Welcome back to Sip Northwest’s Beer Hall of Fame: a twice-monthly induction into a list of essential Northwest beers that have made their mark on the field and region.
If you missed our first installment, you can catch up on the reasoning for this series and our ground rules for appointing a new beer to our BHOF here. Following in the footsteps of our inaugural BHOF — Georgetown Brewing’s Lucille IPA — we now move to induct Deschutes Brewery’s Black Butte porter.
Deschutes Brewery, born in Bend, Oregon, began serving its diverse and complex beers in 1988. The company, which sells its stuff all over the country with a second brewpub in Portland and a third opening up in Roanoke, Virginia, aims to infuse a wide array of ingredients in its hoppers so the beers translate to pints shared by folks of all tastes.
In the early days of modern craft beer – which featured floral and hoppy pillars like Sierra Nevada pale ale and Anchor Brewing’s IPA – Deschutes decided to zig when the rest of the market zagged. The brewery opened its doors and led with a dark beer: the Black Butte porter.
Dark beers, especially porters, have a rich and illustrious history dating back to the equally dim-lit and gloomy days in the U.K., the style receiving its name from the freight handlers who carried the beer off ships to the pubs. Despite its reputable back-story, dark beer as a flagship brew was practically unheard of for a 1980s American craft brewery, says Brian Faivre, brewmaster of operations at Deschutes. “We never take the easy road,” he says. “It’s in our brewery’s DNA.”
The result? Black Butte porter is now America’s best selling porter, with bottles and kegs shipped seemingly everywhere. The beer itself clocks in at a 5.2 percent ABV and is made with dark, roasted malts — giving it definite but subtle chocolate notes — and mixed with a little wheat, providing the porter a mild, fluffy mouthfeel. The beer boasts a full body, but is not sweet. Instead, it is balanced, clean and a delicious option when the hop-forward ales of the Northwest have run their course for the weekend.
So, thank you, Deschutes. Here’s to you, your Black Butte porter and the Sip Northwest Beer Hall of Fame. Cheers!
