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I wish I'd jotted down every feel-good encounter I've had in my first two weeks. It started less than 24 hours into being a Portlander when I volunteered at the 15th Annual Holiday Ale Fest. Let's just say the 2nd Annual Holiday Ale Fest I attended my last weekend in the Bay could pick up a trick or two. Nearly 50 breweries--mostly from Oregon and Washington--poured rare treats. Somehow I lucked out and manned the jockey box pouring Hair of the Dog "Jim" 2008 (next to Jim '09).
What's great and scary is that with all the exploring I've done, I feel like just my left pinky has scratched the surface. With thanks to Ezra "Samurai Artist" Johnson-Greenough who blogs at The New School and a rotating beer-obsessed posse as well as Lisa "Beer Goddess" Morrison, and some old-fashioned huffing it around the neighborhoods, I've imbibed at at least 10 beer bars that're worthy of being the best place to drink a beer. Meaning I only have at least 20 more to get to.
To play catch-up at this point would take forever. Because also in this time, we hiked around waterfalls in the rain, marveled that we're living in a place where the water in birdbaths freezes into large pucks of ice, spent a week in Hawaii escaping said ice, find ourselves in escrow on a house(!!!) and I've added 3 new publications to continue obsessing over beer in including the PDX alt-weekly Willamette Week.
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