Upcoming Portland Beer Festivals

As the days grow longer and the weekends start filling up with Portland beer festivals, I thought it would be a good time to highlight some changes that are planned for a few upcoming festivals.


Spring Beer Fest

For some years now the spring festival held in the fluorescent glory of the Oregon Convention Center has been called the "Spring Beer and Wine Fest", but in 2014 the organizers have recognized that they have a much more diverse festival than just beer and wine.  This year the festival has been rechristened the "Spring Beer Wine Mead Cider Braggot Vodka Gin Snack Condiment Tattoo Piercing and Home Improvement Festival" (italics theirs) to more accurately represent the range of exhibitors at the festival.  I'm not sure why they left commas out of the name -- "Condiment Tattoo Piercing" all runs together for me -- but I guess saving 10 characters might help out on Twitter (hashtag: #SBWMCBVGSCTPHIF2014).

Beer-loving Portland Catholics have often complained about the festival's perennial Easter weekend scheduling.  In an attempt to reach out to that demographic, this year's fest will add a Thursday night session featuring a screening of Mel Gibson's 2004 movie The Passion of the Christ with live Mystery Science Theater 3000-style commentary by a trio of comics who bill themselves as Cathloholics Anonymous. Not sure how well that will go over.

Spring Beer Wine [etc.] Fest:  April 18-19, 2014, noon to 10 PM.

__________________________________________________

Portland Fruit Beer Festival

Photo credit: Draft Magazine

You've heard of a Kissing Booth, but how about a Rimming Booth?  That's an exciting addition this June to the Portland Fruit Beer Festival:  a special area of the festival where attendees can accessorize their pretty, hop-free beers by decorating the rims of their beer glasses with colorful slices of fruit or various sprinkles and additions that you'd be more likely to find in an ice cream shop than a taproom.

Festival founder (and Pub Night friend) Ezra Johnson-Greenough has never hesitated to take beer in unexpected new directions, whether brewing a chocolate and peanut butter stout, crafting beer cocktails, or in this case updating the "lemon your Widmer" idea.  Rimming is a practice I first read about in this Draft Magazine article, and it sounds a little perverse at first, but I've heard it can be a very pleasurable experience.  Apparently it is something young people do a lot of these days, especially as a way to add even more cookie and pie flavors to pumpkin beers.  The Fruit Beer Fest's Rimming Booth will be set up between the dedicated cider taps and the children's face-painting station.

Portland Fruit Beer Festival:  June 7-8, 2014.  11 AM to 9 PM Saturday, 11 to 6 Sunday.

__________________________________________________

Hopworks DriveToBeerFest

Although the date for Hopworks Brewery's fall festival hasn't been set in stone yet, some major changes in the theme are in store for the 6th annual event.  Instead of the bicycle-centric BikeToBeerFest of the last several years, this year Hopworks is holding a DriveToBeerFest.  It sounds like an off note to the Portland ear, but it makes sense on at least two levels.  For one thing, in a more competitive craft beer market, suburban beer lovers are a market that Hopworks wants to cater to by demonstrating that driving to a beer festival is just as cool as biking to one.

On a more practical level, you may have noticed how crowded BikeToBeerFest has been the last couple of years.  The more the merrier, up to a point, but lately the crowds have been so large at the festival that Hopworks is ready to dial it down a little.  One very natural way to limit attendance is to encourage less efficient modes of transportation, so that fewer people are able to attend.  With that in mind, instead of setting up hundreds of bike racks for people to park at, attendees will be encouraged to drive their cars to the festival, preferably with each person arriving in their own car (they call it "designated driving").  In a partly symbolic, partly utilitarian measure, the dozen or so bike racks in front of the pub will be removed during the weekend of the festival to make room for a single parking space.  Watch this space for more information on the dates and times for this exciting festival.

__________________________________________________

Of course, there are a couple of other minor festivals happening between all these events, but I wanted to keep you abreast of the exciting innovations that are coming up.

Portland Beer Price Index: Spring 2013

No, no, no!  This isn't how it was supposed to go.

Starting in the middle of 2011, the Portland Beer Price Index (PBPI) looked like it was showing bomber prices decreasing while six-pack prices marched slowly upwards.  Not that I was excited about more expensive six-packs, but I have always considered the bomber price penalty to be a temporary distortion peculiar to the beer industry.  I thought the SPE of bombers would eventually fall below six-pack prices.  I can't think of another consumer liquid where a larger package is more expensive per ounce than a bundle of little packages.  It's not true of soda pop, wine, liquor, bottled water, shampoo, ... you name it.

But the trend I was hoping to spot didn't continue, and now we have bomber prices -- shown in the chart -- higher than ever before, while six-pack prices fell even more than they did last time.  And not just the sale prices, but the "official" prices.  Here are the Portland Beer Price Index numbers for this quarter:

• 6-packs: $9.16, down 7 cents
• 22-ounce bombers: $4.88, up 4 cents
• 6-packs (sale price): $8.61, down 15 cents
• 22-ounce bombers (sale price): $4.71, up 5 cents
• 16 oz. draft: $4.47 up 3 cents
• 16 oz. draft (happy hour): $3.59, down 2 cents

What is happening here?  I think there is some healthy competition in six-packs, as breweries like 10 Barrel and Oakshire move into that area.  Ninkasi must have their six-pack pipeline flowing steadily enough that they have been able to lower their prices, and I think Caldera and Terminal Gravity are feeling price pressure since it's hard to justify the high prices they've enjoyed for a few years when the newcomers have something more interesting at a lower price.

For some reason, the bombers in the PBPI aren't feeling that heat, and Laurelwood has raised the price on their bombers by 10% this time, though most retailers have a sale price on them for now to cushion the blow.  However, there might be a bias in the bombers I've selected, because I've seen some new sale prices on other bombers that I've long considered either slightly or wildly overpriced.

Logistically, I'm starting to be troubled by HUB IPA bombers.  New Seasons appears to have dumped them in favor of HUB tallboys, and QFC has a space on the shelf for them, but no bottles and an obviously incorrect price tag ($6.30).  For this month's numbers I subbed in other HUB bombers those stores were carrying (DOA at QFC, Secession at New Seasons).  The HUB tallboys are a great innovation, especially if they can get the price closer to Ninkasi's SPE, but I may need to find a replacement for the bombers in the index (come to think of it, Gigantic IPA would make a reasonable and somewhat poetic replacement).

If you require more information on the makeup of the PBPI, read the page which describes the composition of the index.

A Few Winter Beer Recommendations

Now that it is properly wintertime, I don't mind giving a shout out to some fine winter beers.  There are so many of them, that I don't at all pretend to do justice to the subject, but a few of them have crossed my path recently that are worth commenting on.

Hopworks Abominable Winter Ale

Yes, I am one of those people that says "Is the Jubel good this year?" and "Wassail seems better than last year", despite the fact that those recipes are probably not tampered with much from year to year.  So, here I go doing that same thing with Abominable -- it's really good this year, better than I remember it.  Hopworks being Hopworks, it's always a clean, hearty 7.5% sipper, but this year the flowery hops are more noticeable right up front.  It's now available in HUB's new tall-boy cans -- thanks to Jaime at HUB for gifting me one a few weeks ago -- but my serving suggestion to you is to have it on tap, especially if your neighbor has it in his kegerator.

Didn't this used to be called "AbominabAle"?  Good thing they changed it to the more pronounceable "Abominable".  Or you can just call it A-Bomb if you get friendly enough with it.

Red Hook Winterhook

The good folks at Craft Brewers Alliance kindly sent me a couple bottles of Red Hook Winterhook this year.  This is more in the winter warmer category than in the winter hop-bomb category, though I was pleasantly surprised at the nice hop aroma and flavor that dry-hopping gives it.  Not quite as damaging as a lot of winter seasonals at 6%, and the dark malts are more restrained than in a lot of similar beers.  Certainly worth grabbing a sixer if you see it at the supermarket.

Alesmith Yule Smith

A few of the neighbors gathered Thanksgiving evening at Mr. and Mrs. Smith's house, and the host fittingly brought out a bottle of Yule Smith.  It was fabulous -- a dense, potent, piney, gloriously unbalanced multiple-IPA.  He said he got it at Belmont Station, and I seem to remember seeing some bottles of this on the clearance shelf there recently, so I'm not sure if we were drinking last year's or this year's (the bottle didn't have any kind of date stamp that I could see).  No matter -- if you see a bottle, grab it.  Highly recommended.

Changes to Hopworks Cask Ales?

[Editor's Note: Another excellent guest post by Dave.]

Please excuse this interjection, but I felt the need to sic the blogosphere on Hopworks. This evening we were at the mothership with our children and in-laws (HUB is first on our list with out-of-towners when the kids are in tow) and I ordered one of my favorite cask-conditioned ales, their IPA. The CO2 version never does much for me, but the cask version is perfect...floral nose, bitterness, and the malt comes out shining. Tonight, the pour seemed like a flat, cold CO2 pour.

I was almost embarrassed describing it to the waitress...I felt like a noob complaining about my first cask-conditioned pour. After some well-tipped commiseration, she brought a replacement CO2 pint and relayed that the pub was experimenting with a new method: Lower gas pressure for the cask taps. Huh? Why is there any pressure, isn't it pumped out by hand?  My suspicion is that they are trying to cheat the cask, and I'd like to get informed opinions to confirm. I had a tried-and-true cask IPA before Christmas that was just fine; has anyone experienced the new method?

Hopworks BikeToBeerFest 2011

I had a nice time Saturday at Hopworks Urban Brewery's bike-in version of Oktoberfest, the BikeToBeerFest  -- the third annual.  They always roll out some special beers for the festival, and this year was no exception, with two fresh hop beers, several barrel-aged monsters, and a few other rarities pouring alongside the brewery's standards.  The gigantic glass that Hopworks founder Christian Ettinger is drinking from contains a special pale ale called Lover Brau, an homage to head brewer Ben Love, who is leaving HUB to help found Gigantic Brewing.  To keep it a surprise, Lover Brau was actually brewed at Golden Valley in McMinnville.

Last year I made a big stink about Hopworks labeling beers "fresh hop" when they contained only dried hops.  This year I'm told that the fresh hop beers really do have some "wet hops" (I hate that silly term) in them.  Perhaps my whining paid off -- I just hope that one day it will be heard in Chico, California.  I thought the true fresh hops really made this year's Fest of Fury Märzen the best batch I can remember.  The Give Me Liberty fresh-hop Pale Ale was also very hoppy and bitter, very good stuff though I didn't pick up much of the fresh-hop flavor.  Hats off to Hopworks for going fresh this year.

At the 2010 festival, the most noteworthy big beer was Piledriver -- Hopworks' dubbel, barrel-aged with cherries and brettanomyces.  It was back again this year, and people were saying it was the same batch, though that seemed strange to me since it didn't look nearly as dark as I remember it -- look at these pictures of it last year over on the New School.  Whichever batch it was, it was at least as good as before -- nice cherries and a little drying funk on top of what was already a nice beer.  I also liked the bourbon barrel-aged Ace of Spades, though several people told me it was too over-the-top for them.  And Kronan the Bourbarian was another fine use of bourbon barrels -- adding a little extra kick to HUB's already potent Baltic Porter.

The beer price scheme has changed every year of BikeToBeerFest.  This year's was the most sensible system yet, so I hope it sticks.  Normal-strength pints were $4, or $2 for a half pour.  Strong beers were $3 for a half pour.  If you remember last year, the choices were either a full pint for $4 or $6, or a four-ounce pour for $1 (even for the $6 bruisers).  The half-pint option this year is a much better option all around.  Also this year there was no charge to get in to the festival, just the cost of a glass and your tickets.

Attendance seemed to be down from 2010.  Just a week ago, we were talking about how the hot weather might have kept people away from the Beermongers 2nd Anniversary Brewfest; Saturday the intermittent rain might have similarly dampened the BikeToBeerFest crowds.  Can we blame the weather, or are we really starting to have beer event fatigue in Portland?  Whatever it was, the bike racks in the lower parking lot were mostly empty during the time I was there, and there was never much of a line for any beer -- not that I'm complaining about that.  Maybe there was more of a crowd after I left.

Bikes and beer -- a great Portland combination, and a great thing to make a tradition of.

Sanjay has a post about the event, including some nice video, over on the Not So Professional Beer Blog.

Oregon IPA Blind Tasting

This is kind of a slow follow-through, but a couple of weekends ago I helped judge Blitz Ladd's blind tasting competition of Oregon IPAs.  Earlier in the year I went on a kick of blind-tasting Double IPAs three or four at a time with friends and neighbors, in March, April, and May.  The Blitz tasting was on a different level: the good news is that I was seated amongst far more experienced beer judges; the bad news is we had a roster of 13 IPAs to get through.

We were surprisingly unanimous in choosing our top three:

• Hopworks HUB IPA
• Widmer Falconer IPA
• Lucky Lab Super Dog IPA

Sometimes you forget how good old favorites can be -- well, four-year-old favorites anyway.  HUB IPA is the burly but drinkable IPA that launched Hopworks to nearly instant success, but I rarely seem to drink it these days.  When I'm at Hopworks, I usually geek out and try whatever seasonal beer they have; when I'm somewhere else I rarely go for the IPA.  I guess I'll have to rethink my strategy now. 

It also surprised me how much we liked the new Rotator from Widmer.  I had tasted it for the first time the day before, and liked it pretty well -- especially the long bitter finish -- but I wouldn't have thought it was one of my two favorites in town.  It's brewed with the Falconer's Flight hop blend from Hop Union that breweries are starting to experiment with.  Fans of Walking Man beers should pick up a six-pack of it: the recipe was devised by Jacob Leonard, who left his head brewer position at Walking Man earlier this year to join Widmer.  He's still new enough that he has to work the night shift, but his beer has already made it to a national audience.  Pretty cool.

The Blitz folks stressed to us over and over that these were not Double or Imperial IPAs, but I couldn't shake doubles out of my mind and I was sure I had several of the competitors pegged for this or that Double IPA -- even to the point of insisting aloud that #9 was Caldera's Hopportunity Knocks, Super Dog was Ninkasi's Tricerahops, and the Widmer was Hopworks' Ace of Spades.  Goofy.  I'm a little embarrassed to think of it now.  Well, it was a long weekend and I had been up late the night before sampling beers from around the country at the Beer Bloggers Conference.

I also thought I had Gilgamesh's IPA pegged for Bridgeport Hop Czar, another imperial.  I mean that in a good way: it would have been my choice for 4th place.  Except for the strange and wonderful tea-hopped Black Mamba, Gilgamesh's beers have left me cold, but this IPA had a very nice grapefruity hop profile, and I'll be keeping an eye out for it now.  Other pleasant surprises were McTarnahan's Grifter -- very nicely balanced -- and Vertigo's Friar Mike's IPA.  I've had both in the past, but wouldn't have expected them to surpass much more established IPAs.  That goes to show the power of blind tasting.

Speaking of blind tasting:  if you're not already reading the Southern Oregon-based blog Bottle Battle, add it to your list.  Each post is a blind tasting between two or more similar beers, a nice twist on beer reviews.

Hopworks BikeBar Opens

Circumstances came together miraculously last night to allow me drop in on the grand opening of the Hopworks BikeBar on North Williams.  It's embarrassingly rare for me to make a beer foray into North Portland, but St. John Foyston -- I think they named a North Portland bridge after him -- interceded on my behalf and I swung by for a quick look.

The joint was hopping, but it didn't seem as jam-packed as the original Powell Blvd. Hopworks grand opening a little over three years ago.  Of course, the anticipation for that opening had been building for nearly two years, whereas the BikeBar came together in just a few months, and the outdoor seating area accommodated a lot of patrons on what turned out to be a beautiful evening after a soggy, gray day.

The BikeBar is fantastic.  I've been one to grumble about the irony of the original Hopworks location: a bike-themed pub in a not-so-bike-friendly location.  BikeBar, on the other hand, is located right on the busiest bike thoroughfare in town -- brilliant.  There is a ton of bike parking behind the pub: instead of parking out front, ride down the alley from Shaver or Failing and pull in to the rear.  And while the space inside is not as large as the mothership, it is laid out a lot more efficiently.  The seating capacity is not that much less than on Powell, especially when the weather permits the back patio to be used.

There are ten Hopworks taps and a cask, and the menu will remind you of the original location.  Kids are allowed, but it's not a play-area paradise like on Powell, which many of you might find to be very good news.

By the way, the Lompoc Sidebar next door to the BikeBar -- kudos to Hopworks for cleverly echoing their neighbor's name -- has expanded its hours in response to the friendly competition.  The funky hideout lined with barrels is now open Wednesday through Saturday evenings, and Sundays noon to 7 PM (of course Lompoc 5th Quadrant around the corner is open every day).  This stretch of Williams is now a great bicycle-beer destination.

A Third Double IPA Blind Tasting

For the last couple months I've been playing around with blind-tasting sets of three Double IPAs, a.k.a. Imperial IPAs.  Hopworks Ace of Spades won the tasting in March, but was defeated by Firestone Walker Double Jack in April. 

This month, when my neighbor Dave and I drove down to San Francisco to visit our pal Andy, Dave took the initiative and brought four bombers of 2IPAs to blind taste, as though we didn't have enough beer-drinking plans.  I had no idea which four IPAs he had brought, so for a change I was not only blindly picking a favorite, but also trying to figure out what beers they were at all.

The crude and only partially effective technique of electrical taping numbered sheets of paper around the bottles allowed Dave to taste blindly as well, though of course he knew which four bottles he had brought.  The competition fell out like this:

• 1st place: Port Brewing Mongo IPA: lots of head, piney nose, gritty bitterness, hot alcohol
• 2nd place: Hopworks Ace of Spades: another hot one, delicious and malty
• 3rd place: Ninkasi Tricerahops: a little thin next to the bruisers, nice orange-blossom hops
• 4th place: Caldera Hopportunity Knocks: honey and diacetyl in the nose, super malty with a long bitter finish

Andy is not as big of a hophead as Dave and me, so his favorites were actually in the reverse order [insert prissy Californian joke here], except that he did like Mongo better than Ace of Spades.

If you've been following these tedious tastings of mine, you'll remember that in the first one we had a lame bottle of Tricerahops; I'm happy to report that the 2007-era favorite has redeemed itself.  Even though it came in third to a couple of heavyweights, it was a tasty beer.  The Port Mongo -- a gift from our buddy Todd, who has a Southern California connection -- was brilliant.  By the Bottle in Vancouver usually stocks Port bottles, so if you see the Mongo up there, pick some up.  The Caldera was a crying shame.  It wasn't too bad at first, but as it warmed up the diacetyl became overwhelming, and it was pretty hard to swallow.  On Beer Advocate most people seem to like it, though I found one fairly recent review that also uses the D-word, so I'm not completely insane.

As for the guessing game -- which number is which beer -- I was pretty pleased with myself since I didn't know which beers were in play to begin with.  But I correctly identified Ace of Spades (easy) and Tricerahops.  Clutching at straws, I guessed the Mongo might have been Lagunitas Hop Stoopid, and really without a clue for the Hopportunity, I hedged my bets and wondered if it was a Ninkasi Total Domination.  Dave didn't do as well, he got Ace of Spades right, but since he wasn't familiar with Mongo he thought maybe the last-place finisher was that one, and guessed that Tricerahops was Caldera and Mongo was Tricerahops.

Conclusion:  Tricerahops -- redeemed (but don't be afraid to return a bad bottle if you get one).  Ace of Spades -- smashing.  Port Brewing Mongo -- seek it out.  Caldera Hopportunity Knocks -- avoid.

Another Double IPA Blind Tasting

Last month Dave and I sat down and blindly tasted three Imperial IPAs. At that sitting, we preferred Hopworks Ace of Spades, followed by Pyramid Outburst, with a possibly decrepit bottle of Ninkasi Tricerahops lagging behind.

On that post, Jeff Alworth commented that he wished Deschutes Hop Henge had been in the competition.  Hop Henge is something of a moving target, since every batch is a different experiment on the recipe, but it is right in there with the hoppiest, maltiest bruisers, so I hinted that I might try a second round of IIPA tasting, pitting Ace of Spades against Hop Henge and another beer I'm a huge fan of:  Firestone Walker Double Jack.  Suprisingly, I did get my act together enough to pull that tasting off at a neighborhood get-together last weekend.

Dave, Lindsey, and I -- with special guest taster Gypsy -- put our heads together and sampled the three beers.  Dave immediately declared "I know which one is the Ace of Spades", so naturally I blurted out, "Oh yeah, me too", though it turned out he was right and I was wrong.  The competition ended up as follows:

1. Double Jack - everyone's favorite: hot and flowery, thick and satisfying
2. Ace of Spades - solid and malty with a nice bitter finish
3. Hop Henge - the lightest of the three, flowery and green, a little sweet

There's a kind of poker poetry there -- a pair of jacks beats ace high.  I'm not sure what kind of hand a henge is.  The three gents were unanimous in ranking the beers that way; Gypsy agreed the Double Jack was best, but didn't care for the Ace of Spades, so Hop Henge was her second-place vote.  Of course, we didn't know which beer was which when we ranked them, though as part of the fun Lindsey, Dave, and I tried to guess their identities.  Dave got all three of them right; Lindsey and I got Hop Henge right but incorrectly guessed that the #1 brew was Ace of Spades -- which surprised me until I found out the truth, since I had expected to like Double Jack the best, as indeed was the case.  We almost oppressed Dave into joining our side, but he stuck to his guns and won the guessing game.

All three are worthy, if you like giant hop monsters like that, and Ace of Spades and Double Jack have enough in common that you might mistake one for the other.  Definitely try the Double Jack if you haven't already.  But check this out: the blog Bottle Battle blind-tasted Double Jack vs. Widmer Deadlift (now called Nelson IIPA), and the Widmer won.  I've written favorably about Deadlift/Nelson in the past, but I can't imagine it beating the magnificent Double Jack, so I may have to do yet another round of blind IIPA tasting to see for myself.

Imperial IPA Blind Tasting

Imperial IPA is kind of a ridiculous term: it has no historical significance, and Double IPA is a better description of the same thing. Nevertheless, it's probably my favorite beer style if I had to choose one. Lots of hops, lots of malt, and lots of medicine.

Hopworks just released the 2011 version of their IIPA, the Ace of Spades, and since they gifted me a couple bottles of it, I thought I'd try it out alongside a couple of other big IPAs of note: the stalwart Ninkasi Tricerahops, and this winter's price-performer: Pyramid Outburst.  Tuesday night Dave came over from next door, and we did a blind tasting of the three, to see if we could tell which was which, and to see which one we liked the best.  Carla also took a quick taste; she didn't try to identify them, but voted on what she liked.

Sadly, I think the bottle of Tricerahops was a little old, even though I just bought it a couple days ago at New Seasons.  It didn't have the giant, flowery hops that I expected, and there was quite a bit of murky sediment in the bottom of the bottle.  It was so unimpressive that Dave and I both ranked it behind the other two, and we both assumed that our blind sample of Tricerahops was the cheaper Outburst.  Remember when Tricerahops was this startling new style of gigantic, floral IPA?  When you would call your friends if you saw it on tap somewhere?  That was only 3 or 4 years ago.  Now there are dozens of double IPAs, and a bottle of Tricerahops can be something of a letdown.

In second place in our blind tasting -- actually, it was Carla's favorite -- was the Pyramid Outburst.  A new offering this year, Outburst is priced right -- about $2 a bomber, or $6 a six-pack -- but I've had mixed emotions about it.  The first time I tried it, I had already had a beer or two (can't remember which), and I was completely underwhelmed by Outburst.  Then a few days later I popped one open after a long work day, and it really hit the spot.  A couple more good experiences followed, until one day when I followed up a bomber of Firestone Walker Double Jack with an Outburst, and I almost wanted to cry.  It tasted awful that day, like on Thanksgiving when you drink a glass of water after eating your cranberry sauce.  Because of those experiences, I was a little worried about how it would fare alongside Ace of Spades and Tricerahops, but this time it held its own.  Since it's such a bargain, stock up on Outburst while it's out there, just be careful how you use it.

Which brings us to the Ace of Spades:  boozy, malty, flowery -- what's not to like?  Dave and I both picked it out of the lineup, and also found it to be the most satisfying of the three we tasted that night.  Carla said it had an aftertaste she didn't like, but I almost wonder if that aftertaste was alcohol, given how big this beer is.  Enjoy it while it's out -- last year it seemed to disappear almost before I realized it was available.  It's highly recommended.

That's a look at three Double IPAs.  There are lots more out there: for example, we just went through our annual bout of Pliny the Younger madness, and Hop Henge is still pouring at Deschutes (and was $4 a bomber at the Burnside CVS a few days ago).  And do try Double Jack if you run across it -- it's stunning.

Hopworks BikeToBeerFest 2010

The second annual BikeToBeerFest held at Hopworks this past Saturday was a nice sequel to last year's festivities. If there were any doubts that this would continue to be a yearly event -- which there probably weren't -- I guess the good attendance and fine time had by all have put them to rest. They do seem to be feeling around for the correct date -- last year's was held in mid-September -- and I hope it stays in the pre-Labor Day range.

BikeToBeerFest went off much like it did last year. It's a welcome sight to see two parking lots each filled with hundreds of bikes instead of a couple dozen cars, and to see the famous beer bike (pictured) in action. I don't remember the cost of getting in to last year's event, but I thought it was just the price of a glass and some tokens. This year there was a small $2 entry fee which was split as a donation to the Bicycle Transportation Alliance and Portland Sunday Parkways, both worthy recipients.  Another difference was that this year you could get a 4-ounce sample for 1 ticket, whereas last year it was all pints.  There were some perverse incentives at work there -- you could pay 6 tickets for almost a pint of strong beer, or 4 tickets for 4 quarter-pints.  One thing that was the same was the fun live entertainment.  I was glad to catch Boy Eats Drum Machine's set -- his funky one-man-band antics stuck in my mind from last year's fest.

Hopworks really pulled out the stops with the beer this year. Last year I only remember a couple of special beers -- Ace of Spades and fresh-hop Bike Beer -- but this year there were a bunch of brilliant seasonals and one-offs:

• Piledriver: Hopworks' Dubbel barrel-aged with cherries and wacky brettanomyces yeast
• Gayle's Pale: first fresh-hop ale of the year
• For Those about to Bock: Barrel-aged Bock
• Noggin' Floggin': Barrel-aged barleywine
• Ace of Spades: Imperial IPA
• Galactic: Imperial Red

All of that in addition to the Hopworks standards.  I'm pretty tough to please with fresh-hop beers -- it has to knock me out with resinous freshness -- so Gayle's Pale was a little disappointing to me, though it was a fine enough pale ale.  The Piledriver was a gem: the cherries were a welcome addition to an already decent Abbey Ale, and the brettanomyces seemed to dry it out nicely without making it one of these sour endurance tests.

Portlandbeer.org has a nice writeup from Marcus and some of Matt's magnificent photos.

Planning Your Portland Bicycle Pub Crawl

A few months ago Google Maps added bicycling directions as one of the options for how to get from A to B on their maps.  There's a warning that "bicycling directions are in beta", and some of the early routes I tried were very silly, like going 4 blocks out of the way to end up going the wrong direction on the Hawthorne Bridge sidewalk.  There is a link you can click on every map to report problems, and they have been dutifully swatting them down as people send them in -- for example, the Hawthorne Bridge issues got taken care of pretty quickly.  I'm sure that eventually the Google biking directions will be an incredibly useful tool, but they're not ready for prime time yet.

If you're planning some Portland bicycle pub crawls this summer, your best resource is Metro's Bike There map, because some of the Google directions are more dangerous than they have to be, and others are just physically impossible.  Another option which is better than Google right now is byCycle.org, though it too is labeled "beta", and hasn't been updated for three years.

One route Google can't seem to get right is one of my favorite bugaboos -- biking to Hopworks Urban Brewery.  Powell Boulevard is never a fun place to bike, even for hardened urban riders, so a year and a half ago I made a custom Google map describing some of the best approaches to Hopworks. Because there's no road to the pub from south of Powell, at some point you have to be eastbound on Powell, or possibly westbound on the south sidewalk (and if you're doing that, I hope you're walking your bike).  If you're approaching from the north and want the least amount of hassle with Powell, the crosswalk at 28th Place pictured here is your best bet -- sneak up to it through the McDonald's parking lot.

Now consider the Google biking directions to HUB, which currently insist on a right turn on Powell at 31st -- even if you start out northwest of Hopworks -- with the final instruction being "Destination will be on the left".  That might be reasonable, if the directions had you take the crosswalk at 31st, and walk your bike against traffic on the far sidewalk. But if you weren't familiar with the area, you might think you could take a right and then merge over to the turn lane and wait for an opening to make your left.  It's theoretically possible, but you'll sure need a beer after you pull it off.  Take my advice, use the It's Pub Night map to Hopworks instead.

Another brewery destination that is currently bungled in Google bicycling directions is Upright.  Suppose you decide to bicycle from Hopworks to Upright.  Amazingly, the Google directions (pictured at the top of this post) send you across the Hawthorne Bridge, eventually onto Naito Boulevard, turning right -- no, left -- whoops -- onto the Broadway Bridge.  I suppose you could carry your bike up the steps to the bridge, but that's probably not what you had in mind.  If you already kind of know the route, you can drag the lines around to eventually get a map that keeps you on the east side of the river.  But no amount of fiddling would get it to take the most natural route past the Rose Garden -- in the Wheeler bike lane instead of Interstate -- maybe because that involves a little bit of sidewalk action against traffic.

Even no-brainers like the route from the Horse Brass to the Lucky Lab are not very good yet.  Most people would stay on Taylor when Google sends you to Salmon at 41st, since the pedestrian stoplight gives you more chances to cross Cesar Chavez (39th) than you'd get on Salmon, and then there are no stop signs on Taylor until it dead-ends at 35th.  Later on, Google meanders you off of Salmon when it's at its bicycling best, between 20th and 12th.  Those are just little annoyances, but if you reverse the directions and go from the Lucky Lab to the Horse Brass, Google sends you right up Hawthorne to 41st.  You might do that very late at night, but even then, Salmon/Taylor is the nicer route.

Interestingly, even though byCycle.org has been dormant for years -- and is far from perfect -- it passes the tests above better than Google does today.  It chooses the correct routes both ways between the Brass and the Lab, at Hopworks it gives you a right turn off of Powell instead of a left, and it keeps you on the east side of the river if you're headed to Upright.  Its Upright directions are not great -- even with its "safer" setting it puts you on SE 12th for a mile or so -- though if you're headed south from Upright, it correctly finds the bike path along the Eastbank Esplanade.

The Google biking directions are getting better all the time, and will someday be very valuable.  But don't count on them this year.  As I mentioned above, what you really want is the Bike There map.  There's a new edition out this year, and it will never put you in the suicide lane on Powell Boulevard or make you fly up to a bridge from the road underneath it.

Hopworks Rise Up Red

[Editor's Note:  Since several of the finer Portland beer blogs are now having guest bloggers, I decided to get with the program and solicit the help of my next-door neighbor and beer buddy Dave.  He was supposed to give me this article a couple weeks ago; by getting it to me so late, he has passed his first test and shown himself to have the right work ethic for beer blogging.  Thanks, Dave!]

Bill was gracious enough to let a scheduling conflict prevent him from attending Hopworks' bottle release party for Rise Up Red, their GABF gold-medal winning red ale, and deputized me to take his place. This is the third seasonal offered in bottles from HUB, preceded by Secession Black Ale and Ace of Spades. Christian outlined HUB's seasonal release strategy as alternating between sessionable offerings and higher alcohol beers.  There was no mention of the recent imperial red, but it sounds like we'll see bottlings of a barley wine and the Abominable winter ale.

Rise Up Red is a solid NW Red; it's not overly malty, letting the bitterness of the hops shine through. I had the cask version today and was blown away by the citrus nose, something I wasn't getting from the bottle and CO2 pours.

Christian gave one the most comprehensive brewery tours I've been on; it was a perfect blend of brewing science and his passion for the craft. Beyond Christian’s animated tour-guiding, the two highlights of the tour were: A) Standing in the cooler getting pours from a pigtail while freezing my ass off, and B) Snuffing crushed Amarillo hop flowers to illustrate how much resin is lost in the pelletizing process. Given Christian’s attention to maintaining a low carbon footprint, I wondered aloud if there was any benefit in shipping the condensed hops: The obvious answer was that weight has more to do with MPG than volume, and the main benefit of pellets is shelf-life. He also brought up that the only organic hops are grown in New Zealand and Germany, and that to brew a truly organic beer would result in a ridiculous carbon footprint.

Another highlight was meeting HUB’s graphic designer, Astrogirl, who was also on hand at the release party. She is the creative genius behind the Hopworks identity (see Beervana’s excellent dissection here).

Thanks to Christian for being a gracious host and putting up with my less-than-intelligent questions. The delay in getting this post to press is entirely my fault (I’ll still find a way to blame my children for it).

Cheers to Belgian Beers 2010

Had a great time Saturday at Hopworks for the 4th annual Portland Cheers to Belgian Beers festival. The upper parking lot was bustling with jovial beer drinkers, but it wasn't over-crowded like a couple of years ago when the Fresh Hop Festival was held at the same venue. The weather was just right, lines were never long, and as far as I know, there were no beer outages by the time I left about 4 PM. There was a nice variety of mostly good beers, tasty snacks in the $3-$6 range were served at the top of the lot, and alphabetical order was adhered to pretty closely. In short, it was everything you could hope for in a beer festival. Congratulations to Hopworks, the Oregon Brewers Guild, and everyone involved for a job well done.

There were 29 beers that used this year's prescribed Belgian yeast, and were thus eligible for the festival's People's Choice award (Kevin has a nicely formatted list of this year's beers). I got around to tasting fewer than half of the 29. My favorites, roughly in order:

• Big Horse Cuvee de Ferme (Sour Saison/Golden blend): sour balanced well with malt, peachy notes.  Grade: A
• Upright Mingus and Monk (Farmhouse Brown): tart, cherry notes, with bitter finish. Grade: A
• Green Dragon King Ghidorah (Biere de garde): funky and full-bodied with vanilla and banana notes. Grade: A
• Deschutes Portland Sinfully Delicious (Dark Strong Ale): nice Abbey dubbel. Grade: A-
• Widmer Biere de Table (Farmhouse Table Beer): very drinkable with light grassy, lemony flavors. Grade: A-
• Oakshire La Ferme (Farmhouse Ale): nicely dry and citrusy, surprisingly bitter for 15 IBUs. Grade: B+

Pretty near everyone I talked to got the Widmer table beer as their first try, since it was a very tame 3% alcohol.  Lots of people have noted a growing trend of trying to produce flavorful beers with lower alcohol levels.  It's a worthy endeavor, and the Biere de Table was a great example of a light, refreshing, food-oriented beer.  Along those lines, the 4.8% Tropisch Bruin from the Deschutes Bend brewery was also a pretty nice table beer, I'll give it a B grade. Cascade's Frite Galois was a 4.6% sour ale that had some nice flavors, but had a chalky finish that I didn't care for.  It gets a B- from me.

I listed the Big Horse sour in first place above -- I thought it had the best-balanced combination of interesting flavors -- but as I left the festival I cast my ballot for the Upright Farmhouse Brown, partly out of personal loyalty to Corey and Alex, partly out of the calculation that I didn't want to risk sending the festival to Hood River next year.  It wasn't much of a stretch, it was a fine beer.  I also think that aging will make Mingus and Monk into an even nicer beer than it was Saturday, and I suspect that Alex will oblige us by bringing a little out at a time as the months go by.

In fact, a lot of the beers at the festival would probably benefit from a few months' aging: I especially thought that the Oakshire and Green Dragon entries were not yet at their best.  It was kind of a common refrain in talking to people about the beers -- "I'd like to try this again in a few months".  Talking to Derek and Josh at the festival, they had the idea that this year's winner should announce next year's yeast immediately to give brewers more time for experimenting and aging.  One of them even proposed scheduling out the yeast several years ahead of time, but I'm not sure the brewers are taking the event quite as seriously as the rest of us are.

To fill in some of the gaps I left in the list, and for valuable second opinions, check out the writeups by other Portland bloggers: Dr. Wort, Derek, Jeff, Angelo, Brady.

Update: The People's Choice winner has been announced: Block 15 Ferme de Demons Black Saison.  Congratulations, Block 15!  Definitely one of the most creative breweries in the state, though I'll admit that Ferme de Demons was one of my least favorites of the festival.  Now the big question is, where will the CtBB be held in 2011?

BikeToBeerFest 2009

You gotta hand it to Christian Ettinger for taking a chance on BikeToBeerFest. Closing both parking lots at Hopworks Saturday was a bold move, and one that could have blown up in his face. But attendance was good when I was there for a couple of hours in the afternoon, so I suspect that it wasn't a money loser. It was a really good time, and I hope it becomes an annual tradition. By the way, note the spelling -- it's not "Biketoberfest", which was trademarked by a motorcycle event in Florida -- but "bike-to-beer-fest". Nice.

The back parking lot and dead-end street were organized really well for the fest. A couple tents with picnic tables were set up on the east side of the lot, between a snack bar and the music stage. In front of the stage was a dance/bike-trick area, and a little more space in front of the tents where a lot of people sat or stood to take in the acts. After some old guys on BMX bikes showed their stuff, local one-man-band Boy Eats Drum Machine put on an impressive show, followed by bike-scene darlings the Sprockettes. I bailed out pretty soon after that, but there was plenty more entertainment as the evening went on, ending up with the March Fourth Marching Band.

Booths for a few local bicycle frame-builders were set up along the west side of the parking lot, as was the now famous Hopworksfiets pictured at the top. The kegs on the beer bike were dispensing two wonderful beers: a pale ale called Bike Beer, brewed for the occasion, with a dose of fresh hops; and the Ace of Spades, a flavor-packed double IPA. There was plenty of space for milling around between the east and west sides of the festival -- not at all like the fire-hazard conditions at last year's Fresh Hop Festival.

Sounds like a lot of action, but wait! There's more! The back forty of Hopworks' long lot had its own share of attractions. A good supply of porta-potties, a row of beer taps with shorter lines than in the front area, a washer-toss area, and best of all, the playing field for a fabulous new sport: Huffy throwing. It's harder than it sounds -- sorry Steve, looks like you gave up a couple of yards by not getting all the way up to the line -- but some people either had a knack for it, or had practiced beforehand. The furthest throw I saw was probably about 15 yards with a good bounce -- very impressive.

BikeToBeerFest was definitely not your everyday beer festival -- only one brewery, pints instead of samples, no cars allowed. That's a good thing, something new and fun for the whole family. Congratulations to the whole Hopworks crew for pulling it off.

Honest Pints

I was tickled today to notice that the Portland Deschutes Pub now has a 0.5 liter fill line -- 16.9 ounces -- on their Irish-style pint glasses. Not only that, but their skinny half-serving glasses have a 0.3 l marker, and their tulip-shaped snifters have a line at 0.4 l. Admittedly, it's been a few weeks since I've been to the pub, but this seems like a new development. Thank you, Deschutes! You join the elite ranks of Belmont Station (0.5 l marker), Hopworks (0.4 l marker), and Brewers Union (20 oz. marker) who have a fill line marked on their glassware. Anyone else out there?

Marked glassware is really the way to go. I'm a big fan of Jeff Alworth's Honest Pint Project -- I even bought the T-shirt -- but Jeff doesn't require the glass to be marked, just that it have room for 16 ounces of beer:

The criteria for certification is simple: the pub must serve at least 16 fluid ounces for beers it labels “pints.” If the glass holds more than 16 ounces, fantastic. For certification, though, it must serve at least 16 ounces. You have to confirm this by measuring.

I get Jeff's honest pint point: if it's called a "pint", it should be 16 ounces. But that scheme goes too far, and not far enough. What I mean is, you'll rarely get 16 ounces of beer in a serving at Hopworks, but you'll know that you got at least 0.4 liters (13.5 ounces) if the beer is up to the fill line. On the other hand, a place might get certified by the HPP based on a picture of one instance of 16 ounces of beer, but how can you know how much you got in the glass you just ordered?

It's a minor quibble. The real villains are those establishments who serve "pints" in 14-ounce shaker glasses. Then you think you've got a pint of beer, but you're probably somewhere around 12 ounces. There's a one-syllable word for such a business practice: fraud. There's no enforcement against such short-changing, even though it's clearly proscribed by Oregon's Weights and Measures law:

618.096 Prohibited acts involving commercial weights and measures. No person shall:
...
(5) Sell, offer or expose for sale, less than the quantity the person represents of any commodity, thing or service.

Kudos to Deschutes for their new transparency. Support your local pub, and support the Honest Pint Project.

Best Routes for Biking to Hopworks

The sun is shining on me, and it looks like there's a break in the weather for the next few days. You might have a mind to hop on your bike and hit a pub or two this weekend. Seems like a good time to trot out this Google map I made to show the best bicycle approaches to Hopworks.


View Larger Map

The Hopworks website links to a (huge) hard-to-read map from the city that doesn't even have the pub marked on it. I proposed this map to Christian Ettinger as a replacement, and we exchanged a couple emails, but nothing ever came of it, so I'm releasing it into the wild. (HUB folks, feel free to link to the map or this page.) If you click over to the Google map, there is a column of text explaining the markers and lines on the map.

Of course, we're not talking Tigard or Gresham, but by inner-Portland standards, Hopworks' location on Powell Boulevard is not that great for bicycling. The map tries to show routes from north or south that would be comfortable for most Portland bicyclists. Very experienced cyclists might brave the left turn onto Powell at 26th, and even stay on Powell for the short stretch to Hopworks. I've done that myself, but that left turn can be a problem in busy traffic. So I list a couple of other options for more cautious riders, or those traveling with children.

One weakness of this map is that it really only helps you if you're already on the Eastside. Put yourself in Christian's shoes: he lives in Southwest, so to get to his pub he rides his bike on the sidewalk across the Ross Island Bridge. That's got to be a nasty ride. My hat's off to him.

Have fun enjoying Portland's beer and bike cultures! Be safe out there. Follow the traffic laws -- they're there to maximize everyone's peace of mind -- and don't terrorize the pedestrians.

Cheap Growlers at Hopworks

When I complain about the price difference between six-packs and draft growlers in Portland, I always get comments pointing out that pubs have a different cost structure than bottling breweries. The commenters patiently explain that the only fair comparison is between growler prices and the price of pints or pitchers served at the bar.

That makes sense from the business perspective, but at some point the business perspective has to take into account the customer perspective, which just checks the price of beer to-go. In my original rant, I mused that cheaper growlers "could even be a way to boost pub business: sit down for a pint and get a discount on your growler fill".

Hopworks has a similar sensible idea. Get some food to go, and get a growler discount. Here's how they describe it in their latest email newsletters:

Greenspand-er To-Go Deal! Order a large pizza and growler to-go and get $5 off! In these uncertain economic times it’s nice to know you can still fill up on tasty organic beer and pizza for less than it costs to fill your gas tank.

(Gas tank? What kind of talk is that from the bikiest brewpub in town? Oops, sorry, wrong rant.) That $5 off is the kind of deal I've been looking for. Let's do some creative accounting, and knock all the savings off of the beer rather than credit some to the pizza. That gives you a $10 Hopworks growler for $5 -- a six-pack equivalent price of $5.63. That's a good deal these days.

I haven't taken advantage of the Greenspander yet, but I love the idea. It's that kind of thinking that can help brewpubs get more of the beer-at-home market.

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!

The Bikiest Brewpub in Portland?

A couple weeks ago John Foyston worked a short review of Hopworks into the Oregonian under the O's Cheap Eats rubric. No slam on either John or Hopworks, but journalists must be doing pretty well these days, if a $9.25 burger qualifies as cheap. Anyway, I don't want to quibble over the definition of "cheap".... Instead I want to take issue with the opening sentence of John's review.

"Portland's bikiest, most sustainable brewpub is now open," writes John. I definitely applaud HUB's moves for sustainability, and I love the bike theme in both the name and the decor of the place. But I had a visceral reaction to the word "bikiest", because anyone who could describe HUB that way has obviously never arrived there by bike [Update (2008/10/28): That was a stupid thing to write -- John obviously has arrived by bike (retraction).].

When I first heard of Hopworks, my immediate thought was, "How am I going to bike there?" I've been getting around by bike for a long time, and I'm not afraid to ride in traffic if I need to. Nevertheless, Powell Blvd. is one of those car-clogged behemoths that makes you roll your eyes when you think about crossing it. If you try and approach from SE 29th, depending on the time of day, you'll watch wave after wave of westbound and eastbound traffic until you get an opening in both directions to scurry through. If you'd rather cross Powell with a traffic signal, your choices are 26th and 33rd, three or four blocks on either side of Hopworks. That probably means you'll walk your bike on the sidewalk from that intersection, though if you love adrenaline you could battle the pent-up traffic both ways and turn left at 26th.

Then I thought, well, fair enough, the people living south of Powell now have a place they can bike to easily. But if you look at a map, their choices are little better -- the nearest neighborhood streets that go through to Powell from the south are 28th and 32nd. And check out this snippet from a map of pedestrian injuries and deaths between 1995 and 2004. HUB is just west of the big dot signifying two pedestrian injuries; the little dots are locations where one pedestrian was injured; the X's are pedestrian fatalities.

Here's another map showing bicycle collisions between 2003 and 2006. Whoops, looks like crossing Powell at 26th isn't such a great idea -- 4 or more bike crashes at that corner during that period. At least there was only one bike crash at 33rd. The point is, whether you're walking or biking to Hopworks, the volume and speed of traffic in that area is a danger to those not encased in metal pods, even if you come from further south.

For the bikiest brewpub, I would put forth someplace like Roots or the Lucky Lab, which draw lots of biking patrons and have good connections to bike lanes and bike routes. Or maybe the Quimby Street Lucky Lab -- the first time I biked over there, I was fuming that I had to lock up to a stop sign, only to walk in and find out that the bike rack is indoors.

Of course, there are worse locations than 30th and Powell -- at least it's close in. I've biked to Hopworks a few times and will continue to do so -- the beer is fantastic, as is the moderately-priced organically-grown food. And I'm not alone, either: the bike racks out front are usually so full that I have to lock up to the wheelchair ramp alongside the parking lot. I suspect that HUB's community spirit will be a good influence on future traffic planning for the area, but for now its location alone keeps it from being the "bikiest".