When I think about the beers that have been most impactful for me, most of them actually precede my brewing career. So, a lot of the beers on my list are pretty old.
Most of these still exist because they’re good enough to exist still. But they’re not the newest, trendiest beers out there. A lot of them are also very West Coast–oriented because I grew up on the West Coast. A lot of them are Oregon-oriented as well.
These are beers that got me interested in continuing in craft beer, and I would say that was not always a given. The industry didn’t feel very dynamic or exciting at the time. But I was so excited about a lot of the beers out there, and I was excited about these beers that just felt out-of-pocket.
Terminal Gravity IPA
(Enterprise, Oregon)
For me, one that really stood out—partly because of experiences I had around it, availability, and I just found it to be really enjoyable to drink—was from a brewery called Terminal Gravity. And at the time, for me, it just had the right hop profile. It was pretty classic. I actually don’t know what they have in there at this point. I haven’t had it in a very long time—I’m guessing it was pretty classic C-hop—but just really crisp, clean, nice hop character. At the time, I was bike racing a lot. There’s a bike race in eastern Oregon—it was a multiday stage race we’d go out to, and afterward, that was one of the spots we would hit because their brewery was out that way. So, I have these memories of being there after these sporting events with friends, and drinking the beers, and it’s just always been impactful for me in that way. It wasn’t a beer that redefined anything. It’s pretty standard in a lot of ways but just well done—right moment, right times.
Okay, I could name a whole list of Oregon-made IPAs that I was drinking at the time. It’s just this one was my favorite, and it really stuck out.
Hair of the Dog Adam
(Portland, Oregon)
I grew up in Portland, and Hair of the Dog was a local brewery. In fact, I didn’t live that far from it, so a good friend and I started getting their beers. I believe the first beers we got were, like, Batch 2 of Rose—which I thought was a really good beer and still do. But Adam really stuck out to me because there just weren’t beers like that on the market—like really high-ABV, really big, intense flavors. And it just defied category to some degree. And I always felt with Hair the Dog, their beers definitely pushed more aggressive on the hop, as well—the combo of these big, malty beers with the hops, and all of them were very exciting. But Adam was one that really caught my attention early.
I think it was supposed to be like an old ale, but it was fairly dark in color. In some ways, it felt like a cross between old ale and an early kind of black IPA, almost. This was right when they opened, and I did a lot of exploration with a good friend of mine, just beer in general, around the world and local craft beer. And, you know, nothing was really being produced like that in Oregon at the time. Like I said, [Hair of the Dog founder Alan Sprints’] beers just tended to defy label. They were always just an expression of what he wanted.
I felt really inspired by it. … And it was also somewhat instructive, because of what beer could be—that there were fewer boundaries around it because it was kind of a cobbled-together setup. I’d seen lots of breweries that, obviously, a lot of money had been spent to create, and just seeing that, it was, ‘Oh, this is a passion, and it’s clearly not a giant business, and [he’s] doing it his way.’ So, for me, that was just nice to see that. And I’ve seen a lot of other examples since then, obviously, of how people scrape things together to start their businesses. But that was probably the first time I’d really ever seen something like that at a commercial level.
Hair of the Dog Blue Dot Double IPA
(Portland, Oregon)
I don’t know how widely known Blue Dot is. I think about that one because at the time, IPA was much more polished and precise and filtered, and the vibe was different. And I was like, ‘Oh, this IPA is just kind of messy and big.’ And in some ways that is a good lead into where IPA went in general. But just the fact that it was so different… I think it reflects Hair of the Dog’s approach in general, but I just loved seeing IPA presented in a different way.
Not ‘messy’ in a bad way. For me, it’s messy in a good way. It just felt like more of a raw-hop experience. There was a little more yeast character going on than in a lot of beers at the time. It’s not being filtered and made as clear as possible and being sent out to supermarkets. It was just a much more raw, kind of messy beer.
De Dolle Oerbier
(Esen, West Flanders, Belgium)
I had never had a beer like Oerbier. I feel like this is one of those beers that’s all over the place. What style is it? I don’t know. It just defied anything that I had seen up to that point. And this is something that I definitely had before I was even in brewing school. A friend and I used to go to this store in southwest Portland and buy all the imports and everything else they had, and they had a pretty wide selection. Another one that would be on the list—I’m not going to keep putting them on here—was Stille Nacht, their winter beer. You’re like, ‘How is this some kind of winter beer? Like, I don’t know what the hell this is, but oh, man.’
There are so many different ways to approach this out there, and that’s how I saw it. And I just imagined some Belgian brewer doing kind of the same thing that Hair of the Dog was doing, maybe preceding that. This is a passion project. Kind of like the Fantômes of the world, they’re just making the beers they want to make.
I remember trying it the first time. ‘What the fuck is this? How do you define this?’ And especially, I was young, and craft beer was a new adventure for me, as well as for most people. And you’re trying to look at ways to define something, and you can’t find any other comparison in that regard. ‘I don’t know what the hell this is.’ You’re trying to define it, and you can’t. So it was one of those moments where, ‘Okay, I don’t have to have everything be the same. You can look for new ways forward.’
Sierra Nevada Celebration IPA
(Chico, California)
I think Celebration probably features a lot for people. I don’t have a real strong story behind it, other than it was a beer that I wanted to drink every year and still do. I don’t think it’s necessarily inspired me in any way. I just really like every year having this beer, and have always liked it, and they have a good expression of Centennial in it.
I don’t buy a lot of beer. Not because I don’t like buying beer, it’s just, there’s always beer on. But this is one of those things—and I don’t really have a ritual in terms of, ‘I’ve got to go out and buy it right now.’ It’s one of those things where I just always end up making a random purchase of it, every year. I’m like, ‘Oh, there it is, I’m gonna buy it.’ Now it’s in cans, but I used to drink it in bottles all the time.
Coming into craft beer more in the ’90s and seeing all the breweries that were in existence at that time—which were way fewer than now—and everybody had their winter beers. And here’s Sierra releasing this beer that looks winter themed, and it’s an IPA. Everybody else has these winter warmer–style beers at the time—which is definitely not in fashion at this point—but, yeah, every brewery in the Northwest had their winter-warmer release. And those beers are fine, but that’s not my style—I’ve always just loved hops. And here comes Sierra with this beer that looks like a winter beer, and it’s just not. It’s an IPA, and it’s a really delicious one. … I don’t need it all year round, but I definitely need to have it when it gets released.
Deschutes Obsidian Stout
(Bend, Oregon)
At the time, Obsidian was impactful for me because I had never really had a beer like that. The first time I had it… I know people were really hot on Black Butte Porter, and Black Butte Porter is good—but this felt like more. I don’t know, it felt like less of the big-market play for me, and it was a much darker beer. I remember it being pretty roasty. At the time, Obsidian was a lot more intense, a little darker than a lot of the other stouts on the market. And I just love the early branding of that beer, especially as an Oregon guy. Their beer was always about Oregon, especially eastern Oregon.
I do remember it being very dense and dark-looking, and it was just different from a lot of the other things that were out there. At that time in Oregon, it was Bridgeport, Widmer, Saxer Brewing, and Portland Brewing, and a lot of them made stouts. But I do feel like Obsidian was just a more robust, intense experience.
