Beermongers Now Open!

Only a couple of months behind schedule, a new bottle shop has opened at the corner of 12th and Division: The Beermongers. Last night they were celebrating the "soft opening" with balloons and a keg of Ninkasi Total Domination. The shop currently has about 185 kinds of beer on the shelf, with room to bump it up to about 250. Beermongers is open 11 AM to 9 PM, seven days a week.

You might ask yourself, what's a success strategy for a smallish beer store in Southeast Portland? They're not far from New Seasons on Division, which has a really good beer selection. And they don't plan to match the 1000-beer selection of Belmont Station. So what is the angle? Surprisingly, Beermongers plans to compete on price, with prices lower than Belmont, New Seasons, convenience stores, or even Fred's or Safeway. I never would have come up with that idea, but it sure warms my penny-pinching heart.

The proprietors are Sean Campbell and Craig Gulla, a couple of longtime McMenamins employees, seen here ringing up a $9 12-pack of Session Lager -- that's an old-timey SPE of $4.91. Craig told me that the plan is to keep the everyday prices low, and not rely on special sale prices. That's a nice price on Session: on my way home I stopped into New Seasons and saw it priced at $12. Some other low prices I noticed were:

• Bridgeport IPA: $6 6-pack
• North Coast Old Rasputin: $7.80 4-pack
• Unibroue 750ml bottles: $6.35
• Paulaner Salvator: $2.05 half-liter

[Update 2009/09/23: Turns out these were extra-low grand-opening prices. Session is now $11-something, Bridgeport $7.20, Paulaner $2.50. Not those original 25% discounts, but still good prices.]

The space itself reminded me a lot of By the Bottle in Vancouver, and the beers are arranged by style similarly to By the Bottle and Belmont Station. Even though there are plenty of snob-worthy beers, Beermongers also stocks Bud-Miller-Coors and Pabst, priced aggressively. They have an on-site license, so future plans include a small bar with three or four local taps, and a little bit of seating if you want to sample a bottle right off the shelf. Craig said they also plan to stock a small selection of reasonably-priced wines to cater to multi-beverage households. It would have saved me a trip to New Seasons last night, so I think their instincts are good.

I've heard two different rumors of pubs that might go in across the street from Beermongers, so this corner of Ladd's Addition might be a happening little beer area in the coming years. Best of luck to The Beermongers in their new venture!

Barley Brown's Brewpub

On our way back from Yellowstone last week, we spent Saturday night in Baker City. It was a family vacation, not a beer vacation, but the Baker City stop was a concession to dear old Dad, so that I could visit Barley Brown's, a prize-winning pub whose beers only rarely show up in Portland.

In fact, the only time I've seen BB's beers here was at Belmont Station's meet-the-brewer last May. The burly Barley Brown brews at that event convinced me that I needed to stop in and try more of their offerings. Between Carla and me, we got around to:

• Turmoil Cascadian Dark Ale: very satisfying balance of malt and hops
• Tankslapper IIPA: Carla's favorite, strong, thick, with citrusy floral hops
• Tumble Off Pale Ale: cloudy orange ale with bracing hops
  
• WFO IPA: classic Northwest IPA
  

I could have plotted out our sampling a little better by swapping the WFO -- which I'd tried in Portland -- for the Whiskey Malt Ale, which I thought I'd tried, though what I'd had at Belmont was the Double Whiskey Malt Ale. I was also intrigued by their Hot Blonde Ale, a chilli pepper beer, but they were out of it Saturday night.

Barley Brown's was doing a whopping business Saturday night -- we waited about 20 minutes for a table on the restaurant side. While we waited we strolled down Main Street. There wasn't much else in the way of entertainment: a dive bar was empty except for a lone barkeep; the saloon at the Grand Hotel was humming pretty well; I don't recall any other family restaurants open at that time.

We were really pleased with the Barley Brown's food. After a long day on the road and in the motel pool, everyone was hungry for some good eats. We ordered fairly sensibly -- splitting two entrees between the three omnivores in the family, and getting an order of nachos for our vegetarian daughter. The servings were very generous: look at the hunk of pork ribs they served to a 10-year-old girl. The chicken-fried steak that Carla and I split was not all that huge, but that let us help out with the ribs. All the food was tasty -- even the nachos appeared to use decent-quality cheese -- but a special mention goes to the side vegetables. They were steamed exactly the right amount, until they were tender but they hadn't lost any color or flavor. Garnished with some fresh garlic, they were a wholesome and delicious way to round out the meal.

Baker City is a cute little town, with lovely views of the Blue Mountains, even if it didn't have a fantastic brewpub. Barley Brown's (open 4-10 PM daily) makes it a must stop if you're on a long drive out I-84.

Deschutes King Cone Fresh Hop Ale

Deschutes has had a Fresh Hop beer -- King Cone Pale Ale -- on at the Portland pub for a few days. So it's not like I'm breaking new ground here, but I finally got my first taste of it today at lunch. Pretty good, a solid pale ale is the foundation for lots of resinous hoppy flavor. The green vegetal fresh-hop flavor that I require is detectable but a little overpowered by the general hoppiness.

I'd say it reminds me of the first batch of Full Sail Lupulin that John Harris brewed last year. In other words, very worthy, but not quite to the pinnacle. I can't help it, there's a specific thing that I'm seeking in these fresh hop beers, and I get very picky. Deschutes promises many more fresh hop ales in the coming weeks, and if past performance is any indication, some of them will be stellar. Hop Trip is always a favorite, and the fresh-hopped Mirror Pond they did last year was fabulous.

Gosh this is an early start to the season. Why is this happening, that the beer seasons get pushed earlier and earlier all the time? I shouldn't complain, fresh-hop time is something that I eagerly await each year. Now I don't have to pester my local pubs about it, they're beating me to the punch.

Mark your calendar, the Portland Fresh Hop festival put on by the OBG and Oregon Bounty is at Oaks Park this year, October 10! Another fun thing to do is help the Lucky Lab pick hop cones off the vine: Tuesday afternoon (Sept. 8). I had a blast last year.