Fort George-Spank’s Chili Stout is on in the Venti’s basement.
Further, Thane, interrupted the Caldera Pilsener to reload the Captured by Porches Amber Ale that was left over from SITC.
Caldera Pilsener is be back shortly.

Jack

I’m gonna need to swing by Venti’s tonight or tomorrow night if that chili stout is still on tap. Here’s a bit on it from Jacks mini book on Chili beers over at the Venti’s blog. (BTW, thanks for the correction JR)

The Spank Stout used 30 pounds of Pasilla Habanero, Jalapeno and Anaheim peppers and starts as a mellow full bodied slightly chocolaty stout and slowly grows to a spicy finish that leaves the palate warm and wanting more.

Apparently yesterday was Venti’s solstice celebration and I missed it. Normally I don’t mind missing these things, but lately I’ve been on a tight budget, and apparently your first pint yesterday was $1. $1 pints???? Why on earth did I have to work yesterday?

So as of yesterday here are the taps at Venti’s. Please keep in mind that Venti’s does everything on rotating taps so this could be wrong.

Downstairs

Alpha Dog Imperial IPA
Black Bear XX Stout
Elysian “The Wise” ESB
Fish Tale Organic Amber

Upstairs

Tricerahops Double IPA (this one pops up alot at Venti’s it seems)
Hop Rod Rye IPA
SOB Porter
Hill Billy Blonde (who knew Pale Horse could make it into Venti’s taplist?)

I can’t say for certain if Three Creeks will stand the test of time in Sisters with the economy the way it is, but I hope it does. As a kid our family used to spend summers at a relatives place in Camp Sherman so visiting this pub brought back all sorts of memories. The pub is made to look like an old west livery stable, complete with the western swinging doors.

We ordered three beers with our food. The Anvil Amber, Stonefly Rye, and the Firestorm Red. Out of the three the amber was probably the best balanced beer loaded with malty goodness. The Stonefly was my first ever rye beer, and hopefully not my last. If there ever was a beer I would think of as representing Sisters it would be Stonefly. The flavor was amazing, and it went perfect with my burger. The food was a little pretentious for pub grub in my opinion, but then again it’s Sisters. Where in Sisters does unpretentious food exist?

The prices aren’t bad when compared to other restaurants in the area, but will still set you back more then you might want. A burger will run you around $10 here with a pint costing around $4 if I recall. If rye’s, red’s, and amber’s aren’t your thing Three Creeks also has several pale ales on tap and a beer called knotty blonde that sounds somewhat akin to a cream ale. All their beers are between 4%-6% so having a pint won’t be overdoing it. Give em a try.

Irish Stouts On Tap

As long as we’re on the subject of St Patrick’s I figure I may as well talk about some local joints that have Irish stouts on tap today. In no particular order, the Ram has their seasonal Irish stout out right now as do McMenamins locations. Conrad Venti also let me know today that Venti’s cafe now has an Irish stout from Seven Brides Brewing on tap for the holiday. If you want more info on what it is check out their blog, or head on in for some good bento and a pint….. or two.

Free Beer

Free beer just seems like a good thing to go with St. Patty’s doesn’t it? My Rose Red ale has just finished carbonating, and is ready for consumption. For people interested I’m giving out a free bottle of it on the condition that you fill out a questionnaire about it so I can use the feed back on my blog. If your interested shoot me an email at theweeklybrew@live.com There is a limited number of beers that I can give out so let me know soon.

Share Your Passion

I just joined a group at meetup.com for people in the Salem area that are interested in good beer. If you also think it’d cool to find some local people interested in beer then check it out. Hopefully someone gets around to making a Salem area homebrewers group. Maybe I should make one eh?

Need Bottles

Last but not least I’m running low on empties for bottling. Between my spoiled gruit, my Rose Red, and my new gruit that will have to age for an obscene time all my bottles are tied up. If you have some empty standard size pop tops your willing to part with let me know.

As one would expect the inside of the brewery smells like beer. The shining kettles and the smell of malts are enough to make any brewer or beer lover grin like a giddy school kid.

There was no brewery tour going on when we arrived, so we headed on up to the bar and tasting room. We sat down and straight off ordered two tasting trays, and shortly after the first two we ordered a third, and a shot of their pink gin for sampling.

Here’s the rundown of the beers we sampled, with hearts next to our favorites.

• Paul’s Black Lager ♥
• Frog Stout
• Smoke Ale ♥
• Oak Aged Quad Frog
• Mogul Madness
• Charlie 1981
• Sesquicentinial  ♥
• October Fest  ♥
• Hazelnut Brown  ♥
• Manage a Frog
• Oregon Golden  ♥
• Shakespeare Stout  ♥

After we put away three pints worth of beer between the two of us we sat around talking, and decided to visit their new distillery while we were there. We arrived at the distillery in time for a tour this time. We were guided through their distilling process, and treated to samples of both their gins, their Dead Guy Whiskey, and also got to taste their hazelnut infused rum. Over all their spirits were pretty good, but not as smooth as I’d have thought. The most interesting bits of information from this tour though were that they were aging a batch of their Dead Guy Ale in their Dead Guy Whiskey barrels, and that about once a month they do a sort of beer yard sale with mismatched bottles from their previous production line. I am definitely gonna do some research on this yard sale as it would be awesome to get some cheap Rogue. Also I really want to get my hands on a bottle of the Dead Guy experiment when it’s released.

Just a side note. beware of ordering a bomber here as they tend to be stronger then what’s on tap, as I discovered today. My Winter Warmer ended up being 9% apv

I should have thought about this before I committed to it. Although a tap report sounds easy, going around to every pub and buying beer isn’t a great way to stay sober. So I think what I’ll do for tap reports is do a few local pubs, and just recommend a good beer from them. Also if there’s a bar or pub you’d be interested in knowing more about the selection at let me know in the comments. So without further whining on my part here’s what’s on tap in Salem/Keizer.

Boon’s Treasury

This is definitely the best place to go for craft beer in Salem. They have an amazing variety of beers that are almost all brewed by McMenamins, and it’s Satellite brew pubs. For the inside scoop on what’s good, you can’t go wrong with a Rubinator. The Rubinator is a mix of their Terminator Stout, and Ruby Ale. With the great selection though it would take a whole post to cover what’s available there, so here’s just a few.

Irish Stout – Available starting March 1st
Pole Axe
Edgefield Wheat
Black Rabbit Porter
Terminator Stout
Ruby
Dr Who
Hammerhead
Ninsaki IPA

Ram Border Cafe

With great food, atmosphere, and a decent bar The Ram is a decent place to go. Although they don’t have as big of a selection, they are a brew pub, and make pretty darn good beer. If your a fan of Bocks, Bighorn has a really good one.

Irish Stout- Available starting February 25th
Mai Bock – Available starting in April
Big Horn Hefeweizen
Big Red IPA
Buttface Amber
Total Disorder Porter
Bighorn Blond
Bock

Porters Pub

Really there’s nothing exceptionally special about Porters. Like most pubs they have excellent food, and a decent selection of beers on tap, but lack the craft brews that some have. The thing I love about Porters though is that it’s a local place with a family friendly atmosphere, and it doesn’t cater to the trendy aspects of beer culture like Boons does. Also any place with Guinness or Dead Guy on tap will get me to at least order one beer with my meal.

mirror pond IPA
fat tire
Alaskan Amber
Guiness
Fat Tire
Black Butte Porter
Dead Guy