Pints and Steins

September and October is a very special time of year. It’s the time that the hops are in season. I’m lucky to live in the heart of the hops growing region of the Willamette Valley here in Salem, Oregon. Each year, in September all the brewers in the Oregon area come here to check out the harvest. As a result, we beer drinkers get to be witness to the amazing brews that happen as a result.

In this review, we’ll dig into a brew from Bridgeport called Hop Harvest Ale. The label promises that this brew is from field to brew in under 1 hour, which is an amazing feat. Imagine that there are brewers, loading up a truck full of hops, heading straight for the brewery to boil them instantly.  It’s a yummy proposition.

I’m a huge fan of fresh hop ales, largely because I love the floral bitter taste of an IPA, but sans the the punch-you-in-your face bitterness.  This is where fresh hop ales come into place. These ales offer a hoppy experience without a high-degree of bitter.

In fact, this specific Bridgeport ale is intended to mix caramel malt and a touch of wheat to give a cloudy color to an ale that begs to be sampled.

Upon first sip, Hop Harvest Ale gives you a familiar pale ale type taste, but with a nice floral accented aftertaste.  There is no bitterness, likely because of the wheat influence. There is no malty overtone to this brew, just a nicely balanced hop-intense ale.

If you’re a hop fan, please check out this brew at your local pub or grocery store. Bridgeport has again hit the nail on the head and you won’t forget this beer.

I’ve written about how I wish we had a brewery here in Salem. However, I’ve always thought we just need a restaurant or bar that serves amazing beer from the already existing selection of local beer we have in the Pacific Northwest.

Salem, Oregon, please welcome Venti’s Cafe and Taphouse, which opened yesterday. My family and I went to check it out and we can gladly report that Venti’s taphouse is an amazing place to sample beers and get some great foot at the same time.

The location for Venti’s is quite convenient, no matter what part of town you live on as the restaurant and taphouse has set up shop on Commercial Street SE in the building that used to be home to Buster’s Barbeque. The owners of Venti’s did a complete remodel on the interior and the new look is stylish and modern.

The Venti’s Taphouse tries to be family friendly with an open feel and a dedicated kids area. As the Dad to a 1 and 4 year old, I can appreciate this, my daughters enjoyed the toys that could easily be retrieved from the kid’s area in the restaurant.

However, the joy of Venti’s Cafe and Taphouse is the beer selection. There are 24 rotating taps that feature all types of beer from throughout the Northwest. Additionally, there’s an amazing bottle and canned beer selection bringing the total to about 124 available beers.

I had the 10 Barrel India Summer Ale  from Bend, Oregon and my wife had the Dupont Saisan Farmhouse Ale and both were amazing. The India Summer Ale is refreshing and flavorful and the Farmhouse Ale is a German-style light ale, I’d describe it as a Kolsh type beer with a slight bite at the end.

The food selection spans pizzas, burgers, Asian inspired dishes such as Chicken teriyaki.  it’s a bit of a mish mash of food selection but you can guarantee that there’s something for everyone on the menu.

Conclusion

Overall the new Venti’s location (there’s one already downtown) is a welcome addition to the Salem restaurant scene. The amazing beer selection will impress any beer snow or connoisseur.  If you want to see what’s on tap right now, visit twitter.com/ventiscafe as the taplist changes so often.

So over at Farmer Brewing, the guy behind the blog is an apprentice brewer who is from the mid-valley who is doing his apprenticeship up in the Tri-Cities area of Washington.

In his post titled “Is it Time, Salem“, he talks about how Salem is in need of a microbrwerey and asks whether we’d like a brewery here.  My answer (I left a comment) was a resounding YES, PLEASE!

As you can see by this site, I love good beer.  I really enjoy going to Bend, Oregon because there are 6+ microbreweries in and around town.  Corvallis has two breweries including Block 15 and Flat Tail Brewing.  Why can’t Oregon’s second largest city have it’s own locally owned brewery?!  We can, and we shall!

So, if you’re so inclined, head over to his post and encourage this young brewer to come back to Salem and open a microbrewery here in Oregon’s capital.  Let’s do this!

Hop Trip Ale is a seasonal from Deschutes Brewery in Bend, Oregon. It’s a great beer that is rich in hoppy flavor. I had no idea how much effort it takes to make this great beer.

Apparently the Bend crew drives over to Salem to get the hops themselves, right off the vine. This all happens in September each year.

Here’s a short film about the process. So cool!