Time: 5:30 PM
Location: Hot Lips – Near The Back
In attendance:
Mike Merrill (paying)
Josh Berezin
Tonight, once again, we venture away from Belmont Station, to enjoy pizza and draught beer at Hot Lips Fancy Pants Pizzeria of Portland’s Pearl District’s eco-friendly “EcoTrust” building, where the beers are organic, the pizza is organic, and the tablecloths are plastic and ugly.
6/1000: Off the Rail Paranoid IPA of Forest Grove, Oregon and
7/1000: HUB Organic Red of Portland, Oregon (link)
J: Taste this Off the Rail Paranoid IPA.
M: It’s good! It’s not very strong, it’s not as strong as I expected.
J: My first thought was that it was mostly pretty boring. It’s creamy in a nice way.
M: When I hear “Pale Ale” I’m usually scared of it…
J: Pale Ale is not the right descriptor at all.
M: Taste this HUB Organic Red compared to that.
J: Yeah, that tastes like a beer. It has a lot of character.
M: I picked it just because of the logo.
J: Well, the Paranoid Pale is growing on me.
M: What did he say about the brewery? That’s it’s the lord of the dark side, or something?
J: He said it’s a Forest Grove brewery dedicated to Ozzy Osbourne. Or Randy Rhodes, from Black Sabbath. Or from Ozzy Osbourne solo. It wasn’t quite clear. It doesn’t seem to me that a brewery should be dedicated to that.
M: No! Not at all.
J: Some aspect of beermaking would be a better thing to be excited about.
M: I do feel like brewers, in general, are bearded dudes. I could see something there.
J: The HUB beer is so good! I don’t even know how to describe it …. complex, balanced, not wimpy.
M: It has a bite to it that I think I usually don’t like, but I find it fine in this. Maybe that’s part of it being balanced. I was worried beers from HUB would be deeply “beer guy” beers. See “120 Minute IPA”.
J: Which we drank before we started this project, but we will have to go back to it.
M: Oh, we have to do it again?!
J: Sorry.
M: Does this HUB Red taste “toasted” to you at all?
J: Yeah, “toasted malt”?
M: The Paranoid Pale tastes so sweet after that. It smells fruity!
J: I was separating them with pizza to reset my palate. It does smell fruity, now that you mention it. It’s not very carbonated, and that makes it smoother, but it also has a chalky flavor to it.
J: Conclusions?
M: I would have them both again. I like them both.
J: I could drink a ton of this Paranoid IPA. But I wouldn’t call it an IPA. And by “I could drink a ton of it,” I mean, I could drink a lot in one night. Cause it’s easy to drink. But that doesn’t mean I prefer it.
M: Would you get a keg of it?
J: No. I would get a keg of the HUB Red. I think it’s one of my favorite beers. I’m kind of in love with it. I want to get another pint, instead of sharing yours.
M: It’s okay, you can finish this one off.
993 to go!