(Ukiah, CA) – Mateveza has a new organic beer now appearing on shelves.

Beer description per the website: “MateVeza Organic Black Lager is brewed with organic two-row, chocolate, black, Munich malt, roasted barley, organic yerba mate, and Cascade, Centennial, Tettnang, and Hallertau hops. The yerba mate provides a natural source of caffeine equal to 1/2 of a cup of coffee per 12-ounce bottle.

Alcohol by Volume: 5.2%
Bitterness: 25 IBU
Caffeine Content: 60 mg (per 12-ounce bottle)”

This beer is only available in 22 oz. bottles.

MateVeza is brewed and bottled in Ukiah, California by Mendocino Brewing Company. Its signature ingredient is organic Yerba Mate.

(Portland, OR) – Hopworks Urban Brewery, an all-organic brewery just turned two years old, now has two upcoming beer releases up its sleeve.

First, the beer pictured above, Hopworks Ace of Spades will be released in bottles on April 13th at Belmont Station. It is a Meet the Brewers event with Ace of Spades and Galactic Imperial Red on draft and per the Oregon Brewers Guild, “Motorhead will be on the stereo all night!” This appears to be a launch event so I imagine that the bottles will trickle out elsewhere soon thereafter.

The brew won the coveted Gold Medal in the Imperial IPA at the 2009 Great American Beer Festival, beating out 76 other entries.

The label says, “This hopped out beast had Amarillo, Cascade and Centennial hops, added at every point; mash tun, first wort, kettle, and dry hop. All the green goodness results in a beer with a huge citrus hop aroma, flavor and deep clean bitterness.”

Beer Stats: 9.2% ABV, 21.5 Deg. Plato, 100+ IBU

In other news that broke yesterday, Hopworks is releasing an IPA called Google Gigabit as a pitch for the company to choose Portland as its destination for new high-speed fiber optics lines. The lines are are 1 GB/second which is considerably faster than the 3-15 MB/second connections that most of us are used to . . . The New School blog has the full story.

(Portland, OR) – Hopworks Urban Brewery is about to release a new beer in 22 oz. bombers (one tweet says today, another says early next week – better to call). Hopworks Bike Beer is an IPA brewed with hops from the Northwest: Cascade, Crystal, and Nugget. The all-organic brewery also announced that the beer will also be on draft in time for Biketobeerfest.

Biketobeerfest is an all-day event taking place at the brewery on Saturday, September 19th. On this day, the brewery will feature 14 beers on tap including two new fresh hop beers, Ace of Spades Imperial IPA and Bourbon DOA.

(Middlebury, VT) – Otter Creek Brewing and sister brewery, Wolaver’s Organic Ales, each have a new beer coming out this fall. Otter Creek will introduce Quercus Vitis Humulus as the latest beer in its Imperial Series in early October. Wolaver’s will follow with Alta Gracia Coffee Porter on November 1st. Both will be made available in the breweries’ core Northeast market making it down to the Mid-Atlantic and New York.

According to a brewery rep, QVH will be “very limited,” and in addition to being available in 22 oz. and draft, will also be added to a new holiday gift pack that will include an Otter Creek glass, Otter Creek Russian Imperial Stout, Otter Creek Imperial India Pale Ale. Label description: “Our homage begins with a bold 27 degree plato barley-wine ale, warm-fermented with Bohemian lager yeast, which we then blended with French grape juice and fermented a second time with a pure culture of Champagne yeast. When our brewers thought this intricate brew was complete, they aged it on lightly toasted French Oak. The six-week journey through our brewery results in a deeply complex ale.”

Malts: 2 row, Wheat, Vienna, Crystal, Munich, Aromatic
Hops: U.K. Goldings, Strisselsplat

Alta Gracia Coffee Porter will be sold in six-packs and is the third beer in a special series celebrating organic farmers (see Ben Gleason’s White Ale, Pat Leavy’s American Ale and Will Stevens’ Pumpkin Ale). Label description: “Brewed with organic roasted barley and chocolate malts for a rich, dark robust flavor with an infusion of organic vanilla beans, and coffee from the Dominican Republic farm community Alta Gracia. This non-profit organic farm works to empower farmers with tools and techniques to grow quality shade-grown organic coffee. The result is growers who feel pride in their stewardship of the land, are paid fairly for their labor, and have healthy sustainable farms.”

(Middlebury, VT) – Wolaver’s will bring a new beer to market in January as part of its series honoring organic farmers. Pat Leavy’s All American Ale will honor a man that has chaired the Oregon Hop Commission and one that happens to grow his own organic hops. According to Max Oswald, Director of Sales and Marketing, this beer should be available in most places where Wolaver’s distributes: the entire East Coast (minus SC) and WI, IL, CA, OR, and WA.

PLAA is the second in the organic farmers series where Wolaver’s has named the beer in honor of the organic farmer who grew one of the beer’s main ingredients. The first was named after pumpkin farmer Will Stevens. Stevens grew his pumpkins at “Golden Russet Farm in Shoreham, VT, less than fifteen miles away from the brewery.”

Leavy first grew the hops (Fuggles, Goldings, and Magnum) that go into this brew in 2006. Per Oswald, “Prior to our partnership with Pat we were forced to use what organic hops were available and most came from Europe and New Zealand. Shipping made no sense and the varieties were very limited so we now are able to get some great hops just around the corner in Oregon.”

Next up will be a wheat based beer featuring raw organic wheat grown by Ben Gleason of Bridgeport, VT.

For more reading on Wolaver’s and organic beers, see the May article at NorthJersey.com.

Before I get into the notes, Oregon Business Magazine has a thorough piece on the Oregon craft beer scene in this month’s issue. A lot of recent craft beer articles that feature the Beaver State have naturally had something to do with hop production because of the time of the year. This article, instead, largely features commentary on the state of craft beer (with an emphasis on growth, independence, and consolidation of breweries) from the voices of four major players in the state: Rogue Ales, Deschutes Brewery, Widmer Brewing, and Full Sail Brewing. Full text available at the above link. Onto the organic beer notes…

Portland-based Laurelwood Brewing released its flagship Free Range Red Ale in bombers this week. Belmont Station, among others, has it on shelves. Billed by the brewery as its most popular beer, the organic red ale won a World Beer Cup gold medal back in 2004. The beer features Cascade as its sole hop and hits an IBU level of 60. The brewery’s aptly-named winter warmer, Vinter Varmer returns in bombers early next month. Finally, Laurelwood Himmelbrau Helles just won the brewery a gold medal for the third year in a row and was on tap at the Portland Pizza Co. location as of earlier this week.

Meanwhile…Fortuna, CA’s Eel River Brewing, the first certified organic brewers in the U.S., will release a unique beer later this month, in Acai Berry Wheat. Sessionable at only 4% ABV, the beer is “a light-bodied wheat ale brewed with organic acai berries from Brazil, and a flavorful mix of four other organic berries. Acai berries boast high antioxidant properties [...]” Eel River will also soon debut a winter seasonal, Climax Noel, an 8% ABV Doppelbock.

Following up on recent reports of East End Ugly American coming out next month and the release of Brewer’s Art Resurrection in bottles, more news comes for the Mid-Atlantic crowd, more specifically Pennsylvania!

Straight from Carol Stoudt, here is the deal with Stoudts Barrel-Aged Scotch-Style Ale:

“This scotch ale was a brewers reserve, that was in fact the same batch we had out last year. We aged a small amount of it in bourbon barrels for ten months. We are hoping to have it available within the next couple of weeks. This will be very limited, probably only available at the brewery. Around the same time we should have a dunkle weizen in large bottles as well. That is not as limited, and we may distribute some of that.”

Note that this response came to me two weeks ago so there is a good chance this will be available at the brewery very soon if not already.

Pennsylvania label approvals came through this weekend for Terrapin Golden, Sun Ray, Pale Ale, and India Style Brown.

Local hero, Guy Hanger, also got good news recently with word of label approvals for One Guy Atomic Punk IPA, Oktoberfest, Hondo Kellerbier, and Berwick Lager. Hanger operates a startup brewery in Berwick, PA, whose site is maintained over at the Northeast PA Buzz Blog.

Labels also came through for Appalachian Brewing Trail Blaze Organic Brown Ale, pictured below, and a new one on tap, Appalachian JP Edwards Pale Ale.

Other notes:

Lehigh Valley Live had a weekend update on Victory Brewing‘s plans to move ‘next door’ to Weyerbacher Brewing in Easton, PA.  [Ed: Note that they should be expanding into additional space and not moving recently renovated brewery & restaurant ops.]

The specs for Troegs Scratch #14 Saison are now up at the Troegs site. The beer will be released today, Sept. 30, on tap.

Finally, there is a mega-event for Bella Vista Distributors this Sunday featuring a ton of good beers on tap. See the Beer Advocate event listing here.

Let me preface this week’s roundup by pointing you to our new polling system. Each week I will throw up a new poll (found on the lower right sidebar). This week’s poll, which I will keep up through the middle of next week, asks readers what new item/improvement they would like to see on this blog next. I may have left out an option or two that you would like to see (i.e., more frequent updating of the release date list!). If I did leave something out, email me or leave a comment in this thread. While the most votes doesn’t necessarily mean that I will automatically introduce that feature, I will give the results strong consideration.

There are multiple forms of feedback available. This poll is just one of them. If there is anything pertaining to the site that you’d like to comment on (posts you like, errors/glitches, beer tips even if it’s from your own brewery, etc.), you can hit me up by email (upper left), comment in a thread, or send me a quick note on Twitter (upper left). OK, now that you’re asleep, here is the news in quick hit-style since there is so much ground to cover…

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Lost Abbey
Tomme Arthur has probably been more busy at his computer than brewing recently. He initially made waves this week in officially announcing this Saturday’s release of one of the most highly anticipated beers of the year, Isabelle Proximus. In addition, he revealed details about three other new offerings: Lost Abbey No Goeien Saison (July), Lost Abbey Witch’s Wit, and Brouwer’s Imagination Ale (click on the pic on the right to see our initial post about this beer from a while back). The June Patron Saints release is Ten Commandments.

Portsmouth Brewery
The release of Portsmouth Kate the Great, easily one of the year’s biggest spectacles (BA vet Bierman9′s Flickr gallery), took place on Tuesday and was met with mostly positive reaction. There is rumor out that the beer could run out this weekend. Good thing Head Brewer, Tod Mott, plans on doing this one again for next January. Again, this year’s version has a higher ABV level than ever before. Mott has mentioned that he prefers his aged at over a year (he nor I take responsibility if you age it and regret it!) so the aging potential, if done right, could be pretty good with this edition especially.

Deschutes Brewery
There are a few more stores, in addition to Liquid Solutions, reporting Deschutes Black Butte XX as being available for sale: Belmont Station, 99 Bottles, and, for you San Diego folk, South Bay Drugs and Liquors (also offering 20th Anniversary Wit, both “coming soon”).

Three Floyds Brewing
Lush Wine & Spirits in Chicago is releasing Three Floyd’s Fantabulous Resplendence XI Anniversary Ale tomorrow at the 1257 S. Halsted store from 5-8pm. You will be able to get a free tasting before buying a growler of it as well. It has not yet been bottled.

Great Lakes Brewing
Remember their 20th Anniversary Imperial Dortmunder Gold Lager that was to come out later this summer in 4-packs? One Beer Advocate member is reporting that it will be available at Heinens next week (exclusively until it hits other stores in the area). We haven’t verified it so call ahead to be sure.

Southern Tier Brewing
I have an email out as of this afternoon to Paul Cain from Southern Tier as to an updated timetable on Creme Brulee. I will keep you posted.

Weekend Events:

Big Al’s Birthday Bash at the Blue Nile – Minneapolis, MN – On Saturday night, there will be a lot of good stuff on tap!

North American Organic Brewers Festival – Portland, OR – A 3-day event featuring organic beers, mostly from the Northwest and California; the beer list can be viewed at the website (see link)

19th Colorado Brewers’ Festival – Fort Collins, CO

The brewery opened its doors just last fall. For a little more info, you may want to start out with this very well-done short video and then head over to their own blog where they, in fact, originally reported this story.

(Santa Cruz, CA) – Uncommon Brewers, a new organic brewery in Santa Cruz, CA, is set release its beer in cans (16 oz. 4-packs) and kegs later this month. The brewery got label approval for the cans in early February and just got keg label approval on Wednesday.

Here is the scoop on the new beers straight from one of the brewers, Skot Colacicco: “Siamese Twin 8.5%: (kegs and cans) which is a Belgian Double with some Thai influence; lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, and indian coriander, plus some candi sugar we make our self with organic cane sugar.

Baltic Porter 8.5%: (kegs and cans) Porter brewed with the Baltic Style in mind. Think what IPA was for the pale ale of england in those days, so goes the porter. They were stronger, dryer, and hoppier in order to keep during long shipping voyages. Often had notes of Licorice (probably due to the yeast style they were using, but possibly the way the malt was kilned. I couldn’t find specific research on where the flavor profile came from). We liked the flavor enough to add whole Licorice root, and Star Anise, to boost the flavor.

Golden State Ale (probably about 6.5%): (kegs and eventually, cans) Belgian Golden ale with toasted poppy seeds. Light, semi-dry, with a slightly nutty taste from both the poppy seeds, and the Belgian candi sugar.”