Category: Travel in North America

Our tenth visit to Portland was also a first for us. This trip to the Rose City was our first not during Oregon Brewers Festival. Those sunny and warm July days were our only reference point for Portland weather. But we’d heard that it can be quite rainy other times of year, especially in Spring. With an urban beer hike planned for the Saturday of Easter weekend, we traveled prepared for non-July conditions.

Thankfully, Mother Nature was smiling upon on Easter Eve. We left our downtown hotel on a gloriously sunny Saturday morning and were down to t-shirts before we reached the Burnside Bridge, our gateway to the East side of the Willamette River. The first leg of our beer hike was the longest, almost 3.5 miles. After crossing the bridge and a few slight lefts, we were strolling up East Sandy Blvd. destined for the Hollywood district.

The journey up East Sandy wasn’t that memorable except for passing a Voodoo Donuts shop. We wanted to try a one of their doughnuts but the long line inside discouraged us. We continued on. If I won’t stand in line for over-hyped beer, I certainly won’t stand in line for over-hyped doughnuts.

We reached Columbia River Brewing, just off East Sandy, in about an hour. Merideth immediately recognized the building as the Laurelwood we visited several years back, a fact later confirmed. There were only two other customers in the brewpub and we joined them at the bar. As further proof that it’s a small world, they were a Bay Area couple we met several years ago at a SF Beer Week event.

While we chatted with the couple and the bartender, we enjoyed our fourth straight nine beer sampler set of the trip. Merideth continued her search for the perfect Peep-beer pairing. Put to the test was Rose City Wheat, a raspberry Wheat, and Ground “N” Pound Double IPA. Of course the Peep went well with the IPA, as the super hoppy and sickly sweet balanced nicely. It didn’t go as well with the wheat, however. A prime example of fruit beer done right, the Rose City Wheat had a subtle, dry raspberry flavor; something the Peep’s sweetness completely overwhelmed.

For me, the Oatmeal Stout was really nice, but Hop Heaven, their 78 IBU, 7.5% ABV IPA was really heaven after a long walk. The real treat was getting to enjoy a pint of Hop Heaven since we were on foot.

After the hits and misses of the previous day, it was great to start our beer hike with a real winner in Columbia River Brewing. Our friend Mike joined us at Columbia River and accompanied us for the rest of the afternoon. Since we had more ground to cover, we reluctantly finished our brews and moved on.

Returning to East Sandy Blvd., we headed back the way we came, towards downtown Portland. After a little over a mile, we reached Migration Brewing.

Planning an urban beer hike is more than just picking all the beer stops. The key to successful beer hike is building in pee stops at just the right intervals. We visited Migration on a beer hike during our visit to Portland last summer. We really liked the beer and atmosphere during our first visit, so we were happy to return. It’s location between point A (Columbia River Brewing) and point B (Burnside Brewing) was perfect for a quick toilet break and beer stop.

While the majority of customers were inside watching the Trail Blazers playoff game, our trio enjoyed the beautiful Portland weather outside on their patio. Merideth put the Migration Pale Ale to the Peep test, while Mike and I split a pitcher of the citrusy and delicious Lupulin IPA.

Business taken care of  and beer finished, we could now move on to point B, Burnside Brewing. We continued in the general direction we had been heading and after another mile we were sitting outside at Burnside Brewing pouring over the  their menu.

I have to admit, I was a bit worried at first. While Burnside looked like just another casual, former industrial space Portland brewery, seeing the word ‘confit’ on the food menu had my douche radar going off. We’re just not confit people. But once the taster set was in front of us, my fears were disappeared.

While only five beers, the lineup was eclectic. There was an interesting Oatmeal Pale Ale, probably the first I had ever tried. Chili beers still seem to be alive and well in Portland and Burnside’s entry was Sweet Heat, an Apricot and Scotch Bonnet Wheat. The apricot was wonderfully subtle. Unfortunately, the Scotch Bonnet wasn’t. The star for me and Merideth was ‘Le Bas et Lumiere”, their session Belgian-style table beer. A perfect brew for the weather and timely as we needed to start pacing.

The out and back portion of our hike was done as we left Burnside and headed south. Crossing into Southeast Portland, it was only a short half mile before we were at our next stop, Cascade Barrel House, the “House of Sour.” Arriving late afternoon, the Barrel House was packed with Trail Blazer fans with their eyes glued to the television. We grabbed a few seats at one of the non-prime TV viewing tables.

The taster set was an overwhelming 17 beers. Remarkably, that was not the most ever. In 2008, we ordered an 18 beer sampler set at Moose’s Tooth in Anchorage. When we did the 18, we had the advantage of Moose’s Tooth being the first stop of the day. Well into our beer hike, I have to confess that we weren’t in the condition to truly enjoy the bounty in front of us. But we liked the pretty colors. When we return to Portland, we’ll have to pay the Barrel House another visit and make it our first stop.

Merideth did get a new angle in her search for the Peep-beer pairing. Would the contrasting sour flavors of the Cascade beers match well with the sweetness of the candy?

Several of the beers stood out for different reasons. The Gose was very salty, much saltier than the one we had in Germany. I loved the Vine, a blend of soured Tripel, Blonde and Golden ales with white wine grapes. But the  ‘WOW’ beer for me was Barrel #2 Live Kriek. Already a huge fan of the style, I have to say now say Cascade makes on of my favorites.

Luckily, the next leg of our hike only took us around the corner because I was almost done and dusted. We stopped at Green Dragon to try their house beers brewed next door at Buckman Village Brewery. After the diverse collection of beers at Cascade, we didn’t bat an eye at Chamomellow, their chamomile brew, or the Ginger Beer.

Our Portland beer hike finished at Green Dragon. Over the course of a half day, we walked approximately six miles and visited five beer spots.  The weather was great, the beer excellent and the company enjoyable. Had we wanted to extend our beer hike, we would have had many choices in the area surrounding Green Dragon, but we’d already had a big day and were ready to settle down to watch the Timbers FC match. Beer and Football; there ain’t no pity in the Rose City!

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Evan Rail in his Good Beer Guide to Prague and the Czech Republic puts forth the idea of the beer traveling “completist” – someone who needs to go to EVERY brewery in a city to feel mission accomplished. With a brewery list to continually add to, this concept perfectly describes me and Merideth. Always visiting Portland during Oregon Brewers Festival, we were never left with enough free time to indulge this need. Our first Spring trip to Portland finally gave us the free time to fulfill our completist desires and add some outlying breweries to the List.

Landing at Portland International Airport shortly before 8am, we needed an early opening brewery to get our day started on the right track. Located in the bottom portion of Southeast Portland, Philadelphia’s Steaks & Hoagies fit our needs perfectly. We were sitting at the bar ordering a nine beer taster set at the prime beer-drinking hour of 9am.

Merideth and I split the taster set as we each enjoyed a hoagie, the Italian Special for myself and Ham and Eggs for Merideth. I would be lying if I didn’t say that a few of the beers were kind of odd. There seemed to be a ‘house flavor’ permeating a number of the brews. With that said, we did enjoy several of the beers including Two Street Stout and the Belgian-style Golden Ale.

While we were finishing up our taster set and breakfast/lunch, we stumbled upon our theme for the Easter holiday episode of beergeek.TV. One of the morning TV shows was doing a segment on Peeps, those neon yellow sugar bombs in the form of a squishy chick-shaped confection. I wondered what beer pairs best with Peeps?

Armed with a meaning and purpose for our trip (plus a soon to be gotten box of Peeps) we were off to the Portland suburb of Tigard and our second destination of the morning. Located on Main St. in what I assume was ‘old town’ Tigard, Max’s Fanno Creek Brewpub was doing a bit of  a brisk business at 11am on a Friday. Despite there still being a chill in the air, I was surprised to hear Merideth wanting to sit outside.

Nine was the number of the day as the taster set at Max’s was also nine brews. Not sure that Merideth truly got to taste and enjoy the beers because she was sampling them with the Peeps. She paired the sugary treat with the Golden Ale, Vanilla Porter, Raspberry Stout and Imperial IPA. The results will be revealed in the beergeek.TV episode.

I felt sick after one nibble of Peep, so I sampled all the beers unencumbered by the pairing question. Of the nine, the Dry Hopped Red, Reverend’s Daughter, a Belgian-style Golden Ale and the IPA stood out for me.

A highlight of our stop at Max’s was eating my first Scotch Egg. Our Irish friends always go on about them and despite not knowing what it was, I was curious to try one. [It’s a hard-boiled egg, wrapped in sausage, then deep fried] Despite the “fancy-ass chi-chi” presentation, it was quite tasty as most deep fried food tends to be when served with beer. I will admit, I did remove the yoke.

If you do make make it to Max’s Fanno Creek Brewpub, be sure to check out the bar top made from crow’s foot hemlock. The wood is 600 years old and spent 200 years at the bottom of the Columbia River.

Our final stop on Friday’s completist brewery tour was Old Market Pub & Brewery. At the junction of two roads, Old Market had a real roadhouse feel, both inside and out. The rambling building had an expansive wood-paneled interior with a large dining room and a pool room in the back. With the warmth of the day finally showing, we took a seat in the beer garden out front.

And yes, the sampler was nine beers again! For me, the star of their brews was Hop On, a hopped-up Amber Ale. Big surprise that I would pick the hoppiest beer as my favorite. Merideth continued her Peep/beer pairing quest putting Mr. Slate’s Gravelberry Ale, a raspberry Wheat Beer and Hop On to the test.

Enjoying the sunny Portland weather in their beer garden, we managed to squeeze in a game of Scrabble. Given the massive beating I took, Merideth won 340-310, I’ll think twice next time before suggesting to get a quick game in.

On Easter Sunday, we visited another of the outlying breweries on our target list. Conveniently located ten minutes from the airport, Breakside Brewery was an easy stop before our flight home. Located down a residential street, we thought that my douchephone directions had led us astray until we came upon a grouping of businesses amidst the homes.

Between the beer and food, Breakside Brewery was one of the highlights of the weekend. We sampled eight beers with three hoppy beers, Hoppy Amber, IPA, and IPA Jr., being the stars. Merideth even enjoyed IPA Jr. which could be an excellent session IPA if the brewers knocked the ABV down a bit. However, the most intriguing brew was the Kölsch-style Ale made with Rye. Light and refreshing with that Rye bite and spiciness, it would be the perfect brew for a Portland summer day.

I had looked at the Breakside food menu online before our trip and knew exactly what I wanted for Easter lunch, the Pork Belly Sandwich. Merideth ordered one as well. It was to die for! The pork was cooked to perfection and fennel slaw was a delicious accompaniment.

Lunch and beers at Breakside with our nephew and his significant other was the perfect way to spend Easter Sunday and to end our trip on a high note. While we are not ready to declare ‘mission accomplished’ the completist in us were very satisfied with our progress over the Easter weekend in Portand.

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