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.

Zeus Café

McMenamins really put their back into the rehabilitation of the old Club Portland building into the new Crystal Hotel and its ground-floor Zeus Café.  Perhaps to draw a clear contrast with the run-down gay bathhouse that most recently occupied the location, the Zeus is a lot tonier than the usual McM's place.  It's quirky, for sure, but in a fancier way than even the crown jewels of the chain like Edgefield or the Kennedy School.

In addition to the decor, another place you'll notice the difference is the lunch/brunch menu, a simple half-sheet of paper with no whimsical allusions to the Grateful Dead or other colorful characters, no tater tots, rather dishes (and prices) aimed at a well-heeled clientele.  The dinner menu is even more abbreviated and spendy, and the wine list is far more extensive than all the food menus combined.  At first all this is a little jarring, but it makes sense when you remember that the regular-folks McMenamins atmosphere and menu is available one block down at the Crystal Ballroom.  No need to duplicate that at the Zeus, better instead to compete with nearby grown-up restaurants like Jake's and Henry's.  There is a darker bar in the basement called Al's Den, which opens at 4 PM, but its menu is a subset of the upstairs food.

The beer for the Zeus is brewed, as you might expect, down the street at the Crystal Ballroom (here's a previous post with more details on the McMenamins sister-pub network).  Since I was just musing about wines on tap the other day, I'll note that the McMenamins house white wines at the Zeus are served from CO₂ taps -- they don't do the red wines that way because the wine kegs sit in the same cooler as the beer kegs, which would be too cold for serving the reds.  Another fancy beverage touch that was added was a sweet Victoria Arduino manual lever espresso machine (at right).

The Zeus is a nice place in a great location, it will be interesting to see if they stick with the somewhat upscale hotel-restaurant menu or trend back towards the McMenamins house style.  Further reading:  check out the Portland Mercury's take on the Crystal Hotel remodel.

Hopworks BikeBar Opens

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

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

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

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

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

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.)

Broadway Grill and Brewery

A couple weeks ago on my way home from Zwickelmania at Breakside, I decided to pop in to the Broadway Grill and Brewery at NE 17th and Broadway.  If you're not familiar with it, it's an outpost of Multnomah Village's Old Market Pub and Brewery.  The first time I'd been to the Broadway Grill was a few years ago when some of us were over at the McMenamins on Broadway to drink some of Corey's beers.  After leaving McM's, we noticed the Grill, and since none of us had ever heard of it, we stopped in to check it out.  At that time we found that the beer was not very good.  But I've noticed that the last few times I've had an Old Market beer at a beer festival I've really enjoyed it, so I thought I would give the place a second chance.  Plus a sign hanging out front that advertised homemade chili called out to my lunch-deprived belly.

The place is basically a family-friendly sports bar -- typical pub grub and a selection of TVs scattered around with different sporting events on.  The chili was not what I hoped it would be, and the house beers I tried were a mixed bag, but there were a couple that were pretty good.  In the interest of science I got a sample tray of nine beers ($11) -- eight standards that they chose and one seasonal that I chose.  They have an impressive number of house beers on tap -- the menu lists 12 regulars, and I believe they had 4 or 5 seasonal choices the day I was there.  The beers I could see drinking again were:

• British Bombay IPA: pretty well-balanced, but still a healthy dose of hops
• Hop On!: nice IPA with a long bitter finish (the finish reminded me of Sierra Nevada's Southern Hemisphere)
• Multnomah Village Golden: kind of like flowery Hawaiian golden ales, not bad but more bitter than I expected
• Rat Dog ESB: decent enough ESB, though again a little more bitter than it had to be

Now for some beers that had problems:

• Mr. Toad's Wild Red: an attempt at a NW red that is way too malty, almost a porter
• Vienna Lager (seasonal): a little gamey, maybe not conditioned enough
• Pacific Porter: too sweet, with a strange cocoa flavor (added cocoa?)
• Mr. Slate's Gravelberry (raspberry wheat): the raspberries cover a mediciney off flavor that can't be intentional
• Great White Wheat (with obligatory lemon): same medicinal problem as Slate's, not cloudy as advertised

Now, I said the place was family friendly, but what's up with the kid's names on the beers?  Mr. Toad?  Mr. Slate (you know, from the Flintstones)?  Old Market says their beers are now 100% organic (I have to assume they are not including the hops).  They seemed to have a handle on the English ale range, but the other things I tried were not very good.  Next time I go back I need to try the beers flavored with chili peppers and apples, and I'd like to venture further into the seasonals, given the good luck I've been having with Old Market at festivals.

All in all, I'd say it's worth a visit if you're in the neighborhood or if there's a game on you want to watch.  Broad array of house beers; stick to the IPAs if you can't stand a disappointment.

Zwickeling and Randaling at Breakside

Saturday I crossed two things off my list that I should have done before, but hadn't.  Killed two birds with one stone actually:  finally made a visit to Breakside Brewing, and took part for the first time in Zwickelmania -- the Oregon Brewers Guild's annual event where breweries offer tours that include tastes of beer which is still in the fermenter.  Thanks to Kerry for inviting me to meet him at Breakside, otherwise I might still be in my benighted pre-Breakside and pre-Zwickelmania condition.

Breakside covers a lot of bases.  For starters, it serves a funky little neighborhood that doesn't have many other good beer choices.  In a town with 40 breweries, there's not one within a mile of Breakside.  The spirit of experimentation is strong there, too.  Instead of looking on the brewery's small 3-barrel system as an impediment, brewer Ben Edmunds turns it to his advantage by turning out small batches of playful experiments that he might not gamble on in larger quantities.  I missed a chance to try Ben's take on the resurrected German Gratzer style, which included apples as a flavoring; Saturday I had a tiny taste of the Aztec Ale, which you can think of as a tincture of cocoa and chile peppers.  Fresh from the Zwickel, Breakside served us a taste of an upcoming experimental release:  the Savory Stout, whose adjuncts include seaweed and miso soup -- sounds scary but judging from the slightly salty creaminess of the young beer, I think it might just work.

Breakside's Randall

The most experimental beers are released on Wednesdays at 3 PM -- the Savory Stout is coming up March 2nd.  The beer for this Wednesday is flavored with chestnuts and fermented with Brettanomyces -- read about it and the Savory Stout in this article on Brewpublic.  Breakside takes the beer taste explorations in another dimension with their Randall, infusing beers with chiles or other flavors.  On Saturday they poured us a taste of their Belgian Royal Brown ale Randallized with vanilla beans and dried cherries.  It was delicious -- cherries seem to go naturally with beer, and the vanilla added a round note to a rich beer that tends a little to the sweet side on its own. "Belgian Royal" -- that's clever.  I guess you can't use "Belgian" and "Imperial" in the same sentence.

I don't have anything to report on the food -- I fled the Zwickelmania crowds -- but the menu looks promising.  Kids are allowed in the pub until a certain hour.  Of the house standard beers, I tried the Hoppy Amber, which was just how I wanted it to be -- pleasantly malty with nice floral hops.  I also tried the one-off hopless Wheat Gruit -- a low-alcohol offering that was refreshing and lemongrassy.  It would be nice to see that come back in the summer as a low-octane, low-priced thirst quencher.

Now that I've taken the plunge, I hope to make it back to Breakside again soon.  Nice little neighborhood pub, in a place that really needed one, with some well-crafted and imaginative beers.  If you're biking there, it's not far off the Williams/Vancouver bike highway, or if you're coming from the Southeast like I was, NE 9th Avenue takes you right to it.

Pearl Specialty Market and Spirits

Pearl Specialty's Beer and Cigar Selection

Since I realized the other day that Bridgeport ESB had been discontinued by the brewery, I've been on a mission to find a few remaining bottles on sale somewhere. One of the bottle shops that I scoured -- to no avail -- was Pearl Specialty Market at 9th and NW Lovejoy. Even though the Pearl Market couldn't fulfill my ESB quest, I realized that the place is a hidden gem that a lot of people might not be aware of, offering a classy selection of micros and imports. It has flown under the radar to become the best bottle shop in NW Portland or downtown -- the only other competition in that part of town are the big grocery stores.

I'd been aware of Pearl Specialty for a while.  It created quite a splash when it opened, because the OLCC granted it one of the few licenses in Oregon to sell beer and wine alongside stronger spirits. More to the point, I realized it was one of the few liquor stores in town to be open until 10 PM -- most of them close at 7.

The liquor selection

I've saved a couple of neighborhood parties with that knowledge.  [As an aside, click here for my trick for scoring bottles of gin and rum even later into the night.] And for a while it was one of the few liquor stores in Portland that opened on Sunday, though the Republican Recession has made that a more commonplace occurrence in the last couple of years.

So I was aware of it as a liquor store, and I knew they sold beer, but I was surprised to see how much the beer selection has improved since my last visit a couple years ago.  According to the owner, Pearl Specialty started adding more beers when the store expanded in September of last year.  They are working towards a goal of stocking 1000 beers.  The picture at the top shows most of the beer section, and there is also another bank of coolers full of bombers and 12-packs outside the frame to the left.  They carry the Oregon standards, plus a high-end selection from beyond our fair borders:  off the top of my head, they seemed to carry pretty complete lineups from places like The Bruery, Dogfish Head, and Trappist breweries like Westmalle, St. Bernardus, and Rochefort.  You won't have a problem finding something to suit your mood if you go in there.

The beer prices are pretty normal -- not Beermongers cheap, but not predatory like you'd expect from a shop in the Pearl District.  I was mighty pleased to snag a bomber of Caldera's Rose Petal Imperial Golden for about $4.50, and stalwarts like Ninkasi and Lompoc ring in at the usual Portland price of $4.  Plus, there is a 5% discount if you buy 3 bottles of beer or wine, and a 10% discount if you buy 6 bottles -- that brings the Ninkasi down to $3.60, which actually is about as cheap as you'll find.

You've got to appreciate Pearl Specialty's motto:  Purveyor to those seeking the finer things in life.  To my mind that starts with good beer and high-end booze, but they also have a decent selection of wine and sake, and a cigar humidor.  Apparently designer bottled water was part of the original plan, but it isn't conspicuously on display there anymore and doesn't show up on the website.  Tough sell in a town were the tap water is as good as it is here.

Bottle shops have been springing up all over Portland in the last couple of years.  Following Belmont Station's lead, the latest fashion is to attach a bar to a bottle shop (Beermongers, Bottles) or vice versa (Saraveza, Hop and Vine [bottle shop opening Saturday]).  Pearl Specialty's angle of bottle shop plus liquor store is another interesting business model.  You could think of it as one-stop shopping for beer cocktails.  Anyway, cool place.  If you need a bottle of booze after the other liquor stores are closed, or if you're in the Pearl and you need to pick up a good bottle of beer, Pearl Specialty is the place to go.

McMenamins Sister Pub Layout

For a while now, I've been intrigued by McMenamins' "sister pub" arrangement. Since not every pub in the chain has a brewery on site, those without have to be supplied by those that do. There's not a central warehouse that takes care of distribution: instead, each non-brewing pub gets its beer from a particular brewery. That system first came to my attention when our friend Corey was the hotshot at Cornelius Pass Roadhouse. Getting me out to Hillsboro is like pulling teeth, but I was much happier when Corey's seasonals made it to CPR's sister pub at 15th and Broadway. At some point I asked at the Barley Mill where their beer came from, and found that they are supplied by the Hillsdale pub, which seems to me to be a stroke of luck, since Hillsdale's position as the first McM's brewery means it gets a lot of love from within the company.

Say you stumble upon a tasty seasonal at one of the pubs. If you know the sister pub(s), you might be able to find it closer to home, or at one of the other establishments you'd been intending to check out. Since the only connections I knew about were the ones I mentioned above, I emailed Kevin Tillotson, the brewing/distilling/winemaking director at McMenamins, to ask him what the current setup is. Kevin was kind enough to send me this list for Oregon:

• Edgefield Brewery to Bagdad and White Eagle
• Crystal Brewery to Grand Lodge
• Hillsdale Brewery to Barley Mill, Greenway, and Riverwood
• CPR Brewery to Broadway and Rock Creek Tavern
• West Linn Brewery to Oregon City, Sunnyside, and 205 Pub
• Kennedy School Brewery to St. Johns and Chapel Pub
• Fulton Brewery to Market St., Mission, and Blue Moon
• Lighthouse Brewery to Hotel Oregon
• Roseburg Brewery to East 19th
• High Street Brewery to North Bank
• Monroe Brewery to Corvallis 3rd Street
• Thompson Brewery to Boons Treasury
• John Barleycorns Brewery to Sherwood and Raleigh Hills
• Highland Brewery to Ram’s Head, Tavern and Pool, and Rock Creek Tavern

In Washington, the Columbia Brewery supplies the East Vancouver pub, and the other Washington breweries -- Spar, Olympic Club, Six Arms, Queen Anne, Dad Watson’s and Mill Creek -- all share kegs among themselves. Interestingly, beer from the Washington breweries can be sold in Oregon, but the Oregon beer is not approved for Washington. And Kevin points out that within Oregon, McMenamins could distribute beer from any brewery to any of the other pubs. It's just that the list above describes their current distribution. I had assumed there was some OLCC regulation that guided the arrangement, but that's not the case. I also thought each brewery supplied just one other pub, but that turned out to be wrong also. Many thanks to Kevin to clearing up these little mysteries for me.

The scenario I mentioned was wanting to locate a special seasonal at another pub, but in all honesty it might work the other way -- if you found that one particular McMenamins had a problem with its beers, you could also use the list to decide which other pub to avoid. In any case, I'm glad to finally be able to visualize the distribution of a ubiquitous player in the Oregon pub game.

Hair of the Dog Tasting Room

Yikes!  I finally sit down to grind out this ridiculously late post on Hair of the Dog's new tasting room -- well, it opened in mid-August -- only to discover that Dr. Wort came along just yesterday and turned in an uncharacteristically coherent report on the same subject.  (Uncharacteristically ass-kissing, also.  Geez, Doc, were you visited by three ghosts Saturday night?  Wasn't there anything you can fault Alan on?  That sweatshirt he's wearing in your picture isn't exactly Haute Couture -- are you sure that guy's really a high-class chef?)

Anyway, since I can't outdo Dr. Wort this time -- nor these earlier reports from The Beer Cave and Beervana --  I'll just get a few scattered observations out of my brain and then move on.

Location, location, location. Buying his own place, very centrally located, with a beautiful view of downtown across the river, was an ingenious move on Alan's part.  Remember how hard it was to figure out how to get to the old place, beneath an underpass and behind the railroad tracks?  Parking may be an issue, but it's also a place that's very accessible by bicycle, so maybe putting up a bunch of bike racks could help alleviate that.  He's also right across the street from the new, improved sidewalk across the Morrison Bridge -- in good weather it would be a nice stroll for downtown hotel guests.

Bankers' hours.  2 to 8 PM?  Not sure if I've ever heard of a business with those opening hours, and it's especially weird for a pub -- you're not open for lunch, not open for night owls, and barely open for dinner.  Closed Monday and Tuesday.

Big Dog, Little Dog.  It looks like there will almost always be a 3-4% ABV small beer on tap, made from the second runnings of one of HOTD's bigger beers.  I've had the Doggie Claws Little Dog a couple of times, and it's something really unique and wonderful.  It's light, but hoppy, not sweet at all, but satisfying.  I can't think of any other beer I've had with the same flavors.  Besides allowing you to pace yourself, the Little Dogs are also significantly cheaper than the regular lineup -- $2.50 a glass vs. $4.50 and up.  Word is that there is currently a Matt Little Dog on tap, with the somewhat smoky flavor of the Adam/Matt brew.

Look busy.  I haven't been there enough, but I don't really understand the kitchen situation.  It always looks like Alan and someone else are working really hard with big open flames in the open kitchen, but the menu consists mostly of prefab stuff like charcuterie or hummus plates.  The food seems a little overpriced to me for what it is, with the exception of the beef-brisket appetizer, which seems like quite a bargain for $6 if you share it around.  [Update 2011/04/16: alright, now I've had an excellent, moderately-priced meal there.  I take it all back.]

The best of beers.  In 2009 Hair of the Dog made an exclusive beer for Bottleworks in Seattle called Matt. It wasn't sold in Portland, but I was lucky enough to try it at the old brewery during a private party that was held as a school fundraiser.  It was amazing.  It's a strong, dark, smoky beer along the lines of Adam -- same basic recipe? -- that is then aged in apple brandy barrels from Clear Creek Distillery.  This year Alan made a new batch, that was sold in 12-ounce bottles for $15.  That's a pretty hefty price tag, but it really is a stellar beer -- I've already shared a couple of bottles, and it's delicious.

The worst of beers.  Now, on the other hand, there were a couple of very questionable beers on tap at the tasting room the weekend that Matt was released last month:  two versions of Fred from the Wood, one aged on peaches, and one on apricots.  The peach one was tolerable -- though not as good as plain ol' Fred from the Wood -- but the apricot one was very vinegary, with the added insult of acetone.  Not just a little vinegar, and a little acetone, but copious, sinus-clenching quantities.  Debbie caught Brett's first taste of it on this video: you can tell it's not a minor flaw in the beer, but something overwhelming. 
Frankly, it should not have been served, and I have to wonder why Alan let it out the door.  If you wanted to offer free tastes to adventure seekers, maybe.  But charging $3 for small tasters of a bad mistake is not a very good move.


So, from one of the veterans of Portland's beer scene, a promising new start, despite the apricot-vinegar misfire. The tasting room is sure to be a prominent fixture for years to come, especially if it can start staying open past 8.

Bushwhacker Cider

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4-4-2 Soccer Bar

Another place that has opened recently in SE is the 4-4-2 Soccer Bar at 18th and Hawthorne. Okay, okay, it's not a Portland beer geek paradise and probably never will be, but there are a few qualities that immediately endear it to me. First off, no Bud/Miller/Coors is served at the place -- the furthest down the ladder you can get is the Heineken tap. I asked the proprietor what he would say if a thirsty soccer fan demanded a Budweiser. "Not in my bar, some other place," he said. When I was in there the other day, the taps were Heineken, Spaten Pils, Paulaner Oktoberfest, Caldera Pale Ale, and Ninkasi Total Domination. A third tap reserved for Oregon beers was empty, but kegs from Deschutes, Lompoc, and Laurelwood were in the cooler waiting to be hooked up. There is also a decent selection of mostly German bottled beers -- Aventinus and Paulaner Salvator are what I remember from the top of my head.

Another thing that 4-4-2 has got right from the very beginning is Honest Pints. My Ninkasi came to me in a Spaten mug with a 0.5-liter line that left plenty of room for a head on the beer. Bravo! Remember folks, every time a new brewpub or taproom opens in Portland serving beer in shaker pints, a unicorn loses its horn. And yet here is a simple sports bar that gets it, and not only serves a full portion, but uses marked glassware. "I'm not stingy," says the owner.

The third reason you might stop in even if you're not a soccer fan is the delicious Bosnian food on the menu. I used to occasionally have lunch here before the remodel, when it was the European Market grocery store. There are an assortment of sandwiches, including a few vegetarian models, but I never get past the Ćevapi -- seasoned grilled ground beef -- served simply with onions and ajvar (red pepper relish) on homemade bread.

The three TVs are loaded up with every soccer channel the satellites can shower down upon us, and the pub regularly opens at 6:30 or 7 in the morning for important games -- where important has a meaning that I am not enough of a soccer fan to fully understand. It's not a very large space -- probably a half-dozen large tables and about the same number of small ones, plus space at the bar -- but I think a bar dedicated entirely to soccer is an idea that should succeed in Portland. Another welcome addition to the neighborhood.

Cascade Barrel House

The recent spate of pub openings in SE Portland has overwhelmed our tiny newsroom here at It's Pub Night. Plus, we wanted to give you round-the-clock coverage of the Fresh Hop movement, and give a fair and balanced assessment of the angry, hard-drinking Real Portlanders who are rising up against what they call "FINO beers" -- short for "Fresh-hop In Name Only" -- in other words, beers that are sold as Fresh Hop beers but which contain 100% dried hops. Aren't we dried enough already?

But now it's time to catch up with some of the new places around the neighborhood, starting with the Cascade Barrel House, which has been in the works for well over a year. It finally opened a couple of weeks ago, and it's a welcome addition to the neighborhood.

I'm not as big of a sour-beer fanatic as a lot of the beer geeks out there, but Ron and Curtis and the gang at Cascade have risen to national prominence with their barrel-aging program, specializing in fruit beers. The Kriek is my favorite -- something about cherries and beer -- but there are a staggering number of masterfully-done beers on the lineup: Noyaux, with apricots, raspberries, and roasted apricot pits; The Vine, with grapes; Sang Rouge, a blend of lots of crazy stuff. Extra credit to Cascade for not intentionally or unintentionally mangling the French names like many places do.

Since I'm also not a fan of driving across town, one black mark on my record is that I have never been to Cascade's Raccoon Lodge pub. But I held out long enough and they broke down and opened their Barrel House and pub within walking distance of my house. I haven't tried any of the food yet, but they have an impressive lineup of 15 or so Cascade beers on tap -- about a third of which are more traditional ales for you non-sour people -- plus two rotating taps that pour straight from the barrel. The atmosphere is relaxed and casual. A lot of the seating is barbecue-place picnic tables which can be moved out to the front patio in good weather; there are also a few booths, bar seating, and a couple of tall barrel-top tables.

The Barrel House also has a constellation of familiar faces working the bar or behind the scenes: Angelo from Brewpublic, festival impresario Preston Weesner, and former Green Dragon/Grand Central bartender Cody. Another great thing is that they open for lunch every day at 11 AM. Minors are allowed until 10 PM.

[Update: Nice post from Charles with some behind-the-scenes photos.]

Buckman Village Brewery

The Green Dragon saga continues... After three years and two ownership changes, the pub is finally serving its own house-brewed beers, under the somewhat silly name of Buckman Village Brewery.  Last week they debuted three beers: an IPA (natch) and two lighter ales, one flavored with ginger and one with chamomile.

Carla and I made it over there last Thursday to try the beers (the on-street bike corral is a nice addition -- when did that happen?).  The chamomile beer, Chamomellow -- as far as I can tell the only Buckman beer that has its own name -- was fabulous. As Frank James noted on Brewpublic, it has a touch of honey-like sweetness, and a lovely floral flavor that is right up front but doesn't overwhelm. After being underwhelmed by the IPA and displeased by the ginger beer, Carla and I were bowled over by Chamomellow, all the more so because Carla usually doesn't care for chamomile tea. That's it in the picture above, charmingly served to us in a MacTarnahan's glass.

As I said, the IPA was not impressive. It didn't offend, but it's not one of those cases where you say "This beer has balance", because it's not very hard to balance small quantities of flavor. The Buckman Ginger was interesting, but I'm one of the few people I can think of who would persevere to the end of a pint of it. The fresh ginger flavor was nice enough, but there was also a strange, chalky bitterness -- powdered ginger or turmeric? -- in the finish that wasn't very appealing. I'm kind of surprised that Frank referred to it as "surprisingly and enjoyably subtle". I found it to be anything but subtle, and a couple of tweets I read about it also commented on its brashness.

The beers were brewed on the Green Dragon's newly-approved 15-barrel system, not the 1-barrel nano rig that the Oregon Brew Crew was providing cheap labor on. From what I can gather, the brewer was John Couchot, who has been Rogue's chief distiller -- he's the second John on the John-John ales.  Does anyone know if he is going to be the permanent Green Dragon brewer?  That would certainly stoke the paranoia of the Integrity Spirits guys who share the building.

Hopefully Rogue will drop this "Buckman Village" pretense and just call the brewery the Green Dragon.  I do want to point out a previous instance of a Buckman beverage, though.  In 2007, our vineyard-owning friends bottled Buckman wine as a benefit for Buckman Elementary school -- that's the TTB-approved label for the red in the picture.  The label for the white wine was even cooler, with two skulls entwined with a Buckman banner, but I couldn't find a bottle or label in my archives. Anyway, the word "village" sounds phony applied to an edgy tavern in the middle of a warehouse district less than a mile from downtown.  On the other hand, "Green Dragon" does fit the place just right.  Is there a lawyer behind this, or is it just some inscrutable Rogue marketing ploy?

Pubs of Portland Tours

Yesterday I went on part of a pub crawl organized by Marc Martin and Charles Culp. Not unusual in and of itself -- I'm often drinking beer with those guys -- but this was a preview of their new business venture: Pubs of Portland Tours. It's a great idea -- guided pub crawls that get around solely on foot and by public transport. What better way to give people a glimpse of the Portland lifestyle than by getting them on their feet, on trains and buses, and drinking good beer?

OK, sure, a better way would be to make them ride bicycles between pubs -- this was an idea I tried to pitch to Dave next door when I was between jobs a few years ago -- but in our lawyer-infested society that simply isn't practical. You couldn't get insured to do it, and you wouldn't chance it without insurance. In fact, those kind of liability issues are what defined the Pubs of Portland model. Originally Marc thought he would do van tours of pubs, but insurance costs led him to look in a different direction. He and Charles guide the tours, but participants pay for their own beer and even their own transit passes. Take that, lawyers and insurance leeches!

Each tour will have at most 12 participants, and costs $25 per person cash ($27 if you pay with plastic). For that you get:

• Walking/transit tour of 3 or 4 Portland brewpubs (about 5 1/2 hours long).
• Expert beer advice and education on the brewing process
• Meet and greet the brewers
• Portland historical information
• A brewery tour if desired

Marc takes the educational aspect seriously -- he has a masters degree in education and is a fanatic beer evangelist.  I have fond memories of him stomping around the Lucky Lab patio each year during the hop-shucking bee, examining peoples' cones and pronouncing on what variety they are based on their shape, size, or aroma.  And while "historical information" might sound like a stretch for a beer tour, think of how many breweries are located in the historical part of town.  On yesterday's tour, I learned that the Centennial Building that houses Portland's branch of Rock Bottom was the largest building of its time in 1876, and its construction displaced the existing Chinatown to its current location (where it displaced a Japantown).

The tours start at 12 noon 6 days a week at Pioneer Square downtown, for easy connection to MAX, streetcars, and downtown hotels.  Pubs of Portland will choose the itinerary, but if your group has bought out the whole tour, you can work with them to hit the destinations you want.

I like it that they're just easing into the business slowly -- rather than try and dive in during the frenzy of July, they'll do their first tours starting September 1.  Call them for reservations (hey guys, what's with the Austin phone number? You should be in the 503 now, or at least the 1-800).  I'm sure they expect mostly tourists, but it's not a bad deal even for locals who have yet to make the rounds of Portland's great pubs and breweries.

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.

A Peek at Apex

It's not as though we lacked choices for beer bars in Southeast Portland, but the newly opened Apex at 12th and Division has generated a lot of excitement in town. And for good reason: owner Jesse McCann promises 50 taps of craft beer, reasonable prices, hours from 11:30 AM to 2:30 AM every day, meticulously clean tap lines, and tons of bike parking. Whew! Sounds good.

I've been to Apex a couple of times now, and I really like it. It's probably going to be one of my most regular haunts, especially since Los Gorditos taqueria next door makes it a fast, cheap lunch option, and Beermongers is conveniently located right across the street. The beer menu on the bar's website is kept up to date in real time: in fact the menu in the bar is a big-screen TV that shows the website.  What a simple yet brilliant idea. One disappointment is that Apex didn't hit the ground running with honest pints. Some Belgian and European beers will be served in correct glassware with marked volume lines, but the standard pints are just in regular conical pint glasses.  Also, it would be nice if the beer was served a little less cold.

According to Ezra, Apex's atmosphere is inspired by San Francisco stalwarts Toronado and Zeitgeist. You can see the similarities: like Toronado, the focus is entirely on good beer at reasonable prices with no food service but loud music; like Zeitgeist there is a lot more seating outside than in, and you park your bicycle right in the beer garden. However, there are noticeable differences: unlike its SF cousins, there are lots of windows and light inside Apex, and the outside seating is right out on the street, not hidden in the back. Also, the no-smoking policy on the patio makes it quite different from Zeitgeist. Not to be negative, but the "No"s kind of define Apex:

• No smoking anywhere.
• No food.
• No table service.
• No kids.
• No dogs.
• No credit cards.
• No car parking.
• No dartboard.
• No toilets.  Just kidding, there are two: one Men's and one Unisex.

All of those make good sense to me, except I do wish there was a dartboard.  If kids or dogs were allowed, I would sometimes show up with one or the other, but there are also times when you'd like to be away from everyone else's kids and dogs, so I don't count those as negatives.

The place is open now, but the Grand Opening celebration will be May 7th.  Obviously I'm a little late reporting on Apex.  For further reading, check out Ezra's insider's guide to Apex (he's working there), or these eyewitness reports from Angelo, Jason, and Jeff (pedXer).

The Cheese Bar

Friday evening Carla and I made an accidental stop at the Cheese Bar, a new, uh, cheese bar at about 60th and Belmont. I had heard about the place, and we happened to pass it after two different moviegoing plans fell through.  It filled the bill perfectly for us: we needed a light dinner, and I needed another taste of Upright's Oyster Stout since I had given away the first bottle I bought and Beermongers was sold out when I checked there. Actually, that's kind of funny: in addition to beer bars and cheesemongers, Portland also has a cheese bar and a beermonger.

As the name indicates, the main attraction of the Cheese Bar is its dairy case, with a hand-picked selection of artisan cheeses from around the world.  You can buy cheese to go, or sit at the bar or one of the five or six tables and enjoy a small snack.  But the Cheese Bar also has a nice selection of beers -- 6 taps and about 30 bottles.  The space is nice, it's a comfortable place to hang out in, especially if you can get a table (it's a little hectic to sit at the bar).  After our oyster stout, we split a pint of the nice Chinook Single-Hopped IPA from Terminal Gravity.  There's a lower "take-home" price on the beer bottles, though I'm pretty sure the prices are higher than those at most bottle shops and groceries in the area.

Let's talk about those prices.  Some of them are a little high -- $4.30 for a 12-ounce Terminal Gravity ESG?!? -- but some of them are almost charitable: $2.70 for a Firestone Walker Pale Ale.  Hold on a second, on further reflection the problem is that the beer prices are just weird.  Take a look at the "here" prices on the menu below.  There are 25 beers on that side of the menu, and 19 different prices!  That's pretty delicate bookkeeping.  The take-home discount also varies from beer to beer, it's either $1, $1.50, or $2; that doesn't make a damn bit of sense.  Some order to the listing would be nice also, if not by style, then good old American alphabetical order.

The food prices are on the high side, for example $8 for the daily cheese plate with three small tranches of cheese, or $9 for the charcuterie sampler, but those are kind of typical for Portland, and not unreasonable considering the quality and uniqueness of the meats and cheeses.  On the other hand, the menu also has a $6 sandwich and a $4 salad (exact ingredients change day by day), so there is a way to economize.  That is, unless you're an unfortunate wine drinker: wine bottles are mostly about $35, within a range from $20 to $80.  And the only by-the-glass price on the printed menu is $10, though maybe they have some daily specials.

I have two gripes about the food at the Cheese Bar.  First, the sample plates come with 4 little coins of dried-up bread -- excuse me, crostini -- which is not really enough to do the job.  Each additional order of 4 crostini is $1, which is quite simply a laughable price for something so small, hard, and flavorless.  A better option would be to offer a couple of choices of baguette or roll; heck, if you want people to buy more $30/pound cheese or meat snacks, just give them some bread for free, and don't bother drying it out first.

My second issue with the food sounds a little silly, but it will be familiar to beer fans: the cheese is served too cold.  Like good beer, you want to taste the flavors in your good cheese, but that means it can't be right out of the fridge.  You could sit there a while and let it warm up, but that kind of goes against the owner's stated goal of a place to have a quick bite, shop for some cheese, and be on your way.  I don't know if there's really a solution to that problem: of course they need to keep their perishable wares cold.  Maybe some portions of the daily special could be kept out at room temperature during busy times, or the cheese could be served on a warm plate.

The place is pretty new, so maybe some of the pricing issues will get tweaked as they go.  It is a nice place, and definitely worth a visit, especially if you get a hankering for some cheesy comestibles.  By the way, I was hoping to be the first to report the factoid that it's a favorite hangout of Oregon Brewers Guild CEO Brian Butenschoen, but Portland Monthly stole my scoop in their review.

Upright Brewing Tasting Room

If I had written this up the day after my visit to the Upright Brewing tasting room, I could have made John Foyston look like a copy-cat. Instead, I get to ride the coattails of the excellent article he wrote for the Oregonian a few days ago. Fortunately, John left out a few of the dry details -- like prices for tastes and growlers -- so I get to look like I'm adding something to the conversation.

Make no mistake, the tasting room isn't a pub. It's only open from 1 to 6 on Saturdays and Sundays -- plus special hours starting at 6 PM every night that there's a home Blazers game around the corner at the Rose Garden. There's no kitchen, but on some days there might be a small charcuterie plate available to snack on -- a couple weeks ago it featured some of Alex's homemade blood sausage. It's more like hanging out in the basement of your most hardcore homebrewing friend -- a couple of street-level windows at the top of a cinderblock wall, a half-dozen beer taps sticking out of another wall, and maybe a special rare bottle open on the table. OK, your friend's basement probably doesn't have a dozen oak barrels stacked up aging beer, but you get the idea.

It's a good deal: most 12-ounce samples are $2; some special brews cost $3. The special beers are often one of the everyday Upright beers like Four or Seven, spiked with some homegrown fruit or vegetable, like Fatali peppers or baby kiwi. You can buy the various Upright bottled beers at the tasting room, or get growlers filled for $10 ($15 for some special beers).

You'll likely get a chance to chat with brewer/owner Alex Ganum; most days your bartender will be Portland beer expert Ezra Johnson-Greenough -- SamuraiArtist on Twitter. Speaking of social networking, Upright now has a blog with interesting entries so far -- keep it up, guys -- and you can follow them on Twitter or Facebook.