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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (May 21, 2020)
g Ke & rk o C Sippin’ on Local Beers Wanna support local breweries? Here’s our reviews on what’s hot. A lthough being stuck at home for some has already been a chance to day drink like it’s college, now that spring is here, it’s beer season. Sure, COVID-19 has canceled many Memorial Day weekend events, but we at Eugene Weekly asked local breweries to send us what’s hot, so we can help you make the most of your drinking. BY EW STAFF memories of sipping the foam off her dad’s Budweiser. Hop lovers on the other hand will find refuge in the way the IPA balances hoppiness with juicy fruit flavors. Falling Sky FallingSkyBrewing.com 790 Blair Boulevard 541-653-9167 Falling Sky has reopened its restaurants, so it’s time to start filling up your growlers. The more sophisticated reactions to Pub Life found the beer had a malt-forward taste and a little soapy mouth feel. Non beer-aficionados just said it made their tongue feel “weird.” Falling Sky says the beer has aromas of fruit and some hoppy bitterness. Queen of the Underworld Pomegranate Sour offered us a tart adventure — which some of the staff didn’t want to take. It hit the mouth hard like the Warheads sour candy: an amazing taste for those who like sour and tart. The Dark Heart Munich Dunkel Lager , though, took our tasting of the brewery to another end of the spectrum. The beer was heavy with toasty notes, as well as chocolate, malt and caramel. The anti-IPA crowd was in heaven. Ninkasi Claim 5 2 Claim52Brewing.com 1203 Willamette Street 541-844-0152 When Eugene Weekly dropped by Claim 52’s brewery off 11th Avenue, we learned how popular the Thicc series of puree gose beer has been. We were told that the Thicc: Blueberry Pie sold out online fast. It’s not the typical hops beer you’d see on tap. This beer’s conditioned on blueberry, vanilla, graham cracker and cinnamon. When we cracked open a can of it, we found out why it made Claim 52’s website crash. The beer — if you can call it that, since it’s almost a beer smoothie — was something that you could sip on during the holidays. The only way to make it better would be with a scoop of vanilla ice cream dumped inside. The next drink we tried in the Thicc series was the Painkiller , another beer that quickly sold out, and it was a huge hit with EW staff. Like Blueberry Pie, Painkiller was a sweet delight that was overall an amazing drink. The beer was like a creamy pineapple and orange juice smoothie — a drink that’s going to make you forget about Disneyland’s Dole Whip. Claim 52’s Corey Wolf Hart Hazy IPA balanced out the hoppy nature of an IPA with citrus, which for EW’s resident IPA haters made it a little more drinkable. Claim 52 also sent us a Kolsch (one of the brewery’s more popular beers), which is best summed up as a more full- bodied update on the typical “dad beers” — and gave one of the tasters happy, but no longer socially appropriate, E U G E N E W E E K LY . C O M NinkasiBrewing.com 155 Blair Boulevard 541-344-2739 In February, Ninkasi opened The Better Living Room, a new restaurant that has a five-barrel Pilot Brewery. It’s a way for brewers to play around with new recipes and ideas, the company tells EW. Ninkasi sent over two of its beers that are on a 3-month rotation: Party Rice Lager with Lime and Kettle Sour Juicy IPA . The Party Rice Lager (which is brewed in collaboration with Party Downtown) is a mildly hoppy beer that didn’t offend the hop-sensitive among us and was deemed easy to drink and would be refreshing after a long day in the sun. The Kettle Sour Juicy IPA is also easy to drink, even with its slight sourn ess that gets balanced with the presence of hops. Peach Made in the Shade Summer IPA is like a mullet of IPAs: It puts hops in the front and has fun with the fruitiness of peaches in the back. Again the hop-happy and hop-hatey were divided on this one. Ninkasi worked with Glimmer Tech on the 12-packs, so when you scan the package with a smartphone, an Asteroids-like game pops up. You have to defend summer by fighting off little invaders. Sorry, Ninkasi, but it’s a little too late to defend summer now. A FLIGHT FROM FALLING SKY M A Y 2 1 , 2 0 2 0 11
