Portland Trip #2

In October 2011, the Beer Chicks revisited Portland.  We had big plans for the breweries that we were about to drink in and Megan also wanted to visit Portland State University.  We were so excited to get back to this amazing city and couldn't wait for the opportunity to see more of what it offered.  This time around we stayed in downtown Portland at the Courtyard Marriott.  It was only one block from a Max Rail stop, so like before, we used public transportation and walked most of the city from there. This hotel was a great place to stay, too.  We really enjoyed the Inn at Northrup Station the year before, but we wanted to check out other areas of the city.  The rooms were big and comfy, which was a bonus.  We also want to mention that visiting Portland in October is a great time because the weather has been pretty mild, rainy at times, but warm enough to walk without feeling sweaty when you reach your next destination.

Upon arrival, we immediately began our adventure and headed towards Full Sail Brewery.  We walked about 2 miles only to find it wasn't open.  We're not sure if it is even there anymore, or if it was just bad timing on our part.  So, we headed towards the PSU campus and stopped at McMenamins Market Street Pub.  We had a great lunch and tried their Ruby, Marzen Style, Hammerhead, and IPA. All in all they were OK, but Megan definitely preferred the Ruby. It was a unique beer, ruby in color (hence the name), and different from other beers we have tried before. Once we were well on our way to a great start to the weekend, we headed to the campus tour.  PSU has a beautiful, urban campus.  There is a nice mix of old and new buildings and a great student rec center.  There is plenty of space to walk around and enjoy the outdoors without too much traffic.

After the campus tour, we hopped on a bus to take us to the east side of the river.  We wanted to visit Cascade Barrel House again, a favorite of both of ours, because they specialize in sour beers. At Cascade, we each had a sampler to try some of their new brews.  The Platinum Blonde is a great introduction to sour beer for newcomers.   It has some familiar flavors, and isn't too sour.  We also tried the Apricot, Sang Royal, Sour Bruin (which has a tobacco flavor, not tasty in both of our opinions), Nightfall, and the Test Flight IPA. It was a wonderful reunion! From there we walked back to the Green Dragon where we tried some seasonal beers; Buckman Sweet Potato Brown, New Belgium Kick (sour!), Boneyard Girl Beer Cherry, Beer Valley Jackalope Imperial Pumpkin Porter, Laurelwood Stingy Jack Pumpkin, and the Nogne Pumpkin. It was the fall, what can we say, pumpkin beers were all the rage! There wasn't a bad beer in the bunch; all of them were unique in their own ways.

Our last stop of the evening was Deschutes Brew Pub (210 NW 11th Ave, Portland, OR 97209) in the Pearl District, close to downtown Portland. We called our cab driver from the previous year, as we had kept his business card in the hopes that he was still driving. Success! On the way to Deschutes we went by the Occupy Portland site, which had built a small colony in one of the downtown parks. It was very interesting to witness first hand. There was a lot of live music and people having a good time, and also very peaceful at the same time. At Deschutes, we tried the Winter Ale and Mirror Pond.  After enjoying our last couple of beers, we decided to walk back to the hotel.  Along the way we stopped at Powell's City of Books, a great tourist destination that everyone should see. It's bigger than you'd expect, and worth a stop for every lover of a good book. We then headed straight for VooDoo Doughnuts.  We got lucky this time with the downtown location and only had to wait in line for 10 minutes.  We each got a Maple Bacon Bar (heaven, trust us), and some of the other crazy concoctions that we took back to the hotel to have for breakfast.  Overall, the first day was a great start to the weekend, and we were enjoying Portland as much, if not more than we had the first time.

Saturday, we started the day with our remaining donuts, relaxed a bit, and then headed towards the Northwest District. We decided to walk to the Bridgeport Brew Pub to take another shot at what they had to offer, since Jen may or may not have been in the “mood” to try them last year.  Once there, we grabbed a sampler of the Summer Squeeze, Blue Heron, Kingpin Double Red, IPA, Hop Czar, Old Knucklehead, Ebeneezer, and Hop Harvest. Another good start to an exciting day ahead!

We then decided to walk up through our old stomping grounds and headed to New Old Lompoc. There we had a sampler where we tried Fool's Gold Ale, Lompoc Strong Draft (coffee flavored porter), C Note (a mix of the 5 'C' hops), Sockeye Cream Stout, Proletariat Red, and the Centennial IPA. The same bartender was there, although he didn't remember us...but it had the same great atmosphere and a wide variety of beers to try. From there it was a quick walk to the Lucky Lab Beer Hall, another favorite from the past, where we tried Summit IPA, Harvest Reaper-Weizen, Mega World Peace Pils, Dog Day IPA, Lolatober Fest, and the Old Yeller Barleywine. We also enjoyed a slice of pizza to hold us over and help soak up some of the beer.  It had been a long, short day, but not one that we were ready to end yet.

It was then time to decide how to get to our next destination. It was at least 2.5 miles away, but we needed some time to walk off a little bit of our excitement. We were headed to Widmer Brothers (955 N. Russell, Portland, OR), which was north and east, across the river again. We started walking towards the bridge with the idea that we were going to catch a bus or something to help us along on our journey.  Once we got to the bridge, we realized that it was only open to pedestrian and bike traffic, so over the bridge it was.  We sang our way across, got a few interesting looks, and continued forward.  Some time later, we finally made it to the brewery.  Widmer Brothers had a large, and obviously popular restaurant.  We sat down for a dinner and of course, had a couple of beers. We tried one of their flagship brews, Drifter Pale Ale, and a more seasonal beer, the Longrass Wheat Ale. Dinner was fantastic, but it was time to head back to the city center.

At some point we realized that we are getting older and can't handle quite as much as we had before...so we walked for a bit and turned in for the night. We had an early flight the next day, and of course, another stop to make to VooDoo Doughnuts.

The following day, we picked up our donuts at about 5:30am, and then took the Max Rail back to the airport.  It had been an amazing weekend, yet again, but we left knowing we still had more to see on our next visit.

Portland Trip #1

The real inspiration for this blog started in 2010, when we made a trip to one of the nation's beer capitals, Portland, Oregon. The following entry is adapted from Megan's recaps, which are available in full on her personal blog, http://theworldthrumegslens.blogspot.com/.

Note: This summer, we'll be making our 3^rd trip to Portland as part of our biennial mother-daughter vacation (in addition to Portland, we'll also be making stops in Seattle and Vancouver).

The first trip to Portland in October 2010 was my idea (Jen). I came across and article that mentioned Portland had more breweries per capita than any other city in the world. Portland had just surpassed Munich for this title, apparently. With this information in hand, we were prepared to explore a city that neither of us had ever been to, let alone the state of Oregon. We stayed in the Northwest District at the Inn at Northrup Station (2025 Northwest Northrup Street, Portland, OR 97209). We highly recommend this boutique hotel. The rooms were huge and the staff was extremely friendly. For those traveling with a car, they have parking on-site, which we believe is free, but double check that before you go. We decided, however, that public transport was going to be our main mode of transportation. Their Max Light Rail line will take you from the airport to many of the main spots in the city and is very easy to navigate (and cheap!).  From there we took the trolley to the Northwest District, which dropped us off right in front of the hotel.  There is plenty to do in the Northwest District in terms of shopping and nightlife, but we were on a mission for beer.

After getting settled in, our real adventure began. We started with lunch at Laurelwood, which was a cute restaurant that like so many places in Portland, also brews their own beer. (When we went back to Portland in 2011, this particular Laurelwood location was no more, but you can still visit the flagship location at 5115 NE Sandy Blvd Portland, OR 97213). Laurelwood had a very neighborhood vibe and it was clear they focused on quality with both food and beer. Their beer lineup is fairly small by most standards but several beers have won medals at the Great American Beer Festival (GABF) and/or World Beer Cup (WBC).

We then journeyed to New Old Lompoc (1616 Northwest 23rd Avenue, Portland, OR 97210), where we tasted 12 different brews (when in doubt, we almost always order a beer sampler) and talked to some locals. It being our first time in Portland, we were glad to have met both locals and non-locals alike who shared equally in their affection for the Rose City.

Our last stop for the daytime adventure was The Lucky Labrador Beer Hall (1945 NW Quimby,
Portland, OR 97255). This place really is a giant beer hall with plenty of seating, and an outdoor patio.  Since we were there fairly early, on a Friday afternoon, it wasn't too busy, but we could see it being a cool place when it is more full.  We each tried a few more beer samples, and then headed back to our hotel for a short nap. After all, it was going to be a long weekend!

The first night, we went to dinner and then out to try more beer. We ended up going to about 10 different bars, trying something new at each place. After a while it became difficult to discern our handwriting, but eventually we may trace back all the places we went.

The next day we got a late start (we'll leave it at that). Our first stop was the Bridgeport BrewPub (1318 Northwest Northrup Street, Portland, OR). Bridgeport has the claim of being “Oregon's oldest craft brewery,” so we were both excited to visit. I (Jen) had even seen some of their beer being sold at my local Target, so I knew they had to be fairly big. And, big they are – the BrewPub space anyways. More of a sports bar vibe, but not dominated by as many TV's as you'd think. The upstairs area seemed more reserved for sports watching. We once again had a few samples, grabbed a bite to eat, and moved on.

After Bridgeport, we lucked out by finding the best cab driver in the city who took us to the remainder of our stops for the day.  First was the infamous VooDoo Doughnut (1501 N.E. Davis St, Portland Oregon). If you've seen any of the TV episodes on the Food Network featuring VooDoo Doughnut, or if you've read about it, it's better than you can imagine! On this stop, I (Megan) only tried the original VooDoo, but we also got a Maple Bacon Bar for the cabbie as a token of appreciation.  Word of advice - the original VooDoo Doughnuts location on 3rd Avenue almost always has a line, but you may have better luck getting in and out at the Davis Street location.

On his own recommendation, our driver took us to the east side of the bridge and gave us a list of places to try. We were dropped off at Cascade Brewing (939 Southeast Belmont Street, Portland, OR 97214) which had literally just opened within the last two weeks, and they specialize in sour/barrel aged beers. We were both immediately intrigued, though we had never experienced this style of beer. We loved everything that we tried, and made a pact to seek out sour beers immediately when we got home.

From there we walked just a short ways to the Green Dragon. They bring in brews from all over the city/country and have too many to try on tap (about 50 taps at any given time). This is a good place to get a taste of the city as a whole and meet more people who are willing to suggest a new place to stop.

We then walked to APEX (1216 Southeast Division Street, Portland, OR 97202), which was quite a haul (I'd recommend a cab or bus), but we were used to walking. This place was a little different than what we expected. It was just a different crowd of people - not a bad crowd - just different from many of the other places. We would put them in a category of a dive bar (again, not a bad thing in our books), and had more of a punk rock/metal vibe, but with 20-25 solid taps.  APEX was small, and at the time, not super busy, so we didn't spend a whole lot of time there, just one beer and onto our next location.  Our favorite cab driver picked us up and took us once again, on recommendation, to Hopworks Urban Brewing (2944 Southeast Powell Boulevard, Portland, OR 97202).  This was another place with awesome food and lots of beer to choose from.  Hopworks kind of reminded us of what Buffalo Wild Wings would be if they made their own (good) beer.  It was loud and seemed to attract a wide array of people, including families, but their beer stood on its own.  In addition, they clearly had a cycling theme, so all of you biking enthusiasts should check this place out!  If we recall, they had organized group rides meeting at or ending up at the brewery on certain nights of the week, and had plenty of space for anyone else who biked it there to lock up your ride.

The last stop of the night was the Rogue Distillery & Public House (1339 NW Flanders,
Portland, OR 97209).  Rogue is what we would probably consider the most widely known (for better or worse) Oregon beer export.  You can find many styles of their beer at any good liquor store.  There is plenty of seating at Rogue, and is a popular spot in the downtown area of the city.  It was a great place to finish the days tour and try a few special brews that you can't find in the store. Definitely worth a stop.

The last day of the trip, Sunday, we had a fairly early flight, so we went for some pizza and the first part of the Bears game before heading to the airport. We had our last beer at the airport and headed home. It was a long weekend, but well worth the trip. We both knew that Portland was going to be a destination that we would return to because of the great atmosphere in the city and the knowledge that there were so many more beers left to try.

Coming soon!

Our first "official" post is coming soon - I swear!  We've been busy doing some Spring traveling and drinking lots of beer, both local and not, and we're excited to share. 

We'll also back-date a few posts from our trips to Portland in 2010 and 2011 because quite frankly, we drank too much good beer to leave them out.

Some other events to look forward to that we'll be writing about:

• Baconfest (Jen, April 14h)
• 3 Floyd's Dark Lord Day (Jen, April 28th)
• Chicago Craft Beer Week Kickoff  Event "Beer Under Glass" (Jen & Megan, May 17)
• 5th annual Mother-Daughter trip to the Pacific Northwest (Jen & Megan, June 1-10)