Portland: The Final Day...

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.

Day 7

On the morning of day 7, our friends Shea and Kathleen had to head back home to DC.  We bid them an early adieu and then gathered up our things for one more day of adventure before heading home ourselves.

We started out the day with a walk through Laurelhurst Park, waiting for the chill morning to warm up with the sun.

A strange little shrine discovered in the park...

Not far from here was Laurelhurst Market (where we had previously had a fancy dinner) and we got there just at 11 when they opened for lunch.  By day this place is a deli and butcher shop.  We dined upon a stellar charcuterie plate of house made meat products, followed by a fantastic grilled pork rillette sandwich--one of the top meals for me this trip.

Sokol Blosser Winery

Suitably full, we headed next to Sokol Blosser Winery not too far outside of Portland.  We tasted through some fantastic wines, talked Minnesota beer with the expat server, molested a nesting robin, and ordered some wines to be shipped back home.  With a beautiful view of rolling hills, farms, and acres of grape vines, this was a beautiful stop.  We stayed a little longer than expected, but enjoyed ourselves plenty.

McMenamins John Barleycorns

On the way home we stopped at another McMenamins property: John Barleycorns.  This brewpub was one of their few properties built from scratch and not a revamped historic property.  We had been pleased with the beers from Edgefield and Kennedy School previously on this trip and figured this was a good spot for some food and a sampler before getting back into town.  While each McMenamins brewery does have a few standard beer recipes they make, the process and equipment differs at each site, and the brewers are allowed to do other beers as well.  The beers at this site were not nearly as good as the others.  The hoppy beers especially had problems ranging from astringency to a bit of diacetyl.  The best of the bunch was the Nesting Doll Imperial Stout, but even that was still a little thin for the style.  Our server was(admittedly) new, but incredibly inattentive.  Despite the place being nearly empty at this afternoon hour, I had to go searching for her twice.  The food was less than stellar.  This stop was a bust and not nearly up to par with the other McMenamins spots we've visited.  Based on this visit I can not recommend it to anyone.

Keep Portland weird?

Once back in Portland we stopped back at Paxton Gate, a crazy store specializing in taxidermy, fossils, carnivorous plants, and more.  We had stopped in here previously and decided to come back for an amazing display of moths and butterflies for our home.  Seriously this place is creepy and cool.

Ecliptic Brewing

Just a few blocks away from the Shop of Curiosities was Ecliptic Brewing.  Started by a former brewer for McMenamins, Deschutes, and then Full Sail, this place's style blends beer and astronomy.  Most of the names come from astronomic features.  We were seated outside and tried through a sampler of the beers.  I did not like the Orbiter IPA--giving it a 2.75 for being overly sweet.  The Hypernova Triple IPA, however was quite tasty and got a 4.  The Zenith Grapefruit Gose was pleasant and refreshing getting a 3.75.  The Capella Porter was the top for me getting a solid 4.5--the best dark beer of the entire trip to Oregon.  Overall this place has some pretty good beers and I'll be watching them in the future.

StormBreaker Brewing

Just a few more blocks away, surrounded by cute shops, restaurants, and more is StormBreaker Brewing.  This place was brand new the last time I was in the area, and both that time and this visit we kept hitting the area when the brewery was closed.  This last day, we finally managed to find the taproom open for business.  The space is large, with a sizable patio area to boot.  I could tell Sj was about ready to call it a day, but she was a trooper and stuck it out for one more brewery visit.  I think I'll keep her.

Being honest here, I didn't have high expectations going in, but the beers were really quite good.  Our server pretty much disappeared once we had our sampler--I had wanted to get a whole pint of something else, but by the time we tracked her down we were just ready to get going.  The top beer for both of us was Keep It In Your Schwarz--an unusual coffee infused dark lager (4.25).  Other highlights were Handfuls of Hops IPA and Triple Double (a DIPA) both garnering 4's.  The loser of the flight was the Hoppy Marijuanukah which was a hoppy smoked beer that really didn't work well for me (2.75).  I'd go back to StormBreaker for sure based on the beers.

McMenamins Kennedy School Theater Bar

Back home at the hotel we needed one more stamp in our passports to get our magical free prizes, so stopped in to the Theater Bar.  We hadn't even realized there was a separate bar, just figuring it was for theater concessions.  Another beer and cocktail in hand we wandered off to buy some last minute things from the gift shop and get dinner at the restaurant.  Then to pack (boxing up a whole wine shipper full of beers) and get a good night's rest.

Day 8

The last day was mostly for travel by plane back to Minnesota, but I thought I'd mention the airport at PDX.  First off, they have a Made in Oregon store past the onerous security check which stocks a good variety of local wines and beers for not too much over the typical store price.  They also furnish carrying boxes for the plane.  Yeah, we picked up a few extras here--they had Logsdon and Cascade beers!

Rogue Public House

While we didn't make it to the actual Rogue Brewery this trip, we finished up waiting for our flight by having lunch a final beer sampler at the Rogue Public House.  Not bad.  I've heard since that the Laurelwood Pub is better, but that was in another concourse.  Next time!

And that is the end of our epic trip!  Below is the final tally of booze-tastic places we visited.  I think we did a respectable job!

Final Tally:
Breweries: 21
Distilleries: 3
Pubs/Bars: 17
Meaderies: 1
Cideries: 1
Wineries: 1

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

So Many Breweries, So Little Time: Portland Day 5

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.

Day 5

We started out our fifth day with a good base of a sturdy breakfast at the wonderfully rural looking and hipster friendly Pine State Biscuits.  Yummy biscuits and gravy!  I recommend this place but there was a sizable line and not a lot of seating so get there early!

The view from line at Pine State...

The Commons Brewery

Stomachs full of rapidly expanding biscuits, our next stop was  The Commons Brewery, which had been suggested by several of my friends as a great newcomer to the Portland brewery scene.  Starting as a 1 barrel nano system, they have already upgraded first to a 7 bbl, and now again to a 15 bbl brewhouse.  Rapid growth can be bad, but in the case of Commons, I think it's a good thing indeed.  We were nearly the first ones there, coming in just as they opened (I'd heard the place gets crowded and wanted to beat the rush).  We ordered samplers to taste through all 12 beers they had on tap.  Watching our server rinse off the sticky overflow from the outside of the sampler glasses with a little condiment bottle made me realize that these guys really care about their beers and how they are presented.

Shall we talk about the beers?  Out of 12 beers the lowest score I gave was a 3.5 for the Pils (just not quite perfect, but still drinkable).  The rest were all 3.75-4 beers, which for me is well above average.  Most were Belgian in character with a few different takes on saisons and a French Biere de Garde that was very tasty.  My favorite was the Myrtle--sour, tart, with a spritzy hoppy finish (4.5).  This was followed by The Croze--lemony and refreshing (4.25).  I think our whole group was pretty happy with our time here!  Well worth a visit to Commons.

Cascade Barrel House

From Commons, it was just a short walk on a sunny day to Cascade Barrel House.  This is Cascade's barrel aging (and serving) facility and is known throughout the land as one of the top American producers of sour beers.  I've written up Cascade in the past so I'm not going too much into it today--but this brewery was on our must-revisit list for sure!  Between the four of us we tried all the available sour beers and the special Derby Day concoction that tasted like a mint julep.  I think the fan favorite was the Framblanc--a tart raspberry sour made with white raspberry.  I can't say enough good things about this brewery and it is a must-do for any beer enthusiast in the Portland area.  Pretty much every beer I tasted got at least a 4 or higher score.

Culmination Brewing

Not far away was another young brewery that we had discovered on our tasting travels: Culmination Brewing.  This was located in a small, but newer strip-mall.  We had tried their triple IPA Ferret The Younger at the McMenamins 23rd Ave Bottle Shop earlier in our visit and that made me jump this brewery up on our list--unfortunately they didn't have it on tap at the brewery.  Sad Face.  Culmination had a nice vibe once inside the taproom, but it was getting a little warm for comfort at this time of day.  They had a good looking food list and a variety beers to try.  Pretty much all of the beers were above average (average score for me was 3.5) with my favorite being the Euphoric IPA and the Euphoric Brett IPA.  The most unusual beer was made with tea with mango and passion fruit--none of us were quite sure what to make of this one, but it stood out from the crowd of other beers on the trip.  While this wasn't our favorite brewery of the trip, they certainly have potential for greater things over the coming years.

Stung Fermented

While at Culmination, Shea (I think) noticed a small sign for Stung Fermented across the parking lot.  Curious, we wandered over and had one of the better surprise experiences of the trip.  This is a very new meadery (for those not in the know, mead is a fermented honey beverage) specializing in dry, carbonated meads.  Most of the commercial and homebrewed meads I've had have been on the sweeter side, and most often are served more as desert wines, so I was excited to try these.  The issue with dry meads is that the sweet honey character is often lost and the result can be less than exciting.

We were greeted by Patrick Lawrence, the assistant mead maker, who was manning the shopfront.  He walked us through the line-up with tastings of their three core Worker Series meads (lower alcohol champagne-like meads).  I'm going into more depth on these!

Trinity: The flagship--mild, easy to drink, would go great with foods as a palate cleanser.  3.75
Mosaic: This one is actually made with Mosaic hops and had an amazing hoppy, blackberry aroma.  4
Standard: Ginger on the nose.  Carbonation strong.  Mild honey character.  3.75
Farmhouse: Funky aroma with a very dry finish.  Not my favorite.  3
Caffe: Crazy coffee and vanilla on the aroma and flavor.  A strange and intriguing mix.  4
Gose: A take on the coriander and salted tart beer style of the same name.  Odd for a mead, but interesting.  A bit too much coriander in it, but the salt adds some different character to the drink. 3.5

We had accumulated another couple on the tasting tour by now and Patrick gave us an impromptu tour of the meadery as well.  These guys are totally into the science behind the process and it shows in their finished product, as well as the fact that all their fermentors are all named after scientists!  We got to try two special meads directly from the fermentors and these were the stand-out hits of the visit--these were bigger, badder meads and the first of their Queen Series.  One was made with local blackberry honey and had a nice tart finish that made me smile (4.25).  The other was made with high desert honey and had an incredible earthy flavor redolent of sage and mesquite wood (4.5).  We really liked this place and I think they'll be going places soon.

Coalition Brewing

Moving on from Stung, we headed for yet another brewery!  Coalition Brewing was not far from where we planned to have dinner, so we walked there prior.  By this time we were a little beered-out but the meads had reinvigorated us for one more stop.  OK, mostly I pushed for one more stop and my group grudgingly allowed it.  Coalition is located in what looks like an old warehouse.  This is a 10 barrel brewery set into a very tiny and narrow space that frankly looks way too small to hold all that equipment!  This is very much a production spot, but near the entrance they have a set of taps set up for selling pints and samples as well, and some outside seating.  Here I tried: Space Fruit IPA (3.75), Dropping Science DIPA--love the name and the beer (4), and Bosc Mode a brett beer made with local Bosc pears (4).  This is not the most picturesque of breweries, but he beers were solid for sure.  I'm also pleased that they routinely get together with homebrewers to make taproom only beers.

In our travels we stopped at Yarnia to fulfill Kathleen's need for yarn.  Yes, Yarnia

Laurelhurst Market

For dinner, not far from Coalition, we headed for Laurelhurst Market.  During the day this place is a deli and fancy butcher shop, but at night it turns into a high-end steak-oriented restaurant.  We had a wonderful dinner with great service and various outrageous cocktails.  Not our cheapest meal for sure, but worth the trip.

Have you noticed how my write-ups get shorter as the day of indulgence goes on?

McMenamins Honors Bar

As mentioned in previous entries, our hotel (McMenamins Kennedy School) has a total of 5 bars in the building, and we had to catch them all!  Once safe at home and no longer requiring Sj to drive, we had to catch her up on the cocktail action.  We started with the Honors Bar.  Located in the old principal's office, this is a very small (fits 8-10 people) spot with a couple beers on tap and plenty of cocktails.  In winter months they run the world's tiniest wood stove to warm the place up.  By this point I was getting tired and just had a Jam Session IPA from the brewery--hurray for session IPA's!  We ended up downstairs in the Boiler Room Bar again and played a wacky card game that Shea and Kathleen taught us.  We got our drank on this day!

Running Tally:
Breweries: 16
Distilleries: 2
Pubs/Bars: 8
Meaderies: 1

Oregon Day 4: Hood River

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.

Day 4

Day 4 dawned bright and sunny, a perfect day for our planned field trip along the scenic Colombia river Gorge to the town of Hood River, Oregon.  After breakfast of Blue Star donuts (given to us a parting gift from Heidi of Forktown Tours the day before) and some coffee, we headed out!

Our first stop was along the way (maybe 45-60 minutes out of Portland I think) at a trailhead to Wahclella Falls.  The trail was fairly short (about a mile each way) but steep and rugged at times for us non-hikers.  It got pretty steamy along the way as well.  The scenery was breathtaking though, enormous moss-laden trees, exposed rock of cliffsides, small caves, wooden bridges across the river, and more.  Of course the waterfall at the end of the trail was the high point for me!  Regret for not lugging my tripod along was strong, but I did my best with long shutter speeds and hand holding the camera to get a few decent shots of the falls.  Sj and our friends were very patient as I stopped every 5 feet to take more pictures along the way.

pFriem

Sweaty and tired, we made it back to the car and finished the trip to Hood River just in time for a late lunch at pFriem Family Brewers.  We discovered this place about 3 years ago on our way to Bend and it promptly jumped up to our "breweries to watch" list.  At the time they were very young, but still had some incredible beers.  Now they have only improved!  The brewery is right along the river, and since our last visit, a cool park has been built in between the brewery and the river.  The downstairs area was pretty full but we found seating upstairs easily.  The food is top-notch with nods to Belgium, Germany, and of course American cuisine.  All of us are "foodies" and this place rocked our world for lunch!

Between the four of us we tasted all the beers they had to offer, and we were all very impressed.  Three top notch IPA's led the charge--with my favorite being their regular IPA and second with the Down Under.  A tasty and refreshing Helles rounded out the portfolio with a lager.  Several versions of saison sparkled with true Belgian yeast character in a way that I haven't seen often in American versions of the style.  One of my favorite beers of the entire trip to Oregon was the Peche--a fairly classic peach lambic that puts most other American sours to shame (I'm talking to you kettle sours!).  I ended up having to get a whole glass of this and bought a bottle to take home.  Seldom do I find a brewery that has this much range and technical skill in brewing such varied styles.  Throw in excellent service, great food, and beautiful location and this pFriem is a winner!  It kind of blows my mind that so few people in Portland have even heard of these guys.

Logsdon Farmhouse Ales

A new addition to the Hood River beer scene since our last trip out is a tasting room for Logsdon Farmhouse Ales.  The brewery itself is somewhere outside of town and has been putting out great beers from--you guessed it--a farmhouse brewery!  Now thirsty travelers can taste the great and funky stuff in a comfortable taproom right downtown.  I've managed to get my hands on a few bottles of these beers over the past few years and wrote up Peche 'n Brett as one of my Whale A Week tastings HERE.

Sj and I each ordered a sampler to share so we could try most of the options.  The sampler glasses were actually bigger than most and we had to enlist our friends to help us with them!  On a funny note, one of the wooden sampler trays got wet and expanded a bit, not allowing Sj to be able to pull the glass out of the base.  They also had a little sandwich station in the back end of the place in case of hunger...

While pFriem really shone with their takes on classic Belgian ales, Logsdon stood out for doing their own different and more unusual versions.  The two more traditional beers Moniken Kruin (Quad) and Straffe Drieling (Tripel) were both good, but were my least favorite of the bunch (both got 3.75 scores though!)  Oaked Aged Bretta was their oak aged saison with brettanomyces (4), Cerasus was the cherry funk/sour beer (4), Far West Vlaming was the Flanders Red (4), and the Szech 'n Brett was the saison with Chinese Szechuan peppercorns (4).  Yup I liked all the beers here quite a lot.  4's are usually my top beers so this place was stellar.

Double Mountain Brewing

After having our fill of Belgian and Belgian-esque beers, we stopped briefly at Double Mountain Brewery.  This place is known for their hoppy beers and is a favorite of my cousins who live out this way.  It has a more classic brewpub feel and makes some pretty good pizzas to kill the hunger.  My favorite beers this visit were the Mama Tried, and Dearly Beloved--both classic American IPAs.  Molten Lava DIPA was also quite good.  They had a cider, a perry, and a sour kriek that were all respectable, but these guys shine with the hops.

Full Sail Brewing

, we swung by Full Sail Brewing for a quick dram on the way back to the car.  Full Sail is the elder statesman of the brew scene in Hood River, (and Oregon for that matter) and is worth a stop.  They focus more on lagers and sessionable beers, but have some cool things at the tap room from time to time.  They have a great view of the river from the deck, but some of this has been obscured by new buildings since our last visit.  While there we tried Hop Pursuit IPA which was on cask--smooth, but not a ton of hop character going on.  A decent stop for sure, but it remains below the other two breweries in town for me.

Olympia Provisions

On the way back home we nearly ran out of gas, since none of us remembered to fill up in town, but made it to a gas station in time!  We eventually arrived back to our home base of the McMenamins Kennedy School.  A quick change and we were all off again to our dinner reservation at Olympia Provisions (formerly Olympic Provisons).  This is a cool restaurant and deli that makes all their own sausage and charcuterie, and was on the top of our planned dining options for this trip.  They have a few local craft brews on tap, but mostly specialize in wine and cocktails.  Shea and I ordered heaping platters of sausage goodness while the ladies ate more refined dishes and sipped at fancy cocktails.

McMenamins Detention Bar

Back home at the hotel, Kathleen headed back to her room...to promptly fall asleep instead of partying with the rest of us.  She may have had the right idea.  Sj, Shea, and I all took a trip to one of the hotel's myriad bar options.  We started with the tiny old Vice Principal's office that has been dubbed Detention.  Dark and close, seating about 8-10 very cozy people, this is also the whiskey and cigar bar.  A few open high windows and a small fan actually provided remarkably good ventilation while surrounded by pungent cigar smoke.  Trying some Scotch, but no cigars, we hung out until we smelled properly of smoke and were ready to move on.  While here, we discovered several other patrons dressed like escapees from an 1980's John Hughes film and later realized that they were having an 80's Prom Party in the main ballroom (gymnasium) of the school that night.  Things just keep getting weirder...

McMenamin's Boiler Room Bar

Rusty wheels in my head starting to slow down now.  A long day of hiking, eating, and yes plenty of drinking, was finally taking its toll.  But hey, why not check out one more bar?  I mean, its in the hotel right?  We're already home right?  So we three survivors slogged down the stairs to the old boiler room, past odd paintings and sculptures, stair rails made of old radiator coils, things starting to have an ominous and more bizarre dreamlike cast.  Tasting through an ill-advised sampler of McMenamin's house distilled whiskeys, we all hung out and relaxed until our bodies finally gave up and forced us to give in to sleep.  Don't worry we all made it back to our rooms safely!

Running Tally:
Breweries: 12
Distilleries: 2
Pubs/Bars: 7

The Coast, Bunnies, Beers! Oregon Day 2

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.

Day 2

Dawn arrived at the tiny coastal resort town of Pacific City.  Despite threats of rain, the air was clear and brisk but with a firm grey cloud cover.  Hints of morning sun periodically winked through the looming clouds, illuminating the magical view from our room of Haystack Rock jutting out of the sea.  Side bar here: this was where parts of The Goonies was filmed and I made continual quotes about One-Eyed Willie and the Truffle Shuffle though-out our entire stay.  My wife is very patient with me.  Sometimes.

Camera in one hand, my lady's hand in the other, I made my way to the beach for a long walk.  The briny smell of the sea, the crunch of barnacles underfoot, the raucous cries of wheeling sea birds, all brought home how different this world was from our home in Minnesota.  We climbed on the rocks, looking at colorful anemones and hermit crabs trapped in their shallow depths.  Soon we walked up a huge sand dune to find a spectacular view of sandstone cliffs, a large cave, crashing waves, and gulls galore.  My kingdom for a tripod!

Finishing up our long walk, just as some mild rain started spitting, we stopped in to Pelican Pub & Brewery for a hearty breakfast.  9 AM and I am splitting my attention between hot coffee and Tsunami Stout.  Life is good!

Now full to the brim with breakfast foods, coffee, and stout, we checked out of our hotel.  While doing so Sarajo discovered bags of rabbit food for sale and we invested the 50 cents in a bag.  Taking our spoils out behind the hotel, flocks of black rabbits incautiously approached us and began eating out Sj's hand.  A fun little excursion before heading on!

Salem 

We took a bit of a long-cut by way of Salem (Oregon's capital) in order to visit a couple of breweries that were totally unknown to us.  We also didn't want to try too many of the Portland breweries without our friends so this was a nice way to widen our brewery net into new areas.

Our first stop in Salem was Vagabond Brewing, which we had discovered on our taster tour of local beers at ABV in Hilsboro the day before.  The brewery was started by a group of  Marine Corps combat veterans who had traveled extensively and discovered beer in all the places they visited.  Vagabond was the culmination of those travels, and the name nods to the wanderer.  They have a cute little kitchen that served up some great Native American style frybread to clear the palate after drinking through two sampler platters.  They had a few local ciders on tap as well so Sj was happy!

The beers were surprisingly good.  I gave nearly all of them 3.75 scores (from 0-5) which place them above average in my own personal tastes.  I really enjoyed the Attack Owl IPA--named for a local owl that was apparently swooping down on unsuspecting park-goers.  We tried the Redshift IRA which was a pleasant hoppy red, (and had tried this with guava previously).  Sj and I also liked the 50/50 Kettle Sour with black currants--a well done version of this style for sure!



After our pleasing stop at Vagabond, we moved over to Gilgamesh Brewing, also in Salem.  This place is tucked into the back end of an office park--they have a cool sign and water feature out by the road, but no signs on the actual building.  The space is more of a brewpub with a large kitchen behind the bar.  The place is a little dark, but cozy.  We of course shared the sampler to try through the beers and I discovered Hoot Attack--also named for the crazy owl--but this wasn't quite as good as Vagabond's version.  All of the beers were decent, with my average score coming in at 3.5.  Their Terry Porter and Springer IPA were my favorites of the bunch, and the Mamba (a beer made with black tea, bergamot, and tangerine peel) was the most unique.  None were seriously flawed, which is always nice to find!

Other than some unusually shaped tap handles, I felt that Gilgamesh didn't play into their Sumerian name enough.  Since one of our local breweries in Minnesota (Enki Brewing) does a better job of Sumerian branding I expect a lot! This place is worth a quick stop (and the food looks great) but I enjoyed Vagabond a bit more of the two.  Why visit just one?!

Portland

After our brief sojourn in Salem, we drove back into Portland to pick up our friends Kathleen and Shea, just arriving groggily on a long flight from the D.C. area.  This part of the trip was boring and did not include any beer.  Moving on...

We checked into our hotel for the following week: the McMenamin's Kennedy School.  For those who haven't experienced a McMenamin's property I'll give a quick lesson here.  The McMenamins have been buying up old historic buildings in the Oregon and Washington areas for over 20 years years, refurbishing them and keeping much of the charm of the original structures intact.  These range from hotels, to theaters, to brewpubs, and more.  While this is a "chain" every one of these places is unique and fun to visit.  Strange paintings, hidden faces, old enlarged photos, and more, abound.  Many of the locations have their own tiny breweries (of which some are better than others).  Two locations host distilleries which furnish spirits to the other properties. They roast their own coffee which is served through the other spots.  Now, they also have a passport that you can get to get stamps at all the spots, as well as for special experiences (having a beer or wine sampler, soaking in a pool, seeing a movie at one of theaters, etc.) This really encourages you to explore the nooks and crannies of each property and seek out others.  This is an unusual and intriguing empire!

The Kennedy School is an elementary school from 1915, and has a distinct age and history to it. I love this property and this is actually our second time staying there.  A theater (with its own bar) provides a couple of movies during the week.  There's a soaking pool for the weary traveler.  Multiple bars are present on the property, each with their own specialization (more on these in future posts!).  We started out in the restaurant for a late dinner with our new arrivals.  The food here over our stay was consistently very good, and you can't beat the location.  Antique hanging lamps and paper lanterns dangle in seemingly random abandon from the ceiling and a long bar lies along one side of the room.  An old squat wood burning stove hunches over in one corner--silent this night, but pumping out heat the next morning to fight the chill.

The Kennedy School has its own tiny brewery.  The McMenamin's breweries all have a few core recipes that are brewed at each place (Hammerhead pale ale, Ruby raspberry ale, and Terminator Stout) but the rest are up to the individual brewers.  Many Oregon brewers get their commercial start at these properties before moving on to bigger things.  Last time (3 years ago) we were at the Kennedy School the beers were not so great, but this time things had improved dramatically.  The Outdoor School IPA and the Jam Session session IPA were my favorites from the sampler and I got some more full pints later in the trip.  They also served up a very good off-dry cider from the Edgefield Estate that was a hit with our group.  We ended up getting an impromptu tour of the small but well decorated brewery the next day when we barged in on one of the brewers hard at work sparging a batch of cream ale.  I really appreciated him taking time out to give answer questions.

Check out the artwork on the brewery equipment!  

After dinner and beer it was time for bed...

Running Tally:
Breweries: 5
Pubs/Bars: 1

Oregon Day 1: BOA (Beer On Arrival)

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.

Day 1: BOA (Beer On Arrival)

We arrived at PDX Airport on a Tuesday afternoon, tired from the three hour trip and ready to explore a bit.  After picking up our rental car we headed straight for our first brewery...I know you are all shocked!

Hopworks Urban Brewery (HUB)

HUB has been a staple in the Portland craft beer scene since about 2007.  They have several organic ales and take great pride in Green business practices.  They've embraced the bike culture of Portland and in fact the light fixture/chandelier over the bar in the taproom is made of bike frames!  They have expanded to include a second location and now distribute cans around the state as well.  Several friends had steered (pun intended) me to visit this spot.


We arrived before rush hour hit the city, so the place wasn't crazy yet.  We snagged a seat at the bar and ordered the BIG sampler.  This is a sampler of 15 (2 oz) beers served up in a metal pan and was quite the eye-catching sight for a weary traveler!  I tasted through them all (sharing a tiny amount with Sarajo of course).  With such a huge number I took sparing notes in Untappd.  Looking at my overall scores it looks like out of 15 beers the highest I gave (out of 0-5) was a 3.75.  Average for all of them was 3.5--putting this brewery in the decent but not great category for me.  None of the beers were terrible, but overall they just didn't wow either of us.  Probably the best was a toss-up between the Gear Up IPA and the IPX Organic El Dorado (single hop).  It was a fun stop, but didn't live up to my expectations.

ABV

Our destination for the day was to drive out of town and about 1.5-2 hours to Pacific City--a tiny quaint vacation town on the Oregon coast.  We wanted to get out Portland before traffic got rough, so went on a little detour in Hillsboro (a suburb just outside of the city proper).  Our friend Matt Messier, who hails from that area, suggested we stop at a little under-the-radar place in an office park called ABV Public House.  This was a great suggestion!  This is a bar, serving food and 34 draft lines of craft beer--mostly local. They also have extensive coolers full of bottles all along two walls of the place that you can drink in-house or take home with you.  Thank you Oregon's progressive beer laws!  We tried a sampler of beers and ciders that we'd never heard of along with some snacks there before we headed back out toward the coast.  It was tempting to buy a bunch of beers right there, but I had to limit my bottle selection for the trip (flying) and decided to hold off for now.  Based on some of the sample beers we tried and the reviews from our helpful server we added a few breweries to our budding itinerary.

Pacific City and Pelican Brewery

This was the view from our hotel!

Pacific City is tiny.  Really tiny.  But the population swells come warm weather and beach crowds for the summer.  It was still early in the season on this trip and the place was pretty deserted.  We stayed at the Inn at Cape Kiwanda, a very nice little hotel right up the hill and across the street from both the beach and Pelican Brewery.  The Inn had a Bed, Breakfast & Brew package which includes a $25 dining credit (not just for breakfast) and a free sampler of beer from the brewery.  Of course we took advantage of that!  We arrived at dusk and after checking into the hotel and taking in the most marvelous view I've ever had at an overnight stay, we darted down to the darkening beach.  A brisk (timing and temperature) walk along the beach and onto the barnacle encrusted rocks revealed by the retreating tide was our treat for the evening.  Just as a light rain started, we arrived back at the brewery for our tasty dinner and free beer sampler.

I've been a fan of Pelican since we stopped there on a trip about 5 years ago.  The place has won national recognition for their beers, including the barrel aged beast that is Mother Of All Storms (which I review HERE.)  They've recently expanded to include a production facility in nearby Tillamook as well, but that was out of our way for this trip.  The big, old-fashioned brewpub is comfortable, weathered, and relaxed, sitting literally right on the beach.  The food was good and hearty, the beers excellent.  The Kiwanda Cream Ale is their flagship--one of the best cream ales I've ever had, though it isn't my favorite style.  The Mosiac Pilsner small batch was a strange and interesting mix of lager style and ale hopping--but worked well. Most of the beers ranged from 3.75-4 for me this visit--above average for sure.  Oh how I wish they had MOAS!

Exhausted from our day of travel (and perhaps beer) we skipped across the street to the Inn for bed.  There we "rented" for free a DVD and watched a movie (this would be the last TV-type media for a full week) and fell asleep to the sound of crashing waves through our open balcony door.  This was a stellar start to an epic vacation.  Though tomorrow threatened heavy rains, we were prepared for another great day of fun ahead.  Oh, and more beer of course!

Running Tally:
Breweries: 2
Pubs/bars: 1

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!