to the brewing process that you’ll get access to. At the $25 donation level you get some bumper stickers and beer koozies. At $5,000 you get to tell them what style of beer to brew, on-sight! (there are several levels in between… see the Kickstarter page for details). Their goal is $20,000 and we hope they get it. Micro-financing or crowdfunding is a hard way to go for any start up. If you’re thinking about donating even if the “return on investment” isn’t there, you’ll still get some awesome beer karma in return.

Good Luck, Lucky Town!

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Portland Turning on the Wells, Again

Effectively beginning on January 22nd, 2012 and lasting until further notice:

Portland, Oregon, USA is deactivating their Bull Run water supply and moving to their well-water-only backup source. This change is due to recent weather causing an increase in turbidity. The Bull Run system is unfiltered.

This will change the water composition for many brewers in the Bull Run supply area. If this concerns you, please take a look at the official statement and note the changes to the water composition.

For most folks, this isn't going to affect you. For the ones who care, or are merely curious, we'll keep you posted as to when the water is back to normal! Happy brewing.

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Hellshire II, Tart? It will depend…

It looks like the Eugene, Oregon brewery Oakshire had an uninvited guest to the barrel aging party for Hellshire II and the beer has been contaminated with lactobacillus. Although not harmful, it can (and usually does) change the flavor of the beer to be more tart and acidic. In a stand up decision by Matt Van Wyk, Brewmaster at Oakshire, anyone can chose to be reimbursed or swap your bottle of Hellshire II at the tasting room. You can read the Oakshire statement here.

I had a glass or two in the Oakshire tasking room back in November and thought that bourbon-coffee-chocolate tones in the beer were wonderfully complex, and I picked up a bottle for the future. I’ve had my bottle in the fridge since November so I might throw caution to the wind and open it up over the weekend. I’m actually a little intrigued with how it will compare to a sour.

...a few days later...

Review

It pours very thick, black with a hit of red/brown and next to no head. The last time I poured something this think was when we were reviewing Old Engine Oil.

With the first aroma I get a hit of bourbon and red wine with just a little maraschino cherry.

The taste is complex. It starts as a Stout with a little coffee but quickly moves to a plum/prune followed slowly by a light bourbon and dark red wine. The taste left on the tongue is the traditional Stout chocolate/coffee. It’s a 10 ½ percent ABV but it really doesn’t hit you with the alcohol, its more of an afterthought.

Mouth feel is right in line with an Imperial Stout. It’s thicker, coats the tongue and hangs around for a while. My personal preference would be to serve it a few minutes after its out of the fridge so the temp/carbonation balance is right.

Overall I’m a fan. There are a few barrel aged Stouts out there right now and I think this holds up with any of them. I don’t think it’s a beer for a novice drinker (they just won’t enjoy it), but if you like Imperial Stouts I think you’ll like the complexities the barrel aging adds to it.

Final Thoughts

The lactobacillus is a big downer but I’ve had to pitch a more than 1 batch of my own homebrew. I had a fear of opening an undrinkable beer but I thought my bottle was just fine. The effect on the beer will completely depend on the storage conditions and time. I had mine in the fridge since I bought the bottle at the OakShire tasting room on Nov. 23, 2011 and opened it on Jan. 8, 2012. So if you have a bottle and are thinking about taking it in for the refund think about how you’ve stored it, I wouldn’t want you to miss out on a good beer.

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Homebrewing Ginger Beer

We like rhyming. And, since it's always fun trying to brew something new, we decided to come up with a ginger homebrew recipe.

Our goals were to get something with that ginger “zing” that has a little alcohol in it and also to see if we could get close to any of the examples sold in stores (We're big fans of Red Stripe Light Ginger). Basically, we wanted to make a ginger ale without making “ginger ale”. This was also a budget batch and we only wanted to spend about thirty bucks.

With our little homebrew setup we decided to make a 6 gallon (22.7 litre) batch. Our single-infusion mash efficiency, with batch sparging, is a casual 70%. And if you don't know what any of those terms mean, it's okay. So, at the homebrew store we picked up the following ingredients:

5.50 lbs (2.5 kg) 2-row Pale
5.50 lbs (2.5 kg) White Wheat Malt
0.33 lbs (150 g) Crystal 10
0.50 lbs (227 g) Rice hulls
0.50 lbs (227 g) Fresh ginger, actually picked up at the grocery store
20.0 ibu (Tinseth formula) Magnum hops (just about any hop will do)

All of our grains were American-variety. For the yeast, we didn’t want anything to compete with ginger so we picked the non-confrontational Nottingham dry ale yeast.

Time to fire up the burner!

We got 4.9 gallons (18.55 litres) of water up to 175F (79.4C) and threw-in all of the 2-row, wheat & rice hulls, letting them soak for 60 minutes (if you're unfamiliar, that part is called “mashing”, for some reason). Our mash had started at an intentionally-warm 160.5F (71.4C), but cooled to 155.5F (68.6C) over the hour, just as we had expected. At the first runoff we had about 1.067 on the hydrometer.

For the batch sparge (sparging means “rinsing the grain with water”) we added 3.5 gallons (13.25 litres) of water that had been heated-up to 170F (76.7C). We were expecting the second runoff to be around 1.020 but it ended up a little closer to 1.026. But that's probably within the margin of error for using a 2-quart pitcher to measure 3.5 gallons of water with one hand, while simultaneously consuming alcohol with the other hand.

So, we then had 7.0 gallons (26.5 litres) ready to boil (if you have any homebrew questions, by the way, feel free to ask them). Total boil time planned was six-zero minutes. We threw the hops in as soon as we had a boil. With 10 minutes remaining we threw half of the ginger in.

Do ve grate or do ve chop ze ginger?

We weren’t sure if we should grate or chop the ginger. Or if it should be skinned...aliive. A few minutes of internet research reminded us that 80% of internet results for homebrew are crap, so we opted to leave the skin and chop it into pieces about the size of your pinky nail. Seemed to work completely fine for us.

There’s the wind up and the Pitch...

At the end of the boil, we had just over 6 gallons (22.7 litres) of wort. We cooled everything down with our “we made it with Home Depot parts” immersion chiller and pitched the yeast a little cold at 66F (18.9C). For the next 5 days we kept the beer at around 70F (21.1C), and then on day 5 we racked to another carboy and added the rest of the chopped ginger. For this addition, we boiled the ginger in a very small amount of water, for 1 minute, adding both the ginger and the water.

Fifteen days later we have a pretty darn good Ginger Beer. We banished ours to a dark, corny keg dungeon and drank it immediately. There were no survivors. But it would also be appropriate to bottle-condition humanely at this point. Just make sure to carbonate a little on the high side--- The added bitterness balances the sweetness of the ginger.

The Sensory Analysis

If you brew it to our specs, this beer should finish crystal clear. The color is similar to a Blonde Ale and you really get the ginger aroma right off the bat. The initial taste is very clean and crisp, finishing with a big ginger aftertaste. From a starting gravity of 1.050, our ending ABV was ~4.8%. We went out and picked up some Red Stripe Light Ginger and ours was very flavor-comparable (Hey, who’s going to write a blog post about their homebrew when it sucks?), with Red Stripe feeling a little weaker. We aren't going to say that we used too much ginger; however, we might put in a little more ginger during the boil and a little less in the secondary, next brewday.

Overall, we were very pleased with how this recipe turned out and we’ll do it again this summer. It was also one of the more affordable batches we've ever done, costing just under $30 for 6 gallons of beer.

And we definitely answered the question, “Do you leave the skin on when you homebrew with ginger?”: Leaving the skin on is completely legit.

Red Stripe Light Ginger is brewed by Desnoes & Geddes, Ltd.
www.redstripebeer.com

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Redhook Uses Public Relations Firm to Push "Strip Crawl"

Yes, you heard me right. Redhook Ale Brewery is organizing a group to go visit strip clubs.

If that's too hard to believe, take a look at this communication (via their PR firm).

Personally, my opinion wouldn't have even flinched if this were really "unsanctioned". (Would it have been that hard to organize an ad-hoc, informal group? You know it would not have been.)

Maybe a lot of readers will disagree with me. But I still say it's unprofessional on company time.

Let Ted know if you feel the same as I do. His number and email are in the image.

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Portland Turning on the Wells

Breaking news:

The city of Portland, Oregon, USA is temporarily activating their groundwater supply system from Aug. 9th through Aug 23rd, 2011.

This operation has the potential to have an impact on the substance content of the water received by Portland's beer consumers and brewers. How significant of an impact? Well, it depends. How much does it depend? I'm glad you asked. Here's a PDF with all the juicy watery details.

On a normal brewing day, the very-beer'ed city of Portland receives its water from a reservoir supply, known as the "Bull Run" reservoir. The Bull Run supply is pretty soft water, which matters to a lot of brewers. But the well supply is ten times harder. Even though the source pH is staying the same --- precisely 8.0 --- there will be some changes. Let's go ahead and take a look at a few of them. Since the PDF states that Portland consumers may receive groundwater in combination with reservoir water, these figures are maximum potential increases, assuming you'd get the blend.

Hardness as CaCO3 is doubling, from 7 to 14ppm
Calcium is increasing from 1.7 to 3.1ppm
Magnesium is increasing from 0.7 to 1.5ppm
Sodium is increasing from 3.7 to 4.3ppm

Will this actually affect you? Okay, okay, Don't bet on it. Do you really think you're that consistent from batch-to-batch in your own brewing? Come on! But it is an interesting read to check out the report.

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Columbus, Tomahawk and Zeus (CTZ): A hop by any other name…

Why would the same hop have a bunch of different names? Well it’s the kind of story only a hard core hop-junkie or patent / intellectual property attorney would find interesting.

The abridged version is that in 1979 Chuck Zimmermann was working for the USDA hop program in Washington State when he left to go to work in private industry at a company called Hop Union and then onto Yakima Chief. Hop Union called the hop strain Columbus; Yakima Chief called it Tomahawk. After some legal action all the parties mended their relationship and each company sold the hop using their own name for it.

A few years later a third company, S.S. Steiner, came up with a very similar hop and called it Zeus. It must have been different enough to get past the Hop Union patent (I know nothing about agricultural patents), but it's similar enough that everyone says its indistinguishable from the other two in a finished product.

Since you’ll get the same results from either hop brewers began abbreviating all three names to CTZ. So now you know.

Brewing Qualities

Who wants dry, harsh grapefruit? No? Okay, no grapefruit...

Because this is a hop with the potential for rough edges, it is used almost-exclusively for bittering (Stone uses it in most of their beers for just that very purpose). Not many commercial examples of it as a sole-use flavor hop.

However. Pyramid Brewing is doing an unusually-good job of implementing CTZ in a production, smooth, year-round beer. If you take one thing away from this article, make sure it is the desire to check-out their Thunderhead IPA. Flavored with nothing but CTZ.

But, in general, because of the common usage as a bittering hop, this is a hop that can be used in almost every style.

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Un-Rebranding Pyramid

North American Breweries is taking a deep breath, and starting over with their newly-acquired Pyramid brand.

Blatantly rejecting the couple-years-back marketing and packaging shift of Pyramid, acknowledging scores of customer complaints about the branding (Haywire Hefeweizen is abruptly no longer Haywire), and even giving genuine credit to Widmer for elevating the American Hefeweizen style. No joke.

Currently brewing out of Portland, Seattle and Berkely, Pyramid's entire northwest production is handled out of Portland, with Berkely supplying the midwest. What's more, even though the boiler system failed long ago at their Seattle location, is that Pyramid is slowing reviving Seattle, starting with it becoming their 15 bbl pilot system for a binder full of new recipies.

NAB's Plant Manager for Pyramid's Portland location, Thomas Bleigh, has his hands in a lot of the brand's work. And his hands are busy. Not only do he and his brewers work long hours on the mostly-manual Portland system, he also makes the three-hour drive up to Seattle to operate the pilot brewhouse as needed. Impressive.

But, hey, what else would you expect from a guy who worked his way up from a not-for-pay apprentice, to the official title of Plant Manager? Don't know about you, but we say it's refreshing to see the corporate guys knowing good ground-level talent when they see it.

Stay tuned for more beers, more innovation, and more ground-level brewing from the Pyramid line of beers. We congratulate NAB and the Pyramid team for their constructive collaboration, and wish them both a huge amount of success.

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The Cans Fest

Its no secret that the KSWbeer Blog is a fan of canned craft beer. Cans are environmentally friendly, get cold more quickly and can keep beer fresher longer. Some reports have said more than 100 American craft breweries recognize the benefits and are choosing to can more of their product. In fact just this week New Belgium Brewing announced that they were expanding their canning line to operate at ludicrous speed!

So its no big surprise that there’s a canned Beer Festival ‘The Cans Fest’ in Portland (Oregon), this Saturday June 9th, noon to 10pm.

Looks like a big line up of beers , live music, your favorite beer radio show and even two lectures by local brewers on the how awesome cans are. You might even see a local blogger!

The Cans Fest
Saturday, July 9th from 12pm - 10pm
The Guild Public House
1101 East Burnside
Portland, Oregon Continue Reading...

Bend Ale Trail (part 2)

Part 1 of the Bend Ale Trail left off with my Griswold-esque family vacation in Bend/Sunriver, Oregon. It was an 80 degree evening in late June when the sun was just dipping past the Three Sisters, giving this high desert town its typically-spectacular sunset.


Passport Stamp #4: Bend Brewing Company

Even on our mid-week adventure the outside patio was packed. But why wouldn’t it be? Beautiful night, patio overlooking the Deschutes River in downtown Bend, micro brews… after a quick look around to see what we were missing our group got a table inside. I got an Outback Old Ale. My first reaction was that the malt and alcohol were right on style and I picked-up hints of toffee and raisins in the finish. It was a fun and interesting finish to a solid old ale. Then, just to spin my taste buds around, I tried a few drinks of my fiancée’s Ching Ching fruit beer. This pink beer was a sour sweet-tart hand grenade blast of pomegranate & hibiscus. After the old ale this really made me pucker. Once the initial shock wore off, I started to really enjoy it. The Fiancée typically likes the fruit and sour beers and this is the new top of her favorite beer list. Not sure if it’s available in stores, so we might be picking up a growler before the drive home.

Walking out of Bend Brewing we saw another fun group on a 16 person bike-bar on their own tour. It looked like a lot of fun.

Passport Stamp #5: 10 Barrel Brewing

How awesome was our stop at 10 Barrel? WAY AWESOME! First, all of the brewers were having a party for one of the staff at the table next to us (I got some good insider info for a future post). Second, it was the barrel tapping of Prey for Bourbon (the Prey for Sun aged in a bourbon barrel). Third, I got the 10 Barrel Sample Platter plus a glass of Prey for Bourbon and some great food. I can’t review each of the beers here because this is a Bend Ale Trail post not a 10 Barrel post (10 Barrel post coming soon). So my review of Prey for Bourbon starts with the smell, are we sure this is beer because you get a big whiff of bourbon. The taste was more than delightful. The Prey for Sun is a great Strong Ale on its own but the bourbon adds the smoky-caramel that sends waves of happiness over the imbiber. With all the doors (walls) of the bar open to the fire pits on the patio and the warm Bend evening it was a great stop.

Passport Stamp #6: Boneyard Brewing

You know that junk drawer you have in your house? Take that drawer and fill an acre lot with all that random sh*t and you get Boneyard. Then imagine the people that scavenge through that stuff and make a brewery out of it. This is the smallest of the breweries but this place has an attitude all its own. When we showed up there was a line of 10 locals outside and 10 more inside filling up their growlers for the evening. I was bummed when the Black 13 was out but did I sample the Bone-a-Fide pale ale. It was a big smooth American Pale Ale with a pine-nutty finish. I only had the sample glass but should have brought my own growler.

Passport Stamp #7: Cascade Lakes Brewing Company

The last passport stamp was at Cascade Lakes. We got a double look at the patio we would be sitting in driving around the roundabout a few times but once in the door it was a really nice place. To celebrate the end of my ale trail I had a Blond Bombshell. She was a hoppy blond ale with a little lemon flirt going on. Sitting on the patio under the big pine trees at Cascade Lakes was a great end to my Ale Trail.

Extra Credit Passport Stamp: Three Creeks Brewing

With the Bend Ale Trail finished there was an extra credit stamp to get in Sisters, OR at Three Creeks Brewing that we didn’t have time to get to on this trip. Even though we didn’t make the drive to Sisters, I did pick up a 22oz of HooDoo VooDoo IPA at a local grocery store when I got home. It was pretty hoppy but had a nice hop balance a slight caramel smell and taste. I was really enjoying it after a week of deferred yard maintenance and mowing the lawn.

Newest Ale Trail Brewery: Goodlife Brewing Company

In between finishing the Ale Trail and writing the blog article I got the twitter update that another brewery was added?! Looks like I’ll be going back to Bend for Ale Trail Round 2 because I doubt that it will be the last addition to the Bend Ale Trail.

Last Stop: Visit Bend Welcome Center

The final stop was at the Visit Bend Welcome Center where they were very happy to see us and our completed passports. Our reward? Some pretty cool kitchen grade silicone pint glasses with the Bend Ale Trail logo. I haven’t seen a silicone pint glass before but it’s pretty cool.

Our group ran the spectrum from a few people that love craft beer to a non drinker and everyone enjoyed themselves. All in all it was a fun experience and I would totally recommend it to anyone. Continue Reading...

Bend Ale Trail (part 1)

Where does a beer blogger go on summer vacation? How about to the (self declared) city with the most breweries per capita in the nation, Bend, Oregon.

In some ingenious marketing the City of Bend has come up with The Bend Ale Trail, a fun trek around the city to visit the 8 (and counting) craft breweries. At each brewery you’ll get a ‘passport stamp’ on your map and at the end of your journey a stop at the Visit Bend Welcome Center gets you a kick ass souvenir. Some groups can do the entire loop in under 2 hours but I was on vacation (with the in-laws) and wanted to take my time and also went out of order, but the result is the same: a great experience and some remarkable craft brews.

Passport Stamp #1: Deschutes Brewery & Tasting Room

Obviously the biggest of the Bend Craft Brews we started things off at the flagship location. The Tasting Room has 4 free samples (but tip your server... thanks Sam!) a ton of tap handles and a lot of Deschutes swag if you want your own Deschutes pint glass, hats, shirts etc.
First tasting was Inversion IPA. The hoppy front and the mellow finish make this a great IPA. Second on the menu was Hop in the Dark the innovative Black(?) IPA. It was a great blend of an oat-coffee stout with hop punch that lets you know it’s a IPA. Lastly after seeing the tap handle and doing a few fist pumps was the Black Butte XXIII (counted as 2 samples because of its awesomeness). This ‘Reserve Porter’ is worth the trip to Bend itself. Our formal KSWbeer review of XXIII to follow shortly.

Passport Stamp #1.5: Deschutes Brewery Public House

You only need to visit one of the Deschutes venues to get your passport stamp but why not visit both? The Deschutes Brewery Public House is undergoing some construction when we walked but we found some nice outdoor seating. It will be interesting to see how big this place gets when the construction is finished.
It was lunch so we had some grub and I had a pint of Down & Dirty IPA in honor of the Dirty Half Marathon in Bend. If they make another IPA for the race I might be convinced to run it next year. Down & Dirty has a little more body than the Inversion but still blends quite nicely and as the name would suggest it does pour murky.

Passport Stamp #2: McMenamins Old St. Francis Brewery

Classic McMenamins feel of the historic building rejuvenated into an awesome brewery. I’ve had most of the McMenamins beers before but the Old St. Francis Brewery is the only place you’ll find AJ’s Pilsner, order up! Looking at AJ’s it was a classic crisp pilsner but with the first taste you’ll know you have a craft brew. AJ’s had a bigger body than I would have expected on a pilsner but it was only undertones of slightly more hops and an almost toffee malt flavor. They didn’t overpower the pilsner and came together very nicely.

Passport Stamp #3: Silver Moon Brewing

A short walk towards Hwy-97 we landed at Silver Moon. We were there at an off hour but the stage was set for some live music later on in the evening and the server was super nice and gave us a short history of the brewery. The Hoptagon Imperial IPA was recommended by the server at Old St. Francis’ when we told him our next stop. This was a 2 pint stop for me so I also had the HOP Knob IPA first. The HOP Knob had the hops you would expect from and IPA not so much of a malt character that I could pick out but a piney/spicy combination for a dry finish. I would say that it’s the high desert version of an IPA. The Hoptagon Imperial IPA was an experience. The five hop varieties hit your mouth in a big way. After the initial reaction I was starting to taste the citrus-grapefruit but kept coming back to why this was an imperial IPA, alcohol and hops.

Part 2 of The Ale Trail...
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Crystal Hops

The Crystal hop variety is easily among the most-popular in the American craft brewing industry. So popular, in fact, that we're pretty convinced that brewers and homebrewers alike sometimes toss it into a recipe without knowing what its individual flavors are.

On its own, Crystal is exceptionally-neutral (Think "very mild black tea", with minimal background flavors). Even when hop charges are elevated to IPA-strength, this flavor profile remains constant.

Bred as part of a multi-hop program to create an American replacement for German Hallertauer, Crystal hops are popular, in that role, for a very good reason.

And, after trying two different all-Crystal beers, another thought came to mind:

Assuming you had a surplus of Crystal, you could probably cut your more-valuable hops with it to reduce costs.

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Citra Hops

Love it or hate it, Citra is a variety that is growing in popularity. While this is definitely a hop that is easy to implement incorrectly into a beer [cough]NHC Seattle Regionals[/cough], today we're going to put it in an un-biased, positive light.

We're going to be using three beers in our comparison today: One made with Cascade, one with Citra, and one with Cascade and Citra.

Spoiler Alert! We will not be using the word "Gooseberry" as a flavor descriptor for Citra. Since we figure most people don't actually know what a gooseberry is or what it tastes like.

Now, the only purpose of the other two beers in this test is for a differential tasting of Citra and Cascade. You'll notice that we recently reviewed Cascade as a hop variety, and we felt it would make a decent companion. Check the link for a good description of Cascade's properties. Today we're tasting the all-Cascade beer for comparison with the Cascade-Citra beer, but not writing about it on its own.

For the beer featuring Cascade and Citra, or maybe for a beer featuring any other hops and Citra (Deschutes Inversion IPA, anyone?), the complexity of Citra is the mysterious puppeteer in the background, expertly directing the flavor in the intended direction without calling attention to itself. It's clear that this isn't an all-Cascade beer, but we probably never would have guessed it was Citra in combination. What we're saying is this: It's often hard to call "Citra!" unless it's used in a significant proportion of the total hop bill. If we were making educated guesses about hop blends, there are a lot of other fruity hop varieties, and there are a lot of other piney varieties.

Very clearly, the 100% Citra beer is showing off a funky combination of "Tropical fruit" and "Evergreen", and this is approximately in a 1:1 flavor ratio. So bizarre and unstable is this combination, that it really needs a decent malt backbone to support it. If you're brewing an all-Citra beer, don't skimp on the Crystal Malt. And keep your beer fresh.

We encourage you to look around in your local area for some 100% Citra beers. When you find one, tell us what you think. Just don't to a Google Image search for "Citra" while you're at work. :)

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Cascade Hops: American vs. English Yeasts

This may ruffle some feathers, but I'm going to say it: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is a very similar beer to Deschutes Mirror Pond. Both are American Pale Ales finished with nothing but Cascade Hops. They're similar in color; they're similar in flavor. Drinking both, side-by-side, is an interesting exercise in beer.

What is clearly different, however, is the yeast strain used. Sierra Nevada uses an American strain, while Deschutes uses an English strain.

If you're not familiar with how different yeast strains affect the same beer, this is your test. Go grab a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and a Deschutes Mirror Pond, and drink them at the same time.

It's clear that the American yeast strain adds less to the final flavor of the beer, and the English strain adds a slight "perfume" taste. Also, typically, American strains will leave less residual sweetness while English strains will leave a little more.

Cascade is a hop that has a lot of potential for a "grassy" taste, especially when dry hopping is used. Sierra Nevada and Deschutes don't significantly dry hop their pale ales, although you will notice that Mirror Pond is a little bit cloudy --- A telltale of noticable dry hopping.

For a description of the flavors that Cascade hops add to a beer, I feel like it's a 33% even split of "grassy", "grapefruit", and "orange". Not any of those flavors on their own, but definitely in combination. Significantly distinct from Centennial.

Cheers.

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
www.sierranevada.com

Mirror Pond
www.deschutesbrewery.com

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Ezra the Policeman

We don't actually know who did this, but The Daily Pull picked this one up and we completely agree that it's too good not to post.

I know we have a lot of national and international readers, so let me give you a little background. The guy playing the policeman in the video is actually a well-known blogger and event coordinator named Ezra, who goes by the pseudonym "SamuraiArtist" (You can follow him on his blog here, or on Twitter here). Ezra knows quite a few people in the Portland scene, does artwork for some of the local breweries, and has a pretty tight relationship with Upright Brewing.

And, do we have to add... Well, actually, we'll just leave it up to you to decide whether it's "funny because it's all true" or not.

For those of you following on RSS/Atom, the direct YouTube link is here.

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