Well, after two and a half months of not visiting any new breweries, I ended up going down to Portland with a group of friends for a mad dash of brewery tours. Thinking I’d make the trip a bit more relaxing, I headed down the day before. The friends I stayed with then took me out to Occidental Brewing, which wasn’t on the weekend’s ambitious itinerary. Occidental does German-style beers, and I guessed that I would like their lighter beers more than their darker (dunkel/bock-style) ones. I guessed correctly. All very well-made, though — I’m just not a big fan of German-style dark beers.

Samples at Occidental Brewing — Portland, OR

Rob’s Picks
• Hefeweizen – Lemony, bready, light. Very refreshing. Good German-style hefeweizen. Clove/banana aftertaste, but not too strong.
• Cloudy Summer – Kolsch-style. Strong bready aroma. Great bubbliness. Good bready flavor and hoppy edge. Light, but not as light has the hefe. Yum!
• Altbier – Slight floral hoppy aroma. Good malty base with complementary bitter back end. Slight lingering caramel flavor.

The Rest
• Dunkel – Sweet bock/malty aroma. Malty and slight nutty taste, not too much of that malty sweetness. Pretty good.
• Lucubrator – seasonal Doppelbock – Similar aroma to the Dunkel. Tastes kind of like a stronger version of the Dunkel, in fact, but with a bit more of that malty sweetness. Sorta barley wine-ish in taste, but without the alcohol flavor and content.
• Dunkelweizen – seasonal – Very unfiltered lemony aroma. Clove/banana and slight lemon flavors with malty/bocky sweetness. Reminded me quite a bit of Leavenworth’s Whistling Pig Dunkelweizen.

This sampling session was nice and relaxed. Had plenty of time to scribble down my notes between tastes and discuss the beers with Robert, who does his share of homebrewing. Felt like I learned quite a bit about beer talking with him. Maybe I should give this homebrewing thing a try — just need to find somewhere other than my little one bedroom place to do it.