Portland Year Anniversary

It dawned on Half Pint & I that it's our one-year anniversary in Beervana. How exciting is that? The first thing I did once we landed was go to the Holiday Ale Fest, which is how I knew--finding myself sampling amazing winter warmers 'neath the heated tent city in Pioneer Square again--that it was time to start doing everything as a Portlander for the second time. Including layering and drinking winter warmers for the warmth and not just because they're so delectable.

As Portland approaches 50 breweries, probably by late next year if you count the surrounding nanobreweries, I've still barely hit half of them. Same goes for the beerfests, of which it seems there are already more than 50. Not that I'm complaining.

And of course, one fun way we found to participate in all things Brewtopia is by having launched Inn Beervana (also found on VRBO). More on this in forthcoming post, but suffice it to say, operating a B&B (Bed & Beer) is a fun way to welcome beer pilgrims to town and point out all the prime beer spots near us in the Southeast.

Having said all that, I suspect my local beer consumption might take a nosedive in the coming year with the arrival of our firstborn. Maybe that's why I've been championing smaller, responsible packages such as 375ml half bottles, stubbies, and 189ml nips. Follow our love of nips, too.

With that said, hope y'all had a great 2011 with an even better and beerier 2012 in store.

Six weeks in. Still smitten.

Portland is just so damn great. I've heard of people who move here from San Francisco and then have to move back. Naturally, I'll forever love SF. And we certainly miss our friends. But our plan is to proselytize them into moving up here. Seriously guys, quit your job, buy a food cart on the cheap, and make a go of it. That's the Portlander way. P-town may be called Bridgetown, Beervana, Cartopia, and Rose City, but it's also DIY-ville. Have something you love doing and wanna make it your job? I've seen that everywhere I go here (says the freelance beer writer). Beyond the chefs popping up at food pods, there are co-ops for art galleries, bike shops, music schools, etc. Oh, and more nanobreweries than you can shake a mash paddle at.

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.

So long Beer Area, hello Beervana

It is bittersweet that I no longer find myself a San Francisco resident, tempered by the fact that I'm now a Portlander. The Bay Area is the undisputed birth place of American craft brewing (thanks to Anchor, New Albion, Sierra Nevada, Buffalo Bill's, Triple Rock, and more) but Portland didn't become known as Brewtopia for nothing (thanks to pioneers like Bridgeport and Widmer Brothers and the dozens of brewing brethren such as Hair of the Dog, Cascade, Amnesia, H.U.B., Laurelwood, McMenamins, and on and on).

In truth, because good beer is to be found everywhere these days, what I'll miss most is the community of beer lovers. I didn't go to beerfests and special tappings for the beer so much as the people at them. It's not that I only gravitate to those who appreciate good beer, but, quite

the other way around--it's that fun, adventurous people tend to be the ones who appreciate the finer-yet-affordable things in life and beer inhabits exactly that crossroads. "Beer" can be almost anything these days but it's certainly much more than the one-brand-fits-all stuff that most people continue to perceive it as. Maybe that's why only 5% of Americans always call for craft beer, or at least that's what the numbers would suggest since craft beer only constitutes roughly 5% of the total beer market.

Fortuitously, these same beer-lovin' riff-raff populate Portland. I can't wait to meet 'em.

The story of how Half Pint and Dunkel and I arrived here is simple. We love SF but as my wife says, "she's expensive." Between being priced out of the housing market, a job recruitment from a big o'l company up here that she couldn't say no to, the fact that we love PDX and new adventures of all sorts, and sure, toss in all the amazing breweries that are now within walking, biking, and bussing distance, and, well, here we are. The odyssey continues.

I've been a little negligent of this here blog, primarily because I did most of my beer blogging for the SF Weekly's SFoodie blog as well as the SF Craft Beer Examiner. I hope to right this wrong and chime in more often, even if just posting tidbits whenever I seek out any of the 35 breweries in PDX or our plans for "Foodcart Fridays" wherein we intend to kick off each weekend with dinner at a different food cart, pod, truck, or airstream. I should beerify it by offering beer pairing suggestions.

In any event, this is the start of a new, exciting adventure, full of new breweries and beers to explore, new brewers to befriend, and of course to kick work on my next book project about homebrewers into high gear. So look for me and Dunkel at the Lucky Lab hard at work and if you're there at the same time, I'm easily distracted.

Seattle, at last

Greetings from Ashland, OR (again), where we are staying for the night after the very last stint on my INTERNATIONAL book tour, which was at Elysian Fields brewpub up in Seattle. And thanks to Elliott Bay Books (and Casey) for handling sales. It was a great event to have as my last event. The beer (especially Dragonstooth Stout and Night Owl pumpkin ale) were great, Michael the bartender couldn't have been cooler, I briefly got to talk to the head brewer and co-owner Dick Cantwell, and saw a bunch of friends from the Emerald City (shout out to the Chaplins, the Kassoffs, the Greeks, and "Jack.") (PS: Notice on the menu of Elysian Fields beers, that one of the "guest beers" is Bud Light. Kudos to the expert beerista, Michael, for handling that with grace.)

Our first night, Half Pint and I stayed with Jay and Pauline. Jay is my new favorite person. Why's that? Turn to page 114 in your copy of the book and if you find the subtle pun that he caught, then you're my co-favorite person. But Pauline's my favorite person, too, for she took us on a gastronomic tour of Seattle beginning with breakfast at the Five Spot, then beer tasting at Hale's Ales, where we got to talk shop with their brewer since 1985, Phil, though alack, they did not have their rare Coconut Porter on tap. Finally, she took us on the tour of Theo, a local chocolatier and one of only 14 fair trade ones in the US.

The next morning, we had the biggest b-fast I've ever seen at a place called the Brown Bag. No joke--after Half Pint ate her heart out, it looked like she hadn't made a dent in her scramble. My biscuits were topped by a growler's worth of sausage gravy.

On our way south, she let me pick up some salumi from Salumi for the ride down (which odorized the car, to my delight and Half Pint's chagrin). Back in Brewtopia, I finally got to take her to my favorite brewpub--which is saying something-- the Lucky Lab(rador). There were great beers and cute pooches aplenty. (If our dog Patsy is reading this, which would be on the miraculous side, please know that we can't wait to take you to the Lucky Lab and I'll let some of my beer go flat so you can try it. I think you'd like Super Dog Ale the best.)

B-fast in Beervana consisted of two faves: Voodoo Donuts (Half Pint and I shared a Memphis Mafia. Think banana fritter loaded with peanut butter and chocolate!) and Stumptown Coffee (HP's best latte of the trip). We barely made it into Ashland before dark, where our host (again) Susan, had a homecooked meal waiting for us!!! We're about to get wild'n'crazy over a few rounds of Boggle, and then, and I type this with a hint of a tear in my eye, tomorrow it's back to a mystical place called home.

T'ales from Brewtopia

Greetings from Vancouver, eh. I'll get to my tales from the Great White North in a bit, but first, I had to drive through Oregon to get here (and Washington, but I'm not there yet).

Just as Half Pint started my tour with me by driving from Cali to Chitown, she's doing the last leg with me, too. Friday we piled into my car (made lighter by several cases-worth of beer picked up along the odyssey that I'll be drinking/blogging in due time) and cruised up I-5, barely making Oregon by the new dark. We stayed in Ashland with Susan, who's like a second mom. For dinner, we hit the Standing Stone Brewing Co., my second trip to the brewpub after first going years ago, which makes a cameo in Red, White, and Brew. I gotta say, it's a top-notch brewpub from both the food and beer perspective. Half Pint's Oatmeal Stout on nitro and my wet-hopped Hoptoberfest were impeccable. Susan's actual half pint of the Hefe wasn't bad. As for the food, it's hard to get excited about tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich, but not when it's an heirloom tomato bisque and a grilled Rogue Stout cheddar on grilled sourdough! And if you go, and there's at least 4 in your party, get the chickpea fries with curry dip.

The next morning, we completed our drive to Portland, aka Beervana, aka Brewtopia. First I checked in at the author sign-in at the Oregon Convention Center, as I was in town to speak at Wordstock, Portland's literary festival and was "escorted" to the "VIP" room. Ooh, I'm so fancy. I basically grabbed a cup of coffee and talked to the audio/visual guy about the PowerPoint Presentation I'd put together. Yes, I taught myself the basics of PPT just for this gig. But my speaking time was at 5 and it was only 3, so I headed off for a live on-air interview on KXL's "The Libation Station," (which seems like you could download here, but it's long). My hosts were "Dr. BBQ" Bruce Bjorkman & the "Beer Goddess" Lisa Morrison. Not only did I have fun, but I got to try the previous guests' homebrewed pumpkin beer.

Then it was back to the Oregon Convention Center for Wordstock. Half Pint had several friends show up and they actually were not the only seats filled for my presentation on the McMenamin Stage, though no McMenamin Bros. beers were being poured, sadly. The festival organizer, Greg, kindly introduced me and though I'm no fan of public speaking, I thought I was off to a decent start and my slides were proving to be a hit... until I looked behind me and noticed a giant blank screen. See, unlike another litfest speaker that day, John Hodgman, better known as the "PC" from the Mac computers, I'm a Mac person. Woe that PPT on a Mac doesn't jibe well with A/V intended for PCs, so the visual portion of my 50-minute presentation was nixed. I could be heard throughout the talk uttering "if you could see the great picture I have of..." Other than that one gaffe, it was a great thrill and honor, the audience lobbed some great questions my way (including one young woman who asked if I gained weight during my "research," thanksalot) and I got to sign a bunch of books. (I popped back in the next morning to see how many they had left and it was down to 3.)

Afterward, I went to Hopworks Urban Brewery, the eco-friendliest of all of Portland's thirty-ish breweries. I enjoyed a pint of their British session style ESB and then some "DOA," or Deluxe Organic Ale, which I can only describe as being hoppier yet smoother than your average pale ale. Organic AND tasty--now that's a treat. FYI, the pizzas ain't cheap, but they are good and big. I was there with Half Pint and a slew of friends of hers who have all moved to Portland who all gave us the hard sell on moving there. If the beer scene factored into my move from LA to SF, then it could come into play here, too.

After dinner, us old fogies tried to rally for Kat's kid brother's friend's b-day party, his Dirty 30, but the over-30 crowd only had one more drink in us, and once back to Stephanie's and Drew's pad, I crashed. Hard.