More Places to Eat and Drink in Portland! Day 6

Recently my wife (Sarajo) and I took a week's vacation to the Beer Mecca that is Portland, Oregon.  While we did try out a nearly overwhelming number of breweries, we also took some side trips and ate at a wonderful plethora of places.  On our third day in, two of our friends (Kathleen and Shea) met up with us from DC and joined in the fun.  I'm going to blog about the trip in some detail, mostly to immortalize it in the written word, but consider it a starting point for your own Portland area trip!  Feel free to shoot me any questions or clarifications if you like.  I accidentally deleted this whole post, so my rewrite is going to be shorter.  Stupid Blogger.

Day 6

Interurban

Breakfast this fine day was at Interurban, a small upscale pub specializing in pre-prohibition cocktails.  Heidi from Forktown Tours suggested this spot as a good place for brunch and she was not mistaken!  I snarfed down my biscuits and gravy topped with perfectly cooked duck egg, paired with a frothy Pliny The Elder.  This was a breakfast!

From here we wandered around the neighborhood a bit, taking in the sites and doing a little shopping.

Lots of paper advertisements all over Portland...some with interesting results...

From there we spent time at the extensive Portland Rose Garden (put in around 1917)  This was a fun little trip, but a bit crowded with this being Mother's Day Sunday!

A rose by any other name?

Next up and just across from the Rose Garden was the serene Japanese Garden.  This one was not free, but as a result was less crowded.

Breakside Brewery

One of my top brewery visits for the trip, this place is a must-visit spot in Portland.  Despite an initial crabby hostess who didn't want us to move from the wobbly table, we ended up with a very pleasant server.  Another little nafu with some chipped taster glasses and a little glass in my beer held me up a few minutes before getting to drink these wonderful beers.  But these beers were great.  Several tasty IPA's were at the forefront, along with my favorite IPA of the trip: India Golden Ale.  They had a great Pomegranate Gose that was Sj's favorite as well.  The Salted Caramel Stout and the Barrel Aged Fitzcaraldo were also stellar.  Seriously this is a great brewery.

Bushwhacker Cider

While sipping on golden sunshine at Breakside, we spotted a cider bar across the street.  This was Bushwhacker Cider's second (and new) location featuring 14 ciders on tap from around the world, and several bottles as well.  For a nice change of pace (from beer anyway) we shared two large samplers between the four of us.  Unfortunately the Bushwhacker ciders were our least favorite of the bunch, but still decent.

McMenamins Edgefield Estate

We took what we thought would be a short field trip to McMenamins Edgefield Estate, just to show off the place to our friends.  The place started as a 1911 poor farm, and has a ton of cool old outbuildings that have been converted to bars, pubs and restaurants.  They have golf, a brewery, winery, distillery, and more on the grounds.  I want to stay there a few nights just to explore more!  We started with a visit to the tiny Red Shed bar that looks like someplace where Samwise and Frodo might put their hairy feet up and hoist a flagon of ale.  From there we visited the Distillery Bar, and got a cool impromptu tour of the distillery while there by distiller Bill Fry.  Then to the Grateful Dead themed Jerry's Ice House.  Then to the Tea House Bar next to the spa pool where we had the wonderful cocktail Phil Collins (a Tom Collins made with house distilled hazelnut spirit).  Then to dinner at the Black Rabbit restaurant and bar.  We ended up spending much more time here than expected, but there was just so much to do!

After getting back home, we walked a few dark blocks to Expatriate, a cocktail bar manned by two mixologists who were spinning vinyl and mixing strange concoctions for us.

A quick trip back to the McMenamins Boiler Room Bar in our own hotel before bed and we call a close on this long day of adventure!

Running Tally:
Breweries: 18 (I'm counting Edgefield's since I looked in the window and had a beer while there).
Distilleries: 3
Pubs/Bars: 15
Meaderies: 1
Cideries: 1

Hood River: Taking The Long Way To Bend

Continuing the harrowing tale of a man and his wife drinking and binge-eating their way across the great state of Oregon.

After a quick breakfast at our hotel and a stop at a shady bead shop for Sj, we were back on our journey.  My cousin had suggested taking a detour to the city of Hood River (yes it is right on the river and hence well named) to visit Double Mountain Brewery, so we took his good advice and made the trip.  The road there was beautiful, paralleling the Columbia River with amazing views of forested mountains, eagles, waterfalls and more.  Poor Sj had to drive and couldn't fully observe all the wonders to the sides of us.  She's a saint for driving us all over Oregon. 

Sj wearing her Minnesota gang colors

Our first stop in the small town of Hood River was Pfriem Family Brewers, a family owned place that has only been open for a year or so.  I had tasted two of their beers in Portland and been intrigued enough to make this one of our stops.  The brewery is right on the river, with a park currently being built in between the brewery and the water's edge.  The building is one of several new large industrial spaces being built along this small access road, and all look like they should house an REI store complete with climbing wall.  Made of glass, steel and reclaimed wood the brewery itself has a very industrial feel, but very open and comfortable.  Chairs and tables are solid and almost immovable.  The beer sampler came in a cool branded wooden carrier and all were tasty.  My favorite were the Dark Belgian Strong and the Schwarzbier.  Any place that can put out great IPA's, Belgians and Lagers is a success in my book.  The stand-out for this brewery was the food.  Sj and I split a moules frites (mussels and fries) that was as good as any I had in Belgium, with the double fried frites that I haven't seen since that trip.  House made pickled vegetables and deviled eggs rounded out our terrific eating experience.  This was a random visit that ended up being one of my favorite stops in Oregon.  You should go there.

From Pfriem (pronounced Freem) we drove a few blocks to Double Mountain Brewery.  This brewery is located in an older warehouse building downtown.  They have live music frequently, and the place was packed with folks eating their house-made pizzas and drinking the beers.  They had a lot of different beers to choose from, but they seemed to really shine with the IPA and DIPA in classic Northwest fashion.  The Lulu saison with pink peppercorns, hibiscus and rose hips was subtle and wonderful.  I didn't try the whole line-up due to a distinct lack of room in my stomach, and since Sj didn't want to share the hoppy beers with me.  One day she'll start drinking IPA!  The brewpub proper had an old pizza joint feel to it and seemed to be filled mainly with locals, a very popular place.

Best view ever!

While walking a few blocks back to our car (beware, they have old fashioned coin operated metered parking in this town) we passed a brewery I had totally forgotten was there: Full Sail.  Not only is this an older institution, but one of the bigger breweries in the state with good distribution across the country.  I'll admit I've never been a huge fan of the beers, but figured we should try it anyway.  Taking up most of a a city block, this place is massive, but attractive and well-maintained.  The brewpub side of things was nice and doing a gangbusters business.  We were seated out on the balcony, up a few levels from ground on that side of the building and stepped into three levels of seating.  With the stepped seating, each level had an amazing view of the river and surrounding mountains.  Para sails and windsurfers dotted the river, echoing the sail shaped art/sculpture on the walls of the outdoor seating area.  Simply the most beautiful view and location I've ever experienced at a brewery.  We had the seasonal sampler of beers, knowing that I can find some of the regular releases out our way.  Most of these were lagers, ( Marzen, Vienna,  Mexican), and remarkably balanced and well crafted.  I could not finish all of them since I was already feeling full to the brim before we had even entered the place!  I would highly recommend checking them out.  I like the story of the place, being owned by the 47 employees is nice, and they were one of the first breweries to work on Green initiatives before it got trendy.  Interestingly, on our way out we ran into one of the guys we met at Gigantic in Portland.  Small world!

Back in the car for another 3 hours of driving through the mountains toward Bend.  Did I mention how good of a wife I have?  We ended up coming out of the mountains and pine forests into high desert that looked like New Mexico.  One minute majestically tall pines--the next minute sagebrush, dry grasses and small scrub pines.  It was almost disorienting.  After driving through a Native American Reservation and a few small agricultural and industrial towns, we ended up in Bend.  We checked into the  McMenamins St. Francis School, an old decommissioned Catholic school.  We ended up with a bathroom almost the size of the bedroom itself, with  two claw foot tubs, two showers and a stalled toilet.  This is where they put the dirty Midwesterners maybe...

This evening we were invited to post rehearsal dinner drinks and appetizers for my cousin Ladd's wedding.  The dinner itself ran a little late, but we availed ourselves of the open bar: stocked with local beers from 10 Barrel, Cascade Lakes and more.  Most of the apps were cheese related, so I avoided most of them and stuck to beers.  We had a great time catching up with family, and getting to meet Ladd and Jennie's other friends and family.

The view out the back deck of the Rehearsal Dinner hotel

By the time things were wrapping up it was nearly 10 PM and I was ravenously hungry.  I hadn't been sure I would ever need to eat again after my overindulgence in food the past few days, but there it was--the growl of an empty stomach.  We headed back to our hotel and walked a few blocks to the Deschutes Bond Street Pub.  The food was excellent, and so were the beers.  They had around 13-14 different beers on tap, including most of the standards as well as brewpub originals and cask versions.  Sj and I each got a sampler and split them, and still didn't try all the beers!  The stand-out beers were the Gose (this is really trendy now in Oregon!) and the Fresh Squeezed IPA.  That IPA quickly became one of my new favorite beers, hitting just the right note between malt, bitterness and citrus orange flavor.  It is available in MN now, so look for it!

Up Next:  On The Bend Ale Trail!

The Bends! Hitting The Bend Ale Trail

Our first full day in Bend awoke with a whimper, having slept in after a long and arduous previous day.  Or perhaps that was just me.  At the McMenamins St. Francis School they freshly grind their house roasted coffee and place it in a packet outside your door for use in the room coffee maker.  I could get used to that kind of treatment!  I could also have used about three more packets this particular morning.  Feeling as if I should remove my six-guns, boots and Stetson hat, I took advantage of one of the two large claw-foot tubs in our enormous bathroom, feeling slightly sorry for the folks occupying the rooms with shared bathrooms.  But not that sorry. 

After we had again donned our human skins, Sj and I went for a walk through the quiet Drake Park and beyond on our quest to find good beer in Bend.  The city really knows what it is doing when fostering beer tourism: they have a Bend Ale Trail map and smart phone app for finding and logging in your visits to the 10 different breweries in the city.  When you hit all 10 you can stop by the visitor center and get a free mini silicone pint glass.  I'm totally handing mine out to the next person to break a glass at one of our brewclub meetings...so be warned those with clumsy sausage fingers!  Our first stop that morning was 10 Barrel Brewing, known for attractive waitresses (per the Ale Trail quiz results on my app) and good food based on the Internet.  Both sources were correct.  The tasting room seems industrial and modern at the same time, using heavy woods and stainless steel with abandon.  The chairs were so heavy that even my massive physique could barely move them.  The beer sampler came in a very unique stainless steel tray that was a work of art in itself.  This place reminded me a lot of Dangerous Man Brewing back home in Minneapolis.  All the beers were good; focus on the hoppy.  Apparently the brewers made a cross between a grapefruit soda and a Berliner Weisse and called it Swill.  Hearing a waitress walk by a table in a craft brewery and ask someone, "How's that Swill treating you?" was unexpected.  I really liked that beer, but my family later tried it and thought I was insane.  They also had a great schwarzbier.  The fish and chips were nice and Sj's smoked BBQ sandwich (sauce made with the schwarzbier) was also worth a visit for lunch.  They have a big smoker out on the patio that was gearing up for the day's work.

After our very nice early lunch and beer sampler we walked across the Deschutes River, a neighborhood, and a large parking lot in the middle of desert scrubland, to find the Deschutes Brewery.  I had been meaning to just get there to take some pictures and see the swag shop, but we hit it at just the right time to sign up for the 1 PM tour.  The tasting room, and swag shop is too small for these guys!  You get 4 samples with your tour (or just if you stop by) and we were lucky enough that one of the employees cracked a bottle of the special smoked porter for us to try.  The staff here were crazy nice and helpful, I can't say enough about it!  This place has a ton of logo'd items: golf balls, hats, canoe paddles, longboards, etc.  I'm surprised I didn't see a Deschutes kayak.  I picked up a mini tap handle for my nitro tap at home and a cool hoody because I'm a sucker for merch. 

The tour itself was about 45 minutes, and very nice, but a bit long.  I've just been on too many of these I think.  We did get to hear the cool story of how the massive brew kettles required that the state police block off the entire highway through the mountains to get them up to Bend...for several nights in a row!  In the staff break room, they have taps and everyone gets a free pint after their shift is done.  Nice perk!  In the offices, they have the framed artwork from each year's Jubelale Christmas beer lined up.  One in particular had actually taken about a hundred of the previous labels and made an insanely complicated collage...I've seen that label on the bottle but never realized how much work went into the design!  By the time we were finished with the tour, we were behind on our schedule, so let go of the last few samples coming to us in the tasting room and got on our merry way.

Taking another walk across town we ended up in a shabby warehouse district near the train tracks, down a long driveway marked as "Private Road Do NOT Enter!"  Past some razor wire flapping with shredded plastic bags, chain-link fence, abandoned warehouses and a storage facility, we came upon our goal: Crux Fermentation Project.  This is the brewery where former Deschutes brewer, Larry Sidor, went after leaving.  All the beer geeks in Portland and Bend we talked to pointed us this way as the "happening" or next big thing in local brewing.  The brewery is set up to allow for decoction mashing, open fermentation, wild yeasts and barrel aging, so they are really trying a lot of techniques here.  I can see why Sidor wanted to get away from the massive batch mechanical brewing of Deschutes for a more hands-on approach.  They had 15 different beers on tap, and our sampler was served in a cool tray made of a branded barrel stave.

I love the branding (both the design of the logo and the actual hot poker branding of the wood in this place.)  All of the beers here were good, but not quite as impressive as I'd been expecting.  A mosaic hop DIPA was really interesting, but I think I just don't like that hop based on the few beers I've had that are made with it.  They had a Flanders Red, but it wasn't really sour...apparently this is the base beer that is going to go in barrels for a year.  I guess I need to go back!  Beer geeks love this place, and as a whole they do a great job. 

Our next walking stop was Boneyard Brewing.  Located in an older neighborhood at the end of a street near the highway, this brewery is located in what looks like a 1960's house with attached garage.  The brewery is in the garage and the fermentation is inside the main building.  The garage door was open and I could see the cobbled together ghetto system inside.  The tasting room is the size of a household guest bedroom, walls coated in nick-nacks as well as the black, red and white tattoo style artwork for the beer labels. There is a tiny bar where you are served samples and pay by Square on an iPad.  The two folks working the counter were a bit goth/hipster and really nice.  When we first arrived, there was a beer-bus full of college guys taking up the entire tasting room but luckily they were on the way out.  The beers here were of amazing quality despite the ramshackle appearance of the brewery, including one of the best IPAs I had in Oregon.  Proof that all you need is a good brewer who knows his system to make amazing beer.  One of the best beers I had on this trip was the Diablo Rojo, a habanero infused version of their hoppy red ale--so hot but so flavorful.  I had also had their incredible triple IPA at Apex in Portland, so I think these guys are the ones to watch.  They seem to strike the same hard-nosed metal pose that Surly has done so well with, and also put out a suitably impressive line up of beers.  I'll be shocked if they haven't expanded into a larger brewery within a year or two. 

Now we were in a time crunch, could we hit one more brewery before my cousin tied the knot?  Of course!  We walked to Silver Moon, a brewery located not far from Boneyard along a highway.  Walking in, the place feels like an old sports bar (TV's on the walls, pool table, truck-stop style counter) but with some hop and brewery murals on the walls.  I like the reflective tap handles a lot.  The beers here were all decent, but not stellar.  The best ones they had on this visit were the extremes:  the kolsch was spot on; and the bourbon barrel aged strong ale Demolition Man was one of the only barrel aged beers I had in Bend.  Most of the hoppy beers in between just didn't stand out enough for me after being to so many breweries on the trip so far.  Not a bad place, and probably overlooked by the serious beer traveler. 

After our lightning trip to Silver Moon, we walked briskly back toward our hotel, but discovered a very cool bead shop on the way back.  Since Sj had been so patient with all my beer travel, we made sure to stop here for a bit and stocked up on some local artisan glass for future earring projects.  We made it to the site of Ladd and Jennie's wedding, at a small park alongside a pretty pond.  The weather was getting a bit chilly and overcast and poor Jennie was shivering during the ceremony, but at the exact second that they were pronounced married a warm ray of sun broke out and highlighted the two of them.  Very cool special effect Ladd, how did you do that????    In proper homebrewer fashion, Ladd had three of his own beers on tap, and the session Wedding Ale wonderful.  I enjoyed it more than many of the other "session IPA" beers I had all over Oregon, and probably need to steal the recipe from him.  We appreciate being invited to this special day and getting such a good excuse to finally travel out to Oregon again.

Arty shot of the wedding location!

After the fairly short wedding and dinner at the park, we dragged my cousin Brian to Bend Brewing with us.  This brewery has won several awards at GABF in the past, so I was excited to try it out.  The place certainly had a late 80's or early 90's brewpub feel to it.  The brewery itself is visible through some smudged windows on the second floor and is quite small.  We shared the sampler of 10 beers between the three of us.  All the beers were good, with no stinkers, but none of them really stood out to me.  The favorite of the group was the red ale.  Overall I was a little disappointed, but this was far from the worst brewery we were to visit in Bend.  I can't speak to the food here since we were still full from our free dinner.

Finishing up at Bend brewing, we walked back toward our hotel and stopped in for a drink at the Deschutes Bond Street Brewpub since Brian hadn't been there yet.  I ordered a pint of the Fresh Squeezed since I had already tried all the beers there yesterday and that one was my favorite.  I really like this pub and would spend a lot of time here if I had the chance!  After our brief stop here, we headed to our home base and settled into their bar.  Once more we split a beer sampler to finish up the night.  The McMenamins sites are a bit of a joke around the brewing and beer geek community as having poor service and mediocre to lousy beer, but this sampler was good!  The IPA and porter especially stood out to me, and both were better than all the beers we had at Bend Brewing.  Whoever is brewing for this particular McMenamins knows what he is doing.  Our server also knew a lot about the beers and was able to give good descriptions of them.  The next day we took a trip into the basement and took a look at the tiny ghetto brew system there.  Rather than the usual boring stainless steel, the kettle and fermenters are all painted and trippy looking, but I couldn't get a great picture through the window down there. 

And that is one day in Bend.  I'm sure there is other stuff to do in or around town...but why bother when there are so many great breweries to visit?  Stay tuned for my final day in Bend and details on even more breweries!

How To Eat & Drink Your Way Through Portland Oregon (Day 2)

(Warning: do not read if you are averse to hearing about the gratuitous intake of large quantities of unusual foods and fermented beverages!)

I awoke to a ray of sunlight dappling the surface of the psychedelic Gothic fantasy painting hanging upon the wall of our room in the McMenamins Kennedy School.  Quickly, for there was no time to waste, I sprang into motion!  An hour later, much less urgently, but sated on house-roasted coffee, myself and Sj left the tangled grounds to pursue the succulent object of our desires--Voodoo Donuts!  We opted for the less crowded but also less "classic" second location, in an old service station.  We waited only 5 minutes for the tasty dough treats here rather than the hour at the original site.  Voodoo Maple Bacon donuts...I've had the beer of the same name from Rogue and was now able to compare with the original inspiration.  Crispy salty bacon atop the sweet maple-glazed long john is simply sublime.  We also shared a mustachioed maple custard and another topped with rice krispies, chocolate and peanut butter.  Who needs lunch?  The vibe in the place was cool and shabby at the same time, accentuated by the young child in line pop-and-locking along to the blaring rap music.

Sj wearing the appropriate colors...

After finishing our caloric load for the morning, we headed out for a new area of the city to visit The Meadow, another place featured on Bizarre Foods America.  Having seen the episode and then tasting local dishes featuring the sea salts from this boutique dealer, I had to get to the shop!  Talk about specialty store: one wall was entirely artisanal chocolates, another was cocktail bitters (all tastable and well named) and a third section filled with rows upon rows of salts.  The place is small and packed with glass jars and bottles, like a cross between an old herbalist shop and a mad scientist's laboratory.  My kind of shop for sure!  One can taste all the salts, which gets a bit fatiguing on the palate, but is an amazing experience.  Products range from sea salts with unique tastes and textures, to some smoked on a variety of exotic woods, to a  plethora of flavored salts as well.  I ended up getting the Meadow sampler and a small but pricey glass jar of truffle salt.  I am very excited about trying these in my home chefery!

Our next stop was Laurelhurst Market (also visited by Andrew Zimmern) for a "light" lunch.  We entered the classy new building to find a working butcher's counter teaming with unusual cuts of beef, sausages, duck fat, and other wondrous and unrecognizable meat products.  During they day they serve sandwiches from the counter, but at night they open up the main restaurant as a fancy steak place.  We sampled a deli meat made of boar heart (better than it sounds,) then split a couple of sandwiches: the lamb leg was superb, but the grilled pork rillet sandwich was probably the best sandwich I've ever had in my life.  The shredded meat is formed into a fatty square, lightly sizzled on a grill which crisps the outside to a flavor and texture of bacon, but the center virtually melts in your mouth.  I want to move to Portland so I can have this again. 

Heavy with more food than we had expected to eat, it was past time to get to a brewery.  This is Portland after all.  On the way to one brewery that particular morning we passed no less than three others.  One can scarcely spit in the city without hitting a brewery.  Our goal this morning was the appropriately named Hair Of The Dog Brewing Company, recommended strongly by my friend Andrew and sundry others as a must-visit.  The brewery is located in a somewhat shady industrial area of town, in the shadow of the massive overpasses and just a block away from a cardboard box shanty-town.  I wouldn't want to visit here in the evening, but this time of day it was just starting to fill up with a mixture of locals and other beer tourists.  It has an old warehouse feel, with hanging salmon tapestries adding a bit of color and decoration.  We tried individual samples of all the beers, served in a very cool stemware cordial glass (which we bought to take home with us.)  Every beer was good, but the very best was the Adam: a dark ale with a smoke, leather and sweet complexity to it, reminiscent of Surly Smoke.  The Winter seasonal Doggie Claws from 2012 was an amazing aged barleywine.  The Fred From the Wood sampling that particular day was aged on peaches and lacked carbonation, making it taste more like a peach mead, but I'm not complaining!  A great experience and not to be missed if you are in Portland.

Beer Heaven!

From here we traveled a few miles to Apex: a beer bar and bottle shop with a vibe in between a hipster and biker bar.  They have some old pinball machines and a large outdoor seating area. There is a large back wall of coolers full of aged and special release beers that you can buy to drink there or take home.  Bottles of Cantillon and Eclipse were lurking in there, but with a hefty price tag attached.  I had a tulip glass of Boneyard Brewing's Nefarious Triple IPA that is brewed specifically for them.  It was like drinking a hoppy mango mimosa and I would put this beer up against Pliny the Younger and Heady Topper any day.  I washed the beer down with a Pliny the Elder that tasted like hoppy water after that!  Word to the wise, this joint makes you pay up as you order each beer...no tabs.  They are also cash only--shocking if they want folks to put down $75 for a bottle of Cantillon!  Across the street is Beer Mongers: a similar small bar and bottle shop with beers that a little more accessible.

Not far from here we visited our 5th and final brewery in Portland (counting the McMenamins.)  Gigantic is a somewhat oxymoronic/ironic name, since the brewery is tiny, with a tasting room big enough room for a picnic and 2 high top tables.  They had three beers on tap including an excellent Vienna lager, a very well balanced IPA and a mediocre DIPA.  We ended up talking with some local beer geeks over our samples and getting some info on things we should try on the second leg of our journey to Bend. 

Our last stop of the night was Beast (within walking distance to our hotel), a restaurant we had heard about when the chef, Naomi Pomeroy was on Top Chef Masters.  Just prior to our walk, the skies let loose with a deluge of rain, making our walk a bit damp, but by the time our dinner was over the weather had cleared.  The restaurant has two seatings per night, family style with shared tables.  The dinner we had was six courses of wonderful and unusual fresh, seasonal fare, with wine pairings (they did have some beers, but I figured why not!)  As usual I was quite taken with the charcuterie plate of 6 different items including a mini steak tartar on cracker with tiny quail egg nestled atop.  I should have captured its splendor on film, but I jumped into my mouth and down my throat too quickly to do so.  The dinner was amazing, and portion sizes were just right so we did not feel ill after the meal.  We ended up getting to know our table-mates and three couples at the table were celebrating anniversaries.  A really nice guy named Randy who was sitting next to me also had a beer going to second round of NHC...a very small world indeed! 

We had taken part in the early seating (6:30) and were done with dinner way too early to go to bed.  We strolled through the lush verdure of an old neighborhood back to our base of operations at the Kennedy School.  Taking this time to further explore our environs, we peeked into the Detention bar, where they have a lot of bourbons and Scotches, but also too much cigar smoke.  Heading down the hall we settled on the Honors Bar, just big enough for about 6 people.  Sj had some sort of cocktail and I had a pint of Ruby (their trusty raspberry ale.)  When the bar closed down at 10PM we moved on to the Cyprus Room, a bar specializing in quiet Caribbean tunes and rum drinks.  I'm sure my friend Tim would have known just what tropical concoction to order there, but I ended up with some Laphroig instead!  Just a short stagger and off to bed.  Sj and I really managed to make the most of this day.

Up Next:  To Hood River and Bend!

Things To Do In Portland, Oregon...If You Love To Eat And Drink Too Much...

I've been off the last week for my cousin's wedding, which he was kind enough to have in Bend Oregon.  Since Sj and I have been wanting to get out there for years, this was finally the kick we needed to get us out to the Pacific Northwest.  The last time we were there was for Ladd's twin brother, Shawn's wedding at least 5 years ago.  High time to revisit the area and try some new things! 

 We left on a Tuesday morning, and arrived in Portland at 1 PM their time.  Both being quite hungry, we made a bee line for something edible.  The week prior to our trip we just happened upon the Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre Foods America episode that had been filmed in Portland, and took a few of our cues from the show.  Andrew did not steer us wrong!  The first place we stopped was Olympic Provisions, a place specializing in house made charcuterie (salami, sausages, etc.)  We stepped past the intriguing meat counter of a working butcher shop, past hanging haunches of aging swine, and into the very tiny dining area.  They had four different charcuterie platters offering up a wide variety of mysterious meat products for our consumption.  We chose the classic French plate which contained one of the best things I've ever had to eat: a pork rillet topped with a bit of olive oil and crunchy sea salt from The Meadow.  We also shared a sandwich of spicy Spanish sausage to really get our meat on.  They had a couple of local beers on tap and great servers.  Go there.  Seriously.  For those playing along at home, they have a Salami-a-Month club that you can order from their website!

Now, the Hunger Beast sated, we walked a few blocks under the monolithic overpasses to Bridgeport Brewery.  This is a venerable local brewery and one of the early ones to get distribution outside the Portland area.  The building is a large one, taking up much of a city block, but with little fanfare or attempt at getting attention.  Signage is minimal.  The pub itself is quite large, with multiple levels and seating areas.  Strangely they do not have a real bar, so you must order your drinks while sitting at a table.  The place was insanely hot when we entered, akin to a steamy sauna.  There were folks outside on the cooler patio, but apparently they were no longer serving beer out there, so we were stuck inside.  There was only one waitress working the whole place and we had a devil of a time getting served and then settling up when done.  We shared a sampler tray of beers that was fair, but not great.  The IPA was my least favorite, while the summer seasonal made with yuzu and lemongrass was at least refreshing in the heat.  The Old Knucklehead bourbon barrel barleywine was very good and probably my favorite of the bunch, but tough to drink in the oppressive heat.  Overall, not a fantastic experience, but I've had worse in brewpubs.  Interestingly, just about every brewery we visited in Oregon served food, a rarity in Minnesota thanks to a lot of old Blue Laws still in effect.

Next on our list of must-see places was the Cascade Barrel House.  This is where Cascade brewery has its barrel aging program, as well as a great tasting area to sample said beers.  They have a large outdoor seating area and an open tasting area/bar filled with tall tables made of old barrels.  Our server was quite good and knew a lot about sour beers.  About half the menu was their regular beers, and I'll admit we didn't even try any of them--we were there for the sours!  They did do tasters, but they were very small 2 oz stemware glasses and only 2 samples per person at a time were allowed.  The price was steep: 2-3 dollars for a sample, but keep in mind that all these beers are at least a year old and a ton of time and work go into crafting and blending them.  The regular sized glasses were more reasonable, but I had get samples in order to try them all!  Everything we had here was amazing!  They had a really good Gose (made with salt in the nearly lost German tradition.)  Lambics in flavors ranging from Kriek, to Apricot, to an amazing Strawberry all sparkled with intriguing fruit aromas and complex sour flavors.  One of their more popular beers is Vlad the Imp Aler, a Belgian strong ale aged on bourbon barrels; but they were also serving its un-aged and un-sour cousin: Anti-Vlad!  Most of my luggage space allocated to beer was used up at this early stop on our trip.  The best sour brewery I've been to outside of Cantillon in Belgium.

For dinner we met up with an old high school friend of Sj's that had noted our posts on Facebook, as well as her husband Josh.  We went to a cool hipster bar/restaurant with incredibly cheap $2.50 craft beer pints that night and ski-ball in the basement.  Totally can't remember the name of the place, but a cool stop. 

After this we headed back to our hotel, the McMenamins Kennedy School.  For those who have never stayed in a McMenamins before, I'll give a quick primer.  These guys buy old historic properties (many due to be demolished,) and turn them into hotels, pubs and theaters, trying to keep as much of the old character as possible, while adding strange trippy art and decorations.  Small creepy faces look at you from bends in pipes.  Odd cheshire cats peek from unexpected areas.  Each room in the hotels are named something unique.  The Kennedy School was an elementary school from the 1930's and keeps much of its charm.  There are multiple bars and pubs within each hotel, each with a different theme and different drinks, including house made beers.  Half the fun of staying at one of these places is exploring the nooks and crannies; finding the cool artwork; seeing live music or second run movies; discovering a soaking pool hidden on the grounds; wandering the forested grounds and making your way through a trail to find another hidden and isolated area to relax; and more.  These places are also notorious for having grumpy staff and mediocre beers, but we had great service while on this stay.

When we arrived back at our hotel, our friends joined us in the Boiler Room bar (located in the basement and incorporating parts of the old boiler and radiators into the design.)  We had a couple of those mediocre beers, and then I tried the McMenamins whisky sampler that tasted of rockets in flight.  I appreciate them trying their hand at distilling their own spirits, but they could use a bit more refinement.  From here we were able to head down the old wood-floored school halls to our room and crash for the night.  We fit a lot of action into just one afternoon!