A little background- since i moved to the PNW 4 years back, I've been kvetching (mostly to myself) about the lack of genuine appreciation for German lagers. This was mostly driven by having a variety of choices at multiple watering holes that was beyond belief. If you've never seen a multi-day event with a tap list consisting of 104 fresh beers with 6+ fresh gravity kegs and 200+ fresh bottles all PURELY from Germany - not German style, not German-inspired - I'm not exaggerating, please ask our resident moderator @John_M , you might understand where i'm coming from. Today, i finally made it out to the Occidental Wursthaus and have to admit i was blown away. I've been impressed by their beers in cans, but with the exception of the Alt, they've been styles I consider fairly well-represented in the American brewing scene. However, their Edel-Hell, which i had the chance, nay, the joy, of drinking today, made me realize I've given them less credit than is due. The Helles lager style is easy to brew blandly (or badly) but this one had a certain finesse that's hard to find. So, folks, why don't we talk about these guys more?
I appreciate your enthusiasm, but, the honest answer, to me at least, and I suspect some others here, is, this is the first time I've heard of this brewery. Plus, since we are on the North American continent, bottles are the only way we can taste truly "German-not German style" beers. I heartily suggest you try some Chuckanut Brewery beers, arguably the best "North American Version of true German styles beers" around. Cheers buddy, and carry on the good fight!
I'm a fan of Occidental. I wish I could make it out to St. Johns more often, but it's a bit out of the way. I've been wanting to check out the Wursthaus. How as the food? They're a few breweries in the area that focus on Germans styles: Heater Allen, Rosenstadt, Wayfinder and Zoiglhaus. For beers actually from Germany, have you checked out Prost! or Stammtisch?
I don't tend to mention Occidental because I don't enjoy their beers as much as the German-style beers from Heater Allen, Upright, The Commons, and Buoy. If Chuckanut beers were available down here, they, too, would race past Occidental for a spot in my top 5 brewers of German-style beers. A couple years ago I tried their Kölsch, Alt, and Doppelbock, on draft and from the can/bottle. The Kölsch was good, the Alt had an unpleasant amount of diacetyl, and I found the Doppelbock thin and slightly astringent. I want to like them. Sounds like it's time I gave them another try.
Stammtisch deserves another mention. Excellent food and they almost always have one or two German beers I don't see anywhere else. Superb.
I've found their weizens to be excellent, and I liked their doppel the last time I had it. The alt I didn't care for much either, for some reason. In my book, they probably are doing the best job of any local brewery when it comes to German style beers. The problem for me, is the same problem I had when I lived in Baltimore. I'd happily go to the annual German fest at Max's every year (which is what @DefenCorps/Dyan is referring to I believe), where I would drink liter after liter of great German beer. However, other than the occasional pint of Wurzburger pils, I just didn't find myself drinking a whole lot of lager, no matter how good it was. Like Dyan mentioned, I found myself kicking myself for forgetting how great German beer can be, but for whatever reason, other than the annual fest at Max's, I found that most of the time I was drinking a lot of ales (mostly consisting of IPA's, pale ales, stouts and various Belgian style ales). If anything, the problem here in the NW is even greater. It's harder to find good German style lagers out here, and it's incredibly easy to find good ales (especially IPA/DIPA's and the like). The result is that other than the occasional pils from Upright, Heater Allen and Chuckanut, I just seem to forget that there's anything other than ale. Granted, whenever I see Wurzburger pils on the tap list out here, I always buy it, but unfortunately I rarely ever see it on any beer menu in PDX (last couple of times was at the Green Dragon and the HorseBrass, and even then, both places blew through their kegs very quickly). As for Occidental, they're another one of those breweries I keep on telling myself I'll get around to visiting "one of these days." However, I find myself just getting lazier and lazier the longer I live here in PDX. There are just too many great tap houses within 10 or 15 minutes of my house, that have plenty of beers that I know I'll enjoy. Given all those local options, I just find it very difficult to drive the extra time and distance out to Occidental. One of these days though... :-)
Tell me about it. I had the week off between Christmas and New Years, and I was all set to knock Occidental off my "Have Not Visited Yet" list. Alas, plans changed a couple times, and Occidental is STILL on my "Have Not Visited Yet" list. So which one of us is going to get there first?
Im not sure if their "taproom" is still not-kid-friendly but that is basically why I havent gone there. I live in NE Portland and really dont have many opportunities to venture to N Portland by myself to try beer. If I do happen upon a few hours without the kids I can usually stay close to home and hit any of the 500 places on the inner Eastside past few years they have done big crawfish boils and it has broken my heart that they have been 21 and over only
I love Occidental if only for the fact that their canned Hefeweizen is one of my favorite local interpretations of the classic German style. If only Seapine would bottle/can...
