PDX - Tap it Tuesday

[Banjo]

Cascade Brewing Barrel House | 939 SE Belmont St | Portland | OR | 97214

Hello friends! Tonight's Tap It Tuesday at 6pm is LIVE: The Vine 2012, a sneak peak at the coming blend. This NW style sour ale is a blend of blond and wheat ales that were barrel aged for up to 12 months before aging on fresh pressed white grape must for an additional three months. Aromas of sweet foxy grape skins, hints of cotton candy and soft oak are the first to be noticed. Rich, sweet white grapes dance on the palate, then lead to a pronounced finish of sweet grape flesh. 8.85% ABV, $6.5 glass/$2 taster.

The Vine 2012 is bottled and in the conditioning room, and as you'll soon taste, is coming along nicely. This live barrel will run through Tuesday, Feb. 12th. We will release The Vine 2012 on Thursday, Feb. 14th at 4:30 pm at Cascade Brewing, the Raccoon Lodge and online. Price is $20 per 750ml bottle.

The much-anticipated release is here! Vlad the Imp Aler 2011 will be released in bottles this Saturday, Feb. 2nd from Noon to 6pm at the Cascade Brewing Barrel House on the production side and in the Den at the Raccoon Lodge & Brew Pub (at 6pm, sales will transfer to the pub side at the Barrel House). Price is $30 per 750ml bottle. There are no distribution plans for Vlad at this time.

For those of you out of the area, online sales also start at Noon on Saturday, Feb. 2nd (http://shop.cascadebrewingbarrelhouse.com). Our issues with our shipper should be addressed by then. We will not hold orders until the release of Bourbonic - if you want Vlad, you need to order now. And please note: Cascade Brewing is NOT responsible for bottles that leak during freezing weather. When placing an order, please take into account the shipping route from Portland, Oregon to your destination. If there is a chance of freezing weather, we recommend you suspend your order and wait until it warms up. We will not replace bottles that have leaked during transit in freezing weather, nor will we refund payment.

Vlad is our award winning NW style sour ale that features a blend of Blond Quad, Strong Blond and Triple ales that were aged in Bourbon and wine barrels for up to 24 months. 2011 denotes when the base blend was laid down.
We are filling the foudre, aka "Big Wood," at the end of this week. The goals is to have 50 bbls of red ale that in 15 to 18 months will be our House Sang Rouge, on tap all the time.

We are also blending Bourbonic Plague from the barrels into our blending tank this week. As a result, we will have several empty Bourbon barrels available for sale this Thursday until they're gone. $20 each, cash only, no reserves. To buy one, come to the production side of the Barrel House between 9 and 5 pm (3 pm on Tuesdays).

Both the Raccoon Lodge and the Barrel House will be showing the Super Bowl this Sunday. The Barrel House has a couple of food specials planned, including two American Kobe Beef Sliders with raw medium cheddar, handcrafted smoked tomato ketchup & dijonnaise served on a brioche slider bun ($6); and Black Bean con Queso dip with masa Portland Ale crackers, sour cream and house smoked vegetable salsa ($5).

For our friends on the East Coast, blender Preston Weesner and Brewer Jon Berry will be attending the Beer Advocate Extreme Beer Fest February 8 & 9 at the Boston Center for the Arts. Cascade will be at the Friday Night of the Barrels session and the main festival on Saturday. The Fest asked for extreme beers, so we pulled from the cellar: four beers for each night, for a total of eight. The Friday night beers are four-years-old on average. Preston & Jon will be in town and making the rounds Wed. night through the close of the main fest Saturday evening. For insiders only, look for a special once in a lifetime draft sour event while they're in town - a continuation of the Brewer's Reserve Sour Collaboration, details to come in next week's email!

Make your plans now for Zwickelmania! The Barrel House will be open at 10 am on Saturday, Feb. 16, one hour earlier than Zwickelmania starts, so that you can either start here or plan to end here. We will have a special short menu that day. We will NOT be doing anything at the Raccoon Lodge: all of the brewers will be on the production side of the Barrel house serving beers from the barrels.

Chef Troy has some delicious specials available beginning tonight at 5pm until they run out. Try our Brisket Cornbread Stacker ($9.5), 12-hour smoked beef brisket smothered in our sour-style BBQ sauce, topped with honey-pepper coleslaw on grilled red bell pepper-dill cornbread with maple ranch beans; Caesar Chavez Sandwich ($8.5), a house-smoked chicken breast tossed in handcrafted zesty habanero-citrus hot sauce, stacked with cheddar, lettuce & red onion on a toasted ciabatta roll dressed with house Caesar dressing; and Strawberry Angel Food Trifle ($4) featuring layers of angel food cake, fresh strawberries, whipped cream & Black Cap Raspberry sour beer reduction. Soup is House Beer Cheese daily, Wild Mushroom Cambozola Tues-Thur and Clam Chowder weekends, while supplies last.

Fruit Fest will start on Thursday Feb. 28th at 4:30 pm and run through the weekend. We will be talking over nearly all the taps of the Cascade Brewing Barrel House with our own tart fruit beers. (plus a Pale and an IPA for the new to sour folks). Look for more than two dozen beers to rotate through the taps during the weekend. Official draft list to come after the blenders "taste" the library, but here are a few to get you in the mood...Figaro, Fruit Loops, Bourbon Barrel Aged Fruit, Blueberry Bourbonic Plague & Cinnamon Quad.
Have a fantastic week - Servus!