Portland Beer Carts

Today's Oregonian has a front-page article about the new Cartlandia food cart pod on 82nd applying for a liquor license from the OLCC.  Since the modern style of news reporting mandates that every story must convince you that you are in grave and immediate danger, the article sets the scene with phrases like "the issue has new urgency now", "waves of concern among Portland officials", and -- the pièce de résistance -- "they envision alcohol flowing from nearly all of the 700 carts across town, creating a new source of public drunkenness and neighborhood disorder".  Run!  You are in great danger!  Your neighborhood is being overrun by barbarians right now!

What the article glosses over is that there are already beer carts quietly operating alongside food carts, with no apparent ill effects.  Captured by Porches has been selling beer from their beer buses for a year and a half now, and Buckman Brewery (a.k.a. Rogue's Green Dragon) has a cart at the food cart pod just up Belmont from the Horse Brass.  The article does mention that "carts asked the OLCC about regularly selling beer and wine" two years ago, but it fails to point out that carts are already selling beer under temporary licenses, though the online version links to an earlier story about CbP's cart near 33rd and Division.

The online version has a fairly staid headline, but in the print edition today it is "Alcohol with food carts gives city indigestion".  What gives me indigestion is the podunk worldview of our local paper -- and friends, I lived most of my life in Oklahoma and Texas.  The Oregonian is an unending source of disappointment for me in many ways, though their declining beer coverage -- they're cutting back John Foyston's The Beer Here column in the Friday entertainment section to once every two weeks, and last year they referred to Colorado as "Beervana" -- seems ill-advised when the local beer culture is continuing to grow at a healthy pace.

I mentioned the CbP and Buckman carts.  Are there any other beer carts around town right now?  [Update: Jim points out in the comments that there is a Lompoc beer cart at 51st and Foster.]

Captured by Porches Friday Rye Ale

Hats off to Captured by Porches Brewing Company for entering the retail market with returnable bottles. I picked up a bottle of CBP's Friday Rye Ale at Beermongers a couple days ago; their flagship Invasive Species IPA is also on the shelves. It's a nice bottle, a 750 ml swing-top; the deposit is $1.00 per bottle. According to CBP's blog, making bottles out of recycled glass is only 30% more energy efficient than making them from raw materials. So the effort to reuse bottles is a welcome return to common sense.

That's all well and good, but if the beer isn't any good, then who cares? I'm happy to report that the bottle-conditioned Friday Rye Ale is really well done. It's tangy and hoppy, with a dry bitterness that lingers on the tongue. The bottle I had was super effervescent at first -- it didn't pour with a huge head, but the bottle opened with a loud pop, and the first sips filled my mouth with very fizzy fine bubbles. The night before I had a Wry Pale Ale at Laurelwood -- very tasty, by the way -- and the Friday was at least as good as that, maybe even a little better.

The bottles are priced near the low end of the bomber range -- $3.80 at Beermongers -- but because they are a little bigger than 22-ounce bombers, they have a cheaper SPE of $10.79 compared to $12.44 for a bomber of the same price. I'd be happier if the price was closer to six-pack price, but it's a start.

Now I'm eager to try a bottle of the IPA. In the past I wasn't very impressed with Captured by Porches, but it had been awhile since I had their beer, so this delicious bottle of Friday Rye gives me hope that they're moving onward and upward. [Update 2010/02/12: Well, I did try a returnable bottle of the IPA, and it's as I remember it. Tastes homebrewy; muddled flavors and too sweet. Stick with the Rye.]

Another Clinton Administration

[Update 2009/11/03: Clinton Street Brewing is no more.] The smallest commercial brewery in Oregon -- Clinton Street Brewing (warning: noisy website) -- stands just a few blocks away from new Portland heartthrob Hopworks. The brewery is an offshoot of the Clinton Street movie theater, a small art house cinema at the corner of SE 26th and Clinton. You can enjoy a Clinton Street brew while watching your movie, or have a pint in the tiny pub. There are 4 or 5 tables inside, seating about 15 people, plus a couple of outside tables and about 5 seats at the bar. No smoking inside.

It had been a while since I'd been there, so I stopped in the other day to check it out. It turns out there is a new brewmaster at the Clinton, Dylan Goldsmith, and his beers are beginning to turn up around town branded as Captured By Porches -- which I'll call by the less-embarrassing acronym "CBP". At the time of my visit, there were 3 CBP beers on tap: a Belgian Wit, an IPA, and an Amber. Now, none of these beers is going to become your new favorite, but sometimes you go out on a limb to experience something off the beaten path. The Wit was interesting, but quite a bit more bitter than I think it should have been. The IPA was a little funky. I think the best bet was the Amber, despite having a little bit of a homebrewy flavor (that's Dave's adjective).

The theater owner, Seth, told me that it was quite a feat to brew enough for CBP's 30 accounts at Clinton Street's little two-barrel brewhouse. So Dylan is setting up a new brewery in industrial NW Portland. A decision will be made soon as to whether to continue to brew on Clinton Street or not. Moving the brewing equipment out might make sense for the theater/pub, since it would give them more kitchen space and allow for expanded food options -- currently the menu is anchored by pizza slices from Hammy's Pizza down the street.

There is a concert this weekend to raise funds for the CBP brewery -- see this blurb on the Beer Northwest blog. I've also seen flyers for this on lampposts around 20th and Hawthorne. It's interesting that Beer Northwest talks about CBP as a St. John's brewpub. For one thing, I'm not sure if the NW St. Helens Road address they give qualifies as St. John's, being across the river and a mile or so south. And it would be surprising if there was really going to be a pub in such an armpit location. I suspect that Clinton Street will continue to be the tied house for CBP, with brewing -- but no pub -- out in NW. Or perhaps there's a missing piece of information here: a pub-worthy address that really is in St. John's.

At Clinton Street, pints of CBP are $4, or they'll fill your half-gallon growler for $9. They have a few other taps also -- when I was there it was Ninkasi Believer (yes!), Lompoc Strong Draft, and Bud Light. Meanwhile, keep an eye out for CBP around town. I had a near miss last weekend at Big Daddy's Barbecue on Hawthorne. The bizarre happy-hour posters at Big Daddy's included a subliminal CBP logo along with logos for Bud, Widmer, and Laughing Dog -- any relation to Laughing Cow? -- but they weren't actually serving any CBP.