The Art & Beer event last month was a tremendous amount of fun. It’s the second time I’ve organized the event and I hope the museum continues to invite me to do it. If you’re unaware of it, Art & Beer is an event that highlights one of Portland’s most well-known crafts, beer, as a form of art. If you know me, you know that I believe craft beer is a form of art, and that beer is an agent for social change. Angelo from Brewpublic interviewed me about this project as well as how I think about beer as art. For this event I chose Hopworks Urban Brewery, Coalition Brewery, and Rock Bottom Brewery. Brewers received tours of the museum and selected artworks that inspired the creation of new beers. The beers were then served free to museum visitors. We went through 8 kegs in just over 4 hours. That was wild. Here’s a quick look at the artwork selected for this year’s beers.

N.C. Wyeth’s The Great Train Robbery inspired Coaltion’s beer. Their beer was a California Common, a style that got it’s name because people during the time depicted in this painting were moving West to California and would use a specific yeast that could ferment like a lager but in warmer temperature. The beer was fresh hopped with California hops and was called Liquid Sterling.

Rock Bottom Brewery chose William Ivey’s Untitled piece. In this painting they associated the yellow and red colors popping out of the larger blue and grey with the way that American beers have morphed out of British brewing styles. They created a beer that was an American IPA but suppressed with British fermenting techniques and cask conditioned, as preferred in the UK, a process that rounds out the bitter notes.

Hopworks chose Rick Bartow’s Ursa Major which depicts a flying bear carrying a passenger. They chose ingredients that this bear might find on one if it’s journeys. Their beer was smoked with Alder, had Hazlenuts, Huckleberries and Salt, all locally sourced.

*The line to get the beer was pretty long, stretching almost all the way to the street.

This is the Coaltion Brewing Team enjoying their beer.

**A friendly photo of the Hopworks Crew enjoying themselves.

*The lucky guys who got to pour over 3000 glasses of beer in record breaking time.

*Rock Bottom treated us with casks. Each one had a sentence written on it: “This is Art.” “This is Also Art.” And “This is Not Beer.” A fun touch. The brewer Van Havig, was versed in art history and was a big fan of Marcel Duchamp.

* Photo courtesy of Dabudah
** Photo courtesy of Brewpublic

Description:
Art & Beer (2010) is the second event of it’s kind, brought to you by Eric Steen and the Portland Art Museum. Art & Beer combines beer, one of Portland’s most well known crafts, with experiencing art. For one night only, you can sample three new beers from Coaltion Brewing, Hopworks Urban Brewery, and Rock Bottom Brewery at the Portland Art Museum. Each brewery received a tour of the museum’s collection, selected an artwork and will make a beer inspired by that artwork. The selected artwork and the beer style will remain a surprise until the night of the event. This beer sampling is part of a one night event called Shine A Light, an event that will host a number of performances, time-based art actions, music, and more. The entry fee for the event is $12 and will give you access to all the art and performances, the museums galleries, and unlimited sampling of the three new beers.

The Brewers:
Coalition Brewing: Bruce MacPhee and Elan Walksy
Hopworks Urban Brewery: Christian Ettinger and Ben Love
Rock Bottom Brewery: Van Havig

The Art:
Sorry! We’re not going to give away the surprise!

Details:
Portland Art Museum
October 15th, 6pm – Midnight (or until the beer runs out!)
$12 entry includes access to all the nights events, the art collections and unlimited beer samples

Last night I attended the Scottish Pub Sing, led by the Portland Revels, at one of my favorite breweries, Lucky Lab in Portland, Oregon. It was beautiful hearing everyone sing songs while we all drank together. We sang love songs, sad songs, and outrageously fun songs about sharing homebrews, making you feel at home, and drinking the city dry. Having a group of people sing together like this reminded me very much of church and just further solidified in my mind that the pub is really a wonderful social center, and good beer is an important element in bringing people together. Lucky Lab is on my list of places that are doing beer and community right. What a wonderful night!

The brewery had a whole load of new specials so I had to try out a few. I ordered the sample tray and had two different Alts, a Scottish Ale, Barleywine, an Amber, an IPA, and a Cascadian Dark Ale (Black IPA).

Here’s the chorus of one of the songs I don’t remember hearing, but I imagine would have been a good one:

OLD DUN COW
There was Brown, up-side-down,
Moppin’ up the whiskey on the floor.
“Booze, booze,” the firemen cried,
As they came knockin’ at the door.
Don’t let ‘em in ’till it’s all mopped up
Somebody shouted, “Macintyre!”
(Everyone shout) MACINTYRE!
And we all got blue blind, paralytic drunk
When the Old Dun Cow caught fire.

For Christmas I’m giving a couple people a 6 pack of my homebrewed beers. I haven’t made any specific Winter Ales but I’ve decorated the bottles quite appropriately. I’ve got a couple Ginger Porters, a Nut Brown, a couple Pale Ales, and a Double Dry Hopped IPA.

Now, for a tangential note (this may seem random but I think I need to start talking about it):

I’ve been calling my little homebrewing adventure “Slow Beers” but am not totally certain about this name. I don’t want people to confuse it with the Slow Foods Organization but I do like the name because it subtly encourages leisure, rest, and relaxation as a form of social productivity. We’ll see how it goes. I consider the homebrewing to be a part of my field research into Oregon beer culture, something that I participate in quite frequently. I’m very interested in how Portland has established itself as this mega beer city, with 30+ breweries and brewpubs in the city-proper. and 9 more breweries opening up in the next few months. I’ve made recent visits to California and while they are most definitely brewing outstanding beer there, the beer community is not as obviously connected and close as it is here. And we have breweries doing some pretty amazing things: all the organic breweries in town, the theater pubs, Upright recently made an oyster stout, we’ve got breweries making beer from old and rare recipes, we just had the yearly Holiday Ale Festival which has 60+ beers made specifically for the festival, Lompoc released 7 winter beers a couple weeks ago and there’s much much more happening. I mean things are booming here and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

I’ve been exploring Portland’s beer culture with many of my art projects and I finally have many of these up on my main website at ericmsteen.com. As a professional artist I’m interested in the ability beer has to create and grow communities and groups of people, how it affects local business, and how it brings people into a greater understanding of their city or locale as a rich social site. What happens when a large number of breweries begin promoting their beers but aren’t asking their customers to get drunk, what happens when a whole city establishes local pubs as social centers, and what happens when people gain a greater understanding of a drink that has been a part of mankind’s history (in various forms) for thousands and thousands of years.

Homebrewing is one avenue of exploration for me. I have a small group of people that show up to learn about beer making with me (not that I’m an expert, we learn together) and we taste different beers and we participate in Portland’s offerings. Group members buy the beer for $1 bottle which is just a little more than cost so I’m actually paying for what I’ve called my field research. I encourage all artists to find ways to get sponsorship of some kind because research and exploration can become expensive in any field (painting, sculpture, etc). My group “buys-in” becoming supporters of my art and research and yet receive a gift for about the same price as (and often less than) the cost of buying beer in stores.

I picked up this book at Powell’s yesterday. It’s a signed copy of History by the Glass: Portland’s Past and Present Saloons, Bars, & Taverns by Paul Pintarich. It looks pretty good. There’s about 33 chapters and each is devoted to a drinking spot in Portland’s history. There’s a chapter on Horse Brass, The Alibi, Goose Hollow Inn, Produce Row, and others. The foreword was written by Bud Clark, one of Portland’s past mayors and owner of Goose Hollow, and he talks a little about the creativeness of pub owners since Prohibition. Whether the book will be a fun read or not I have yet to experience, but you may see evidence of the reading here in this blog. I am excited to read it.

I did want to say that it seems like it may be time for someone to do an updated version of this book. There is no mention, outside of Produce Row, of anything the McMenamins brothers have done, which makes me think that this book must have been published before the opening of the Barley Mill Pub. But even the Bagdad Theater and Kennedy School have some great history (before and after it was McMenamins) that could be shared. Afterall, the McMenamin’s fought Oregon legislation and opened Oregon’s first legal brewpub. Also, there’s nothing about Belmont Station, Moon and Sixpence, My Father’s Place, The Basement Pub, Eastburn, the loved/hated Henry’s Tavern and loads of other places. I don’t want to see just a basic overview of what the tavern feels like though, I want a nice history lesson! You know what else I want to know about – The Candlelight on the PSU campus. That place is bumping at night, and not with PSU students…turns out it’s quite the old jazz club and people occasionally show up in zoot suits. So, it sounds to me like a more comprehensive book is in order, although I appreciate this for what it is and when it was made. Maybe there’s one I don’t know about. If someone knows, please tell me.

Did you know that Portland has a mysterious geographical location where gravity is different and paranormal happenings take place? A place where those fascinated with either beer or science fiction or both will find themselves trapped and unarmed? When friends visit Portland the first place I take them is not Forest Park or the top of Big Pink, but rather Portland’s Bermuda Triangle (click for map). It’s a little spot on the east side of town where the hours will pass and you may never leave. At each point in the triangle is a business that feeds off the other points in the triangle, creating a force-field that allows people to enter but only few can leave. In all of Portland, the Triangle is my favorite thing.

What are the businesses in question?
Before I go on I must say that there are a few rules that the Triangle, by existing, naturally oblige us to. The first is that in order to be in the Triangle, you must visit all three points in the Triangle. The other rule is simply that you must walk in the Triangle. If you were to visit each point without stopping, you could walk the whole thing in about 10 minutes. So, what are the points of the triangle?

1. Movie Madness – 4320 SE Belmont

The first stop in the Triangle is Movie Madness, where you will rent some sort of sci-fi or horror flick. Movie Madness is home to the Pacific Northwest’s largest collection of Sci-Fi, Horror, and Cult films. The first thing I would do in the Portland Bermuda Triangle is go into this store, go straight to the back and check out the collection. Their horror videos are arranged in further subcategories, so you can browse by “Rampaging Teenagers” or “Nature’s Revenge” or “Ghosts” or a large number of other topics. The sci-fi collection is right next to the horror collection and it promises to have some rare gems that would surprise you. Don’t see the title you’re looking for? Search the computer because there’s a chance it’s located under a director (they file movies by directors too). You can also browse around and find the “Male-Chauvinist Fantasies” section where you can find things like Beach Babes from Mars (I made that up), or you can look through the Red Scare Collection. On your way out, be sure to check out the collection of costumes and props from all sorts of movies including Alien, Blade Runner, and H.G. Well’s Time Machine (You know the little miniature test-version of the time machine…yeah it’s at Movie Madness!!!). It’s really a wild ride. If you aren’t careful, hours will have passed. You can always come back, but tonight you are on a mission to get lost in the Triangle, so you must move on.

2. Horse Brass Pub – 4520 SE Belmont

A block or two away you will find one of Portland’s most important pubs. Now that you’ve got a movie picked out for later you must come in here for a few drinks. I’m going to take a stab and say that Horse Brass has about 60 beers on tap. There are two menu’s – the guest tap list and the mainstay list. I’d say that about 20-25 of their beers are on the guest tap list and so the likeliness of you drinking a beer from that list again next week is pretty slim. Usually the guest beers last no more than 2 days. They serve 20 oz pints and 10 oz glasses. I usually do 10 oz glasses and I’ll order 2-3 for sampling. Horse Brass is a cozy place that is perfect for hanging out with friends and talking, it’s a real pub. There’s also a few dart boards. The servers are very knowledgeable about their beers and even Portland beer history. The selection here is so nice that it will be difficult to make an easy decision, and you may just have to stay till you’ve sampled everything you feel you might otherwise miss out on. This is why Horse Brass is such an integral part of getting lost in Portland’s Bermuda Triangle. (photo credit to Paul Lowry)

3. Belmont Station – 4520 SE Stark

If you finish up your drinking at Horse Brass before 10pm you need to come here. If you are going to take longer at Horse Brass, you should come here first. Don’t miss Belmont Station, your life depends on it. Belmont Station is going to be about a 5 minute walk from the other locations, but it is this short walk that helps form the perfect triangle in the first place. Belmont Station, the biercafé, is currently home to about 1200 different bottled beers. You will have no easy task ahead of you, picking out a few beers to drink with your movie. And you thought Movie Madness took a long time to make a selection! Beers are arranged mostly by geographical location of brewery. What are you feeling tonight? You feeling like something local? Maybe an IPA to go with your schlocky cult film, or a lager to go with your slow-paced sci-fi drama? Maybe a foreign stout to go with your Scottish foreign film? It’s your choice. Can’t figure it out, ask the staff, they are super knowledgeable and helpful. Attached to the store is a small pub with about 15 uncommon beers on tap. These beers are going to be different from the ones you will find 4 blocks away at Horse Brass so stay for a pint.

By the time you’ve finished your time in the Triangle you will be pretty exhausted. Now it’s time to make your way home (don’t drink and drive), pop in the movie from Movie Madness, and pour yourself a pint from the beer you bought at Belmont Station. Portland’s Bermuda Triangle has made it’s way to your living room. It’ll provide some good leisure, don’t miss out!

Hopworks Organic Brewery here in Portland loves thinking about beer and bikes and now they’ve literally put the two together. The bike holds two kegs, a stack of pizza, a bar, and has a built in sound system. I’m not sure if this will be a delivery system or a “party pub” but either way, it’s awesome. Metrofiets built it and someone from Steinbarts homebrewing did the beer plumbing, and a number of other bike and beer people worked on this. It’s a nice collaboration, bringing two groups with their own cultures together both in the process of building and in any residual parties, events, and products. The Hopworks beer-bike is a symbol of true Pacific Northwest style utopian aspiration.

Hopworks will unveil this bike at their Biketobeer Fest which is on Sept. 19, 2009, the same day as Art & Beer – the event I’m putting on at the Portland Art Museum. Now you must choose between this or that or both.

I knew there was a History Pub at Kennedy School, but I was unaware of the Science Pub at the Bagdad. I’m not sure if it’s an ongoing thing, or just this once. I really think what McMenamins is doing, turning their pubs into alternative centers for a more leisurely education, is fantastic and I’m surprised I haven’t heard more about it. I think I’ll be attending, and you should too. They’ve teamed up with OMSI and the night will be led by an OSU professor. If you go to enough of these, they should give you an honorary degree. McMenamins could actually become a full-blown university. I’m being serious! It would be wonderful, it would be the beginning of a whole new world built on the idea that drinking beer with friends is the ultimate act of education. We need an alternative to these super expensive Universities anyway. I wonder if McMenamins would be interested in a Sci-Fi Pub? Language Pub? Geology Pub? Environmental Education Pub?

They’ve teamed OMSI for the Science Pub, and they will be discussing the science of making beer:
“Do you know the difference between ale and lager? Or why traditional German brewers had to boil some of the malt during the brewing process when English brewers did not? Although many microbrewers today approach brewing as an art form, understanding the science behind the process is essential for making consistently good beer.”

The speaker will be Tom Shellhammer, Professor of Fermentation Science and Associate Professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology at OSU where he leads the brewing science education and research programs.

Science Pub – Bagdad Theater and Pub
Monday, Sept. 14
7-9pm (it says come early for seats, food, and beer)
For more info, go here.

Beer inspired by art at the Portland Art Museum? Free beer tasting! Lompoc, Laurelwood, and Lucky Lab Breweries are making new beers for this? Sound good? Read on…

DESCRIPTION:
Art & Beer (At the Museum) is an event that combines drinking beer and experiencing art. For one night only, you can sample three new beers from Laurelwood, Lompoc, and Lucky Lab at the Portland Art Museum. A brewer from each of the three Portland microbreweries received a tour of the museum’s collection, selected an artwork, and made a beer that will complement that artwork. This beer sampling is part of a one night event called Shine A Light: A Night at the Museum, an event that will host a number of performances, time-based art actions, music, and more. The entry fee for the event is $12 and will give you access to all the art and performances, the museums galleries, and unlimited sampling of the three new beers.

DETAILS:
Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park, Portland, OR 97205

Sept. 19th / 6pm – Midnight
$12 entry includes access to all the nights events, the art collections and unlimited beer samples

To see a full schedule of events for Shine A Light, click here.

Art & Beer (At the Museum) is presented by Portland-based artist Eric Steen.

I’ve long thought that Portland takes it’s local pub culture very seriously. But not too many people know about Dean’s Scene. Dean is a plumber by day, brewer by night and he has retrofitted his basement to be a microtopia for beer lovers. You can just barely see the neon light from the sidewalk, you have to know where to look, but if it’s on you can walk around back and enter a whole new world. Dean’s Scene is one of Portland’s best beer culture offerings, and most people miss it entirely. So, why is it one of the best places in Portland to drink a beer? It’s a top-secret, underground speakeasy for beer drinkers!

Down in his basement is a complete brewery and bar and it’s available to anyone who wants to come have a drink with Dean and his pals. He offers about four of his own homebrews on tap. You walk in, get yourself a glass and self-serve your beer. He’s constantly brewing new batches and he has a rule that he’ll never brew the same beer twice. He’s made friends with a lot of the brewers in town and he’s obviously a big collector of beer paraphenilia. It’s quite an exciting place to visit. He’s got a bunch of youtube videos where he’s brewing beer and talking politics with his friends here. Here’s a nice image of the brewery with the bar in the background: Here’s the cabinet with all the beer glasses:

It’s a real microbrewery. Sometimes he’ll open up any number of bottles of beer from around the world for you to taste with him. He’s built his own walk in fridge and he’s aging a lot of beer there. One time he opened up a 3 year old bottle of Stone Brewery’s Epic Ale (2006). That was tasty. Another time he opened up a Heater Allan Hefeweisen, a beer I had never seen before. Yesterday I walked in and he had just finished giving tastes of about 7 different beers that I had never had before. Just missed it!

It’s the only bar in Portland you can smoke at. Really though, it’s not licensed, it’s just Dean opening his house to anyone who loves beer. I always give him a little cash to be nice.
UPDATE ***
I had removed the location of Dean’s Scene due to readers concern. Dean and a few regulars have assured me that they don’t mind having the location posted…SO, you can look for Dean’s neon sign on Fremont, just across the street from Alameda Brewery…between NE 47th and 48th.

Additionally, here is another concern from a regular Dean’s Scene attendee: “Just making sure that it is clear, that Dean’s Scene should 1) remain open 2) entrance is through association cannot be done freely and without the presence of the invitee 3) leave a healthy donation reflective of your consumption.”

History Pub is a history lesson series that takes place outside of your typical classroom setting, giving you the opportunity hear “a presentation by a humanities expert from fields including history, journalism, law, and women’s studies” while drinking a pint at Kennedy School, one of the most majestic pubs you’ll ever sit in. Whenever possible, individuals who participated in or were affected by the events share their memories as part of the program. It’s a collaboration between the Holy Names Heritage Center and McMenamins Kennedy School Pub and Brewery.

The History Pub’s next event is about Vanport, Oregon, a makeshift city that was build to house war veterans and was one of only two wartime housing facilities in all of Oregon that would house African-Americans. On May 30, 1948, a massive flood destroyed the city, killing an estimated 20 people and leaving thousands homeless. Donna Sinclair will discuss the city’s “de-facto” segregation and newly discovered information about the flood. Ed Washington and Allen Cummings, former Vanport residents, will share their memories of the flood.

Next event:
May 18th, 7:00pm
Kennedy School Pub – 5736 N.E. 33rd Ave. Portland, OR

Picture of Vanport, Oregon in the 1940′s

I know I could get in trouble posting about coffee instead of beer so I promise my beer readers that I won’t post too much about this stuff. But, let’s face it coffee has incredibly complex flavors just as good beer does. The quality of coffee can be judged by it’s aroma, fragrance, body, acidity, flavor, etc. Sound familiar? So, if you don’t enjoy drinking a great beer first thing in the morning, maybe coffee is a good breakfast alternative?

Portlanders love to boast about their Stumptown Coffee. The Stumptown Annex in SE Portland offers free tasting sessions every single day at 11:00am and 3:00pm. They require their employees to go to a tasting session at least once a month so that they can asnwer customers questions about varieties and all the new coffee they get in.

We learned how to smell different aromas at different parts of the tasting process. You have to keep your mouth open when you sniff the coffee so that you have greater oxygen flow.

When the coffee cools down you begin tasting it. You can spit it out or else you might get a caffeine high. You taste it a number times as it cools down because the flavor changes as it reaches room temperature.

One of the beans we got to try was one that they are charging $90.00 per pound retail price. Seems a bit pricey but it was my clear favorite. Apparently it’s a super difficult bean to grow and it only grows in very small pockets of the world. Maybe you’ll get to try this one too if you stop in.

update: photos from the exhibition are below

BUILDING IN THE POST-APOCALYPSE

An exhibition that explores and documents options of community, collaboration, and education through socially engaged practices.

Please see below for details about times, events, and goings-ons.

APRIL 10TH-23RD

MK GALLERY

2000 SW 5th (2nd Floor) Portland, Oregon

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:

Go to beerandscifi.com/exhibition for updates.
Some events appear twice because they are in multiple categories…

GALLERY HOURS:
Monday – Thursday 9-5
Saturday April 18th, 12-4

ARTISTS RECEPTION:
Thursday April, 16th
3-6pm – Public Social University event
6-9pm – Exhibition Reception
9-12pm – Sci-Fi Screening: Panic in the Year Zero & The Man From Earth

SCHEDULED ACTIVITIES:
April 13th – Monday – 10pm – Sci-Fi Screening – The Man Who Could Work Miracles
April 16th – Thursday – 3-6pm – Public Social University event
April 16th – Thursday – 6-9pm – Exhibition Reception
April 16th – Thursday – 9-12pm – Sci-Fi Double Feature (see above for titles)

MOVIE SCHEDULE:
Daily movies subject to change:
April 13th – Mon. – playing all day – The Lathe of Heaven
April 13th – Mon. – 10pm screening – The Man Who Could Work Miracles
April 14th – Tues. – playing all day – The Man Who Could Work Miracles
April 15th – Wed. – playing all day – Fantastic Planet
April 16th – Thu. – playing until 3:00 – The Man From Earth
April 16th – Thu. – 9-12pm screening – Panic in the Year Zero & The Man From Earth
April 18th – Sat. – playing 12-4pm – Panic in the Year Zero
April 20th – Mon. – playing all day – The Man From Earth
April 21st – Tues. – playing all day – A Boy and His Dog
April 22nd – Wed. – playing all day – Silent Running
April 23rd – Thurs. – playing all day – The Lathe of Heaven

*****Update: photos from the exhibition are below. Click on thumbnails to see larger images:

The gallery was divided into two spaces. The first was a classroom space where free and alternative educational exercises took place. This is where Public Social University hosted their Apocalypse class.

I led a public exercise called the Morphology Chart. The exercise gets people to place subjective interpretations onto random objects, create meaning where there may have been none.

The second room was the beerandscifi room (inspired by this blog). The room encouraged students at PSU to skip their classes, watch movies, drink beer together, and hang out.

At the opening I paid two of my students to drink beer with their friends at the picnic table in the gallery.

In my artist talks and in some of the writings I’ve been doing lately I’ve been relating my interest in the science fiction themes of utopia and dystopia to the realities of Portland, Oregon. Portland, known as the microbrew mecca of the planet, the bike-friendliest city in the US, and potentially the greenest city in the nation, also has some major issues that often are swept under the rug. Sam Adams, our new mayor (not the brewer), gave a fantastic talk yesterday and I wanted to share with you a very small portion of it that is very exciting to me. I will most likely post more of the speech in the near future:

“Here’s a statistic that hits closer to home: As of now, Oregon spends
3.4 times as much per prisoner as per public school pupil. Combine
this with the fact that only 57 percent of Portland city students
complete high school. This means a 43 percent drop-out rate. The
number is even more staggering for students of color. We cannot talk
about being a sustainable city and a sustainable economy if we
continue to allow this kind of failure on our part.”
-Sam Adams, Portland Oregon Mayor

Earlier this evening I went to the Bagdad Theater, drank a Terminator Stout and watched Alien on one of the original film reels. I’ve never seen Alien in such quality. Nor have I seen it with a crowd that is as nerdy about it as I am. You could hear cheers and laughter after scenes such as the one where the alien bursts through the guy’s chest.

The Bagdad is one of many theaters in Portland that charges you $4 to watch a movie and allows you to drink beer during the movie. At this particular theater you can order food and it will be delivered to you while the movie is playing. Unbelievable right? Well, it’s totally true. While there are many theaters like this to visit in Portland, I have written more about this particular theater here.

When I saw that Alien was going to play I knew that I would need to make it to the showing. I rounded up a few friends and made it out to the late night showing. Turns out next week they are showing the movie Tron, and it will be one of the last showings of Tron on the original film reels because now that the movie is being remade, Disney is shelving the archives.