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.

Gowanus Brooklyn Brewpub Crawl

Every year for the last 10 or so, Carla and I would say "Let's go to New York City this year".  Somehow we never did, until recent events taught us that you shouldn't keep putting these things off.  So we spent about 9 days in Brooklyn in October.  It was only my second visit to New York, and the first was only for 36 hours in Manhattan about 30 years ago, so this was long overdue.

 

We had a great time.  The vacation was not primarily a beer mission:  we skipped many of the important Brooklyn beer stops; we only found a couple of worthwhile beer options in Manhattan; we didn't set foot in Queens or the Bronx, which have some interesting-looking breweries.

 

Even though beer wasn't the main focus, we did find a short and sweet Brooklyn pub crawl in the Gowanus neighborhood.  All four pubs are open 7 days a week, which isn't true of a pub crawl in, say, Red Hook (as of October 2021 anyway).  You can start the pub crawl at either end, but I put Threes Brewing first because it arguably has the best food options.  It's also easier to leave at the Strong Rope end.  The Union Street subway station is right there, as well as a couple of Citi Bike racks which are usually full of bikes you could leave on, but devoid of empty slots to park a bike in if you try to start at that end.

 

Threes Brewing

 

Threes Brewing is a comfortable and convivial pub with lots of distinct spaces.  The main bar is cozy but has a surprising amount of seating, and there is more seating in a front vestibule near the food window.  We didn't go upstairs because there was a private event, but there is also a sweet looking back patio.

 

The draft selection was diverse, with a number of lagers, a lovely dark mild called Little Did We Know, and an interesting barrel-aged tart table beer.  Don't worry, they also had on the requisite half-dozen IPAs.  If I had taken care to re-read Jeff Alworth's 2019 Brooklyn trip report I would have known to order the Vliet pilsner.  Next time.

 

The food is handled by a pop-up called The Meat Hook, which serves burgers and other pub fare.  There are a fair number of vegetarian options, despite the name.  Threes does a good job canning their wares, and there is a large selection available to go.  I also found their beers to be among the most affordable and widely available local beers in area grocery stores, so keep that option in mind.

 

 

Wild East Brewing

A couple blocks south of Threes is Wild East Brewing.  It's a much smaller operation, but has the same ethos of brewing a wide variety of styles instead of dozens of IPAs.  The picture shows the DDH anniversary IPA that Carla required, as well as an outstanding mixed-culture saison, and of course I couldn't not order the 3% dark mild. All of them were well-made and tasty.

 

The interior is a roomy, high-ceilinged warehouse, which gave it a much more open feel than most places in such a high-rent city.  Like most places, it also had a nice chunk of outside seating along the curb.  It was a really comfortable place to hang out, and I had a hard time elbowing Carla out the door for the next stops.  I regret not taking more photos there; check their website for a better look.  There were lots of outlets for recharging cell phones, and I think I remember some people bringing their dogs right in.

They don't serve food, but of course you can bring your own.  They have a limited selection of beer to go, mostly fancy expensive things in bottles.

Finback Brewery

 

The next stop on our pub crawl was Finback,   Like Wild East, it is an open, warehousey space, but I think the space is a work in progress.  Some of the walls were still exposed particle board when we were there, and the lighting and seating were not altogether comfortable.  Don't hold those things against it, because I suspect it will improve over time.  The staff was very friendly and engaging.  There was some outdoor seating also. 

Finback was the most IPA-centric pub on this crawl, with 13 IPAs of varying strength and hop variety on tap.  They get creative with the hops -- Belma or Lotus anyone? -- and we really enjoyed the flavors in the couple of IPAs we tried there.  But the star for us that day was a beer called Another World -- a very unique witbier barrel-aged on yuzu and spices.  As you might expect for something going into a barrel, it was a little stronger than your usual wit at 6.5%, but all the flavors blended well, and it was a great change of pace.

One of the IPAs also had yuzu in it, and that also worked well.  They might have chosen yuzu to go with the gyoza and other Japanese snacks on the small plates menu.

Strong Rope Brewery

 

 

I suspect Strong Rope might be my most frequent hangout if I lived in the area.  It has a slightly ramshackle, disorganized feel to the place, perfect for hanging out and chatting.  The house style tends towards English pub ales, though they throw in a few saisons and I even had a smoked beer called Timber Phantoms -- too smoky for my taste actually, and that is something you'll rarely hear me say.  The Pale Ale I chased it with was much more drinkable.  They're not fools, of course there is also an IPA available.

Strong Rope's angle is that they brew only with New York-grown malt and hops.  The lighter character of the local hops is one reason the beer styles skew Brittanic.  It's a cool idea to use only local ingredients, and if the logical conclusion is lighter, easier-drinking beers, I'm all for it.  There isn't a cask beer on full time, but they do celebrate Cask Fridays with a firkin on the counter.  No kitchen, bring your own food. 

Good Karma Vegan Cafe, San Jose

The Silicon Valley underwhelms with its beer scene, which is odd considering its affluence and large population. But recently I found out about an oasis of good beer served by knowledgeable people that's located right in the middle of downtown San Jose: the Good Karma Vegan Cafe. Talk about your hidden gems -- they didn't put "beer" or "bar" in the name at all. But squeeze your way past the deli counter into the tiny bar area, and you'll find 16 well-chosen beers on tap. "Well-chosen" is probably not an adequate description of the beer list -- knockout is more like it.  On a recent visit some of the taps were:

• Russian River Pliny the Elder
• Logsdon Seizoen
• Haandbryggeriet Bestefar (smoked imperial porter)
• Allagash Interlude
• Dogfish Head Old School Barleywine
• Stone Vertical Epic 12
• North Coast 15th Anniversary Old Rasputin
• Sierra Nevada Ovila Quad

I won't bother listing the other half of the taplist, but there were no duds on it.  There is also a small selection of similarly high-end bottled beers.

Good Karma attracts a small crowd of local beer lovers -- you know the type, everyone has an opinion on what beer you should order.  The atmosphere is very casual, and even though it's a restaurant/deli first and a beer bar second, the waitstaff take an interest in the beer.  Beer prices are on the high side: pints of Pliny were $7, and most of the strong beers listed above were $6 for 8- or 10-ounce pours.  Not cheap, but reasonable given the quality level.  On the plus side, the small pours were served in glassware marked in centiliters so you knew what you were getting.  What's more, with ABVs ranging from 7% to 15%, small is beautiful.

The food is really good also -- no meat or cheese of course, but a nice selection of curries, salads, stir-fries and the like, served with rice or in tortillas.  In contrast to the beer prices, I thought the food prices were very cheap -- you could eat a hearty meal for $7, or choose smaller snack options in the $2-$5 range.  So you can go in there, eat some healthy cheap food, and spend your surplus on fancy beer.  It's a win-win.  And if you're wondering -- as I did -- why a vegan restaurant has an antler chandelier, rest assured that it too is vegan:  the antlers are made of poured resin.

Here in Portland I'm always complaining when interesting beer places aren't open during the day -- thank God Bailey's now opens at 2 PM -- but Good Karma poses the opposite problem for a business traveler:  it's open for lunch but closes at 9 PM every night except Sunday when it closes at 7 PM.  The good news is it's easy to get to on public transit from other towns in the area -- the VTA light rail stops right out in front, and only a couple blocks away there is a stop for the workhorse #22 bus that follows El Camino Real all the way to Palo Alto.

Highly recommended next time you're in the Silicon Valley.

Brewers Union Local 180 - Oakridge, Oregon

Finally! Only four years after the one-of-a-kind Brewers Union Local 180 opened in the out-of-the way location of Oakridge, Oregon, I finally paid a visit this week and was able to sample a range of brewer Ted Sobel's cask-conditioned beers in their native habitat.

In case you're not familiar with Brewers Union, it's a pub which brews and serves "real ale" in the sense of England's Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA).  Ted brews beer in 2-barrel batches -- that's British imperial barrels, about 2.8 Yankee barrels -- conditions them in firkins, and serves them at cellar temperature in 20-ounce imperial pints.  The small batches are open-fermented, typically between 4% and 5% ABV, and drawn from the firkin with hand pumps.  So, the proprietor must be a homesick British expat, right?  Er, no, but he did learn the trade during a stint a few years ago at a Lake District pub called the Woolpack Inn.

There were only four house-made beers on the pumps Monday when Carla and I were in Oakridge, all delightful:

• Wotcha Best Bitter - 4.3%: smooth and honeyed, balanced with a touch of earthy hops.
• Good With Bacon Special Bitter -  4.9%: light caramel flavor, nice balance of bitterness.
• 3 Sigma Out IPA - 5.3%: beautiful floral aroma, light body, long hop finish.
• Cumbrian Moor Porter - 4.8%: smooth and roasty without being charred; full-bodied but not cloying.

I enjoyed all the beers, but Wotcha -- this batch made with Mt. Hood hops -- was the standout and I came back to it again and again.  It might have an alcohol content lower than Budweiser, but it was packed with flavor.  Ted credits the Maris Otter malt from Thomas Fawcett with the great taste.  Northwest aroma hops in most of the beers provide a nice counterpoint to the otherwise studiously English recipes and presentation.  The food menu, too, is more Oregon than England, though there is an obligatory fish and chips plate (I got mine with sweet potato fries).

The usual IPA -- Union Dew -- was out when we were there, but a fifth pump had on a nice malty cask of Block 15's Ridgeback Red -- at 6.3%, pretty potent compared to the BU180 beers.  There are always a few guest kegs of "regular beer" on tap for non-believers. Monday's guests were Oakshire Domaine du Lane Saison, Oakshire Watershed IPA, Seven Brides Chocolate Stout, and Hale's El Jefe Hefeweizen. There was also a cider on tap from Wandering Aengus, and a mead from Eugene's Blue Dog Meadery.

A lot of attention goes into the brewing, storage, and serving of the ales, but Ted says the important thing about Brewers Union is that it provides a space where people can get together and socialize.  He is a very hands-on publican, mingling with the customers, and getting to know them by name.  I once needled him for setting up such an idiosyncratic pub pretty much in the middle of nowhere -- Oakridge (pop. 3220) is the only incorporated city in Oregon that lies entirely within a national forest -- but his response was simple:  "Every town needs a pub".  It is a cute little town, surrounded by miles of beautiful scenery, and now that I've seen it, I do think it's a great place for a pub. If you ever have the time, take the hour's drive out from Eugene and experience it for yourself.

Oakland Beer Getaway

Last month I had to spend a week in the Silicon Valley on business.  I took the opportunity to spend the preceding weekend in Oakland and check out the growing beer scene there.  It's a good way to have a cheap Bay Area getaway -- I pricelined a hotel right downtown for $42 a night -- and San Francisco is just a $6 round-trip away on BART.

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My first stop was a couple of blocks from the hotel, a Belgian-heavy place called The Trappist.  A cozy, narrow space that they call The Front Bar calls to mind Dutch or Belgian beer bars, but opens onto a back patio that is perfect for sunny California days.  There are fifteen taps at the front bar, and ten more in a bigger room called The Back Bar -- an assortment of off-the-beaten track Belgian and Belgian-inspired beers, some nice California offerings, and some surprises from Mikkeller and Evil Twin, including an Evil Twin coffee porter specially brewed for The Trappist.

The food is reasonably-priced and not too fancy, and there is a good assortment of special bottled beers if you need to show off.  Compared to the similarly-named and -themed La Trappe across the bay in North Beach, there are more taps here, though La Trappe seems to have a longer bottle list.  Both are fine establishments, but The Trappist is less crowded, less expensive, and seems a little more laidback than its counterpart in the City.

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A few blocks toward the bay from The Trappist is the new beer-geek darling of Oakland:  Beer Revolution.  It's easy to see why people are so enamored of Beer Revolution:  over 40 taps of well-chosen beer, plus several coolers full of bottles for takeaway or drinking there ($1 corkage fee), and the easy-going taproom/bottleshop system of bringing in your own food.  It's like a less crowded, less expensive, more laidback version of SF's City Beer Store (a theme is developing here).  There's even a small but sunny patio area out front.  I had a great time at Beer Revolution, enjoyed a delicious glass of barrel-aged stout from Drake's before wading in to the LA brewery tap takeover that was going on that weekend.

One big gripe about Beer Revolution:  the pint glasses there are cheater pints, those big-booted bastardizations that only hold about 13 ounces of beer.  It wasn't just one that slipped into the mix -- after I noticed that I was served one, I started watching and all the pint glasses that came across the bar were cheaters.  C'mon guys, it's the year 2012, please get with the Honest Pint program.  Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I'll still say that the selection and atmosphere make Beer Rev a must-stop in Oakland despite the glassware, and many of the big beers they'll tempt you with will be in smaller glasses anyway.

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On the advice of Beer Revolution's co-owner Rebecca, I went from there right down to the waterfront to check out Heinhold's First and Last Chance. Something of a tourist trap which claims an association to Call of the Wild author Jack London, it is nevertheless worth a visit.  They have a couple of sessionable local beers on tap, and they also serve -- another hat tip to Rebecca -- a very nutritious and delicious Bloody Mary.  The floor and bar slope noticeably downward towards the back of the building -- a little remodeling done by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.  Heinhold's cleverly straddles the line between cheesy and authentic, and it would be better to say you'd been there than to say you'd missed it.

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There are a couple of breweries in downtown Oakland:  Linden Street Brewery, which I didn't get around to visiting but which had some tasty beers on tap at Heinhold's; and Pacific Coast Brewing around the corner from the Trappist, which is friendly and comfortable enough but doesn't make very good beer (luckily they have about a dozen guest taps). If you're looking for a good meal with good beer to accompany it, head up Broadway away from the bay to Luka's Taproom. The 16-tap beer list won't blow you away, but it's serviceable enough, and it's fun to watch the hip locals come and go while you fill up on good food.

Oakland has a lot going on beer-wise, and offers easy access to San Francisco while being much cheaper, quieter, and easier to navigate. Next time you're headed to the Bay Area, consider setting up camp in Oakland.

Your Thoughts on Where to Drink Beer in Portland

Somehow on Tuesday's post about Bridgeport, the comments veered off on a tangent of what beer places to recommend to out-of-town visitors to Portland.

My top three recommendations to anyone are always:

• Horse Brass: great atmosphere, great beer, decent food
• Deschutes: great beer, good food
• Lucky Lab (Hawthorne): perfect Portland vibe

One of the commenters yesterday suggested Hopworks as a great place to take visitors, and even though it isn't the first place that comes to my mind, there is nothing but solid beer there, and guests I've taken to HUB have always been very impressed (especially if they have young kids).

I think pub crawls are also a great way to show off the town, since there are often several good pubs within easy walking distance of one another.  If you can get your guests on a bike, so much the better.  I've written about a few Portland pub crawls, but several of them are out of date due to openings and closings, so you might want to check out Jeff's series of pub crawls on Beervana.

What about you?  Where do you insist on taking out-of-town guests for beer, and why?

Moeder Lambic Fontainas, Brussels

It was the last night of our European vacation, and we were in Brussels for less than 24 hours.  We took a family stroll around the Grand-Place, and once the girls had been nourished by bland cheap pizza slices, they announced they had no intention of hanging around with Carla and I as we sat around enjoying some Belgian beers on the last night of our trip.

That turned out to be a good thing: with the girls in tow we probably would have just hunkered down at someplace like the Delirium Café in one of the crowded alleys off the main square.  Instead, we dumped them off at the hotel, and wandered over to the stellar beer bar Moeder Lambic Fontainas, around the corner from the famous statue of the little peeing boy.  It's just off a fairly busy boulevard, but separated from it by the sleepy Fontainas square.  The interior was rustic and comforting, but since the weather was finally beautiful for the last day of our trip, we sat outside on the airy patio with most of the other patrons.

As you might have guessed by the name, Moeder Lambic has quite a selection of sour Belgian ales in the Lambic and Gueze categories.  I'm far from expert in those kinds of beers, so it seemed novel and exciting to see on the menu that not only do they have a fair number of those wild ales on tap, they also have several of them served on cask, like the Drie Fonteinen Kriek in the picture here.  If you know what you're after, the bottle list evidently has a lot of good choices also.  A party of serious gueze lovers at the next table from us had a couple of vintage bottles brought out in wicker baskets.

Even if you aren't attracted by the sour selection, there are plenty of taps of other Belgian styles, plus 15 rotating guest taps.  When we were there, the guest taps included a hefeweizen, a rauchbier, and a pilsner all from Germany, a Dutch tripel, an Italian cask ale, and even something from France.  Carla doesn't care for most Belgian beer, and certainly not sour beer, but she lived happily off the rotating taps, first with a Viven Imperial IPA, and then with a Mikkeller Citra single-hop.  Viven is an impressive brewery -- we had really liked the porter when we tried it at Cambrinus in Brugge, and the IIPA was very solid, leaving Carla a little disappointed in her Mikkeller.

Service was very friendly; our waitress replied smoothly to Carla's English, the Flemish of our gueze-drinking neighbors, and my rusty French.  A small bowl of roasted barley appeared on the table as something to crunch on as we drank our beer, but we also ordered a salad and a cheese plate from the menu, and both were excellent and reasonably priced.  Decent portions:  I'm usually a clean plate guy, but I had to leave some cheese behind.

There is obviously a lot more going on in Brussels than just this one place.  I had been hoping to get there early enough to take the fabled self-guided tour of Cantillon, but it didn't work out that way.  There is another, older Moeder Lambic location, but the Beer Advocate reviews seem to favor the Fontainas location we went to.  I recommend it, especially if you're a sour ale fan, but even if you're not.

In De Vrede, Westvleteren

One of the most sought-after beers in the world is Westvleteren 12, the quadrupel ale brewed by the Trappist monks of Saint Sixtus Abbey in Westvleteren, Belgium.  Adding to the mystique is the fact that the brothers do not distribute their beers through wholesalers or exporters.  The abbey has a cumbersome system where individuals can call the brewery during certain hours to reserve a maximum of two cases of beer for pickup on a different date.  Phone numbers and license plates are tracked to restrict each buyer to one such purchase per month.

This limited distribution not only makes beer from Saint Sixtus taste better, it practically guarantees that a tourist won't be able to stuff his suitcase with a case of Westy.  A few bottles of Westvleteren -- the aforementioned 12, a dubbel called Westvleteren 8, and a hoppy golden ale called Westvleteren Blond -- make their way via the black market into bottleshops and bars in Belgium and Holland at a premium price. I shelled out about 20 bucks for a 33 cl bottle of the quad at Gollem's Proeflokaal in Amsterdam.  The other way you can sample these beers is to visit the Abbey, where the cafeteria -- In De Vrede -- will serve you the quad, dubbel, or blond for the reasonable tariffs of €4.7, €4.2, and €3.7 respectively (about $6.60, $5.90, and $5.20).  It's bottled beer, not draft, but poured into the official goblet.  An attached gift shop apparently used to sell six-packs -- limit one per customer -- but on the day we visited there were only "tasting kits" for sale:  €23 for two bottles of the Blond, one 8, one 12, and a goblet.  Sheesh.

We visited In De Vrede ("Vrede" means "peace" in Dutch) on the way from Brugge to Brussels.  It was a little bit of a detour, but well worth it for the chance to try all the Westvleterens at a reasonable price.  It's an odd place, nothing like a bar or pub  I called it a cafeteria above, and that's truly what it is.  At 1:30 on a weekday afternoon, the place was packed, and it seemed to me to be largely a local crowd, demographically on the older side.  The food is very simple and inexpensive, basically cheese sandwich, ham and cheese sandwich, or house-made paté sandwich, to which you could add a side green salad.  I loved the paté; the salad was fresh and good.  The girls got ice cream sundaes that were kind of lame, but the ice-cream made with Westvleteren Blond served to neighboring tables looked much more interesting. The servers all seemed to speak English well, and were very polite and helpful.

Westvleteren 12 is a dense, complex quad, with the usual Abbey ale yeast flavors, a nice balance of bitterness, not too sweet, and with no sharp edges to any of the flavors.  The 8 is recognizable as 12's little brother -- much of the same flavor in a less boozy package.  The Blond is a nice surprise -- a fairly light-bodied ale, 6% alcohol, with lots and lots of hop bitterness.  It reminded me of some of Hair of the Dog's Little Dog small beers -- which also combine light brews with tons of hops -- though of course it's about twice as strong as the Little Dogs.

There is a small museum behind the cafeteria called "The Claustrum". As with the beer sales, its hours are idiosyncratic, and all of the information is printed in Flemish, but it's worth a quick gander if you're there when it's open. The picture at the top is from the brewery exhibit at the Claustrum.

Since we were driving through Belgium twice during our trip, I did actually try to call from Paris and order a case of the Westvleteren, even though the abbey's website showed that they were only only accepting orders at that time for the not-as-collectible Blond. But I gave it up when the abbey's beer line rejected my phone call placed through Skype. We didn't have a phone in our Paris flat and our rental car was already completely full with no room for a crate of beer, so I decided not to flagellate myself any further with Saint Sixtus' convoluted procedures.  The owner of the hotel we stayed at in Brugge confided to me that later this year the monks will begin limited distribution in Belgian grocery stores, but BeerNews.org reported the same rumor last year, so readers in Belgium should not break their piggybanks just yet.

I don't know if Westvleteren 12 is really the best beer in the world. But it certainly is a fine abbey ale, and if you have the chance, you should try it. In Amsterdam we tasted it alongside the fairly similar St. Bernardus Abt, and the Westvleteren was indeed the more complex and refined beer. Get it if you can, and certainly pay a visit to In De Vrede next time you're in Flanders.

Further reading:  Check out this excellent tale of walking around the Westvleteren area on Jeff's blog The Beer Cave!

De Bier Tempel and More Brugge Beer

Last week I told you about the fabulous Bierbrasserie Cambrinus in Brugge, Belgium.  There are a number of good beer places in Brugge -- it is located in the beer-obsessed region of Flanders, after all -- so this time I'll expound on a few of them we visited during our short stay there.

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De Bier Tempel

First I want to relate to you a story about the miraculous power of beer, and the shrine to fermented grain known as De Bier Tempel (no translation needed).  How's your attention span?  Got room for more than 140 characters?  Here goes...

Driving into Brugge from Amsterdam, of course we took a wrong turn just as we got into town.  Actually, we do this everywhere we go: it's my superpower.  In the small French town of Bléré we were lucky enough to spot a roadside tourist map that set us straight.  Driving into Paris, our wrong turn led us into a nerve-wracking ninety-minute waking-life stress dream meandering through the suburbs before we got back on track.  Amsterdam was a cinch: we went the wrong way on the ring road around the city, but since it's so compact, we just completed the circle and it only took us about 20 minutes longer to get where we were going.

We didn't have a map of Brugge, but I thought the town was small enough that eventually we would run into a street that looked familiar from the driving directions I printed out. We never did. When Carla accidentally drove right out onto the no-cars-allowed main square, she carefully backed out of it and informed me in no uncertain terms that we were going to take the desperate measure of asking a fellow human being for help.  "I'm parking this [inaudible] car right here, and you're asking directions from the first person who looks nice."  Yes, dear.

There happened to be a man standing in the doorway of the shop we had just parked in front of.  I smiled at him and nodded good day through the car window, and he nodded back before going inside.  That must be the nice person Carla was talking about, I thought to myself.  When I got out of the car, I looked up at the sign above the shop: De Bier Tempel.

My jaw dropped, because before we left on our trip, Pub Night buddy and soon-to-be contributor msubulldog put me in email contact with his friend Regnier who does Belgian beer tours and who also works in a Brugges beer shop -- none other than the aforementioned Bier Tempel.  I dashed into the store.  "Are you Regnier?!?" "No, I'm Serge, but Regnier is in the back." Long story short, we accidentally landed on the doorstep of the one person we had a connection with in town, it was five minutes to quitting time, and he was kind enough to squeeze into the car with us and navigate us to our hotel.  That is the power of beer.

De Bier Tempel is a nice little bottleshop.  A great selection of bottled beer is on the shelves, and they sell glassware from nearly any Belgian brewery you can think of.  You can drink a bottle in the store, though I was kind of surprised that we weren't offered a glass.  I suppose they would have to insist on it being exactly the right glass, and a small shop can't keep one from every brewery in circulation.  That, or they don't like doing dishes.  So we swigged right out of our bottles as we browsed the store.  There are a few kept cool in a refrigerator, but the shelves full of unknown-to-us beers were what drew us in.

De Bier Tempel also stocks various beer-related souvenirs and snacks.  We were tempted by the autobiography of Pierre Celis, but found that the English title "My Life" belied the fact that the book was written in Flemish, so instead I walked out with a cheesy deck of playing cards, each with a different Belgian beer on it.  Check out De Bier Tempel for some of your Brugge beer shopping, though I can't guarantee that they'll escort you to your hotel.

Staminee de Garre

The historic main square in Brugge is lined with brasseries, but none of them looked appealing enough for us to get over our resistance to their high prices.  Instead we sought out the tavern called Staminee de Garre, which is located down an alley whose entrance looks like a doorway into an adjacent building.  I looked for De Garre all day on our first day in town, and finally found the place on the second day.  Beer Nerds has some good pictures of both the entrance to the alleyway and the inside of the tavern towards the bottom of this post.

It's a cool looking old tavern, and pretty small.  When my daughter and I popped our heads in, the barman shooed us out sternly.  "No.  No.  We're full."  This is not unusual for customer service in Brugge.  Don't take it personally, the place is overrun with tourists from around the world, and I'm sure they -- we -- become a nuisance after a while.  The two of us went and brought Carla and our other daughter over, just to show them the cool hidden alleyway.  About that time a party of five or six walked out of the Staminee, so when Carla peeked inside the barman gloomily indicated to her a table where we could sit.

De Garre has four or five nice things on tap -- including the "house" tripel brewed by Van Steenberge served in a satisfyingly hefty snifter -- and a nice bottle selection.  We were amused at the little dish of cheese cubes with toothpicks that arrived with the beers.  A certain amount of food was available, though it seemed to be more of a drinking bar than a restaurant.  They also have a large rack of ceramic bottles of aged genever on the wall which we weren't brave enough to dabble in.  Great atmosphere; it's a nice place to have a beer or two.

't Brugs Beertje

I've been a little critical of customer service when talking about De Garre and Cambrinus, but I don't mean to single them out.  In Brugge you're just as likely to be brought to tears by the waffle lady or the clerk in the chocolate shop as by your waitress or bartender.  For example, as we tugged for a few minutes at the locked door of one shop -- well within the posted opening hours -- a worker inches away behind the glass grimly continued her shelf tidying task while studiously avoiding any acknowledgment of our presence.

Of course, every stereotype has exceptions, and I found a notable one in this case during my all-too-brief visit to the classic beer bar 't Brugs Beertje.  The folks behind the bar at the "Little Brugge Bear" were smiling, patient, and joking around with the patrons. I was only able to stay for a quick Straffe Hendrik tripel before my hungry and cranky womenfolk came to fetch me off to dinner, but I can see why this place is on everyone's list of must-visit bars in Brugge. The friendly staff and cozy, pubby atmosphere make it a place where you could stay for hours.

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We were only in Brugge for less than 48 hours, and not specifically on a beer mission. Even so, I enjoyed what I saw of the beer there, and wouldn't mind spending more time exploring it.

Bierbrasserie Cambrinus, Brugge

After leaving Amsterdam, we spent a couple of nights in the well-preserved medieval city of Brugge, Belgium. It's undeniably an amazing place, but because its sole purpose today is as a tourist center, our family was divided on how fun it was to be there. Me, I'm not afraid to be a tourist when that's what I am, and I give Brugge (pronounced Brew-[throat-clearing-noise]-Huh in Flemish) a thumbs up. It's easier to say the French version of the city name, Bruges, with a soft "g" like the second one in "garage", but it is in Flanders and most of the people in the area seemed to speak Flemish first. The post after this one will be a compendium of a few interesting Brugge beer spots -- including the story of accidentally wandering right into De Bier Tempel in our hour of greatest need -- but today I want to single out an outstanding gastropub in Brugge: the Bierbrasserie Cambrinus.

We were advised to call ahead for dinner reservations, but we wouldn't be pinned down like that, and the four of us stumbled into Cambrinus about 7:30 PM on the Monday night that we arrived in town.  At the door, we were greeted somewhat coolly by a pretty hostess who was exasperated by our foolish lack of reservations, but she told us we could sit at the bar -- even our two teenagers -- and see if anything came up.  Luckily there were four seats at the bar, and the place had such a lively atmosphere that we didn't mind hanging out for a beverage, even though the bartender had no time for conversation and it sounded like there was no way we would get a table.

We expected to have a beer there and then move on to someplace less crowded, but a nice table was found for us before Carla and I had even finished our beers.  They never asked our name for the waiting list, so I can only assume the entries were something like "unkempt American with wife and two daughters" or "drunk Australian couple".  Whatever the system, we were quite grateful to be seated, and our waiter patiently helped us figure out the next beer as we waited on our food.

Oh my goodness, the food.  It was a little pricey, but it was one of the most memorable meals of our vacation.  The picture at the top barely does justice to the giant steaming pot of delicious mussels that was served me, and I'm sad that I cut the accompanying fries out of the picture.  Nor did I get a photo of Carla's Flemish beef stew with a side of homemade applesauce, but it was also fabulous.  Even the vegetarian in our party was content with her French onion soup.  If you want to drool over the menu, it's posted here in English, though for some reason it omits the various mussel options.  I believe there were 8 beer taps, but the choices weren't that stunning.  The real beer action was in the large wood-bound tome that listed the hundreds of bottles available.

We enjoyed Cambrinus so much that -- after taking a look at a couple of other restaurants -- we ended up there for dinner the next night also.  Same modus operandi: walk in at 7:30 to a frosty reception; "you don't have reservations?"; wait at the bar; here's your table.  They aren't kidding about being busy -- every table was always full -- but somehow our timing was right both nights to get us a table in a comfortable amount of time.  Another stunning meal was had, accompanied by some mighty fine beer.  I especially liked the Viven Porter that Carla ordered, and the Straffe Hendrik quadrupel from local brewery De Halve Maan.

I can't recommend Cambrinus enough.  Excellent beer, food, and atmosphere.  The service is a little bit brusque, but that seems to be the nature of a tourist town, and the servers were actually quite professional under their hard shell.

Bikes and Beers in Amsterdam

For a person who has been wedded to bicycle transportation for about 25 years, it's a wonder that it took me so long to visit Amsterdam, where nearly every resident of every age rides a bike in every kind of weather, without making too big of a deal about it. Well, I finally made my pilgrimage, and had a great time biking the canalside streets and parks of the central area on a clunky rented one-speed girl's bike with a flowered seatcover and chopper handlebars that let me lean back until I was almost horizontal.

The icing on the cake is that Amsterdam is also a fabulous beer destination, as I noted in previous posts about 't Arendsnest (my favorite place in Amsterdam) and Gollem's Proeflokaal.  I had a great beer time there even though I missed several of the "must-visit" beer establishments: bars In De Wildeman and Café Belgique, and bottleshop De Bierkoning.

I did make it into one excellent bottleshop -- De Gekraakte Ketel (the Cracked Kettle) -- across the alleyway from the original (and currently closed) Gollem's location. The picture above of the bicycle with the crate of Westvleteren empties is the Cracked Kettle's sandwich-board -- it would make a better picture if the front tire had air in it. The rambling split-level shop had a good selection of Dutch and Belgian beers -- I grabbed a bottle of Columbus strong pale ale from 't IJ brewery, and a bargain-priced 750 ml Cantillon Iris ($10.50). I inquired about Westvleteren based on the crate out front, but all they had in stock were a few 1996 bottles of the 12, priced (if I remember right) at €50 ($70) each.  Other geek-worthy beers were to be found there also, including some American offerings, and BrewDog's viagra-laced Royal Virility Performance.

Seeing as how Gollem's was closed, a clerk at the Gekraakte Ketel recommended a replacement bar for us: De Zotte Belgisch Bierproeflokaal. The jawbreaker "Proeflokaal" that you see in these bar names means "tasting room". It was a nice place on a quiet side street just outside the canal district. At a little after 4 PM on a weekday, we were alone in the place with the bartender, the pub cat, and some kids from across the street that came in to use the restroom. The cat became quite interested in the block of cheese that was coming out of the refrigerator below the bar, and hopped right up there for a taste. There was a good selection of Belgian bottles, and a few taps (6-10 if I remember right).

Another place worth mentioning is The Beer Temple, which bills itself as an American beer bar.  It's owned by the Arend family that runs the fabulous Arendsnest.  There are an impressive number of American beers on tap, from the likes of Great Divide, Rogue, Left Hand, Anchor, and other quality brewers.  In addition, there are a few Dutch and Belgian taps, and some lighter fare like Beck's and Hoegaarden.  Nice pubby atmosphere like 't Arendsnest, but the beer selection is wasted on an Oregon beer snob -- too much focus on stuff I can get cheaper and fresher at home.  One interesting thing is that the Beer Temple was offering 20 ml -- about two-thirds of an ounce -- of BrewDog's Sink the Bismarck for €8.50, or Tactical Nuclear Penguin for €7.50 ($12 and $10.50). The British gents in the picture had ordered shots of TNP in tiny beer steins and were generously sharing it with the other patrons.  We decided it had an herbal character, kind of like an Italian Amaro.  Whoa, that's an SPE of $1277.58 for Sink the Bismarck!  It's just a lucky accident that the picture shows a BrewDog "Beer for Punks" banner reflected in the window behind them.

The proeflokaals and bottle shops will keep you busy and well-beered in Amsterdam.  Supermarkets also had a few drinkable options on the shelf -- some La Trappe varieties and some widely-distributed Belgians like Duvel.  On our first night in town, I grabbed a couple of "lentebocks" off the shelf, since we wouldn't be leaving the apartment that night.  Grolsch's was sickly-sweet, a real struggle to get through, but a brewery called Hertog Jan had made a very nice, copper-colored maibock with the right balance of malt richness and lagered crispness.  It was packaged like a cheap supermarket brand with a few different beer styles, but it was a solid choice for the refrigerator shelf.

I'm glad I finally made it to Amsterdam.  Now I've got to find a way to get back there again.

't Arendsnest, Amsterdam

On our recent trip to Europe, I expected excellent beer during our 3 days in Belgium, but the most pleasant surprise to me was what a wonderful beer town Amsterdam is. I already wrote about Gollem's Proeflokaal, but my favorite pub of the whole trip was  't Arendsnest, a beer bar in the western canal district of Amsterdam that only serves beer brewed in the Netherlands.  It's not just the selection of 30 Dutch taps and scores of bottles that makes it a great place, but the cozy, comfortable digs and the relaxed atmosphere.

On our first visit, Carla and I had very little idea what to order.  The only familiar names to me on the taplist were La Trappe, which I figured is readily enough available in Portland, and Jan Hertog, which I had seen alongside Grolsch at the supermarket in the Jordaan neighborhood where we were staying.  Luckily in scanning the taphandles I noticed that the "Rook & Vuur" on the chalkboard was actually a smoked doppelbock ("Smoke & Fire") from De Molen -- possibly also available in Portland, but never on tap, and pretty pricey in the bottle.  Now we had to figure out something for Carla -- treading around the abbey-style ales that she doesn't usually like -- but a quick consultation with the bartender led to an excellent choice: Jopen Extra Stout.  The Rook & Vuur had just the right touch of smoke on top of a deep, complex beer.  The Jopen was a delicious, dark, roasty, creamy stout that arrived with a thick, tan head that stood up over the top of Carla's goblet.

In the picture at the top you can see a sink of soap suds and a sink full of clean water.  When you order a draft beer, the glass is washed and rinsed before being filled, then carefully submerged first in the soapy basin and then in the clean basin before being handed to you, to keep you from having any sticky beer on the outside of your glass.  Is this outside rinse after the pour the usual Low Country ritual?  Maybe we tended to order bottles more often at other places, but 't Arendsnest is the only place I noticed the rinsing ritual.

Carla went bigger with her next beer, a fantastic 2009 Imperial Stout from Dutch brewing collective SNAB called Czaar Peter; I went for something lighter with a satisfying malty amber called Roodborst (Redbreast) from De Snaterende Arend, which is the house label of 't Arendsnest.  In trying to pin down the parentage of those two beers for this post, I see that both of them were likely contract brewed at De Proef Brouwerij, whose distinguished-sounding name completely obscures the Dutch joke that it is merely The "Test" Brewery.  (While we're doing a Dutch lesson, I'll reveal that 't Arendsnest means "the Eagle's nest", and is a pun on the owner's last name -- Peter van der Arend.  The 't is a contraction of het, which is the definite article for neuter-gender nouns, though it beats me when you use het and when 't.  "De Snaterende Arend" means "the clucking eagle", according to this very detailed history of the place on the White Beer Travels website, and is a pun on the names of Arend and a brewer named Snater.)

More good beers were had on a second visit.  I pressed the light and hoppy Jopen Gerstebier into service as the beer side of a kopstootje, somewhat to the amusement of the Arendsnest bartenders, but I was a little disappointed that the shot of genever wasn't served in the tiny glass that gets filled up past the rim.  Carla continued her imperial stout mission with an Emelisse on tap.  I wasn't all that happy with my next beer, a low-gravity De Molen rauchbier called Geboren & Getogen ("born and raised").  I was hoping for something like Rook & Vuur's little brother, but they seemed to be totally unrelated; Geboren had some "band-aid" phenols that I didn't care for, and a tiny bit of sourness that didn't go well with the smoke for me.

I consoled myself for that beer disappointment with a taste of barrel-aged 3-year-old genever from Zuidam; as luck would have it the bar didn't have enough for a full shot, so I was compensated with a half shot of 5-year-old genever from the same distiller.  It was more along the lines of a whisky than a gin, but still pretty dry and with nice aromatics.  The 5 was much smoother than the 3, and that's what I'd get if I were having it again.  (By the way, It's Pub Night sponsor Master of Malt sells Zuidam 5 Jaar Zeer Oude Genever, including small samples.)  The evening was capped off with the Java Tripel from Holland's De Halve Maan brewery (not the one in Brugge).  Don't worry, it wasn't a coffee tripel, just a straightforward, decent abbey-style ale.

A little bit of snack food is available at 't Arendsnest, cheese or sausage trays and a few variations on the peanut -- I liked the crunchy corn-battered borrelnoten.  The pub is not terribly large, so I imagine it might get a little crowded, though we easily found spots at the bar on both of our visits.  If you have a large group and you want an introductory lesson on Dutch beer, 't Arendsnest takes reservations for guided tasting sessions that are held in a separate area in the basement, though you'll miss the ambiance and camaraderie of the ground floor.

'T Arendsnest is a knockout.  Don't miss it if you're in Amsterdam.

Gollem's Proeflokaal, Amsterdam

Our family vacation to Europe has not been, by and large, a beer vacation.  That's OK, I didn't expect it to be, and in fact family vacations always give short shrift to beer.  But the last few days in Amsterdam have been something of a beery reprieve for the man of the house, with several good beer bars, a couple of top-notch bottle shops, and even a surprisingly good cheap supermarket brand.

That gives me material for several blog posts, but let me start off by tipping you off to the -- as of this writing -- last surviving member of the Gollem family of Amsterdam beer bars.  Gollem's Proeflokaal, which wasn't on beermapping.com or Beer Advocate's BeerFly before my visit, is a charming and well-stocked pub, well off the beaten path at 160 Overtoom, but just a short walk from the Van Gogh Museum.  We ended up there for lunch Saturday by accident -- no, really, the South Indian dosa place at the corner was closed -- and were very pleased with our burgers, vegetarian croquettes, and salads.  Oh yeah, and by the bottle of Westvleteren 12 ($20).

I was glad to get to a Gollem location, since the famed original Café Gollem in central Amsterdam has been closed for nearly a year because of some hangup with its license, and so has the Biercafé Gollem in the De Pijp neighborhood.  The Netherlands has a lot going for it, government-wise, but it sounds like it is still possible to get crosswise with officious bureaucrats.  Rumor has it that some kind of deal might allow the reopening of the other Gollem locations this fall, but meanwhile your only option is the Proeflokaal.

It may not have the dark, cozy atmosphere of the original Café Gollem, but the Proeflokaal has a spacious, relaxed vibe, good food, and an excellent beer selection.  Definitely check it out if you're in Amsterdam.

La Cave à Bulles, Paris

Alcoholic beverage word association, quickly:  "France?"  Of course you said "Wine".  Good beer is available in France, just not in the variety that an Oregon beer geek has come to demand, and not piled high in every restaurant, diner, and convenience store the way good wine is.  After a week in the Loire Valley and Paris, I'm delirious with joy if a bar has Affligem Blond on tap instead of the ubiquitous and somewhat cloying Leffe Blonde; in the supermarket the best option tends to be Hoegaarden tall-boys, though I did drink a couple Kronenbourgs to support the local team.

Luckily, our Paris lodgings were a five-minute walk from the showcase beer store in the City of Light:  La cave à bulles -- translation: The Suds Cellar -- at 45 Rue Quincampoix, around the corner from the Centre Pompidou.  It's stocked with a few hundred varieties of beer, and might remind you somewhat of the original Belmont Station location.  The focus is fittingly on French beer, though there is a good selection of Belgians, and even a few Sierra Nevada and Left Hand bottles tucked away.  The Belgian selection is less than what is available in Portland at Beermongers or Belmont, but la Cave did have a few Cantillons on the shelf, which hasn't been available in Oregon recently ($8 for 375 ml).

The proprietor, Simon Thillou, is very welcoming, and gives personal attention to each customer that walks in, to try and guide them in their beer selection.  I watched him work with an older couple who came in to look for a bottle to impress a beer loving friend:  "Do you want something stronger or less so?  Darker or lighter?  Sweeter or drier?  How bitter?"  They were beer novices, and balked a little at "bitter".  "But you drink coffee, you eat chocolate, don't you?  It's not bitter in a bad way."  He's equally adept at working with a picky beer geek, starting with a few questions about what you like, and branching out with some choices to help you explore the French beer scene.  His English is probably better than your French, so don't hesitate to ask questions.

Most of the bottles are sold at room temperature, though a small number are kept refrigerated, if you're in a big hurry to get some beer down your throat.  Prices are reasonable, considering a central Paris location:  generally about $4.25 for 33 cl bottles, or $8.50 for 750 ml.  Big bottles of Cantillon Iris were on the shelf for $19, and if you're homesick, drop €6.10 for a Ninkasi IPA -- oh, wait, that's the French Ninkasi in Lyon, which predates the Oregon one.  La cave à bulles is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 AM to 2 PM, and 4 PM to 8 PM (but not Wednesday mornings).

I only got to make one visit to the Cave à bulles, because the store is closed Sunday and Monday, we arrived in Paris in a downpour Saturday evening after it was closed, and we left town Wednesday morning before it opened.  I'm glad I finally made it there, and I highly recommend it to you if you're visiting Paris.

Dunsmuir Brewery Works

The forested little town of Dunsmuir, California, is a convenient stopping point when driving I-5 between Portland and San Francisco.  That's a trick my friend Eric taught me years ago:  driving to California, Dunsmuir's old-school vacation cabins are an entertaining place to stay the night if you got a late start; driving back, it's a convenient lunch stop.  Dave and I pulled into the little town on the way back from San Francisco a couple weeks ago, with no higher hopes than to find some kind of mom-and-pop diner.  Lo and behold, there is a fairly new brewpub open on the main drag, Dunsmuir Brewery Works.

We had a decent bratwurst lunch there.  They only had two of their beers on tap -- an IPA and a porter -- because their customers have been drinking them dry, kind of like what happened a couple months ago to Breakside here in Portland.  The IPA was not all that great, a little flat if I remember right, but I thought the porter was pretty well done and I'd be happy to drink it again next time I'm passing through.  Ordinarily they would have five house beers on tap, plus a couple guest taps.  When we were there, the guest taps were Lost Coast Tangerine Wheat (the Widmer Hefeweizen of Northern California), Stella Artois, and the tasty Phoenix Red from Etna Brewing, a small brewery just southwest of Yreka.

Dunsmuir prides itself on the spring water that provides the city's municipal water supply -- the city website is subtitled "Home of the best water on Earth".  It is very good water -- though not quite as good as our Bull Run water -- and it's nice to see a local brewer take advantage of it. If you're on I-5 and need to stretch your legs or get a quick bite to eat, pull off in Dunsmuir and hit the Brewery Works.

Russian River and Bear Republic Pubs

Last week I wrote up a visit to the Lagunitas Taproom, the first stop on a day trip out of the city on a recent trip to San Francisco.  With Andy at the wheel and Dave and I drinking at pubs and snoring in the car, we headed north from Lagunitas to Russian River's pub in Santa Rosa, and then Bear Republic's pub in Healdsburg.

Russian River was fun:  it wasn't wine-country fancy as I had feared, rather it was a spacious, kid-friendly place that would fit right in if it were suddenly dropped into Portland.  The food was pretty standard pub grub, and not surprisingly there was a fabulous selection of RR beers -- 15 on tap the day we were there.  The beers were very reasonably priced -- especially for California -- West Coast ales were $4.50 a pint, and the Belgian "-tion" beers ranged from $3.75 to $6.75 a snifter.  Whether you're going for the hop monsters like Pliny the Elder or Blind Pig, or for the sours like Consecration and Sanctification, you'll be pleased.  Go visit if you're anywhere nearby.

About a half hour north of Santa Rosa is the little resort town of Healdsburg.  Tucked behind the tourist-shopping main drag is a Bear Republic pub, which we thought we'd try, since we like quite a few of their beers, like Red Rocket and Racers 5 and X.  As near as we could tell, no actual brewing happens at the pub, but they plunked a bunch of big tanks down here and there to give it a brewy feel.  The place was a little bit of a letdown, partly because the Bear Republic meet-the-brewer at Apex in Portland a couple weeks ago had a much more amazing selection of their beers than the pub did, and partly because Russian River and Lagunitas were much more our style.  The thing that made the biggest impression on me was that a lot of people at the Healdsburg pub were drinking from German-style 1-liter mugs.  If for some reason you are being punished with an overnight stay in Healdsburg, those would be just the ticket for drowning your sorrows.  But I wouldn't recommend going out of your way for a visit.  Neither the town nor the Bear Republic pub offers much to get excited about.