(SpoCOOL) A Spokane Blog

Because, really, if you want this to be related to anything, I'd say it makes for good dinner music. And it's awesome.

Awesome!

So here we have Deschutes' version of Collaborator No 2, and while it's obviously the other side of the same coin, it's just a little bit different and a little bit better than Boulevard's version.

It pours similarly to the Collaborator, but has a more yellow hue to it, though it's still hazy looking. The head is thick, white and inviting. A quick sniff reveals a spicy profile, but here there seems to be more hops up front. 

Sip it, and you have something very similar to the Collaborator, but the flavors just seem a bit more balanced here. The spices kind of attack the tongue in tandem with the spices and citrus. This is the Collaborator, yet it isn't. It might be a bit less subtle with more of a kick up front, courtesy of the hops.

Cross-comparing bottles is probably a pretty interesting experiment (we only tried them from tap) particularly after a couple of months of aging. They're both excellent ales, certainly, but personally I'd go for the Conflux as the "winner".

Well, that worked out pretty well, didn't it? Eighteen teams battling it out in what turned out to be two extremely close races. Who won? Who lost? What kind of amusing photos do we have? Without further ado, let's just jump into the spectacle we called... #SpoBREW2.

The Brewers's Choice

Like last year, the competition was judged by Ely Johnson of New Belgium fame. He was joined by the soon to be opened Trickster Brewing's Matt Morrow, and the two of them were as awesome as we knew they would be. In the end they put Whickerbill Studios on top, with a very impressive 52 out of 60 points. The race was close again, though seeing Wilktopia -- #4 in the brewers's choice -- taking last place was interesting. The reason, apparently, was a skunkiness to both bottles sampled by the judges^*. Hey, that happens to the best of us.

   

The Artists

Sadly time prohibited us from doing a proper art show this year, but Scott, Lars, and (I believe) Dana all brought some really awesome stuff. We have photos of Scott's functional art below, and will add more when/if we get it. 

Trivia & Thanks

The Porch turned out to be an awesome venue again -- huge props to Dave and company for hosting the event yet again!

Placing #2 in the brewers's choice and #1 in the judges's choice made Whickerbill Studios the most successful beer of the night, so congratulations on a great beer! 

In Brad's defense for falling from last year's first place to this year's last: He couldn't bring the beer he had planned on because of technical difficulties. The one he did bring hadn't had the chance to age properly. (He told us to write this.)

As pointed out by Ryan, however, Brad is two in two in winning #SpoBREW prices. He will be bringing home a delicious bottle of the Rogue Voodoo Doughnut Maple Bacon this year. (He also won for being the biggest trash talker prior to the tasting.)

Veraci brought amazing pizza. Really, though, you already knew that.

The Hop Whisperers took our challenge seriously and actually brought beer in mason jars!

Big thanks to Big Sky for providing beer for the event! We assume they were popular, seeing there were none left at the end of the evening.

And thanks to Ely and New Belgium for providing high quality glasses, which we noticed many people walking away with.

#SpoBREW has pretty much found a new announcer through Vikas, who performed the dramatic beer readings throughout the last quarter of the event.

Number of pairs of pirate pants this year: 2. Twice that of last year.

You'll start seeing Ramblin' Road in a few places come October. Like them on Facebook to stay up to speed, and check out some of the photos they have from the event.

People seemed to be enjoying Indaba's samples -- big thanks to them for making some awesome coffee!

We assume everyone will remember the Norwegian drinking song until next time, after Kjell led us in a roaring rendition: "Ååååå... Så svinger vi på seidelen igjen, hei, skål!"

Disappointment of the evening: A decidedly un-plaid Doxey, which made & look decidedly unpretentious.

Thanks to Kendra and MB for doing a great job pouring the beer!

And finally, thanks to everybody we're probably forgetting to thank, largely because there are so many of you. Handknit Webs for their logo work, all the brewers, everybody who showed up, and, again, Ely and Matt for judging. We had a lot of fun; hopefully we can come back even stronger next year!

^* It has come to our attention that Wilktopia did not bring their beers in bottles, but kegs, something we, when we take a step back, also remember. There is therefore a possibility that, for the judges (though not for the audience), their beer could have been switched with &'s. There's no way for us to know for sure at this point, and as neither beer placed too well, it doesn't really matter, but we feel this new information should be made public for the sake of accuracy-ish.

Hey, another new place we're feeling optimistic about, and that we'll give some time to mature before we full-on hardcore Pete Rose-face-first review it. We're liking what we're seeing at Saranac so far, and it could very well end up being a winner.

This is a public house in the truest sense. The interiors aren't super exciting I suppose -- maybe just a bit on the stark side -- but are still inviting in a non-pretentious kind of way, and the exposed brick walls add just a bit of color to the overall palette. The space has certainly opened up since the Isabella's of yore.

There is a good handful of taps with your usual suspects of craft brewing on them here, including local favorites Golden Hills and Northern Lights. A few more taps with something special on them might not hurt. Saranac has also wisely added a large selection of cans to the menu, and I applaud any spot where you can enjoy an Old Chub with dinner.

The food, during our visit, was quite good. In fact, in a town that rarely gets pub-quality food right, Saranac downright impressed us. The pork tacos were juicy, served in hard shells -- ones that didn't feel like they came straight from Safeway's Mexican aisle, can you believe it? -- with a semi-spicy creamy sauce. Add the accompanying salsa, and you have pub tacos done right: Hearty and tasty.

We also sampled the black bean burger, which succeeded on many levels, particularly by being served in a good bun. The actual burger was just a bit plain, flavor wise, but still tasty and it had a good texture. We'd order it again, though a quick trip to McCall for what we consider the perfect bean burger might serve as a bit of inspiration.

If Saranac's goal is to compete for the coveted after-work crowd, they look to have the chops for it.

So, the Saranac impressed us. We like what we're seeing. The Yelps of the world suggest inconsistencies, but it looks like things are stabilizing here. Decent beer selection, good service, good pub food... We'll keep a close eye on the Saranac; it's miles better than Post St Ale House, and if it looks to Deschutes in Portland and Bitter Creek in Boise, it could reach the heights we're really rooting for.

This might very well become a contender.