Travelling from Sunnyside to Portland... (+ the rest)

Being of from the internet world for a while I have to short track the trip a while. Anyway we continued the beer trip with starting from Sunnyside after a great evening at the Snipes Mountain Microbrewery.



We went back the road and went down the river on the oregon side and finally came to a very sunny day in Hood River and Full Sail Brewing company. Here we had the following beers;

Sunspot IPA
IPA
Pale Ale
Amber
Bock

The Sunspot IPA was quite tasty but the rest of the branch was really not so interesting to talk about. Anyway the place was quite nice and we had a pleasant view over the hood river.

(A bit dark picture of Stefan, but you can spot the river on the left side of his head)

The journey continued by the hood river and we was getting close to Portland and the planned beer festival on the Saturday evening.

We entered the city and continued to the north side of the city to find a cheap motel, and we did, very cheap but it was not the best room experience we have had. I think it was called some like cheap of economic.

But that was not so important so when we finally got our room we managed to take the max train downtown to the china town and continued to the street festival (Bones & Brew) at the rogue pub. It was extremelly hot (around 14.30) so we got a bit confused in the heat. Anyway we succeded in getting the following draught beers;

Siletz Paddle IPA
Steelhead Hop To Trot Pale
Amnesia Dusty Pale
New Old Lompoc C-Note Imperial Ale
Ninkasi Domination IPA
Caldera Dry Hop Orange
Golder Valley Red Thistle Ale



The journey continued through the sun and took us to the Bridgeport Brewing Company where the following beers was consumed;

Blue Heron Pale Ale
Ropewalk Amber Ale
Surpris
IPA
ESB
Porter
Black Strap Stout
Old Knucklehead barley wine

(The best beer is the outstanding; Superdog Double IPA)

After that the next stop was Lucky Labrador Beer Hall where the best beers of the trip was consumed.

Superdog Double IPA
Organic No Pity Ale
Single Hop IPA
Bavarian Wheat



After some book shopping we finally go to the last place of the day; Produce Cafe where we had;

Greate Divide Samurai
Dicks Best Bitter
Laurelwood Pale Ale
Racer 5 IPA



The end... for now...
********************************************************************************

I did not succeed in the mission on writing this blog during the actual trip. Mainly due to too many bad or nonexisting internet services, so I simply gave up, and went to sleep instead. But jsut for historical reasons here comes the rest of the trip as short resume.

20060806
Left Portland in the morning and passed "Raleigh Hills" and the "Racoon Lodge & Brew Pub".


Continued for lunch at stopped at "Forrest Grove" and the "McMenamins Grand Lodge". Remember that I had a Hammerhead IPA together with the lunch at this nice little "country"-pub.

Passed a lot of curvey roads before heading for a finally getting to the amazing "Pelican Pub & Brewery" at "Pacific City". This was a great place to staying during the evening and I will never forget when the sun went behind the pelican brief out in seafront. A purely magical place and also some amazing beer was served at the pub, as; "Dorymans Dark Ale", "Kiwanda Cream Ale", "Pelican IPA", "Tsunami Stout" and "Summer Surfers Ale". Talking about the best one, simply the name is "PPA".


Next day on 20060807
Continued to "Newport" and the original "Rogue Brewery & Public House". This is not the brewery but it the original pub established by Rogue brewery. Had lunch and an amazing Rouge I2PA (please a lot more).


Passed "Eugene" and the "Steelhead Brewing Company". Best one here was the Bombay Bomber IPA.


Stayed the evening and the night in "Rosenburg", sorry to say but this is a very boring place, and very poor on beer. But we finally survived at the "McMenamins Station" and had something called "Vienna" on nitro.

20060808
Drow to "Cave Junction" and "Wild River Brewing Company", and had the IPA. Great place, really. A bit small and difficult to find, but after we finally found the place it was quite nice (at the beginning of the town, on the left side, remember!, at the beginning so make sure that you do not pass the whole town before you try to spot the place).


Continued to "Eureka" and the "Lost Cost Brewing Company". Quite a famous place for their beers, but I have had better beers. Famous beer that that you have have heard off is; "Alleycat Amber" and the "Indica IPA".


Also find a nice Irish pub in "Eureka" called "Gallahers Irish Pub" and had some nice US-micros; "Andersson Valley Summer Solstice" and "Mendocino Eye of the Hawk Ale". Did not even see any Irish beers, :).

20060809
A big beer experience day, simply because we finally got to "Fort Bragg" and the "North Coast Brewery". This is a great place, had a shop on one side of the street and the pub on the other. Here we had a amazaing lunch with some great beer experience; "Acme IPA", "Acme Pale Ale", "Red Seal", "Red Seal (draught cond.)!!!!" (this one is unique, and nothing as the normal red seal, it is in simple words; smoooth), and finally the great "Pranqster".

One great place to the other, we continued to "Boonville" and the "Andersson Valley Brewing Company". Built as has wine house in the middle of the wine country we had the great examples of beer in the form of; "Hopotin IPA" & "Poleeko Gold Pale Ale". Nice place, but a bit warm for us Swedes.


Went to "Hopland" and the "Mendocino Brewing Company".


Ended up in "Ukiah" and the "Ukiah Brewing Company". Still extremely warm but we had a good dinner and some great beers.


20060810
If the last day was a good day for beers, this day was probably Nirvana for a beer geek.

Went to "Healdsburg" and "Bear Republic" and had the mighty "Racer 5 IPA".


A short stop and lunch in "Calistoga" (most famous for Wines) and the "Napa Valley Brewing Company". A poor place for beer, but a nice little town. We also had a short Wine tasting journey that I will not talk much about here, :).

So here it comes our new favorite in american micros came to us when we visited the Norrebro Brewpub in Copenhagen during the spring of 2006. It was a very simple bottle that had a small name tag saying "Blind Pig". Which turned out to be a great american IPA. Doing some research when we went home we discovered that this beer came from a brewery called Russian River. Due to that it was very exiting to finally come to "Santa Rosa" and the "Russian River Brewing Company". The brewery has it all, and the blind pig is still a favorite but the rest are also new classics in the brewery history. Tasting went from; "Blind Pig IPA" to "Parking Violation Pale Ale" to "Russian River IPA" to "Pliny the Elder" to "Little White Lie" to "Redemption" to "Perdition" and finally "Damnation". And the winner is;

1. Pliny the Elder, *****


Ended up in "Petaluma" and "Dempsey's"

and the "Finbar Devines".


20060811
Getting close to the end we went to "Berkley" and "Jupiter". Which is a brewpub.


From there to "Oakland" and "Pacific Coast Brewing Company".


Went to "Pleasanton" (where Documentum is located, meaning the product I am working with during my none off days) and "The Hopyard". This is a great place outside San Fran and has a lot of beer on draught, like the few one we had; "Stone Arrogant Bastard", "Big Sky IPA", "Blind Pig IPA" (once more) & Hoptown IPA (nitro).


After sitting in the car queue for central "San Francisco" we could settle at the "San Fran Brewing Company".

20060812
Got some sleep and some sighteeing we went by foot (finally we got rid of the car) to the "Rogue Ale House" in San Francisco.


Continued to the best pub in the USA; "Toronado" and some amazing beers. I will only mention one which is the "Moonlight Bombay by boat IPA".


Then to "Magnolia Pub & Brewery". Had a good Mild from Dark Star (not the english brewery).


Went back to town and the "Thirsty Beer Brewing Company" and finally end up at a "21 amendment" after a long beer day. Had a Blind again, :).

20060813
Last day San Francisco and the last day of the beer trip, but did not include any pubs. Instead we had some great beer at the best beer shop in the USA according to me, at least the most friendly one; "The City Beer Store & Tasting Bar" (thanks Charlie). Here we sampled; "Drakes IPA", "Lagunitas Red Ale", "Lagunitas Freak Out Ale","Stone IPA","Hair of a dog Fred","Drakes Porter (on draught)" & "Deuchettes Inversion IPA"

Bye and good night.

Leaving Seattle...

August 4th

Last day in seattle simply consisted of checking out of the hotel and then walk a few blocks up to the Hilton hotel above university ave. Here we rented our car that turned out to be a chevrolet impala on the eight floor at the hotel. This was the first time ever I drove an automatic gear so it was very interesting to figure out the concept of using the break instead of changing gear with a stick that I am used to. Seems that the break was very good and I succeeded in waking up my friends a few times when the car stopped very suddenly.

Going though redmont (did not see bill) we headed out to the eastern part of the washington state for the search of better beers.


The first stop was on Snoqualmie Brewing Company in Snoqualmie Falls. Here we had some beers, I was drivingthis day so I personaly had a root beer, but the rest of the gang tested;
Wildcat IPA
Copperhead Pale Ale (the number on beer here)

After the beers and the lunch we had we headed for the famous falls nearby the town (very small town).According to the guide books this was the falls used in the Twin Peaks TV-series. Very nice...


After that we continued on the road to the next brewery in Ellensburg with the name Iron Horse Brewery. Due tothe missing GPS we ordered to the car it turned out to be very difficult to understand how to get to the brewery but we finally got it and understood how we could find the dollar way, which turned out to be outside the city and in a warehouse complex. The place was very small but seemed to have the potential to create great beers. The brewery was located at the end of the warehouse and was owned by one person (Jim, who was the owner, brewmaster, ceo and all the rest). I was really impressedthat all this could be accomplished by one single person.

The range we tested included;
Rodeo Extra Pale Ale
Wheat & Rye
IPA
Brown Ale
Locomotive Ale (double red ale)



The clock was getting late and when we finally find the grant brewpub in yakahima and discovered that the place was closed we went away to the city of Sunnyside (where we also got a room at the Country Inn and had dinner and some very nice beers at Snipes Mountain Microbrewery. The beers we had included;

Sunnyside Pale Ale
IPA (best of the day, according to me, the rest voted for the Iron Horse brands)
Coyte Moon amber ale
Porter

Seattle the second day..

Being a bit tired and need the sleep for the driving tomorrow I will mainly spend a few minutes on talking about what we drank today.


Pyramid Brewpub
Thunderhead IPA
DPA (Draught Pale Ale) exclusive at pyramid
Macs Ale (same as DPA but not the draught version)


Collins Bar
Pelican IPA (cannot do much about it, but it was simply the best beer of the day, but has nothing to do with the washington state beer that should be the focus of the day)
Walking Man IPA


Virginia Inn
Moongoose Ipa from Hales (number 2 of the day)
Mac & Jacks African Amber
Fat Tire Amber Ale (from california)
Old Seattle Lager (Paritime Pacific Brewery, boring...)


Belltown Bistro
Mirror Pond Pale Ale (number 3 of the day)
Bridgeport IPA (from oregon)
Reedhook Ale


Elysian Brewpub
Immortal IPA
Elysian Fields Pale Ale

Elephant & Castle (same name as a tube station in London)
Lagunitas IPA (from California)
Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar (from oregon)

Hopefully I will write some stuff tomorrow but you never know, we are picking up the car at 11.00 and after that we really do not know what will happen regarding the web access...

Sorry forgot the beer of day, so here it comes once more...
Pelican IPA

Good night folks see you tomorrow when we continue the journey into washinton state...

Seattle day one...

08/02/06
The journey has now started with the 11.20 Greyhound bus from the Vancouver bus terminal. As usual the bus was quite old and scabby but the price was very reasonable (28$). I am (+ the rest of the gang; maria, stefan and mikael) currently sitting here on the bus trip that will hopefully take us to Seattle by 15.30 local us time. Stefan has spent his last Canadian dollars on chips and candy bars, so he is sitting a front of me eating a lot of crap food.

12:19:39 AM

Right now it seems that we are getting closer to the us border or something because we a traveling very slowly, or it is simply a normal car queue.
Anyway the plan today is generally to discover the city and hopefully finally get some good and tasteful (compared to canadian brews) micro brews. The plan is to find some good places today and then even more tomorrow when we have the full day covered. Some of the most promising is probably Pike and Pyramid, but I guess that we will go to some good pubs where we can get a sample of more then one brewery at the same place and hopefully from the pacific north west.
We will stay in Seattle for two nights so the schedule will be quite hectic when you have to taste as much of the regional beer being served at different establishments.

12:25:22 AM... to be continued when we arrive in Seattle.

Yes we finally arrived at seattle a bit later due to a long stop at the border and then trying to going through the Seattle traffic at rush hour.

So the city looks very nice along the seafront, we strolled through the city after getting to the ramada hotel on fifth.

The first day in seattle had two goals, food and beer. So we started out at the pike brewing company where we had some very nice beers together with some burgers, the tested beer included;

Pike Pale Ale
Pike IPA
Pike Tandem double ale (seasonal)
Pike Kiltlifter Ruby Ale
Pike Double Stout

The best one (according to me) was the pale ale and the double ale.

Going through some parts of the market at the seafront (including the original starbucks) we came across the Rock Bottom Brewpub;



Really this was a great place based on the beers, the general option was that this was the best beer of the day and also the best beer so far. The range included;

Hopbomb IPA (I got the t-shirt)
Peashooter Pale Ale
Rain city ale
Belgian triple (simply called 3 for triple)

(3 for triple)

All got 3+ or higher according to our beer ratings.

After this it was time to try some different beers so we tested out the Six Arms pub on pike and got to try;

Rogue Anniversay IPA
Hales ESB
Scuttllebutt Hoptopia
Hammerhead Ale

Here my phone died to I cannot provide any photo evidence but it was quite nice pub, but it tasted quite strange according to my travelling mates.

The trip settled on to a usual suspect, so we came to te gordon biersh branch when we got back from the the six arms and tested the kölsch (quite good) and the dunkel.

Tandem at pike

A new day in Vancouver...

So it is the first real day in Vancouver, meaning that we have been sleeping a full night and we are now ready to start discovering the city in more detail.

Nothing has happened so far except breakfast, but generally we are going to do some more sightseeing and hopefully also find some good examples of Canadian beer culture.

Hopefully this can be added later today.

So the day started out with a extensible long walk along the Vancouver seafront towards the stanley park. The weather was quite warm so it was taken a few hours to walk towards and through the stanley park north of the downtown Vancouver.

Sea planes at the harbor.

At the north side of the park we crossed the lionbridge by foot and started the long walk along the north side of Vancouver. The plan was to walk along the Marine drive to get back to the city by the seabus.

This was very long but we got some relief when found the first brewpub of the day (which was not on the list); Taylors Crossing Brewing Company. The brewpub is part of the Mark James Group, like YaleTown Brewing Company.

Here we tasted the following beers;

Indian Arms IPA (seasonal)
Red Truck Lager
The entrance of the brewpub.

The beer was OK, but the place was much better.

Getting closer to the ferry back to the city we finally came to the first plan brewpub for the day, which was Sailor Hägars Brewing Company (saying that it was inspired by scandinavian type of brewing tradition but seems more influenced by english and german traditions).



Here we combined the beer with some late lunch (pizza for me) and had the following beers;

Bengal IPA (which turned out to be the best beer of the day)
Lohins ESB
Maple Cream Ale
Grizzly Nut Brown Ale
Hagars Honey Pilser (cold but very boring)

Getting back to the city by the ferry turned out to be an other scenic view of the city and we got back where we started out.

The next stop was to get to the granville island, south of the down and here we discovered some additional brewpubs where the most famous one was; Granville Brewing Company. The most famous one turned out to be a huge disapointment. The line of beer was telling us that Canada likes brewpub but seems to be very scared to created tasteful brews. We tried the full range available;

Maple Cream Ale (OK, but nothing more)
Island Lager (Which according to the place should be hoppy, but it tasted like a chinese beer I had last year, tsingtao, meaning very weak in hoppiness)
English Bay Pale Ale
Robson Street Hefeweizen (the best one because it tasted at least like a spicy wheatbeer, but destroyed a bit by the added lemon)

The beer sample.

Further along the island after getting a bit confused on the direction we came along to the Dockside Brewing Company and had a Cartwright Pale Ale. It tasted something but was still nothing to remember.

And finally got back to yaletown and finished with a very nice IPA at the DIX brewing company (also part of MJG). It had not named except DIX, but it finally the taste was very nice. We also tested the seasonal dark beer which was a stout and it was also quite good.

The IPA

And the entrance of the place at beatty street;


Thats it and now we will leave Canada and start the trip in the US, with the first stop in seattle.