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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
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