Bushwhacker Cider

In a town with hundreds of taverns and dozens of beer bloggers, I guess it was inevitable that a beer blogger would open a pub. Bushwhacker Cider was opened recently at SE 12th and Powell by Bulls & Brew author Jeff Smith and his wife Erin. As suggested by the name, it's a cider place, not a beer place, though they intend to keep a keg of good Oregon beer on one of their seven taps, and they have a selection of lighter European beers for use in cider-beer drinks.

With five or six ciders on tap -- most about $4 a pint -- and a large selection of bottled cider for either on-premise consumption or to go, Bushwhacker wants to be Portland's cider headquarters. They will also start making their own cider soon, while maintaining the guest taps and bottles for sale. Erin said that the feds at the TTB had to scratch their heads for a while over that business model -- apparently there is no other cidery in the country that also sells cider from other producers. Look for Bushwhacker's first house-made offerings around the first of the year.

Dave and I popped by to throw some darts last week, and we were impressed with the dart setup -- plenty of light and plenty of room at the two dartboards. We did have to impose ourselves between the regulars that were already sitting at the tables by the dartboards, but they were amiable and didn't seem too bored by our questionable dart skills.

It was a little distressing that there wasn't a beer on tap that night, which was the only way I dragged Dave down there. They had most recently served Ft. George's Cavatica Stout, and were waiting for another keg of something special from Ft. George, but there were only 7 ciders on tap, so we bravely plunged into cider world. Erin suggested the Magner's cider from Ireland for someone who was used to drinking beer, and it suited me pretty well. Dave went for the Ace Joker, about twice as strong as the Magner's, crisp and dry, pretty good. Neither would win me over from being a beer guy, though.

The bottle selection is really reasonably priced, and Bushwhacker doesn't charge a corkage fee. There were some interesting bottles, both domestic and imported, most in the $6 to $8 range. Since a 750 ml bottle is about a pint and a half, that's basically the same price as the ciders on tap. I found the Basque-country cider from Petritegi to be the most interesting thing in the house -- yeasty and a little tart, it seemed a little more special than most of the other things I tried. If you can go for something sweeter, I like Blue Mountain's Cherry cider, but you'd have to be in the mood for it.

Bushwhacker took the fiscally responsible move of opening without a kitchen. That means you can bring in your own food, but you can't bring your children. There's a nice patio out front, and a variety of casual seating inside. One issue that Jeff and Erin are working on is lighting -- when they got the space it was outfitted with about 100 bright fluorescent lights ranged along the ceiling. After one night in the place gave them all a bad headache, they turned off all of them but the one over the dartboard. Even that one fluorescent is kind of a buzz-killer, but they're working on some replacement lighting.

If you're planning on biking to Bushwhacker from the north, its location on Powell west of the 17th Avenue vortex limits your choices. Dave and I thought we could avoid a rush-hour trip down 11th by crossing Powell at 21st, but that just leads you into heavy-rail no-man's land. 11th/Milwaukee isn't all that terrible, but if you want to avoid the traffic and the stoplight, there is a funky bike-ped cloverleaf over Powell at 9th. Turn left on Franklin and it will get you over to 12th Avenue.

Migration Darts and Happy Hour

Tuesday I finally made another visit to Migration Brewing, thanks to a pub night call put out by Ezra. Two items of good news: the two dart boards are up on the wall behind the bar, and Migration has a cash-only happy hour all day Tuesdays -- $3.50 pints instead of $4. Read about it on their blog. Yet another reason to carry cash when visiting your local establishments.

The dart setup looks a little cramped -- the line you stand behind is just a couple feet from the wall. But a couple of guys throwing darts there said even though they were skeptical when they first saw it, that it worked fine for them. I'll try it out myself soon. (Darts trivia: that "line you stand behind" is called the oche, pronounced like "hockey" without the H.)

Colin said they've got approval to start brewing in the building now, so expect Migration's first house brews to be pouring by May. The first batch of Migration Pale Ale brewed at Lompoc sold out in a matter of days -- I didn't even get to it myself -- but they have another batch in the works at Three Creeks in Sisters.

Even though today is April Fool's Day, all the stuff in this post is true. Luckily someone in town has the spirit, and took the time to cook up a hilarious send-up of Ezra's The New School blog -- The Newest School. If you've been reading The New School it will crack you up.

First Impressions of Migration Brewing

A handful of the Pub Night gang headed over to Migration Brewing yesterday for its opening night. There are only guest taps for now, but next Wednesday they will put on their Migration Pale Ale. The fine folks at Lompoc Brewing are doing a great community service by letting brewer Michael Branes brew on their system until Migration's rig is ready. That's Michael on the left in the picture, next to co-founder Colin Rath at last night's opening.

The space is nicely done, with high ceilings open to the rafters, lots of unfinished wooden tables, and a couple of nooks with couches in them. Last night we sat at about the spot where a pile of dirt sat next to the kegerator on my exploratory visit a few months ago -- you can see how much work went into getting the place ready. It's not a huge space, but with the open feel, the garage door in front, and the wooden bowls of peanuts in the shell, it's kind of like a Lucky Lab with a nice paint job. I hope that doesn't sound snarky in either direction -- I love hanging out at the Lucky Lab and I think Migration will have a nice hangout vibe also.

There is a square cove to the right of the bar which will soon become the home of a couple of dartboards.  Hooray!  It's a good setup, there will be a "lean bar" about chest height along the dart room wall, a place to set your beer and darts.  It's tucked away nicely, there shouldn't be any traffic issues there.

One quibble: I wish Migration had hit the ground running with honest pints instead of the ubiquitous shaker pints. Given all the similarities with the Lucky Lab, I'm surprised they didn't break out imperial pint glasses.  Or, being a new operation, why not start out on the right foot and have glassware marked with a 16-ounce or half-liter line?  More and more places are doing that these days.

Some more general observations:

• Kids are allowed until 8 PM
• Good bike racks out front
• Food is simple (sandwiches, sausages), but pretty reasonably priced.  Most things seemed to be about $7.50.
• The patio will be a great place to hang out in good weather

For further reading: eyewitness reports from Jason and Angelo.

The Evolution of the Green Dragon

The 30 new taps that have been sticking out of the back wall of the Green Dragon since March are now stocked. That makes 50 taps, including a couple nitro taps, plus a beer engine. At lunchtime when I've been in, there's not a dedicated server at the "Back 30" -- that's what they call the back bar -- so whoever's tending bar has to hustle back and forth. I'd say 30 taps is a good trade for the dartboard that used to be back there, but it would be nice if they figured out some other place to put a dartboard or two. I say ditch the shuffleboard table that no one ever uses.

Last week the first beer brewed at the Green Dragon was served: the aptly named Finally! IPA. Does that mean there's a brewer at the Dragon now, and the brewhouse is in production mode? Well, no. The beer was brewed by Oregon Brew Crew members. Man, $4.75 a pint and you're using free labor to make the beer? Nice Tom Sawyer action there -- the bartenders better hope Rogue doesn't realize how many Portland beer swillers would work a shift for free. Anyway, hats off to the stand-in brewers, they did a nice job on Finally! -- a dense, cloudy IPA with very grapefruity hops. It's already off -- don't know if they sold it all or saved some kegs for posterity's sake.

In another development, the door from the bar to the back patio was finally installed a few weeks ago. That's handy: it's now legal for you to carry your own beer from the bar to the patio. The "Ed's Patio" sign over the door doesn't make much sense -- it labels the entry back into the bar, not the opening to the patio. It's an awkward gesture to name part of the bar after the last guy to hold 2/3 of the hot potato, given the drama occasioned a year ago by Ed's sale of the place to Rogue over the objections of Lolo, a founder and 1/3 owner. I have an idea: let's start calling the front bar "Lolo's Bar", and the pinball machines "Parker's Arcade".

Speaking of Parker and Lolo, their post-Dragon assistant-brewmaster gigs are going well. Jim is at Chuckanut Brewery in Bellingham, WA, which won four GABF medals -- 2 gold, 2 silver -- this year, as well as the Small Brewpub of the Year. Lolo is brewing at Silver Moon in Bend. A few months ago I saw him at Fred Fest, and he looked happier than he did even during the early days of the Green Dragon. The Green Dragon regularly puts on a keg of Silver Moon, and stocks 3 or 4 bottles from them, so he's brewing some beer for the place after all, just not the way he envisioned it.

So, here we are after a year of Rogue ownership. The finished patio and increased number of taps are positives. The relatively high prices on beer and food are negatives. The atmosphere is as good as it's ever been -- Rogue has kept up an interesting schedule of meet-the-brewer nights (though tonight's "brewer" is Aengus Ciderworks) -- and the new Cascade barrelhouse and pub around the block will make the area even more of a beer destination. I don't go to the Green Dragon as often as I used to -- largely because of the high beer prices -- but it's still in the rotation. What do you think? Has Rogue changed it for the better, the worse, or not much at all?

Moon and Sixpence

Six months ago when I was musing about pubs I was more likely to visit now that Oregon bans smoking in bars, the Moon and Sixpence was second only to the Horse Brass on my list. Turns out I have been going to the Brass a lot, but I guess the Moon is just far enough away from my house that Wednesday night was my first visit this year. Lagunitas founder Tony Magee was there to play some music, and some special Lagunitas treats were being served.

Dave and I staked out a dartboard to entertain ourselves while we enjoyed cask-conditioned honest pints of Hop Stoopid and Little Sumpin' Sumpin', as well as a delicious bourbon-barrel Imperial Stout. Charles and Teresa hung out and chatted for a while before heading outside to listen to the music. The Sumpin' seemed an odd choice to have on cask, but the Hop Stoopid IPA worked very well for us -- although Ted over at Brewers Union thinks it's insane to try and serve these big IPAs cask-style.

One thing I hadn't taken note of before was how nice the outside patio at M+6 is. There might be even more seating outside than inside, and with the weather we've had lately, it's a good place to be. Of course now the cigarette smoke that used to be inside the pub has moved to the patio, but it's not a problem outside, where it used to be annoyingly dense inside.

Moon and Sixpence has a good dart setup: one room with two dartboards, and a kind of weird dog run with a single dartboard (but two chalkboards for scoring -- why?). The dart action, combined with a good selection of 15 taps and 2 casks, makes it a good destination in the Hollywood area.

Click here for the Beer Mapping Project's page on Moon and Sixpence

Moon and Sixpence

Information provided by Beer Mapping

New Stuff at the Green Dragon

It's always a shame when a pub takes down their dartboard. Dave and I were planning to throw some darts at the Green Dragon last night during the New Old Lompoc meet-the-brewer, but the board was gone. I was astonished by what took its place: a row of 30 gleaming beer taps! No, it won't be a self-service area. At some point a second bar will be installed there, and the new taps will serve up the house-made brews and others from around the Rogue Empire.

Now that I look at my pictures from the Firkin Fest last weekend, I see the taps were there. I didn't notice them at the time; maybe they've been there for a while? It's a nice development, but I hope the Dragon will find a new place for the dartboard. They should move the little-used shuffleboard and put three or four dartboards up along that wall.

A few more Green Dragon innovations to report:

• A cask-conditioned offering
• Growlers filled again
• A selection of bottled beer
• Beer souvenirs for sale

The first cask to go on the new beer engine is Hopworks IPA. The growler refill price is complete madness: $17-$18 depending on the beer (six-pack equivalent: $19.12-20.25). No thank you. I didn't pay much attention to the bottles in the cooler, but I think they had a few Rogue offerings and some spendy Belgians. It looked like they had a to-go price and a drink-here price.

The souvenir stand is interesting: you can get the hat and t-shirt not only for Rogue places, but for a few other Oregon breweries -- I seem to recall seeing Amnesia merchandise as well as Full Sail. That's team spirit! As far as I can tell, merchandise is the only discount that you can get at the Green Dragon by flashing your Rogue Nation identity papers.

Just a quick note about the Lompoc tasting. The braggot they brought was interesting, but not something I'd reach for very often. There was an antiseptic smell and taste to it that might have been intentional or might not. For me the highlight of the evening was the 2007 Fresh Hop Red. I didn't expect a beer that old to keep much of the fresh-hop goodness, but it did and it was beautiful. It was a little maltier than the 2008 version they also brought. 2007 was the year of my most manic fresh-hop mission, but somehow I missed Lompoc's fresh-hop red that year. I asked the brewer Brian if it was the same beer as their Harvest Man, but he said no, that's a different brew, and the fresh hops in Harvest Man are actually ones that had already been used in another of the fresh-hop beers -- interesting concept. Mmm... fresh hop beer. Only six months to wait.

Two Belmont Dives

Matias herded a bunch of us out on a pub crawl Saturday to celebrate Paul and Jana's impending parenthood. The theme was "formerly smoky bars". We kicked off at the Horse Brass, but the rest of the places on the agenda can safely be filed under "dive". The Triple Nickel and the Vern (directory assistance name: Hanigan's Tavern) were pleasant surprises for me. We proceeded on to Claudia's, and I even made it as far as the Langano Lounge, but I bailed out from there before they got around to serving me a beer.

No offense to Claudia's or Langano -- or the beloved Horse Brass -- but as the title indicates, today I want to write about those two dives on Belmont: places I wouldn't have set foot in before the smoking ban, but which are now fair game.

Triple Nickel (37th and Belmont): Four steel-tip dartboards, that's all you need to know about this place. Same number as the Horse Brass, but on Saturday two of them were free at the Nickel, on a night when you'd need the patience of Job and cat-like reflexes to get a dartboard at the Brass. The Nickel has a lot of taps -- 27, the bartender counted them for me -- but only one or two that are more palatable than the drinks at this other Triple Nickel. Dave and I ended up with Terminal Gravity IPA. Other pluses: lots of pool tables, and Black Sabbath Vol. 4 on the jukebox.

The Vern (26th and Belmont): Not quite as many taps as the Nickel -- they're in the picture above -- but much better beer. A couple of good Lagunitas taps, Full Sail Wreck the Halls, and Stone Arrogant Bastard come to mind. I had to go for a Ninkasi Total Domination. The Vern looks so inauspicious from the outside that I never imagined it would have a selection like that. There are one or two pool tables, but no dartboards.

There are plenty of promising dives in the neighborhood that I still need to check out, but this was a good start. The Vern in particular is so close to my house that it's likely to become a semi-regular haunt, now that I know there's something decent to drink there. Cheers to Matias for getting this crawl rolling.

An Easy Bicycle Pub Crawl

This week we had a house full of old Texas friends. In honor of Lee's upcoming 40th birthday, Bret, Todd, and I took him on a bicycling pub crawl accompanied by his Portland friend Eric. No, not a 78-beer decathlon, just a little loop Wednesday evening through Southeast. Since Todd moved away shortly after Lee's visit last summer, I wanted to show off by including a couple of great pubs that have opened in the short time since then: Hopworks and Green Dragon. Bret was having a little trouble with his helmet by the end of the ride.

It probably shows a lack of good judgment that I led us across Powell Blvd. to Hopworks right at the five-o'clock rush hour. We were able to turn left from 26th onto the Powell sidewalk just as the light turned green for the cross traffic. For future reference, I have since found a better way -- especially if you're in a group -- to bicycle to Hopworks. Continue across Powell on 26th and turn left on Rhone. That dead-ends into 28th Place; bike back up the hill to Powell and walk the last block on the sidewalk. The left turn on Rhone has you battling much less traffic in all directions, and you get to enjoy a few blocks more of the Texas-sized bike lane on 26th. You may have heard that everything is bigger in Texas, but when referring to a bike lane, "Texas-sized" means it's about half the width of the Portland standard -- really it's just a little strip of pavement used to keep all the broken glass and roofing nails out of the automobile lanes.

After Hopworks, we went around the corner to a place I'd never been before, the Pub at the End of the Universe at 28th and Gladstone. You'd be forgiven for looking at the outside of the pub and thinking it was out of business, but inside it's a funky, comfortable dive. The mission was to try the Ozzy Osbourne-themed beers from Off the Rail, since the P.E.U. is one of the few places nearby that serves them. They had a bunch of them:

• Mad Man IPA: smooth, a little hop edge, malty
• War Pigs Wheat: mild banana flavor, nice
• Sweet Leaf Amber: caramelly, not bad
• Over the Mountain Stout: chocolate stout, didn't try it
• Coal Porter: didn't try it; someone please explain to me the Ozzy connection in the name

I was impressed by the Off the Rail beers, the ones we had were well done. Oddly, there were posters up using Ozzy's picture not to sell Off the Rail products, but Coors' Blue Moon Wheat. We were disappointed by the jukebox: absolutely nothing by Black Sabbath or Ozzy. Zero.

The P.E.U. had an interesting beer selection, they are clearly trying to be original. No Widmer, no Bridgeport, only one Deschutes; but they did have Mac and Jack's Amber, a couple of Pike ales, and Lazy Boy IPA -- I've seen bottles of Lazy Boy around town, but that's the first tap. Community service points for that one! It's a little smoky in there, but definitely worth a visit for the offbeat selection and the laid-back atmosphere. They have a few pool tables and two soft-tip dart machines -- another unusual choice.

We rolled back up 26th and ended up stopping at Clinton Street Brewing. The Wit was a better batch on this visit than the last couple times I tried it, and our crowd generally liked the Amber and the IPA. We had the place pretty much to ourselves, it was a good time. They're still brewing in the tiny back room, but you can understand why the brewmaster wants to head for more capacious digs in Northwest.

Continuing up 26th, we went left on Harrison so that we could take the bikes-only crossing of 20th and bike past the east rose garden in Ladd's Addition. On summer evenings there's always some kind of activity in Ladd's center circle -- there were some jugglers this time -- so I made us do 1 and 3/8ths laps of the circle, turning right on Ladd Avenue. I think it's fun to stop in at all four of the rose gardens, but by this time we needed to get some food.

We took the bikes-only left turn onto Clay, and headed up 9th to the Green Dragon for the best pub food in the neighborhood. Todd and Lee were thoroughly excited by the recently-installed shuffleboard table at the Dragon. Yee Haw!

Then it's just four blocks down 9th to the back porch of the Lucky Lab. A cool summer evening on the Lab's patio with imperial pints and a bowl of peanuts in the shell: it doesn't get any Portlander than that. Roots beckoned from around the corner, so close that we just left the bikes at the Lucky Lab and walked over. When Jim turned off the lights, we realized it was time to call it a night and roll back up Main Street. Happy 40th, Lee!

Happy 25th, Barley Mill

Every year the Barley Mill celebrates its birthday right around the summer solstice. This year Carla and I finally stumbled the six blocks from our house, figuring the 25th anniversary was special enough to show up for. As befits the Barley Mill, it was a pretty low-key event, at least when we were there around 2 PM, but we did get some birthday cake and pints of this year's version of the wacky Anniversary Ale as we withstood our dose of live Grateful Dead recordings.

McMenamins' pubs operate on a kind of buddy system, each pub with a brewery supplying beer to a single non-brewing pub in the chain. My understanding is that it's done that way to most profitably comply with the helpful regulations the state of Oregon has set up to protect its citizens from drowning in locally-made beer. Although the Barley Mill was the first pub in the ever-expanding McM empire, it opened before on-premises brewing became legal, and it was never a brewery. Instead, it is supplied by the chain's first brewpub, the Hillsdale Pub.

Right on the company website, it says "the pub's the thing". There are excellent brewers working for McMenamins', but the beer itself takes a back seat to real estate and atmosphere in the country of McMen-istan. Thus, the Barley Mill isn't where you go to revel in Oregon beer quality; rather, it's where you can take your kids and their grandparents for lunch and keep everyone happy without breaking the bank. Personal anecdote: my daughter chose to have her sixth birthday party at the Barley Mill. It was our first year in Portland, and as someone who grew up in the Bible Belt it felt a little strange to me that we were inviting a handful of kindergarten girls to have dinner at a bar. But why not? It's non-smoking, serves tater tots, and it's dripping with colorful artwork and crazy things for kids to look at.

The past year has brought a few changes to the Barley Mill. The dartboard is gone! It was in pretty bad shape and poorly lit, way back in a corner, but it occasionally came in handy and I hate to see the demise of any steel-tip dartboard. Also, for some reason they have draped a huge Grateful Dead flag over the excellent back-wall mural of old-fashioned Germans drinking Miller Beer under the protective gaze of a reclining nude woman. Everyone should hate to see the demise of any mural with a nude woman. And the menu seems a little different, though the only change I can put my finger on is that the Triple Play -- soup, salad, and garlic bread -- is gone.

Because the focus isn't really on the beer, the McMenamins' standards aren't of great interest to beer snobs -- though the CAMRA guide to the West Coast puzzlingly singles out Terminator as the best example of a West Coast stout. But it's not all bad. Corey Blodgett has a loyal following out at the Cornelius Pass Roadhouse for his imaginative beers. I was also impressed the other day at Ringler's by the Belgian Trippel and the Decent IPA (which supposedly got its name after one of the weekly papers complained that McMenamins' didn't brew a decent IPA). And for the last couple weeks the Barley Mill was serving an interesting little number called "Hemmerhoeff'd": the Hammerhead recipe brewed with a Belgian yeast.

That brings us to the Starvation Army Pale Ale, the pleasantly fruity pale brewed up for the anniversary. John Foyston has an entertaining article [Confidential to John: who does your spell checking?] about the ritual gathering where each participant adds something -- beer, wine, spirits, herbs, pieces of paper -- into the mash. And you know, it turned out pretty tasty.

The state of Oregon would be a far different place if there were no McMenamins'. That's especially true outside of Portland, where they serve as lifesaving oases for caravaning urbanites. Even here in town, the landscape would be far different with no Kennedy School, no Bagdad, no Crystal Ballroom. And it all began right here in Southeast. Happy Birthday, Barley Mill!

More about Epic

Well, after carping in the last entry about the dart board location at Roots, Dave and I were lucky enough to waltz in for pub night Tuesday evening and get the table under the dartboard. We must be living right. I still wish they had a better location for it.

Dave had the upper hand at darts, but it's hard not to be content with pints of Festivus and a glass of Epic on the table. Turns out the Epic that's on tap right now is not the one brewed and bottled this season, it's the 2006 Epic. I just assumed it would be the new one: thanks to Lindsey for being sharp-eyed enough to figure that one out. Does that mean the Epic they were pouring last year was a year old -- the 2005? We must be living right to have a place like Roots in town.

Carla bought me one of the huge jeroboams of the 2006 last year for my 40th birthday. That's a perfect gift: something I'll open to great fanfare in a few years, but which I never would have bought myself. I remember trying to haggle the price down on the last 2005 Epic jeroboam as it sat on the bar week after week, but they wouldn't budge and I'm too cheap. Interestingly, that 2005 bottle has reappeared on the bar recently, but Jim the bartender says the brewers disagree on whether it was handled carefully enough to still be good. I hope basement storage is careful enough for my 2006. The one that's on tap right now is tasty indeed: smooth and very sweet, with flavors like maple and cherry. I don't really keep mine behind the shovels.

A jeroboam holds 3 liters according to the Internet. The label on this one says 95.4 fluid ounces, which is less than 3 liters, but I'm not complaining. It's still going to take a lot of help to empty that sucker. This year's Epic is bottled in 1.5 liter magnums. That's a good idea, it cuts the price in half (to $40), it's easier to store, it's easier to use up when you eventually open it. Still, the jeroboams were quite a statement -- 10 out of 10 for style, as Zaphod Beeblebrox said. You've got to admire the audacity of it.

The Always Reliable Lucky Lab

There's an old Trek hybrid bicycle in my garage that I bought used in Austin in early 1996 when both of my bicycles were stolen within the space of a couple of weeks. I needed transportation right away, and it had to be cheap. Our first baby was on the way, and I was on a grad-student stipend with a social-worker wife. Compared to my beautiful stolen mountain bike -- a 1991 Trek 970 -- the hybrid was a dowdy-looking thing with a dull green paint job and (gasp!) grip shifters.

Even though it was my daily transportation for the next six years, the hybrid never got any respect in our house -- oh, that old thing? I finally moved on to a slicker, faster ride. But as the years continue to roll past, it becomes more apparent that the old green hybrid is a crucial part of the fleet. It gets zero maintenance, but when there's a guest in town, or another bike is out of commission for one reason or another, the Trek comes through for us. It's always there in a pinch.

My feelings toward the Lucky Lab have followed a similar trajectory. It starts a little differently, because I never loved that old bike, but I fell in love with the Lab when we first moved here in 2003. I couldn't believe my luck: a pub in the neighborhood that always had something on cask! The neighbors and I would walk the dogs down there almost every Monday evening for Miser Monday. You can bring the kids to a brewpub? Heaven.

Pretty soon there were pubs serving slicker, faster ales in the neighborhood: Roots and the Hedge House (and now the Green Dragon). And the Lab suffered the same loss of respect as the Trek. To tell you the truth, I think the quality did decline for a little while at the Lab sometime in 2005 -- at least that's the consensus among the pub night neighbors. I don't know if something was going on internally, or if it was just one of those things. At some point we switched pub night to Tuesday to catch the cheap night at Roots.

And yet, the Lucky Lab is always reliable. In good weather you'll be lucky to get one of the tiny picnic tables at Roots or one of the few tables at the Hedge House, but the patio at the Lab seats 200 people and 100 dogs (and the patio now has heaters and rain flaps). The Lompoc beer at the Hedge House is tasty, but they don't have 20 oz. pints or cask-conditioned ale like the Lab does. How about darts? Roots has a board, but there's a table underneath it -- how does that make sense? -- so if someone's sitting there, you're off to the dart room at the Lab.

If you had to assign beer rankings, Roots and Hedge House probably come out higher than the Lab. But the Lab seems to have pulled out of the slump it was in: nowadays you'll find something worth drinking every time you go in. The Super Dog IPA is classic; even better a couple times a year when they brew up "Super Duper Dog", which I guess is the Imperial version. Last year they had another great IPA called Triple Threat, I hope it comes back. I also like Crazy Ludwig's Alt, though I suspect it's about three times hoppier than a German Alt. Black Lab Stout is good, especially on cask, but I don't care for the Irish Stout they serve. I had the Hellraiser ESB today, first time I remember having it. Nice and smooth, maybe a little stronger and more bitter than, say, a Young's ESB.

The Lab always has about eight of their own beers on tap, plus a guest tap, plus a nitro tap and the cask engine. So there's more of a variety going than down the street at Roots or Hedge House, though the Green Dragon slams everyone in the variety category. The food is decent and cheap, there's PB & J for the kids, the dogs are happy, and there's lots of bike parking. The Lucky Lab is always there in a pinch.