Double Mountain Brewery Blog

Check out “GRAVITAR” and “GOLIATHON”

We’ve released a couple of fine seasonals in the last couple of weeks… here are some details for you.

GRAVITAR Seasonal IPA:
Just in time for the winter doldrums comes GRAVITAR, an aggressively hopped IPA that increases the earth’s gravitational pull by exact 34.2%, according to our estimable brewmaster. It’s got something to do with the experimental hop variety HBC 342 we used — a whopper of hop with citrus, passion fruit, lemon & pineapple notes. There are a mere 15 plants of “342” on the entire earth at the moment… let us know if you like it, maybe they’ll grow more. We sweetened the malt character with honey malt from British Columbia and another sweet aromatic malt from the UK; pale chocolate malt was added for a dash of color. Brewed in honor of the video game console (a.k.a. “Productivity Killer”) recently installed in our break room. 7.2% ABV, 90+BU. Available in limited supply at fine beer bars around the Northwest, and at our Taproom for the next month or so.

Speaking of the video game:

GRAVITAR at the Double! from Double Mountain Brewery on Vimeo.

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GOLIATHON Strong, Dark Belgian-Style Ale
Fermented with an ale strain from Inglemunster in Belgium, along with our house yeast from Rochefort, Goliathon is a roasty, malty beer with fruit forward overtones. German Carafa and British roast barley were added late in the mash tun to provide rich color without aggressive roast bitterness. Big, alcoholic, satisfying — a perfect beer for January. 11% ABV, 28 BU. You can find Goliathon at some select accounts in Portland and Seattle, and at our Taproom for at least the next few months.

In addition to being the moniker of an Indianapolis metal band, GOLIATHON, it turns out, is also the name of an impressively cheesy, King-Kong-esque Hong Kong movie from the late 70s. I think this YouTube clip is from the Dutch release (?!). Enjoy.

Fa La La La La Vertical tasting at the Taproom, Christmas Eve!

Come sample the last four years of the Fa La La! Tasters will be $2 for a 5-ounce mini-snifter, and $7 for a full flight of four Fas. We’ll be putting on one keg of each vintage, so it’s definitely first-come, first served. Brewmaster Matt will likely be lurking. And with any luck there may be some left post-Christmas, too. Happy holidays everybody!

Fa La La La La 2011 Now on at the Taproom

FA LA LA LA LA WINTER ALE
Brewed with Gambrinus Pilsner malt, crystal malts and Centennial hops. 7.5% ABV, 85 BU

The mountain is open, the precip is blowin’ and the Fa is a’ flowin’ here in Hood River. This year’s batch is tasting as fresh and vital as ever, with kickin’ hops that defy all logic in their balancing act with the sturdy malt backbone. It’s the perfect beer of the moment, and it’ll never taste better than it does right now… Run, don’t walk, as they say.

This year’s release is bittersweet, unfortunately, as we have a very limited supply of the Fa and will not have enough to supply the wholesale trade. This year’s crop of Centennial hops (our fave) came in shorter than expected, and booming demand has put the squeeze on suppliers’ ability to make all the breweries happy. We simply can’t get enough. It’s one of those victim-of-one’s-own-success deals, for both the growers of this great hop and the brewers who’ve embraced it. We hear there will be similar issues with other popular varieties like Simcoe and Amarillo, too.

So the upshoot is that we have around forty kegs of holiday goodness here at the Taproom, which we hope will last us til Christmas. (We’ve put aside a few pony kegs for special events, so you might get lucky that way too.) We’ve just brewed a couple of Belgian-style specialties which should be ready to hit the taps next month, to help soften the blow as it were.. stay tuned for more info there.

Best wishes, the DM Crew

Who’s Got the Killers?

One of the most popular questions we get all year is “WHERE CAN I FIND KILLER GREEN IN [name of town]?” To help you along, we’ve compiled a list of all the places who’ve taken delivery of Killer Green and Killer Red below. Please note that a) it might already be drunk; b) might be waiting for tap space, and is thus untapped; or c) might be stashed for a later date, although we try to discourage this practice. Give your favorite spot a call ahead of time.

KILLER GREEN: OREGON

N Portland
Crow Bar
Eat Oyster Bar
Fire on the Mountain
Fixin’ To
Florida Room
Kenton Club
Lovely’s 50-50
Maui’s
Mississippi Pizza
Pause
Red Fox
Tasty and Sons

NE Portland
Alleyway Café
Beech St.
Binks
Bye and Bye
Concordia Ale House
Dove Vivi
Firehouse
Hilt
Laurelthirst
Mash Tun
Moon and Sixpence
Nepo 42
Nest
Podnah’s Pit
Radio Room
Red Flag
Spirit of 77
Swift Lounge
Tiga
Woodsman Tavern

NW Portland
Besaw’s
Henry’s
Irving Street Kitchen
Life of Riley
Low Brow
M Bar
North 45
Paragon
Serratto
Wildwood
Yur’s

SE Portland
Aalto Lounge
Apex
Apizza Scholls
Belmont Inn
Belmont Station
Bonfire
Bunk Bar
C Bar
Caldera Café
Cheese Bar
Dick’s Kitchen
Dig A Pony
Dots
East Burn
East End
Fire on the Mountain
Gold Dust Meridian
Green Dragon
Hawthorne Hophouse
Holocene
Horse Brass
Hungry Tiger Too
Kay’s
Ken’s Artisan Pizza
Landmark
Matchbox
Night Light
North
O’Malley’s
Observatory
Pok Pok
Produce Row
Roscoe’s
Side Street
Slingshot Lounge
Slow Bar
Sweet HereAfter
Victory
Vincente’s

SW Portland
Famous Dave’s
Goose Hollow
Higgins
Hot Lips Pizza
Jake’s Famous Crawfish
Kenny and Zukes
Nel Centro
Paddy’s
Veritable Quandary

Outer PDX
Highland Stillhouse
Maher’s
Monteaux’s

Gorge
3 Rivers Grill
6th Street Bistro
Brian’s Pourhouse
Burro-Loco
Cebu Lounge
Clocktower Ales
Divots
River Tap
Sawtooth
Springhouse Cellar
Trillium Café

Eugene/Corvallis
Agate Alley Bistro
Bier Stein
Bombs Away
Squirrel’s

Bend
Brother Jon’s
Summit Saloon
900 Wall

KILLER GREEN: WASHINGTON

Seattle/Tacoma
99 Bottles
Bottleworks
Brave Horse Tavern
Brouwer’s Cafe
Cooper’s Alehouse
Duck Island Saloon
Fiddler’s Inn
Hopvine Pub
Hudson Public House
Jakes Bar and Bistro
King’s Hardware
Latona Pub
Magoo’s Annex
Noble Fir
Parkway Tavern
Red Hot
The Dray
The Yard
Uber Tavern
Wedgewood Alehouse
World Beers/Tacoma Pipe & Tabacco

Olympia
Eastside Club
Gravity Beer Market
Skep & Skein

SW Washington
A Beer at a Time
Brickhouse Bar & Grill
Lapellah
Tommy O’s Downtown

KILLER RED: OREGON

N Portland
Saraveza
Hop And Vine

NE Portland
Podnahs Bbq
Moon And Sixpence
Bye And Bye
Nepo 42

SE Portland
Apizza Scholls
Horse Brass
Apex
Produce Row Cafe
Green Dragon
Belmont Station
Match Box Lounge
Victory
Woodsman Tavern

Gorge
Clocktower Ales

Bend
Brother John’s Public House

KILLER RED: WASHINGTON

Seattle/Tacoma
Brave Horse Tavern
Collins Pub
Noble Fir
Parkway Tavern
Red Hot

Olympia
Eastside Club
Skep & Skein

SW Washington
By the Bottle

Ladies & Gentleman, DANNY BARNES this Saturday 9/24

We’re proud here at the Double that we can provide our loyal followers with fun & free live music most weekends. And sometimes, we get to hit it out of the park — like this coming Saturday, when music legend Danny Barnes graces our garage for the very first time.

For those of you not in the know when it comes to Danny, he’s a banjo & guitar legend, founder of Austin’s house band The Bad Livers, and a favorite of musicians and music lovers the world over. He’s living in Seattle now, and we’re lucky to get him down our way for a night.

Our local bluegrass heroes Four On The Floor will open the show and then back Danny up for the rest of the night. We’ll get the music going at 8pm, hope to see you there.

P.S. Make sure you pinch Brewmaster Swihart at the show, who’ll surely think he’s dreaming.

Brewing on the River

Last month our intrepid brewmaster Matt Swihart and equally-intrepid operations manager David Murrell embarked on a uniquely awesome trek: a fully-catered float down the Wild & Scenic Rogue River, complete with DM kegs aplenty for the guests and crew. Oh, and they MADE BEER too. Here’s Matt’s report:

Hey there, a couple of us just got back from our fantastic beer rafting trip on the Wild and Scenic Rogue River. What made this year so cool — other than the 7 kegs we tapped on the 5-day float — was that we brewed a batch of beer on day 1, and drank it on the last night of the trip. The whole gourmet/adventure rafting trip was in partnership with Hood River-based Northwest Rafting. Owner Zach Collier has been putting together some stellar “Brews with Views” trips that involve breweries and rafting.

This was the second year of Double Mountain sponsoring a beer trip, but the first time we actually made beer on the river. Picture yourself running class III and IV rapids by day, and then settling in on a full service impeccably prepared meal every evening, then tapping some Double Mountain beer through our river-made tap system (a regular jockey box with extra cooling coils to preserve the ice).

Here’s a brief breakdown of the trip…

Day 1: Getting to know everybody, outfitting the rafts, safety training, hitting the river. First class III+ rapids we hit, I dump my kayak and get to train on self-rescue techniques. I also got stuck in a pretty giant eddy that wanted to suck me to the bottom of the river for about 5 minutes. David Murrell (former keg cleaner, now DM operations manager) shouts… “SWIM SWIM- YOU SUCK!” Maybe he said I was getting sucked-in… couldn’t tell. Only after Dave threatens to drink my share of the beer am I motivated to continue living. That evening, we hike a few hundred yards up Whiskey Creek. Fill pails with water from the creek, heat it up, and mash in our strong IPA-like beer. The beer is mostly Pils malt with a touch of caramel for color, very generous amounts of Simcoe pellet hops.

The kettle is a 1/4 bbl keg with the spear pulled. We fill it in a few hours, boil, then transfer the keg into the river to cool. Then time to go tap a new DM beer for dinner. We start the trip with tri-tip steaks, dutch oven crumb cake, Kolsch and Vaporizer.

Day 2:

Check out the photo of rafting guide Nick sleeping with his two empty kegs from the previous evening:

We hike to a couple of waterfalls, hang out at tap the Porter and IRA. Evening meal is dutch-oven-style lasagna after appetizers of fresh basil, tomatoes & mozz.

Day 3: We dry-hop the beer with more Simcoe pellets, still fermenting nicely. We get back on the River for more rafting. This evening has a multitude of distractions. We meet a family hiking on the trail, which includes a guy who has blown his finger off with a .45 in the last month. The bullet continued into his girlfriend’s leg. Dave and I decide to share are beer in the spirit of cooperation with our armed neighbors.

Another camp had a group of women rafters who strolled over to look for single men. Having only one, we trade Dave for hard liquor. Dave is now missing and presumed compromised. We tap Hop Lava and another keg of Vaporizer. I believe fajitas were served, as were margaritas made with Kolsch and a very inexpensive tequila.

Day 4: This stretch of rafting goes through an amazing section of the Rogue called Mule Creek Canyon and immediately into Blossom Bar. Pretty treacherous stuff, but our guides are experienced and we suffer no further losses. Still can’t find Dave from the night before until he pops up in an eddy downstream from Blossom Bar.

This is also filter day. We pull the spear from an empty keg and filter the beer through a brand spanking new t-shirt. This is Double Mountain’s first, last, and only filtered beer. (Until next time.)
We then put the spear back into the keg and let the keg pressurize with the remaining available sugars. The evening festivities involve the tapping of our new creation, “X-Stream Jamfish”. It is pretty darn hoppy, moderately strong, and suffers from a noticable amount of butter-like Diacetyl, which, being a 3 day beer, is not too surprising.

Day 5: Float, rest, Float, rest, repeat. We end our trip at the town of Agness, drive 2 hours over the same road that lost the Kim family a couple years back (the CNet guy) and settle back into the Galice Resort. Gin and Tonics with shots of chocolate vodka are consumed with reckless abandon. Double Mountain tattoos are added to the willing and the not-so-willing.

If this whole thing doesn’t sound like fun, I think you might be broken. Please join us for our next river adventure in August 2012!

Cheers, Matt

Kriek Kamp Makes Black Blood

No, that’s not a pitcher of blood…read on…

It’s been several weeks since the end of Kriek Kamp and the buzz still lingers. Many thanks to the excellent group who joined us for what was undoubtedly one of coolest events we’ve partaken in here at the Double. It was also one of the most photographed events of all time too… The bloggers in attendance did a wonderful job of documenting the event, so I won’t add much except to say that I think we had about as much fun as the Kampers. You can check out the blogs here:

New School
Beervana
Daily Pull
And check out this awesome video too.

Part of the real fun of the Kamp was the interactive aspect of picking some cherries, crushing them and making a unique beer that everyone contributed to. And so we introduce “Black Blood“, the extremely-limited release of the fruit of our labor (literally). Here’s Matt’s description:

“This cherry porter combines the “this is not a Porter” brew (see below) with an extremely generous blend of Bing and Montmorency Cherries from Phil Evans’ orchard in Mosier. The cherry character is quite dominant and throws a lovely ruby-black head on top of the roasty dark brew beneath. 7.5% alc by vol, 20 BU, 90% Bing & 10% Montmorency cherries”

And here’s the description of the base beer, cheekily named “this is not a Porter“:

“This lovely, dark-chocolately, roasty ale with mild bitterness was brewed as the base beer for the Black Blood (see below). It combines six caramel and chocolate malts imported from the UK and Chile to provide rich malt complexity. Just don’t call it a porter. 6.5% alc by vol, 29 BU

Both beers are currently pouring at the Taproom, come on out for a taste. The Black Blood won’t last long.

DM Dinner at Firehouse Restaurant, Tues Aug 16

DOUBLE MOUNTAIN DINNER at
FIREHOUSE RESTAURANT
711 N DEKUM, PORTLAND
6-9PM
$50/pp (not including gratuity)

Come join us at one of our fave neighborhood restaurants in the whole wide world for a special al fresco dining experience. We’ll start the evening at the garden gate with hors d’oeuvres, Pilsner, and a quick tour of Firehouse’s vegetable plantings, then move to the patio for the evening, luxuriating into the late-summer twilight with some amazing fare.

Here’s chef/owner Matthew Busetto’s kick-ass menu for the soiree:

By the garden gate: a little plate with some fried stuffed olives, pate and pickled vegetable

First course: summer squash with tuna conserva; “cherry bombs” (cherry peppers stuffed with anchovy and fresh mozzarella); bruschetta with tomatoes, garlic and basil

Second course: summer salad; pizza margherita

Third course: wood grilled spicy fennel sausage with fresh polenta; rotisserie chicken with olive oil mashed potatoes and Mike’s lettuces

Dessert: bittersweet chocolate torte with chantilly and berries

We will have a wide variety of Double Mountain beers on tap for you to choose from, including some rarities from the reserve cellar.

What a menu! $50/per person includes the meal and the beer — such a deal. To purchase reservations, please call Firehouse directly at 503-954-1702. Seating is limited, so please call soon.

Are you ready for KRIEK KAMP?

Double Mountain “KRIEK KAMP”
July 13-15 2011
At the Brewery

In honor of our most special of beers, we hereby invite the public to join a limited cadre of Double Mountain fanatics at our first-ever “KRIEK KAMP”, an immersive celebration of all things Kriek-y and good. Kampers will get to hang out with our brew staff; see the full picture of how our Devil’s and Rainier Krieks make the voyage from the farm to the glass; and even join in the process themselves.
Our main goal as usual is to have a boatload of fun.
We’re still fine-tuning the details, but here’s a peek at the itinerary:

Wed 7/13 pm — Pizza Party w/ Kriek Seminar and Vertical Tasting, led by Brewmaster Matt
Thurs 7/14 am — In-depth Brew Tour and Sensory Training at the Brewery; Lunch
Thurs 7/14 pm — Brewery Tour at Logsdon’s Farmhouse Ales in Odell; Cherry Picking Party and Barbecue at Matt’s Orchard
Fri 7/15 am — Cherry Crush at the Brewery; Farewell Lunch.

Cost: $150 includes meals, beers, and transportation to/from our events in Odell. To make your reservations, please call the Taproom at 541-387-0042 during business hours. Space limited to 20 intrepid Kriek-lovers. Hope you can join us!

Double Mountain Dinner at Podnah’s Pit

Here is the official PR for our gig at Podnah’s in a couple of weeks. Just in case you were wondering, owner Rodney Muirhead is my personal hero and savior. See you there. -cd

DOUBLE MOUNTAIN DINNER
at PODNAH’S PIT BARBECUE
1625 NE KILLINGSWORTH, PORTLAND
THURSDAY MAY 12, 2011
6 & 8 PM SEATINGS
$40 PER PERSON,
ALL YOU CAN EAT & DRINK

It’s time to officially break in Podnah’s fabulous new location (and smoker) with a night of hedonistic delights. Pitmaster Rodney Muirhead and his crew will dish up a cavalcade of smokin’ specialities, including some succulent meat treats not found on the everyday menu. A great selection of appetizers, salads and sides will round out the meal.
The menu so far:

Appetizers: house charcuterie, cheese, and pickled vegetables

Dessert: “pequin pecan” from Sahagun Chocolates

On the beer side, Double Mountain will take over all of the bar’s eight taps with a mix of everyday favorites and some rarer brews. Roving servers will make sure your glass stays full. Most of the meal will be served family-style on big platters, so be ready to get to know your neighbor.

There will be two seatings, 6 & 8 pm. To reserve your spot, please call Podnah’s at 503-281-3700, or drop by their new location at 1625 NE Killingsworth in person. Podnah’s regular hours are Tues-Sun 11am-10pm, Fri-Sat till midnight.

Seating for the Dinner is limited, so make your reservation soon!