Name: Standing Stone Brewing Company

Location: Ashland, Oregon

Type: Brewpub

Available in DC Market: No

What you need to know: From this brewpub’s website: “Our full-service craft brewpub is housed in an historic building with a light, open atmosphere. We offer our own freshly brewed ales and lagers made here in the display brewery in ten-barrel (310 gal) batches and using over 90% organic grains.” Sounds pretty tasty and innovative. Part of the always interesting Oregon craft beer culture, and one of a number of small, unfamiliar-to-most-DC-residents brewpubs to appear at SAVOR.

Sponsorship

Beer #1: Milk & Honey

Notes: “Polished copper color with a silky, smooth, medium body and nuances of honey. The honey flavor comes from a specialty honey malt. We add lactose, an unfermentable sugar, to provide body and a slight residual sweetness. 5.5% ABV.” Not really sure how to classify this beer. Sounds like a sweet amber ale. Definitely will take interesting, but I’m not sure all that sweetness between the honey malt and lactose is going to be adequately balanced out by hops (which, you’ll notice, are not mentioned in the description of this beer.)

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Beer #2: Pilot Rock Pale

Notes: “Delicate fruit-like aroma. Refreshingly crisp and easy drinking. Spicy flavor with citrus notes. Dry hopped with organic Cascade hops grown right in Ashland. 5.5% abv.” I don’t know how to put this delicately, so I’m going to be blunt. This sounds like Sierra Nevada Pale. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as Sierra Nevada Pale is, as you all know, a seminal beer. But do you want to drink it at SAVOR? I don’t know about that.

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Summary: The Milk & Honey sounds like an interesting beer. Honey and lactose? If it’s not a sweetbomb, it sounds very tasty. But if they didn’t balance it out somehow, it could turn into a need for a DIPA ASAP. Lots of Oregon representation this year, and that’s a great thing!

This profile is a part of the DCBEER.COM SAVOR Brewery Profile series. For more information, follow the link to see profiles of all 2011 SAVOR participants.

Beer Review Disclaimer: The beer reviews found on Beer Advocate and Rate Beer do not represent the opinions of this site. We provide these in the hope that they will serve as a resource showing what some craft beer fans have thought of the beers. These reviews can be a helpful guideline, but are not the be-all end-all about a beer’s strengths or weaknesses.