It begins, as all proper pilgrimages do, with flour on the hands and wanderlust in the veins. Tomas and April Sluiter, two star-crossed bakers from Grand Rapids, threw caution into the wind like so much wild yeast and landed—serendipitously, deliciously—in Portland. Enter 2000: Tomas takes a gig at Old Market Pub, and within a cosmic blink, finds himself unexpectedly crowned Head Brewer. Cue the demolition of the old system, the rise of a 15-barrel phoenix, and the beginnings of what would one day ferment into Culmination Brewing—a 7,000-square-foot temple to gravity-fed intention and hop-soaked ambition in Northeast Portland. Fast forward through sweat, setbacks, and sudsy salvation, and you arrive here: four fresh Culmination brews in the Peaks & Pints cooler, awaiting your chilled devotion. We call this hoppy homage Peaks and Pints Pilot Program: Culmination On The Fly—because dreams, like beers, are best served fresh and poured with purpose.
Peaks and Pints Pilot Program: Culmination On The Fly
Culmination Neon Valley
5.5% ABV
Beers are traditionally carbed with CO2, but switch that to nitrogen, and the smaller bubbles create a creamy texture and a signature cascading pour effect. It’s been mostly a draft phenomenon, but today more breweries are tinkering with canning and bottling nitrogenated beers, including Culmination. When a drop of liquid nitrogen is added to their Neon Valley sour ale the guava, strawberry, key lime, and vanilla flavors are delivered more like a fruit smoothie.
Culmination Sour Flower
5.5% ABV
Cucumber flavor has a soothing, chill-out quality that makes it a favorite addition to ice water at your neighborhood spa. That same sensation can be employed to great effect in the right beer, such as Culmination’s most recent Sour Flower series offering: Cucumber and Elder Flower Sour Ale. Culmination’s rotating Sour Flower series foraged some elderflower for sweet floral aromas combined with the fresh tang of seasonal cucumbers.
Culmination Psychic Oasis Hazy IPA
7.5% ABV
Originally brewed with the fine folks at Belmont Station bottle shop in Portland for the their 22nd anniversary, this latest version of Psychic Oasis Hazy IPA is overstuffed with Citra, Mosaic, and Motueka, the New Zealand hop that possesses notes of lemon and lime perfect for the heat, with the other hops adding more citrus, tropical and stone fruit flavors.
Culmination Invisible Forces
7.4% ABV
Culmination’s Invisible Forces hazy IPA returns jam packed with El Dorado and Sultana hops. This combination is a harmonious one with a guava, passionfruit, and pineapple sour tart nose with some sweetness. Taste is more naval orange, pineapple, and diesel.
