Logsdon Farmhouse Ales - Two Rivers Blanc

Logsdon’s Two Rivers Blanc is a tart, blended farmhouse ale featuring Washington Riesling and Oregon Chardonnay grapes—and it’s one of our absolute favorite Logsdon releases to date. Two Rivers Blanc features a blend of various saisons and saison-like beers that have been aged with 1.5 pounds per gallon of Riesling and Chardonnay grapes, with a blend of 60% Riesling Golden Ale, 5% Chardonnay Saison, 25% Foeder-aged Tart Saison, and 10% Young Brett Table Saison. The result is a juicy, moderately funky, mixed-culture farmhouse ale featuring top notes of honey, orange zest, and stone fruit. Two Rivers Blanc comes in at 8% ABV and is bottle-conditioned, unfiltered, and unpasteurized.

Bottles of Two Rivers Blanc will be exclusively available through the Rare Beer Club. We’ll be getting the full run aside from three cases heading to Denmark and 14 cases heading to China, with a small number of kegs being allocated for California, China, New York, and the new Logsdon spot opening in Portland this summer.

Two Rivers Blanc pours a bright golden color, capped by a billowing white foam that offers excellent retention and lacing that coats the interior of the glass. We poured this into goblets and they basically glowed. Toasty and lightly tart, with lemony aromatics leading. We found fresh citrus, lime zest, and an array of tropical fruit throughout, including papaya and mango. Delicious lemon-lime touches, with smooth, lightly funky, mixed-culture fermentation notes throughout: sourdough and pepper, nicely dry, with touches of almond-focused oak from its aging time. A delicious, fruit-focused blend of saison- and lambic-like elements throughout.

This blended, bottle-conditioned farmhouse ale provides lots of lively, effervescent bubbles, with that initial sip packed with intense, tangy, tart citruses, highlighting lemon and lime zest and sweet, rounded grape notes from the special additions. Those Riesling and Chardonnay grapes offer honeyed, apricot-like fruitiness throughout, alongside grapefruit, subtle salinity, and toasty texture from the time spent in oak. Nicely blended, packed with layered fruit and white-wine complexity, while keeping on the lightly sweet side of things courtesy its mixed-culture fermentation. Saison-like peppery and sourdough notes provide welcome bitterness and perceived dryness. Lasting finish of lemon-lime tartness, toasty breadiness, pepper, and lemon zest. A delicious, refreshing Logsdon beer, packed with citrus and grape complexity.

Per the brewery, Two Rivers Blanc can be aged gracefully for years in proper cellaring conditions. That said, we love how this is drinking right now. For food pairings: the core grape and lemon-tart characteristics have us looking to fresh green salads with a vinaigrette dressing, buttery grilled seafood, and desserts like vanilla custard or lemon meringue pie.

Imagine, if you will, a mythic brewery tucked away in the folds of Oregon’s Columbia River. The brewing equipment itself sits in an iconic big red barn, itself housed on the brewmaster’s quiet ten-acre property. Schaerbeekse cherry trees, imported from a small Belgian orchard in East Flanders, dot the property and conjure up the world-class kriek lambics of that region. A small fold of Scottish Highland cattle can be seen salivating, a good sign there’s brewing in progress. Once it’s done, the spent grains will be brought out into the pasture to feed them. At the operation’s helm, let’s say, is an artisan long-trained in the semi-invisible arts of yeast management. It all feels like a bit of sorcery. For good measure, the brewery also happens to be immersed in an area known for its windsurfing, orchards, historic landmarks, and beer.

Logsdon Farmhouse Ales has seen a lot of changes since those earliest days, yet the brewery continues to create some of our favorite beers coming out of the Pacific Northwest, picking up a bunch of awards in recent years. Logsdon was founded by David Logsdon and Charles Porter back in 2009 in Hood River, Oregon, with its first beers being produced in 2011 on the brewery’s small 10-barrel system on David’s idyllic property. Logsdon served as director and brewmaster, having been a force in the brewing industry for quite some time, previously serving as a founding partner and brewer at fellow-Hood-River-based brewery Full Sail. He’s also founder of Wyeast Laboratories, Inc., one of the country’s main yeast companies, where he worked for 25 years before starting a brewery of his own. The brewery gradually gained a reputation for its rustic, Belgian-inspired ales and highlighting high-quality, local ingredients.

Co-owners Jodie Ayura, Judith Bam-Logsdon, Seaberg Einarsson, and John Plutshack would all actively join the Logsdon team by 2011, working at the brewery and/or the Barrel House in downtown Hood River, and award-winning beers like their delicious Peche n’ Brett and Seizoen Bretta would help the brewery to grow further. When co-founder David Logsdon retired in 2015, Plutshack and Ayura would take over the brewery’s helm and steer the next generation of Logsdon’s evolution. Shilpi Halemane (previously with Widmer Brothers) and Curtis Bain (previously with Cascade Brewing, and now with Lanikai Brewing) were brought into brewing roles and developed Logsdon’s coolship/spontaneous-fermentation program, picking up awards at the Great American Beer Festival and World Beer Cup, as well as being named Small Brewery of the Year at the Oregon Beer Awards in 2017. The same year, Shilpi was named head brewer, and Mark Pearson (previously with deGarde Brewing) joined their brewing team as well, as the company looked into various other locations to better interact with their customer base. In August 2018, Logsdon moved into a space out in Washougal, Washington, continuing existing operations in Hood River, Oregon, as well until 2019.

The Washougal location offered Logsdon the opportunity to expand their range while also producing farmhouse-style ales year round, and was able to offer up online sales and home-delivery options during the pandemic. The Washougal taproom just closed this May, with a new Portland-based location announced to be opening this summer. We’re really curious to see what this next chapter holds for Logsdon. We’ve featured a few beers from this world-class brewery over the past 10 years that have been very well received by our Rare Beer Club members, and this month we’re excited to offer Logsdon’s Two Rivers Blanc—an incredible blended farmhouse ale that incorporates Riesling and Chardonnay grapes. For the latest info on what Logsdon Farmhouse Ales has got planned next, head over to farmhousebeer.com.