Storm Gives Birth to New Beer: Port City Brewing's Derecho Common

They say when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.  Apparently when life gives you bad weather, you make more interesting beer!

In the aftermath of last week’s storms, Port City Brewing Company was — like so many in Washington — powerless.  And that’s a serious problem when regulated temperatures affect a lager’s characteristic taste and body.

“Our power was out for five days at the brewery, and our production has been completely shut down during this time. We have been unable to brew, package, or ship any beer to market,” explained the brewery’s Bill Butcher in an open letter to supporters on Monday.

“We continue to monitor the beer very closely, and we test and taste it daily. Five of our six tanks appear to be just fine.”

And that 6^th tank??!

“[It’s] a 60-barrel batch of lager beer that fermented at a higher temperature than we intended,” admitted Butcher.  But he’s not crying over spilled malt.

Instead, Port City plans to copy a steam beer style developed in San Francisco for lager yeast fermented at higher temps and release it — Derecho Common beer — as a limited availability on draft in the metro area.

There’s one way to go where the winds will take you.