Manchester Craft Brewery Crawl

If you've spent any time with me, you've heard my lecture along the lines of "Well you know, for us cask ale is an especially good kind of craft beer, but in England the cask ale lovers hate 'craft beer'".  It's true.  The CAMRA crowd consider craft beer to be too expensive, too strong, too gassy, and too pretentious.  When I'm travelling there, I fall in with the real ale crowd and spend almost all of my time in real ale pubs.  That's my own pretentiousness showing, though I sincerely love the pub atmosphere and the lower-alcohol beer.  And I appreciate a bargain.

On a trip to Manchester this month with Pub Night charter member Lindsey, we mostly focused on cask places, but we did set aside a day for a craft beer crawl.  We started at the venerable Northern Monk Refectory in the Northern Quarter, continuing on to Cloudwater, Track, and Sureshot in the industrial area on the wrong side of the tracks behind Piccadilly train station.  Balance Brewing a few doors down from Sureshot was closed for our crawl so we visited it a few days later.

Tip: Google Maps gives horrible walking directions in Manchester.  It will never tell you to take the scenic canal walk from Northern Monk to Cloudwater shown on this map.  Instead it will march you along 4-lane thoroughfares the whole way.  And the canal path is such a cool walk!  See how the map shows the canal going under Store St?  When you walk it, you discover that the canal is lifted up over Store St.  It's delightful.  One way to get better walking hints is to turn on the bicycle layer in Google Maps -- it will show nicer streets or paths to walk on.  Maybe Google's deficiency isn't Manchester-specific -- I was also mystified by some of its choices in Liverpool and a small town in Wales.

Northern Monk

I first learned about Northern Monk on a visit to Leeds -- where they are based -- a few years ago.  Then on my last pre-Covid trip abroad in December 2019 I checked out the Manchester location which wasn't far from my hotel.  Rare among craft beer taprooms in England, NM has a guest kitchen serving hot food like Lindsey's meatball sandwich there.  On our visit they had a number of good hoppy ales on tap, along with a pastry stout and a couple of lagers.  There were a handful of guest taps, and three cask engines were on.  As a general principle, don't order cask ale at craft brewery taprooms in England -- it is not their strong suit and you will get better cask at pubs that know what to serve and how to handle it.  That principle held mostly true on this pub crawl:  we were usually disappointed in the cask offerings, here included.

One interesting recent development at Northern Monk is their commitment to make more non-alcoholic beers and hop waters.  For example, the two smaller glasses in the picture here are the flagship hazy pale ale Faith at 5.4% -- delicious -- and Holy Faith at 0.5%.  I didn't try A Little Faith (4.0%), but Holy Faith was a really good AF beer, one of the best I've tried.  They use the Holy prefix on their alcohol-free beers.

Cloudwater Brewery

Cloudwater is one of the most respected craft brewers in the UK, so popular that you sometimes see it distributed in the US.  The taproom atmosphere is pretty basic, but the tap list offers a lot of variety.  There are a couple of cask engines (as I said above, probably not the best play) and 20 keg beers including a nitro tap and an AF IPA.  Some pretty creative offerings when we visited -- I enjoyed the perry-barrel-aged saison, but I wasn't crazy about the hopfenweisse.  Imperial Gose?  I wonder what royal family needed sturdy export beer from Goslar.  And of course plenty of hoppy offerings.

There is also a refrigerator full of cans from Cloudwater and guests, if the taps don't cover you.  There's not a kitchen as such, but the £6 cheese plate was generous enough to power us on to three more bars that evening.

Track Brewing

Right across the street from Cloudwater is the taproom for Track Brewing (warning -- McAfee doesn't like this website, and in my desktop Chrome there is an annoying news popup that won't go away).  On my previous visit it was even closer, since Track was renting the space underneath Cloudwater's taproom.  It looks like they moved into their permanent location in mid-2021, and it's a spacious and comfortable industrial space that opens onto the brewhouse.  Twenty kegs and two casks.

The beers at Track were my favorite of the crawl, and that is high praise indeed because Northern Monk and Cloudwater are nothing to sneeze at.  That includes the cask ale we tried -- I wasn't taking good notes, so while I think it was the flagship Sonoma, it might have been the barrel-aged helles.  It was the only craft cask that night that I thought was up to the mark.  The staff on duty were unable to tell me if the "wet-hopped" pilsner was what is more correctly called "fresh-hopped", but I kind of doubt it.  The local terminology is usually "green-hopped", and it didn't seem to have the fresh hop notes I would expect, though it was pleasant enough for a 7.2% monster.  The smoked helles was tastefully done, and I loved the barrel-aged Vienna lager.

Sureshot Brewing

For the last decade or so, the Victorian-era brick railway arches behind Piccadilly station have provided cheap digs for a number of Manchester craft breweries.  Track started in a railway arch, and relative newcomers Sureshot and Balance (see below) have made very pleasant taprooms under the arches.  I really enjoyed our visit to Sureshot, but somehow I came away without a single photograph of the place, maybe because we struck up a conversation with a dapper young fellow who turned out to be a delegate to the Conservative Party convention that was taking place that week in Manchester.

"Hey, you're wearing a suit, are you with the Tories?"

[Looking around]  "shh, shhhh.  As a matter of fact, I am."

"Next round's on you!"

"Please turn your phone off."

The beer at Sureshot is not bad, but I would say it isn't yet up to the caliber of the other places on the crawl.  Nevertheless, it is well worth a visit, because the place is fun, even when you are talking politics.  Since I don't have a picture of the taproom, I can offer up a picture of the souvenir cans I went back and bought later.  Clever packaging that someone put a lot of thought into.  Pictured here are We'll Burn that Bridge when We Come to It Pale Ale, Let Me Tell You about My Mother DDH Pale Ale, I've Started so I'll Finish DDH IPA, and Double Dipped Chip Double IPA (not pictured: I Cannae Change the Laws of Physics American Pale Ale, with the image of Starfleet Lt. Cmdr. Montgomery Scott).  Double Dipped Chip was a big hit when I sampled it out to Austin friends.

Balance Brewing & Blending

A few doors down from Sureshot is Balance Brewing & Blending, which is well worth a visit if you have any interest at all in sour beers.  They've filled the back of their railway arch with barrels and foeders containing their mixed-culture concoctions.  In the front is a laid-back tasting room, where the 6 taps have a combination of house and guest beers, all of the wild variety.  When we were there, they had three of their own on, two tasty fruit beers from Crossover which is improbably located between Luton and Cambridge, and a nice table beer from Burning Sky, more believably situated just outside of Brighton.  My favorite when we visited was Balance's Apricot Wild Ale, but if I remember right, Lindsey favored their Saison de Maison.  I also liked one of the Crossover beers a lot -- I think it was the Raspberry-Plum one called Purple Bell, but it might have been the Cuckoo flavored with Cherry and Blackcurrant.  They have some cans and bottles for sale to go, but they were out of my price range.

Tourist's Guide to the Oregon Brewers Festival (3rd Edition)

I love the OBF.  Sure the Oregon Brewers Festival gets crowded as the weekend wears on, and it's often hot and dusty, and there is only one beer from each brewery.  Still, it's hard to beat in terms of a happy crowd and pretty surroundings.

In 2008 I wrote up a meandering guide to the Oregon Brewers Festival, which I followed up with a more to-the-point Tourist's Guide in 2010.  The rest of this post is a rerun of that 2010 guide, updated with even more Eastside places to drink beer.  The guide and the accompanying map have recommendations of things to do within walking distance of the festival, not all of which have to do with beer.

The Journey is the Destination

The OBF's location at Tom McCall Waterfront Park makes for a nice 2.5 mile loop along the east and west banks of the Willamette River, walking over or under four of Portland's drawbridges. Go south along the river, beneath the Morrison Bridge, and cross the Willamette (rhymes with "dammit", by the way) on the beautiful Hawthorne Bridge (1910). Pedestrians should keep toward the bridge railing -- bicycles get the part of the sidewalk nearest the cars. Follow the curving sidewalk down to the path on the east side of the river, the Eastbank Esplanade.


View Larger Map

Heading north along the river, accompanied by the automotive roar of I-5 overhead, you'll cross under the Morrison and Burnside Bridges before coming to a stretch of the sidewalk which actually floats in the Willamette. You'll cross the river back to Waterfront Park on the Steel Bridge (1914). There are other double-deck drawbridges in the world, but the Steel Bridge is the only one that telescopes: the lower deck can be raised while the upper deck remains open to traffic.  (For a shorter route, take the corkscrew sidewalk up to the nice wide sidewalk on the Morrison Bridge, and then cross Naito to get back to the festival.)

For Kids of All Ages

If you brought your kids to the festival and need to give them a break, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) is a science museum on the east side of the river, just south of the Hawthorne Bridge, easily accessible from the Esplanade. There is also an IMAX theater and planetarium at OMSI.

Another interesting eastside youth attraction is the skateboard park hidden under the Burnside Bridge. Originally a do-it-yourself project that was later embraced by the city, you can't get to it directly from the pedestrian loop described above -- you can't even see it from there. You have to get onto the south sidewalk of the Burnside Bridge, either on the west side at Saturday Market, or by taking the stairs labeled "Burnside" from the Esplanade. Follow the Burnside sidewalk to MLK, turn right and go a block to Ankeny, turn right and go two blocks to 2nd (the sidewalk runs out), and turn right again to go under the bridge. You probably shouldn't go down there at night, but it's a cool thing to see during the day.

More Beer!

There are several interesting pub options you can walk to from the festival.

The Morrison Bridge sidewalk drops you right at the door of the Hair of the Dog tasting room at Water and Yamhill Streets.

The Full Sail Pilsner Room [review] is about 3/4 mile south of the festival. Go underneath the Hawthorne Bridge and follow the sidewalk down towards the sailboat harbor.

Bailey's Taproom [review] is about 1/2 mile west of the festival. Follow Oak St. across Broadway, Bailey's is one block to your right.  Tugboat Brewing Company [review] is across Ankeny.

If you took the stroll to the east side of the river, you're only about a half-mile from a cluster of breweries in a neighborhood that is also known as Distillery Row:  the Lucky Labrador [review] at 9th and Hawthorne, the Green Dragon [review] at 9th and Yamhill, Cascade Barrel House at 10th and Belmont, and the Commons Brewery at 10th and Stephens.  There is also a brand-new taproom at the corner of 12th and Hawthorne:  Lardo has about 15 nice taps, and high-fat snacks.

Further Afield

This article is too long already, so I'll briefly list a few more attractions that you should see while you're in Portland.

• Portland Aerial Tram: our answer to the monorail.
• Horse Brass Pub [review]: a national treasure. Now non-smoking!
• International Rose Test Garden: flowers and vistas.
• Ladd's Addition Rose Gardens: short walk from the Lucky Lab.
  

The Horse Brass would be quite a long walk: take bus #15 (to Parkrose) and get off near SE 45th. The Tram is not too long of a walk if you're already at the Pilsner Room, but it's not a very pleasant one; you could also take the streetcar.

Portland Pub Crawl: NW 17th and 16th

This is the second in our series of Portland pub crawls (the first one was a mile-long classic SE Portland pub crawl).  This isn't a total beer geek-out -- the only place on the main list that really has a beer focus is Caps and Corks -- it's a sociable and short stroll through a few interesting places that you might not have heard of before.  The pub crawl centers on a growing bar scene that sits in the shadow of the I-405 flyovers heading up to the Fremont Bridge.  It's easy to get there via the Portland Streetcar or the #77 bus, and if you stay too late to catch the train or bus home, the Radio Cab garage is right there.  If you're biking there, the best east-west through streets are Overton and Johnson.

Click on the pins of the map for more details like opening hours:


View Portland Pub Crawl: NW 17th and 16th in a larger map

The green pins represent the main route on the pub crawl starting at NW 17th and Marshall; the yellow pins are optional but interesting places nearby.

Main route:

• Bent Brick: A somewhat upscale "tavern" spin-off of Park Kitchen. Five carefully-chosen beer taps.
• Moonshine Kitchen and Lounge (aka Paymaster): Homey bar with a few nice beers, a cider tap, and a burger-and-fries menu.
• Caps and Corks: Fun little bottleshop with 400 bottled beer choices, 7 taps (soon to be more), and imperial pints.
• Slabtown: Ostentatiously seedy dive that focuses on live music at night. A few drinkable beer taps along the lines of Lagunitas, Deschutes, and Ninkasi.

Optional add-ons:

• Yur's: Comfortable and friendly dive bar with excellent greasy-spoon menu and a few good beers on tap, a couple blocks down from Slabtown on 16th.
• Bridgeport Brewpub: If your pub crawl must visit a brewery, you can start off at Bridgeport, a couple blocks east of the Bent Brick on Marshall.
• Lucky Lab: A bit further afield, a classic Portland brewpub at NW 20th and Quimby.
• Le Happy: A late-night French cafe and creperie in the same block as Slabtown.  No beer to speak of, but a cozy atmosphere and full bar.

The impetus for writing up this overlooked corner of town is that I'm about to move out of my office at 18th and Lovejoy, so I wanted to document the neighborhood's drinking opportunities while they are still part of my regular beat.  You get both ends of the spectrum by starting at the fancy-pants Bent Brick and ending up at gritty Slabtown, but each place has its own charm.  For instance, not only does Slabtown have several pinball machines and a Ms. PacMan, but it also has air hockey, pop-a-shot, skeeball, and some weird coin-operated punching bag.  Just don't eat there unless the recent management change has improved the kitchen.

I also highly recommend a visit to Yur's, which is my favorite dive bar in Portland.  It always feels like nighttime in there, which makes it a nice break in the middle of the day.  And even though it's got plenty of atmosphere, you won't get that "Yeh ain't from around here, ere yeh?" attitude that some dives drape themselves in (Slabtown is a little bit like that, though it's far from the worst offender in town).  Yur's is by no means a beer-geek paradise, but they always have something workable, and they usually have one or two choices that are a little off the beaten path like Coalition or Migration.

BenderPDX: Finding New Portland Bars

Here's a great idea:  a computer program that scours OLCC filings online, and creates a Google map of all the new liquor licenses that have been applied for recently.  Portland computer expert and cocktail aficionado Chris Barker has created just such a program, and publishes links to its maps on Twitter.  Here's this week's map:


View Larger Map

Chris calls his creation BenderPDX. The Futurama reference is a good name for a Twitter bot, especially one that can see into the alcoholic future. If you follow BenderPDX on Twitter -- or even just occasionally click that link to check the feed -- you'll get the link to the latest map.

With a hat tip to #pdxbeergeeks and their series of Meet the Geek blog posts, I decided to bombard Chris with some questions about BenderPDX.

______________________________________

BN: I used to occasionally try to remember to look up the OLCC filings to see what was coming down the pipe in Portland, but I wasn't very regular about it, and it's kind of boring. BenderPDX is like a dream come true for me, with a Google map to boot! Why did you create a bot like this?

CB: Thanks! I'm glad to know that other people are finding BenderPDX to be useful. I live out near Mt. Tabor, so when my "good enough" Thai place closed and I found out it was being replaced with Tabor Tavern via a news blurb in Eater, I realized I wanted to know when more places were coming in. I have done work in Python in the past, so I figured that I could probably find a module to strip addresses from the OLCC PDF that gets posted weekly, and then once I had the addresses, I could do some geocoding and then make a Google Earth KML file to view it. It was only after I had gotten that working that I realized it was only a few more lines of code to get bit.ly url shortening and tweeting worked into the script as well.

BN: How often do updates come out? Is it automatic? How do you make sure it finds the right documents at the right time?

CB: The first iteration of the script is manually invoked, it just dumps the output from the PDF to kml then tweets it. The new version (which does Portland only), scrapes the HTML from Portlandonline.com's liquor license notification page, which includes links to the submitted applications in PDF.  It is still very much a work in progress, and I don't have much in the way of integrity checks yet, so if there is a garbage upstream or I don't parse the location properly, you might end up with a bad link or pin location (usually right in the center of Portland).

Eventually I hope BenderPDX will be able to do a collection of different actions, so weekly OLCC updates, as they come in single business notifications, and random snarky Bender quotes as appropriate. And really, it's an excuse for me to keep playing with Python some more.

BN: How long do entries stay on the map? Are there links from the map to the source documents?

CB: Right now for simplicity, I just show the 15 newest applications in Portland, but each tweet BenderPDX generates is to its own map. So yesterday's tweet is a link to the map it built yesterday, and so on. As I expand on the concept, I hope to clean it up a lot and make it a little less hacky. The pins should link folks to the actual PDF of the business's application, but I have no idea how long Portland Online keeps those records available, and I don't want to get into the grey area of caching/hosting them locally. The rest of the information is just scraped from the same notification page I got the PDF links from.

BN: I met you through my friend Lindsey, who knew you as mrzarquon from Metafilter events. How did you get involved in the Portland Metafilter community? Are Metafilter people as cool as Beer people? Are there flesh-and-blood Metafilter groups everywhere, or just in Portland?

CB: I've been a member of MetaFilter since 2005, and starting going to local events put together by MeFites when I was living in Seattle. I've been to meetups in LA, Chicago, and San Francisco as well. I was actually attending Portland meetups long before I had moved here, as I loved the city and found that it was a great excuse to get to know people here in anticipation of eventually moving. For the tenth anniversary, Metafilter had 67 meetups on all seven continents (yes, even Antartica).

Being a member of MetaFilter means you have a social network stretching around the world full of interesting and strange people. When you hang out with Beer people (or cocktail people, or car people), you can in a way have a diverse group of people who all share this one common interest. When you hang out with a group of MetaFilter folks, the common interest is intelligent discussion on the internet, which can encompass beer, cars, computers, politics, healthcare, mortuary practices, what is the most cost effective way to raise chickens and what was the name of that song you heard that one time while watching Saturday morning cartoons as a kid. I don't know if I have a common definition of Cool, but I find that meetups with other folks from Metafilter to be interesting if not fascinating. I am proud to say I participate in a community where folks like Adam Savage drop by, because they like the conversation and the topics discussed.

BN: What's your day job? Have you spawned any other bots we should know about?

CB: I work for Portland State, doing IT work for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. In short, I herd professors and help make sure that they get their labs and systems setup properly, so they can focus on teaching instead of how to get their bioinformatics software working in a new lab. In the past I've worked mostly as an IT consultant, so the change in pace (from 60+ hours/week and travel to 40 hours and a bus commute) has finally allowed me to pursue honing some of my programming skills and working on making some creative projects for once, not just troubleshooting an Exchange server at two in the morning or flying across the country to repair someone's SAN.

BenderPDX is my first bot, I'm hoping to work on extending it out nicely so it is a genuine robust script, and not something "good enough." There is a ton of potential in parsing twitter feeds, and the other day I was thinking how it would be cool for there to be an #ontappdx like system but for food carts, but my programming abilities aren't up to that task yet.

BN: What kind of bars are you hoping BenderPDX finds for you? What are your current favorite places in town?

CB: Interesting ones near my house, so I can walk home afterwards. I like places that do creative things with alcohol, so a bar that actually knows to stir a Manhattan and not muddle the orange in an Old Fashioned are things I am always looking out for.

Of my favorite places in town, it depends on what I'm going for:

• Brunch: City State Diner, fast, great food, no line
• Dinner: Over and Out/The Observatory, awesome two for one space in Montavilla, bar in the back with pinball, fine dining in the front.
• Drinks: Vintage Cocktail Lounge - I've been there so often I run their website now, and they are always trying to think of new ways to mix drinks. If I was going to open a bar, they have the template I would most likely copy from. Also recently I've been hanging out at the Guild Public House, which has had a nice bounce back since they got new owners (one of whom is the owner of Vintage), it helps that I pass it on my bus ride home from work.

But I am also excited just for the rain to finally stop so I can actually have a nice weekend BBQ in my back yard.

Portland Pub Crawl: SE 9th to SE 12th

Not long ago I claimed to have invented the Portland pub crawl.  But looking back through the pub crawls I've written up over the years, every single one of them is out of date.  The other day when I asked your advice on where to send tourists drinking in Portland, a common theme was that a pub crawl is the best way to experience Portland's beer scene. I heartily concur, so I propose to outline a few easy-to-walk Portland pub crawls.  The audience for these posts is more likely to be visitors than natives, though of course I welcome your input if there's something you would change about the routes.

First up:  a no-brainer through my own zip code of 97214:


View Portland Pub Crawl: SE 9th to 12th in a larger map

The green pins represent the main points on the pub crawl.  I recommend that you go from north to south, since Apex and the Firkin are open far later in the night than anywhere else, though if you're hoping to visit the worthy Beermongers, keep in mind that they close at 11 on weekdays and midnight on Friday and Saturday. The yellow pins are optional (except for Commons Brewery:  don't miss it if your pub crawl happens during the few hours they are open).  Here's the green-pin plan:

• Cascade Barrel House: Nice patio, Crazy wild beers, but also more accessible beers available in honest pints
• Green Dragon: Great taproom.  Maybe the least Rogue-ish Rogue establishment.
• Lucky Labrador: A Portland classic.  The patio isn't very scenic, but it's a convivial hangout if the weather is good.  Great setup for darts.
• The Firkin: New place with 14 rotating taps, midway between Lucky Lab and Beermongers.
• The Beermongers: Super casual bottleshop, with great prices, and 8 well-curated beers on tap.
• Apex: Portland's answer to Toronado.  No frills, just reasonable prices on excellent beers.

Now, this is a pretty serious itinerary, and although it's only 1 mile from beginning to end, it would probably take you an entire day to finish it. Maybe it's better to think of this map as describing two separate pub crawls:  one north of Hawthorne Blvd., the other one south of Hawthorne.  Clicking on the pins will tell you the opening hours of each place -- most of them are open between 11 am and at least 11 pm every day -- as well as a short description of the pub.

Clicking on the bus icons will tell you the last departing times for the main buses to and from downtown Portland, and also gives you the Trimet stop IDs so you can check bus arrivals in real time.  If you click the "View larger map" link, the Google map lets you select the Transit overlay to see more bus routes in the area.

I added the optional yellow pins to give you more choices if you decide on one of the smaller routes, or if you need to stick close to TVs for some kind of sporting event, or if you want some different food options.  As I said, even though its pin is yellow, don't miss the Commons Brewery if your pub crawl is early on a Friday or Saturday evening -- it's a small brewery that makes high-quality, approachable beers in a variety of interesting styles.  There are many other optional places I could have added, but I didn't want to clutter the map too much.  If you crave more variety, click to the larger Google map and search nearby for "bar".

Enjoy your pub crawl!

2011 Portland Fresh Hop Map

Last year I made a map of places around town that had Fresh Hop beers on tap. The 2010 Fresh Hop Map got surprisingly full; I think the trend is only increasing, and I expect this year's map to get even more crowded.


View 2011 Portland Fresh Hop Beers in a larger map

Luckily, I got a couple of volunteers this year to help with the upkeep:  Charles from An Ear for Beer, and my twitter/neighborhood friend Tracy.  If you see a fresh hop beer on tap that isn't on the map let us know the following information:

• The brewery
• The name of the fresh-hop beer
• The establishment serving it
• The date it went on tap (approximately)
• How well you liked it
• Any trivia you know about it (e.g. hop variety)

You can supply the information in a comment on this post, but if you're on the twitters, a tweet might get our attention faster: @itspubnight (me), @HumuloneRed (Charles), or @TracyTThomas (Tracy).

We're only mapping Portland, so please don't report locations in Hood River, Astoria, Denver, or even Vancouver. If that rankles you, feel free to maintain your own map and I will publicize yours right here.

As I write this, there are only four entries, but trust me, it's going to go crazy very soon.

Book Review: Craft Beers of the Pacific Northwest

Portland's Beer Goddess herself, Lisa Morrison, is the author of a new guidebook: Craft Beers of the Pacific Northwest, published in paperback by Timber Press.  It's a nice overview of the beer scene in our region, written in a pub-crawling style, where a paragraph about one pub rolls into a description of the next brewery in town.  Indeed, the chapters are peppered with suggested pub-crawl itineraries sketched out on simple maps.  I've been flipping through a copy that the publisher gave me, and I'm happy to recommend it to anyone planning any beer travel in Oregon, Washington, or British Columbia.

The most obvious book to compare Craft Beers to is the Good Beer Guide West Coast USA, published in 2008 by CAMRA (here's my review of the GBG).  Whereas the GBG attempts to be an almost encyclopedic list -- think a Best Western or AAA guide to beer -- Craft Beers only aims to hit the high points in a readable, narrative format.  The books don't exactly overlap geographically.  Lisa's book includes British Columbia, which I found to be an unfortunate omission from the other book; on the other hand, the CAMRA guide does cover California, as well as Alaska and Hawaii.  Furthermore, you might be amazed at how dated the Good Beer Guide has become in the short span of 3 years.  Not only have several good pubs in Portland alone closed in that time -- and new hotspots like Apex, Hop and Vine, and Beermongers have come along -- but it's amazing to think that it was written in the pre-Saraveza era, and before Ron Gansberg's now-famous sour beers merited any mention in the entry on Raccoon Lodge.  So Craft Beers has the edge of being more up-to-date.

Another difference in the two books is Craft Beers' greater focus on the people behind the beers and establishments it talks about.  There is a little bit of that in the Good Beer Guide, but not nearly as much.  The narrative style of Craft Beers allows for more of that to come out, and I especially enjoyed reading some of the anecdotes about less talked-about breweries like Mia and Pia's or Beer Valley.

Compared to the slick and glossy GBG, the two-color printing of Craft Beers is not as much of a looker.  I understand, 4-color printing is a great deal more expensive.  Still, the second color could have been used to greater effect in the printing, to highlight pertinent information in the book.  At the very least, I wish that pub and brewery names had been put in bold face -- sometimes it's difficult to quickly scan through a chapter to the information you're seeking.  On the plus side, the "Don't Miss" boxes at the end of each subchapter are a short and sweet way to present the highlights.  Pub names and addresses are conveniently called out into the margins, though there are a fair number of oversights:  in the Portland section I noticed that Saraveza, Higgins, and the Cheese Bar all showed up in the text, without their addresses appearing in the margin.  And hours of operation would have been a handy piece of information to include -- that's one thing the Good Beer Guide did really well.

I already mentioned the pub-crawl maps that run all through Craft Beers.  It's a very useful feature to provide you some beer itinerary ideas -- all short enough to be covered on foot -- and the pub crawls serve in some sense as the backbone of the book.  The simple maps don't look as fancy as the regional maps in the Good Beer Guide, but they have just the right level of detail and are actually more useful than the GBG maps, which are often inaccurate and needlessly cluttered.  A few of the Craft Beers maps are confusingly hacked into pieces when they could have been made more readable by simply reorienting them on the page and/or changing the scale -- the SE Division Street pub crawl is an example of that.  But most of them fit on the page without being broken up; those give you an easy-to-grasp birds-eye view of the various beer neighborhoods.

You can see I had a few quibbles with Craft Beers of the Pacific Northwest, but hey, I'm a picky person, and nothing I mentioned was a fatal flaw (maybe a future edition could address some of those issues).  Overall, it's a well-written and entertaining travel guide to the best breweries and pubs in this region, and the 18 walkable pub crawl ideas give you a leg up on your beer travels.  Don't leave home without it.  (I'll get a kickback if you click here to order it from Powell's Books.)

Historic Portland Breweries Map

The faded General Brewing Corporation sign on the building at 13th and Kearney got me thinking about breweries of the past in Portland. As it happens, a few years ago at Powells I picked up a book called "Brewed in the Pacific Northwest", written in 1991 by Gary and Gloria Meier. The book was written at the beginning of the modern microbrewery era, so most of its focus is actually on pre-Prohibition breweries.

It is also a pre-digital mapping book, so it didn't occur to the authors to map out the information in the book. It was interesting enough to me that I spent an evening plotting their Portland brewery entries on a Google Map. This map shows the breweries that opened in Portland between 1852 and 1934.


View Historic Portland Breweries 1852-1934 in a larger map

If you look at the map on Google's map page, there is a chronological list of the breweries in the left margin.

At first glance, the map actually looks a lot like a present-day map of Portland breweries: almost all of them are in the SE and NW quadrants. Some of the parallels are eerie: there have never been many breweries south of downtown, yet there used to be one very close to where John Harris's Full Sail outpost is today; one of the few NE breweries was located about a football field away from Breakside, which opened this year in an otherwise deserted neighborhood. Makes you wonder if some of the same geography or demographics is at work today as it was 100 or 150 years ago.

Anyone have any stories about the breweries or the buildings on the map?

2010 Fresh Hop Map

We're getting into that wonderful few weeks when the fresh hop beers start rolling out.  I've been so patient waiting for them this year that I have only asked one establishment -- Deschutes -- if they have it on tap yet.  And I haven't even made it over to Full Sail to try this year's Lupulin -- an annual favorite -- but I will remedy that very soon.

Since Google maps are such a handy way to present lists of Where Stuff Is, I propose to maintain a map of which fresh hop beers are available in the Portland area (no offense, Taplister). As far as I know, Full Sail's is the only one on tap so far, so I've started a map with only that entry so far [Update 2010/09/10: it's steadily filling up now]:


View 2010 Portland Fresh Hop Beers in a larger map

Click on the thumbtacks to find out what and where the beer is. I think I'll start with green thumbtacks, and if a beer runs out I will change the tack to red.

Please help me fill it in! If you see a fresh-hop beer on tap around town, leave a comment, email me, or tweet me (@itspubnight). Feel free to comment on how you liked the beer, I'll add some of that to the entries on the map.

Tourist's Guide to the 2010 Oregon Brewers Festival

A couple years ago I wrote up a meandering guide to the Oregon Brewers Festival. The most useful part of it was a map showing things to do within walking distance of the festival, so I've updated the map with new recommendations -- Bailey's instead of Tugboat; Green Dragon now that Roots has closed -- and directions to the wide new sidewalk on the Morrison Bridge. The rest of this post is a rerun of the original, updated with the new information.

The Journey is the Destination

The OBF's location at Tom McCall Waterfront Park makes for a nice 2.5 mile loop along the east and west banks of the Willamette River, walking over or under four of Portland's drawbridges. Go south along the river, beneath the Morrison Bridge, and cross the Willamette (rhymes with "dammit", by the way) on the beautiful Hawthorne Bridge (1910). Pedestrians should keep toward the bridge railing -- bicycles get the part of the sidewalk nearest the cars. Follow the curving sidewalk down to the path on the east side of the river, the Eastbank Esplanade.


View Larger Map

Heading north along the river, accompanied by the automotive roar of I-5 overhead, you'll cross under the Morrison and Burnside Bridges before coming to a stretch of the sidewalk which actually floats in the Willamette. You'll cross the river back to Waterfront Park on the Steel Bridge (1914). There are other double-deck drawbridges in the world, but the Steel Bridge is the only one that telescopes: the lower deck can be raised while the upper deck remains open to traffic.  (For a shorter route, take the corkscrew sidewalk up to the nice wide sidewalk on the Morrison Bridge, and then cross Naito to get back to the festival.)

For Kids of All Ages

If you brought your kids to the festival and need to give them a break, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) is a science museum on the east side of the river, just south of the Hawthorne Bridge, easily accessible from the Esplanade. There is also an IMAX theater and planetarium at OMSI.

Another interesting eastside youth attraction is the skateboard park hidden under the Burnside Bridge. Originally a do-it-yourself project that was later embraced by the city, you can't get to it directly from the pedestrian loop described above -- you can't even see it from there. You have to get onto the south sidewalk of the Burnside Bridge, either on the west side at Saturday Market, or by taking the stairs labeled "Burnside" from the Esplanade. Follow the Burnside sidewalk to MLK, turn right and go a block to Ankeny, turn right and go two blocks to 2nd (the sidewalk runs out), and turn right again to go under the bridge. You probably shouldn't go down there at night, but it's a cool thing to see during the day.

More Beer!

There are several interesting pub options you can walk to from the festival.

The Full Sail Pilsner Room [review] is about 3/4 mile south of the festival. Go underneath the Hawthorne Bridge and follow the sidewalk down towards the sailboat harbor.

Bailey's Taproom [review] is about 1/2 mile west of the festival. Follow Oak St. across Broadway, Bailey's is one block to your right.  Tugboat Brewing Company [review] is across Ankeny.

The Oregon outpost of Rock Bottom is about 1/4 mile southwest of the festival at 2nd and Morrison.

If you took the stroll to the east side of the river, you're only about a half-mile from the Lucky Labrador [review] at 9th and Hawthorne, and the Green Dragon [review] at 9th and Yamhill.

Further Afield

This article is too long already, so I'll briefly list a few more attractions that you should see while you're in Portland.

• Portland Aerial Tram: our answer to the monorail.
• Horse Brass Pub [review]: a national treasure. Now non-smoking!
• International Rose Test Garden: flowers and vistas.
• Ladd's Addition Rose Gardens: short walk from the Lucky Lab.
  

The Horse Brass would be quite a long walk: take bus #15 (to Parkrose) and get off near SE 45th. The Tram is not too long of a walk if you're already at the Pilsner Room, but it's not a very pleasant one; you could also take the streetcar.

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.

Support Your Local Beermapping

If you're traveling, one of the most useful tools to help you find good beer away from home is the Beer Mapping Project. The maintainer -- Jonathan Surratt, aka Beerinator -- has put together a database of breweries, beer bars, and beer stores with a nice interface to Google Maps, and is very responsive to contributors who send in new locations.



There's a way that you can help with beermapping.com. Every location on the map has a review page, like this one for Belmont Station. If you look at the project's city map for Portland, you'll notice that locations in our town are rather sparsely reviewed. And that's the gist of my appeal to you today: please get out there and add some reviews! Here are some Portland favorites that have not yet been reviewed:

• 5th Quadrant
• Bagdad
• Barley Mill
• Beermongers
• Bridgeport Ale House
• Hedge House
• Laurelwood Pizza
• Lucky Lab SW
• Moon and Sixpence
• Produce Row 
• Upright

That's just a sampling of places that it seems like we should explain to out-of-towners.  Don't limit yourself to those places; in fact, even the Portland locations that have been reviewed could benefit from more reviews, or from pictures if you have a mind to share.  Look at it as an easy way to be a Portland beer ambassador.  By the way, Google is now picking up beermapping.com reviews in Google Maps searches, like this one.  All you have to do is register on the beermapping forums, and you can start adding reviews to the site.  Tell 'em ItsPubNight sent you.

Breweries in Mirror Appear Closer than They Are

The trouble with taking a beer blogger on a family road trip, is that he maps out all the potential breweries and pubs along the route -- many more than it would be possible to actually visit. It's a pretty easy task, thanks to the Beer Mapping Project, and the handy proximity maps on beermapping.com make the problem worse, because when you look at some of the things inside the circle, you start imagining different itineraries than what has already been planned out.

But, as I said, it was a family vacation, so many beery destinations were left off, either because we passed them at the wrong time of day, or they were too far out of the way, or they didn't have food or weren't family friendly. No regrets: the vacation was a great success. It was the first visit to Yellowstone for all of us -- I would say it's the quintessential all-American vacation, except that about 60% of the visitors there were from other countries -- and a lovely drive through some amazing Western scenery.

Of course we accomplished a few beer tasks, like a visit to the smashing Barley Brown's pub in Baker City. But here are some of the breweries and brewpubs that we passed by along the way (in some cases, I mean we saw the whites of the brewers' eyes, but still couldn't or didn't stop):

• Laht Neppur, Waitsburg, WA
• Skye Book and Brew, Dayton, WA
• MJ Barleyhoppers, Lewiston, ID
• Kettlehouse Brewing, Missoula, MT
• Bayern Brewing, Missoula, MT
• Bozeman Brewing, Bozeman, MT
• Snake River Brewing, Jackson, WY
• Grand Teton Brewing, Victor, ID
• Wild Life Pizzeria, Victor, ID
• Portneuf Valley Brewing, Pocatello, ID
• Beer Valley Brewing, Ontario, OR
• Mt. Emily Ale House, La Grande, OR

We even walked into Portneuf in Pocatello, but it didn't feel right to take the girls into such a boisterous bar on a Friday night, so we sheepishly walked back out. No problem, compensation was had the next day, when we hit Table Rock in Boise and Barley Brown's in Baker City.

Again, no regrets, but if ignorance is your bliss, then stay away from beermapping.com.

Division Street Pub Crawl

Tuesday night the Pub Night gang checked out the Victory Bar at 37th and Division -- first visit for most of us. Contrary to its laid-back reputation, the Victory was crowded and loud that night -- I guess Bryce isn't the only Portlander whose neuron for "Victory" is connected to the "no more Bush" neuron. Some of us wandered down the street to the Matchbox Lounge afterward, and I realized that recent new additions to this mile-long stretch of Division make it a very walkable pub crawl.


View Larger Map

I've listed the pub crawl from east to west since it's downhill and towards my house. You could turn it around if it's more convenient for you. If you skip the Matchbox, you don't even have to cross Division, everything else is on the south side of the street.

A: Victory Bar: Inauguration night was an unusually crowded weeknight for Victory, as I mentioned. As a result, three of the six kegs were blown, leaving only HUB Lager, another beer I didn't want and can't remember, and a spendy Belgian (Nostradamus). They have a respectable bottled beer list, but it was a little Euro-centric and expensive for my tastes -- very few quality American beers. So my first impression isn't that great, but a lot of Portland beer snobs love this place: Jeff and Angelo both raved about it, and I heard Full Sail's John Harris say it's one of his favorite places in town. I'll give it another shot on a quieter night.

B: Hedge House: A couple blocks down the street is our local Lompoc outlet. It's a classic. If you're a large group, you'll probably have to go when the weather permits outside seating (there is also a heated patio, but it fills up almost as fast as the inside).

C: Pok Pok: This isn't a beer place -- they might have a tap or two -- but I put it in here as a potential food stop. Amazing Thai food -- far beyond your standard noodle/curry/rice standards. If you need some pacing on the pub crawl, order one of the drinking vinegars instead of a beer. This is part of your Portland lifestyle. Get in there and enjoy it.

D: Matchbox Lounge: Mainly a Pabst and cocktail dive, but they give a nod to quality with Walking Man IPA on tap -- yes, there really is a Walking Man beer without a cute name, just "IPA". Brian said they usually have three good Belgians on tap, but they weren't in evidence Tuesday.

E: Clay's Smokehouse Grill: Not primarily a beer place, but they have about four taps. One tap is usually a Leavenworth beer from Fish Brewing. Good barbecue if you didn't get a seat at Pok Pok. Open until 10 PM, closed Monday and Tuesday.

F: Reel'M'Inn Tavern: I've never done more than poke my head inside here, and that was before the smoking ban, so I poked my head right back out. Nothing outstanding beer-wise, but if I remember right they had at least a Widmer and a Deschutes on tap. Now that smoking is out, I need to get down there and try the advertised Chicken and Jojos. [Update 2009/02/19: Been there now. Only Mirror pond on tap, but delicious fried food!]

G: Bar Avignon: Oops, another place I haven't been. I'll admit, I'm unsure whether I should patronize a place that capitalized on the demise of the Red and Black Cafe -- anyone have an opinion on that? It's mainly a wine bar, but they have a nice rotating selection of beers on tap, and a beer engine for cask beers. The Barfly review mentions 20 oz. pints, so it seems like it could be a winner. Anyone been there yet?

That seems like a pretty decent pub crawl. If you need even more action, it's just a block south to Clinton Street, there are four or five more options right around 26th and Clinton. Is Division the new Hawthorne?

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.

It's Pub Night 2.0

Happy New Year! With a couple weeks off from work, I've been tinkering a bit with It's Pub Night. For instance, the ugly banner that used to take up a third of the screen has been replaced by an ugly banner that only takes up about a sixth of the screen. But what I'm really excited about is updates from Twitter posted to the blog, and notification of new blog posts going out as Twitter updates.

I set up a Twitter account back in April, but I didn't really participate in it. I didn't follow anyone, so when I went to my Twitter account, I only saw my own infrequent boring updates. For those of you unfamiliar with Twitter, to "follow" someone is to see the short messages they post on Twitter. Those short updates are called "tweets", and you can send them from your computer or as a text message from your cellphone.

It was starting to look like I would only use Twitter to keep a record of bruises, so later when I wondered where a particular bruise came from I could log on and find the tweet for it. Then a few things lit a fire under me. I had admired a couple of beer applications of Twitter: the Beer Mapping Project's geocoding that allows you to map your tweets, and the Champagne of Blogs' Twitter feed. And then on one of our snow days, after tweeting that the Bridgeport Ale House was closed, one of my 3 stalwart Twitter followers -- Ezra the Samurai Artist -- replied to my tweet. Holy Cow, my first reply! I have a social network! Ezra encouraged me to raid his "following list" for more Portland beer types. That's the key to the whole business: Twitter doesn't make any sense until you start following a few friends, acquaintances, and pubs. I finally get it.

Let me give you a tour of some of the exciting features of the Twitter feed in the sidebar, which is produced by a script supplied by Twitter. The first red circle in the picture is around a link created by a Twitter "@" reply. It's a link to the page for the person I'm replying to -- in this case to Dave Selden (Champagne of Blogs guy) -- so you can check out that person's tweets if the reply piques your interest. Even better, I hacked the Twitter script so that tweets tagged with a Beer Mapping Project location ID get a "map" link -- the second red circle -- that takes you to the BMP's page for that location (Deschutes' Portland pub in the picture).

The third red circle takes you to my Twitter page, where you'll get a chance to follow my tweets and get messaged every time there's a new post on It's Pub Night. Last but not least, is a link to a Beer Mapping page that maps the most recent tweets that I bothered to tag with locations.

I try not to make blog posts about the blog itself, and I don't plan to make a regular practice of it. But I was so excited about the recent geekery that I wanted to explain what it was all about. If you get half as much enjoyment out of it as I do, then I'll get twice as much as you.

The Beer Mapping Project

From time to time I cobble up a Google map to illustrate a post here, such as the map of Portland Growler Prices. It's easy to add your own locations with a little bit of text, or to add lines showing some route or the other.

But my puny maps are child's play compared to a beautiful website put together by a genius known as "beerinator": The Beer Mapping Project. Kept up-to-date by user submissions, photos, and reviews, it's a very powerful tool. Here's a map from the BMP that shows the beer-related sites within a 3-mile radius of the Lucky Lab:



[Hmm... this map doesn't show up in Google Reader. Click over to the blog if you can't see it.] You have to zoom out to see the full radius, but you get the idea. Click on one of the markers, and it will give you a balloon of information about the place, including some internet linkage.

The BMP site has over 40 U.S. and Canada city maps, plus regional maps of Europe, North America, and Australia. In addition to brewpubs and breweries, it lists beer bars, beer stores, and homebrew shops. The Portland map is in pretty good shape, but there are a few gaps that some of us motivated beer geeks could help fill in -- I feel a little guilty because the only location I've submitted is Vincente's Pizza, and that was months ago.

There are other goodies available, such as an interface with Twitter that will let you map out your beer wanderings. If you're really gung-ho, beerinator generously offers an API that lets you build your own application on top of the beermapping.com database. Or if you're only partially gung-ho, there's a push-button HTML generator that lets you embed BMP information on your blog or website -- either maps like the one above, or vital-statistics boxes like this:

Lucky Labrador Brewing Company

Lucky Labrador Brewing Company

Information provided by Beer Mapping

So far I haven't seen a feature on BMP that would let me annotate one of their maps with my own information the same way I can with Google Maps. That's OK, it's still a great resource, especially when you're on the road.

On a related note: if you're not just a beer geek, but also a coffee geek, you should check out my buddy Eric's site: espresso map. It doesn't have the beermapping bells and whistles, but it might just save your life one day.

Portland Growler Prices

A couple weeks ago I was grousing about the high price to get beer growlers filled in Portland. With that in mind, I give you the Portland Growler Price Map, which lists the growler price at pubs around Portland, as well as the Six-Pack Equivalent price:


View Larger Map

Click on the individual thumbtacks on the map, to get details for that location. A lot of the information on this map was stolen from the Champagne of Blogs' growler index, augmented with a few things I investigated on my own.

You Can Help

A lot of the prices on the map were a year or more out of date on Day One. And many worthy establishments are not yet listed. I'll volunteer to keep this updated for the Portland metro area (say, a 20 mile radius), but I need all of you to send me current information. Use the email address in the sidebar: for each pub that you want to update me about, please send the following data:

• Price to fill 64 ounce growler.
• Price to buy the growler itself (if available).
• Whether they'll fill competitor growlers.
• Whether they'll fill 2-quart mason jars.
• The date of your information.

They Should be Cheaper!

About those prices. My feeling is that it's silly to have to pay a premium for something that doesn't have to be packaged, distributed, and retailed. Commenters on the Growler Math post pointed out that pubs have a different business model than beer bottlers, and that economies of scale apply.

Nevertheless, beer drinkers spend some of their money in pubs, and some money on bottled beer -- let's leave our brave homebrewers out of the equation for now. Wouldn't brewpubs like to take away some of that bottled beer market? They should be able to do so if they can offer a growler price that corresponds roughly to the price of a good 6-pack.

Given the price of a 64-ounce growler, multiply it by 1.125 to get the price of 72 ounces of beer, so that you can compare the price with that of a 6-pack. So a $12 growler is like a $13.50 six-pack -- ouch! Canadian prices! On the other hand, an $8 growler is like a $9 six-pack -- not cheap, but increasingly common. I would divert a lot of my 6-pack budget to growlers if the price at places I frequent was $8 or less.

I've just been talking about the dollars-and-cents of beer growlers, but there's also the environmental aspect of reusing the beer container, and cutting down on some of the transportation and refrigeration. Beer writer Stan Hieronymous recently blogged about New Belgium Brewing's report on their carbon footprint. Stan clipped a graphic from the report that shows that 60% of the footprint is from packaging (glass and paper), distribution, and retailing. So you've cut more than half of your environmental impact from your beer drinking if you fill up locally!