As you are probably already aware of, the World Beer Cup winners have been announced - last night in San Diego where the party was boisterous and the beer never ending. This is a huge event, for brewers they can enter this competition for years, submitting great beer, yet never bringing home any hardware. With that in mind, please allow me to mention my amazement with Portland's newest brewery, Hopworks Urban Brewery, or HUB. This place is so new, in fact, their site still has the announcement on the homepage that they "is opening" on March 25.
HUB has been opened for three weeks in a city bursting with breweries, where it can be more than a little difficult to make a name for yourself. This new establishment is surely making waves now, bringing home TWO medals for their beer: one gold, one silver!
They won gold for their organic IPA, in a category with 51 other beers, edging out Firestone Walkers Union Jack, a wonderful beer that is also new to the market. Oh, if you're not familiar with competitions like this, not all categories have that much competition, some categories having less than ten entries in all, to pull ahead in a style with such deep competition is no easy feat.
Their silver medal was awarded for HUB's Organic Lager, where there were 41 total entries. I was fortunate enough to sample this in Portland, it was a wonderful lager with a bit more color than what most expect, but just right for the Bohemian style pilsner.
There were, of course, many other great stories and I may talk more about them soon, but for me this was my most impressive outing for a young brewery, bringing home two medals from the World Beer Cup in their first year. Yes, that is impressive.
For those planning a trip to Portland, maybe for the Oregon Brewers Festival, you may want to add HUB as a place to see. If you live in Portland, I hope you already have first-hand experience with this place.
