Tag Archives: portland

Portland = beer heaven

Portland is beer Mecca, it’s really that good. No other city has such a huge selection of high quality beer available. It should come as no surprise that Portland is one of my favourite places to visit. For such a small city, Portland is overwhelming. There is too much good food, at too low prices and too much great beer, pretty much everywhere. And unfortunately there is never enough time to take it all in, literally.

I am a die hard eater and beer drinker to the end. When travelling the majority of my time is spent eating, drinking, or searching for places to eat and drink, with a small amount of time spent walking. In Portland I walked mostly from food cart to pub to restaurant to pub and so on; the caloric burn associated with the walking is a side benefit. If eating five meals a day was a viable lifestyle choice, I would make it happen. But I’ve tried, and it does not feel good. I had the opportunity to go to Portland over the Christmas holiday. The city did not let me down. I am by no means a Portland expert, but here are my thoughts on the places I’ve visited. Hope you enjoy.

Go Immediately

Cascade Brewing Barrel House – Creators of the best sour beers this world has ever known. That is about all I can say. The beer at Cascade is phenomenal.  Their world class rating on beer advocate is well deserved.  Try as much of everything as you can, and go immediately.

Pok Pok – is Thai food heaven. Although not really a beer hotspot, they do list a few good local options, in true Portland fashion. It seems the entire city of Portland is in love with Pok Pok, and fair enough, it’s damn good. After 90 minutes of waiting at Pok Pok’s Thai inspired back alley whisky soda lounge, we were in. The food here is unlike any Thai food I’ve had – Ordering #72, mild, with coconut rice is not an option. Crazy good Thai wings, salt crusted fish served in a lettuce wrap, papaya pok pok salad are a few of the dishes that can be found here. I will return to Pok Pok on my next visit.

Deschutes Brewery – The quintessential brewpub. Located in downtown Portland, Deschutes is stumbling distance to a number of other worthy food and beer establishments. The beer is consistently good, as is the food. The large list of constantly changing seasonals is probably the best place to start. I have visited Deschutes three times and have never left disappointed. Side note – Deschutes’ men’s room has the craziest urinals I’ve ever seen. 

Voodoo Doughnuts – Because sometime all I want to eat is doughnuts, even more so after a night of beer drinking. The fact that they are fresh and sometimes covered in bacon is a bonus. I can’t tell if the doughnuts at Voodoo are that great, or if I am just a diabetic-to-be, madly in love with freshly fried dough, glazed, coated and dusted in sugar. But it really doesn’t matter, they are good.

Belmont Station – The best place to go for take home beers. They also have a tap room where they rotate through a selection of top quality beer.

Tug Boat Brewing Co – The beer isn’t that great, it might even be bad at times, and the food comes from a microwave, but I still love it here. Board games with missing pieces and an old toppley game of Jenga are available for play. It’s a great place to end an evening. This is Portland’s oldest brewpub and for some reason I love it. Yes, Bailey tap room located next door will have a better selection on tap, but they don’t have Jenga.

Beer Menu at Cascade

Beer Menu at Cascade

Voodoo!

Voodoo!

Beer Sampler at Deschutes

Beer Sampler at Deschutes

 

If You Have Time

Hair of the Dog – Great beer as expected. The food was less than stellar, this is more of a tasting room than a pub so no surprise on the food.

BridgePort Brewing – The beer is mostly okay but some quite good. The food is just okay – typical brewpub menu.

The Commons Brewery– The tap room is the brewery, and the beer is very good. Their beer is far more Belgian than Westcoast, which is a nice change when in Portland.

Laurelwood – The food and beer are very good, but not exceptional. As with many Portland brewpubs, Laurelwood has multiple locations throughout Portland.

Horse Brass Pub – As a beer geek I am supposed to love this place, but I did not love it, I just liked it. The beer selection is top notch (I enjoyed Pliny the Elder here just last week) and the ambiance is warm and cozy – although it did remind me a bit of a number of older run down pubs found in the suburbs of Vancouver. I will probably return to the Horse Brass on my next visit as I feel I may be missing the magic.

Not Really Worth it, but its still not bad beer

Rogue Public House – Feels like a family restaurant gone all wrong. I did not like it here. The food is sub-par and the beer is good, but not good enough to make me want to come back. Other’s may have a different opinion than me on this one, but I did not enjoy the Rogue experience at all.

Lucky Labrador – If you have a dog or like hanging out with dogs while drinking beer, you will like it here. But the beer just isn’t that great.

Rock Bottom - Really not a very good brewpub. If your guidebook tells you to go, as many do, don’t. In a city like Portland there is no need to visit Rock Bottom.

If I’m missing anything amazing in Portland please let me know. Portland is full of great beer and I am sure I am still missing many.

Cheers,

Erik

More cool stuff in Portland

We went to Portland a couple of weeks ago to drink beer, eat food, and have good times.  The trip was a rousing success.  I’d never been to Portland, but I really liked it.  It’s a really laid back place with great beer and food all over the place.  One goal of our trip was to eat at as many Diners Drive-ins and Dives joints as possible.  If you haven’t seen that show, you should probably start watching it.

On the way down to Portland we stopped in Seattle for dinner at Bizarro Italian cafe, a triple-d spot.  We had to wait for about half an hour to get a table, but it was well worth it.  Bizarro was started by a few ex-circus performers who built their circus flair right into their restaurant.  On top of that, all of the food was better than good and the Elk Bolognese was awesome.  I’d definitely head back there.

Once we arrived in Portland, we checked into our hotel and began wandering the streets for a place to have a beer.  We stumbled upon the Life of Riley Tavern, a simple pub with over 20 taps of excellent quality Western American beer.  There is only one place I can think of in Vancouver that has 20 taps of the good stuff and that’s the Alibi Room.  We didn’t even have to try to find a similarly stocked pub in Portland, which is no knock on the Alibi Room and a tremendous compliment to the Portland beer scene.

The next morning we set out for a triple-d breakfast at Byways cafe.  Again we had to wait, and this time I’d say the wait wasn’t quite worth it.  Breakfast was good, but not spectacular.  I do believe Byways is better known for their burgers, so it’s a shame we didn’t head their later in the day.  I couldn’t resist ordering their biscuits and gravy, a dish I’d only ever seen on TV before.  Sadly, I couldn’t finish half of the southern classic.  This has never happened to me, I swear!  Turns out baked fat with extra fat poured on top resulted in gastrointestinal impotence.  Maybe the south shouldn’t be opposing health care so vehemently?  I think I’d have had a heart attack if I’d tried to finish my gravy covered biscuits.

Biscuits and Gravy from Byways Cafe

Later on in the day we tried to visit another triple-d join, one we were all eagerly anticipating, called Pok Pok, It serves Vietnamese, Thai, and other Asian style dishes, but sadly we didn’t get to taste any because it opened hours later than our visit.  Shoot, maybe next time.

In the early afternoon we visited the Deschutes Brewpub, which served the full compliment of Deschutes beers.  I do believe we managed to try each beer collectively and they were all good to wonderful.  I was amazed at the sheer size of the brewpub, which was twice as big as any brewpub in Vancouver and quite busy too.  The atmosphere was great their too.  We didn’t try the food, but the food we saw others tables receiving looked very tasty.  Sadly, we decided to eat at the Rogue bar in town later on.  The food and the atmosphere their were nothing to write home about.  They did serve the full compliment of Rogue beers, but the place was disappointing in that it was a bit run down.  We also visited the Rock Bottom pub in town and we found it to be rather generic and unexciting, definitely nothing to write home about.

Us Guys at Deschutes in Portland

Our last brewery visit of the weekend was to Tugboat Brewing, Portland’s oldest Brewpub.  The place was a bit of a dive, but we really enjoyed their Chernobyl Imperial Stout. It was a bit of a handful at 13% ABV, but also a trip to flavor town.  A glass of Chernobyl cost all of $3 and a pitcher cost $13, steep!  I seem to recall us ordering some tasty nachos, again for not very much money,  but it was late in the day and I may not be recalling correctly.  Also, we really liked the live jazz music at Tugboat and the opportunity to play Jenga.

Erik Playing Jenga at Tugboat Brewing

The next day we used Yelp to find two good places to eat.  We had breakfast at the Utopia Cafe in Portland, which again required a long wait, but was tasty.  I don’t think I’d wait so long again though.  We had dinner at Flying Squirrel Pizza in Seattle and it was amazing.  It was the best pizza place I’d ever been too.  The crust was excellent and the toppings were exotic and well combined.  I still dream of flying squirrel pizza the odd night, go there.

Flying Squirrel Pizza in Seattle

Cheers,

Chris

Belmont Station in Portland

I went to beer mecca Portland last weekend.  I’d never been there before and I was pretty impressed.  I’d liken the city to one big Commercial Drive, at least the places I saw.  What impressed me most about Portland was the constant selection of fantastic beer and food.  Everywhere we went we had an abundance of local craft selection sold at extremely low prices, as little as $3 per pint.  We went to a lot of cool places in Portland, but my favorite place we visited was Belmont Station.

Belmont Station is an epic beer store stocked with an enormous selection of amazing beers from around the world.  The closest comparable we have here is Brewery Creek, but our liquor laws and taxes prevent them from competing as well as they’d like to.  I was overwhelmed when I walked in to Belmont Station.  I wanted to buy everything, but was obviously limited as to what I could bring back across the border after a two day trip.  I picked up some Russian River brews I’d never seen anywhere else before.  I also bought Aphrodisiaque, a cocoa vanilla bean stout brewed by Quebec’s Dieu du Ciel.  I’d never seen this beer in BC before, which I find upsetting.  You’d think we’d be able to procure some of Canada’s finest?  Another notable purchase was Chatoe Rogue Dirtoir Black Lager, which is made from Rogues home grown barley and hops.  There were others, but these were the notables of consumed and enjoyed so far.

If you can believe it, Belmont Station also has an attached beer bar with 22 taps of top notch beer.  We all ordered something different and all received something wonderful.  For me, it was my first chance to drink the legendary Pliny the Elder.  It stands up to it’s reputation as being one of the greatest beers in the world.  Erik and I were actually angry at how amazing and affordable Belmont Station is.  Why can’t we have something like that here?  Any future trips to Portland will involve a visit or two to Belmont Station.  If you love beer, you must go.

Cheers,

Chris

New Year’s Beer Resolutions

We had a good year in 2010, but didn’t exactly close out the year strong what with our posting becoming increasingly infrequent.  Despite our lazy December, we managed to have a really good first full year of LoveGoodBeer.com.  Some of the cool stuff that happened to us:

  • We received free beer a few times
  • We attended a lot of cool events (one with a press pass)
  • We had a few restaurants ask us for help with their beer menus

While that stuff was awesome, it’s time for us to step our games up.  To make sure we reach higher this year, I’ve decided to set some lofty goals via New Year’s resolutions.  I haven’t talked to Erik about these, but he’ll just have to deal with it.

Westvleteren, we'll be there

New Year’s Resolutions:

  • Get Erik intertube access – Erik bought a new house in late November and has been busy renovating and moving in, but still doesn’t have the internet.  This explains why he hasn’t posted in well over a month, even though he has rad things to write about.
  • Drink more awesome beer and less crappy beer – There is a lot of good beer out there, so why bother drinking crappy beer?  Also, we need to try every good beer ever made and, therefore, have no time to waste on crappy beer.
  • Exercise more -  If we are going to drink more beer, we’ll have to exercise to stay really, really, really ridiculously good looking, probably at least three times a week.
  • Go on at least three beer pilgrimages – We haven’t even been to Portland yet, so we’ll need to do that.  Oktoberfest in Munich and Trappist Monasteries in Belgium come to mind.  Westvleteren here we come.
  • Post thrice per week – Collectively, we should be able to post three times a week every week.

I was also going to add “take over the world”, but felt it didn’t apply because we have pretty much already done this.  Happy New Year!

Cheers,

Chris