43: Belgian Cascadian Dark Rye

Bruce and I arrived late to the KLCC Microbrew Festival in Eugene, the result of some last-minute car-swapping, a delicious stop for burgers in Salem (Burger Basket!) on the way down, and an unexpectedly long walk from our hotel to the Eugene fairgrounds where the event was being held. Despite all this, we entered the fest in good spirits, and were delighted to see real glass tasting cups were included with admission ($12*). Just fewer than 40 breweries were at the fest, and each brought 2-3 beers. There were a lot of area breweries present (Ninkasi, Hop Valley, Oakshire), as well as some national (Sam Adams, Maui Brewing) and even international (Leffe, Hoegaarden) standards. There weren’t too many beers I hadn’t tried, but a unique experiment at the festival provided a lot of interest for me.

A collaboration project between many of the area breweries provided participants the ingredients and basic concept of “Belgian Style Cascadian Dark Rye Ale,” along with a yeast strain (Ardennes). From there, it was up to the individual breweries to fill in the details. It was very interesting to taste how the beers differed given the odd challenge. Most of the examples I tasted were pretty astringent and left a strange aftertaste somewhere between anise, black licorice and Pepsi cola that tended to linger longer than I would have liked. My favorite example was Block 15′s entry, served on nitro. The creaminess of the serving method smoothed out the rough astringent notes and made it more palatable to my tastes. Still, a worthy experiment that provided a nice centerpiece to the event.

Beer Name: Belgian Cascadian Dark Rye** Ale
Brewer: Ninkasi
Price: 1 ticket
Sampled: February 12, 2010 (KLCC Beerfest)
Rating: 2/5
Notes: Some cola-like flavors, but quite an astringent, bitter finish for such a sweet start. Not a “full pint” type of beer. Licorice.
ABV: N/A
IBU: N/A
OG N/A
TG N/A
Serving Type: Draft.

* We got in free, guests of Travel Lane County, who were also good enough to put us up for the night.
** I later found out that as the central distributor for the ingredients, Ninkasi gave away all the rye and weren’t able to include it in their version.