Changes Coming to Captain Ankeny's

When I first arrived in Portland in 2003, Captain Ankeny's Well at SW 3rd and Ash had a reputation as one of the best beer bars in its part of town.  Even in 2011, its beer selection is respectable, twenty decent taps from around the Northwest, always including a few seasonals from the likes of  Deschutes or Full Sail.  But our idea of "best beer bar" has been changed in recent years by new places like Bailey's Taproom, the Green Dragon, and Apex, so Captain Ankeny's has lost some of its beer appeal.  Another thing that has changed is Portland's concept of cheap food.  Ankeny's trade in pizza slices and sandwiches has been hammered by all the food carts in that end of downtown -- case in point, the Big Ass Sandwiches cart directly across the street.

Business has been tough, and so it is that Ankeny's will soon go under the knife for a remodel.  Its focus will shift from beer-and-cheap-eats to a more nightlife-oriented entertainment venue.  Weekday lunches are out, and a new split-level floorplan will allow room for a couple of stages and smaller bar areas, which probably means a smaller, more mainstream beer selection.  A new name is part of the rebranding, but I haven't yet heard what that name will be.  If you were ever a fan of Captain Ankeny's Well, drop in soon for a last pint.

Dave coaxed me over there last week for lunch.  For years it was his regular Friday lunch spot, but changing circumstances -- kids mostly -- pretty much broke him of the habit.  Several years ago he did a project for Ankeny's, building the wooden base for a display of old tap handles.  It's worth a trip to the pub just to see that museum piece before the remodel takes it out -- there's lots of history there.  Some of the handles are from defunct breweries like Grant's, Star, Umpqua, Thomas Kemper, Yamhill... well, I shouldn't belabor the point.  Others tout discontinued beers that were before my time:  Bridgeport Coho Pacific, Widmer Blonde, Full Sail Black Lager (hmm...).  Still others are so obscure that the Google couldn't help me figure out who brewed them:  anyone know who made beers called Sauvie Island Pale Ale or Chinook Coffee?

RIP Roots Organic Brewing

It's been nearly a month now since John Foyston broke the news that Roots Organic Brewing was closing for good.  Instead of blurting out the first thing that came to mind, I've been gathering up my thoughts and memories, and now I'll blurt out what comes to mind a month late.  I have mixed emotions about Roots closing -- it was for a time my favorite pub in town, but we've been drifting apart for a couple of years now.

When Roots came on the scene in 2005 it was like a breath of fresh air.  As soon as they opened, you could find their beer on tap at nearly a hundred places in Portland.  The hoppy, muscular Woody IPA and Island Red were instant winners, and if you didn't care for those, they had two very good hopless beers -- the Burghead Heather and the Gruit Kolsch.

We soon switched our neighborhood pub night from Mondays at the Lucky Lab to Tuesdays at Roots.  It was more crowded, with little outside seating and terrible feng shui indoors, but the beer was better -- the Lucky Lab was in a slump that it has since recovered from -- and priced to sell at $2.50 for an imperial pint.  The beer seemed to keep getting better and better: the Sharkbite Imperial IPA was smashing, then winter came and the powerful double-red Festivus came out, followed by the eye-popping, smoky, hint-of-cherry, completely insane 14% concoction known as Epic.

What happened?  Sometime in 2007 or 2008 Roots seemed to lose its momentum.  Their tap-handles vanished all over town, apparently because of a feud with their distributor -- note to small breweries: a feud with your distributor is going to go about as well for you as a feud with my wife goes for me.  The quality of the beers went down -- even non-jaded out-of-town guests were puzzled when I insisted on bringing them to Roots.  The bottle of Island Red pictured above -- bought at Belmont Station a day after Roots closed -- was perfectly bland.  There were exceptions: Calypso, their 2008 OBF beer brewed with apricots and habaneros was brilliant; the Flanders Red (released in 2009 but two years in the making) was an impressive feat if you like that sort of thing.

Maybe it was the competition.  Beeronomics guy Patrick Emerson says it's only natural for some beloved businesses to fail, and that it's a sign of a healthy economy.  Remember, when Roots arrived, there was no Ninkasi and no Hopworks.  When those two breweries started up, they brought their own burly IPAs, plus Ninkasi offered a beautiful NW Red and Hopworks offered an entry-level lager to compete with Roots' Heather.  Now Hopworks and Ninkasi tap handles are all over town, following the trail blazed by Roots.

The pub itself had competition also: down the street the Green Dragon opened in 2007, and by 2008 had started regular meet-the-brewer nights on Tuesdays, grabbing some of Roots' pint-night business.  Hopworks probably drew some of the Roots crowd away to its cleaner, fancier digs.  And Roots didn't do itself any favors with its disastrous attempt to be open for lunch -- I was so annoyed by a couple of my lunch visits that it put me off visiting at other times.

It's worth noting Ezra's report of financial shenanigans at the Roots-affiliated NAOBF, though it's hard to say whether this was a symptom of problems at Roots, or two symptoms of the same lack of business acumen.

For better or worse, it's over now.  It was a meteoric rise, a fun ride, and a long decline.  I'll remember the good times.  The cycle continues, let's see what happens next.

Clinton Street Brewing Disappears

The status of Clinton Street Brewing (warning: noisy website) -- next to the movie theater at 26th and Clinton -- has been weird for quite a while, since the little in-house brewing operation was assimilated by Captured by Porches. But it appears that the whole thing is now kaput. A new banner on the awning declares the establishment to be "The Workshop", and there are no CSB or CBP taphandles behind the bar.

As I peered in the window today, I got some details on the change from the barbecue chef, who was sitting at a picnic table outside. In my usual blundering way, one detail I didn't get was the gentleman's name, but his outfit is Smoky Mountain BBQ, most recently serving at the Queen of Hearts Tavern near the Mt. Scott Rec Center. Anyway, the Smoky Mountain Man said that the new owners will also brew their own beer -- in fact are apparently already brewing it -- but not at the place itself. That may be a good thing, considering the scary-looking setup pictured above that Clinton Street used.

Right now The Workshop opens at 5 PM; next week they hope to open at 2 PM, and eventually serve lunch. The barbecue is pork-leaning North Carolina-style. You can still buy a beer to take in to the theater next door -- the taps I can recall are Jubel and Pabst... there were three or four other choices, none remarkable one way or the other.