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Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Your Best Beer of 2006

I am at this moment preparing a Best Beer of 2007 post. I am poring through old posts and notes and trying to recall all the beers I tried this year. For the first time in a long time, we saw breweries really experimenting, and so there's a lot of material. It occurred to me that you might have some good thoughts. So, what was the best beer you tried in 2006? (My criteria are that it had to be new in '06--or, if it's from an obscure brewpub, new to me--and it had to be brewed in Oregon. You need not adhere to these strictures.)

Here are a few of the newbies to prime your keg:
BridgePort Supris
Deschutes: Buzzsaw Brown, Anniversary Pils, Inversion IPA, The Abyss, Hop Trip
Widmer: '06 Hoppy Ale, Broken Halo IPA, Hooligan
Full Sail: Vesuvius, Black Gold Imperial Stout
Hair of the Dog: Blue Dot, Jim K (aka Jim)
Ninkasi Believer
Pelican Full House
Klamath Basin Brewing Cabin Fever Stout
Thoughts?

8 comments:

  1. Nøgne Ø Imperial Stout without doubt. Actually, I got to try their upcoming Dark Horizon, which I thick is even better. :)

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  3. It's not from Oregon (gasp!) but Bison Brewing in Berkeley, CA made an incredible farmhouse ale (2006 brewmasters reserve). Absolutely my favorite beer, which is quite a feat.

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  4. Grove--sounds great, but how do we track it down way out here in the hinterlands?

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  5. I've tried all the beers listed...

    Some have broken new ground... Although, some sucessful and others not as...

    I've quite a few from the list, but would have to say my top choices would be:

    Buzzsaw Brown
    The Abyss
    Vesuvius

    Buzzsaw is SOLID Brown ale
    Abyss is a true English RIS, Nice!

    But, for the Northwest, I would say that Vesuvius has broken the most ground in a new and interesting direction for the Northwest. It's campareable to selections from Russian River BC and Tomme Arthurs's Pizza Port beers. A nice American Belgian...

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  6. DBT, at the risk of encouraging you, I have to say that two of the beers you identify are in my top five.

    Maybe I have to re-evaluate...

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  7. Jeff,

    The Shelton Brothers will start importing them. I actually think the bottles are on their way across the Atlantic as we speak. :)

    http://www.sheltonbrothers.com/blog/comments.php?id=24_0_1_0_C

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  8. i stopped in at Rogue brewery in Newport sometime over the summer months and had a beer on tap - i believe they called it Doublehop Red or Dryhop Red (i got different answers from different bartenders).

    anyway, i sat there all day long and drank pint after pint of that absolutely wonderful beer. apparently, from what i was told, it was not being bottled, but it was the greatest beer i've ever had...

    sometimes it brings a tear to my eye knowing i'll never have it again.

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