Support Your Local Beermapping

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



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

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

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

Spring Beer and Wine Fest 2010

The Spring Beer and Wine Fest is an oddity in Portland -- an Easter weekend beer festival largely eschewed by beer geeks and Catholics.

The hard core turn up their nose because of the pedestrian offerings at the festival. Nevertheless, there are a few unusual beers that merit your attention.

Best in show: Block 15's Pappy's Dark. A bourbon-aged Old Ale with beautiful vanilla, whiskey, and molasses goodness. Right now both taps at Block 15's booth are Pappy's, despite the stout label on the other tap.

Check out the Black Mamba from Salem-area brewers Gilgamesh. Their IPA is homebrewy, but the cloudy no-hop Mamba flavored with black tea had a delicious fruity flavor.

Try the burly Collaborator Ale-X (poured by Rob Widmer in the picture). I also liked the Astoria West Coast Pils - a cloudy masterpiece that is like a beefy Victory Prima.

Migration Darts and Happy Hour

Tuesday I finally made another visit to Migration Brewing, thanks to a pub night call put out by Ezra. Two items of good news: the two dart boards are up on the wall behind the bar, and Migration has a cash-only happy hour all day Tuesdays -- $3.50 pints instead of $4. Read about it on their blog. Yet another reason to carry cash when visiting your local establishments.

The dart setup looks a little cramped -- the line you stand behind is just a couple feet from the wall. But a couple of guys throwing darts there said even though they were skeptical when they first saw it, that it worked fine for them. I'll try it out myself soon. (Darts trivia: that "line you stand behind" is called the oche, pronounced like "hockey" without the H.)

Colin said they've got approval to start brewing in the building now, so expect Migration's first house brews to be pouring by May. The first batch of Migration Pale Ale brewed at Lompoc sold out in a matter of days -- I didn't even get to it myself -- but they have another batch in the works at Three Creeks in Sisters.

Even though today is April Fool's Day, all the stuff in this post is true. Luckily someone in town has the spirit, and took the time to cook up a hilarious send-up of Ezra's The New School blog -- The Newest School. If you've been reading The New School it will crack you up.