As part of my birthday weekend, my amazing wife picked up tickets to the Internationally Acclaimed Oregon Craft Breweries beer tasting at the Artisan Wine Depot . This was an awesome event. Not only did we get to try some beers from my favorite brewers, but the event was small enough that we could talk with the store owner, Christine, about all kinds of beers and wines.

Like I big goof I spent all of this time taking notes on the tasting menu, then I left the menu in the store. I guess that’s more a testament to how strong the last of the beers were ;-). Here’s a stab at the beers we tried though (in the order):

First Set:

• Full Sail LTD series pale ale
• Deschutes Brewing Twilight Ale
• Full Sail Amber
• Full Sail Pale Ale
• Full Sail Session Lager
• Deshutes Brewing Mirror Pond Pale Ale
• Rogue Ales Morimoto Soba Ale
• Rogue Ales Saint Rogue Red
• Rogue Ales Brutal Bitter

• Rogue Ales Hazelnut Brown Nectar

Second Set:

• Rogue Ales Dead Guy Ale
• Deschutes Brewing Inversion IPA
• Bridgeport Brewing India Pale Ale
• Deschutes Brewing Red Chair IPA
• Deschutes Brewing Mirror Mirror Barleywine
• Full Sail KeelHauler Scottish Ale
• Rogue Ales Mocha Porter
• Rogue Ales Imperial India Pale Ale
• Rogue Ales Old Crustacean Barleywine

• Deschutes Brewing Black Butte XXI Porter (wow)

I’m probably leaving a few off there – that’s just from the iPhone pictures I managed to take before getting too off kilter. All of the beers we tasted were great, and Mike the distributor representative did a good job picking exemplary brews from each category. In general I’m not a fan of pale ales (if I’m going to drink it it should scream “pay attention to ME”) but I enjoyed the early pale ales from Full Sail and Deschutes. My favorites by far were the Rogue and Deschutes ales a little further along in the tasting. No, that didn’t have anything to do with the increasing amount of alcohol or position in the tasting order (ok, maybe a little bit). I’ve always been a huge fan of Dead Guy – I think it’s the perfect balance of slightly sweet/malty and hops. The Morimoto Soba ale was interesting. I think they use roasted Soba in the brewing process, and it makes for a light taste with almost Merlot like qualities (at least that’s what I noticed).

My favorite of the whole bunch would probably be the Mirror Mirror barleywine followed closely by the Black Butte XXI porter. I can’t even begin to describe the amount of flavor these brews have. I’m sure some of that is thanks to their massive amount of alcohol, but these are true craft brews as well.

I can’t wait to visit some of these guys up in Oregon sometime. GREAT stuff.