COV ER S T ORY
THE BULLETIN • Sunday, November 14, 2010 C5 Brian Butenschoen, with the Oregon Brewers Guild, raises a glass of sour-style ale at the Cascade Brewing Barrel House. “Any brewery that produces under 2 million barrels a year is considered ‘small,’” he says. As for Cascade’s ales, Butenschoen said, lactic fermentation and winemaking techniques are used for production. “It’s actually like a day of beermaking ... and a year of winemaking.”
Continued from previous page A few blocks north is the new Migration Brewing Co., housed in a small industrial building where mechanics once replaced the radiators of cars and trucks. This is a much more casual operation than Coalition, built to appeal to a sports-bar audience. Big-screen televisions are tuned to major sporting events, especially Portland’s basketball Trail Blazers. In fact, Migration has named one beer “Terry’s Porter” in honor of retired Blazers guard Terry Porter. I ordered a pint of copper-colored Migration Pale Ale, made with three different hops and a pair of malts. In all, the pub serves five of its own beers, with an additional seven “guest taps” for a rotating selection of out-of-town beers. On my visits, these included Three Creeks Red, from Sisters, and Silver Moon Stout, from Bend. The menu, however, is less than thrilling, mainly hot and cold sandwiches (priced $6.75 to $8.50), highlighted by a turkey-and-Brie baguette sandwich called Le Louvre.
North Portland The Breakside Brewery, which opened in May near the Concordia neighborhood, has one of the better restaurants among Portland’s new slew of brewpubs. A beautifully renovated garage, with a rust-and-orange color palette and glass windows where its doors once rolled up and down, is the venue. The menu goes well beyond sandwiches and salad. Entree plates ($9 to $15) extend to such gourmet comfort food as beer-braised beef short ribs and curry-fried chicken. The brewing operation wasn’t launched until the restaurant was firmly established, but co-owner and brewmaster Tony Petraglia is showing off his creative spirit. The pub has produced a honey-rye pale ale as well as two sour beers (a Belgian-style wit and a German-style gose) and a pair of stouts (an Irish dry stout and a Belgian chocolate stout). Last week, Breakside announced plans to brew a rare German gratzenbier, a smoky amber ale with apples and spice. The pub also has 11 taps for guest beers, which last month included the Bridge Creek Pilsner from Silver Moon in Bend. Amnesia Brewing has been around for all of six years, making it a fixture in the hip North Mississippi neighborhood. The ambience here is ultracasual; picnic tables stretch across the concrete floor of the one-time warehouse to a covered outdoor patio area. The menu doesn’t go far beyond bratwurst and burgers cooked outdoors on a grill, but that seems
More information Oregon Brewers Guild: 2000 N.E. 42nd Ave., Suite D, Portland; 971-270-0965, http://oregonbeer.org
European-style taps dispense imported German beers at Prost!, a fashionable pub in the North Mississippi neighborhood. Even as locally brewed beers are exploding in popularity, many Portland beer drinkers still prefer Old World ales. to be enough to satisfy the locals, who also enjoy the house brews: Dusty Trail Pale, Desolation IPA, Amnesia Brown, Wonka Porter and Precious Pils. The most unusual brewpub in Portland — at least, the most curious that I’ve visited — is the Upright Brewing Company Located in the basement of the Leftbank Building opposite the Rose Quarter arena, its tasting room (open only Friday evenings and weekend afternoons) shares a single concrete-floored room with the brewing facilities. Bicyclists take their rides down an elevator and park them beside a handful of tables and barrels scattered between an informal serving bar and the open fermentation tanks. Upright specializes in farmhouse ales, a seasonal style (“saison”) indigenous to France and Belgium. Formerly brewed in winter to be consumed in summer, they are complex beers with distinctive flavors. I tested a sampler of six beers, each very different from the next; some were fruity, others tart. My favorite, perhaps, was a malty seasonal brew called Rye and the Jets, alluding to a Frank Zappa album. The musical theme was no accident: Upright takes its name from the style of bass guitar played by avant-garde jazz musician Charles Mingus, and a live
blues guitarist plays almost every Sunday.
Southeast Portland The Hair of the Dog Brewing Company has been around since late 1993, but until three months ago, it was strictly a craft brewery. Now relocated to a Depression-era warehouse near the east end of the Morrison Bridge, it has a home: a tasting room with two corner walls of windows, a full-service kitchen and a proper brewing facility. A large, horseshoe-shaped bar, surrounded by numerous large tables, provides plenty of seating. Hair of the Dog is noted for bottle-conditioned brews of high alcohol content that improve with age, like fine wine. Beers are made in 200-case batches. These include Adam (a chocolaty Dortmunder-style dessert beer), Fred (a deep golden ale made with rye malts and 10 varieties of hops), Ruth (a light, pale ale), Greg (a squash beer) and variations thereof. There’s also Blue Dot (an easydrinking double IPA), Doggie Claws (a barley wine) and others of brewer Alan Sprints’ whim. As at other breweries, I found a tasting tray the best way to get acquainted with Hair of the Dog’s beers. But although the menu looked good, I thought $16 was a bit overpriced for a Brewer’s Plate of charcuterie, cheese and olives. Out on Powell Boulevard, the Hopworks Urban Brewery terms itself “Portland’s first eco-brewpub.” Owner-brewmaster Christian Ettinger spent a year and a half reconstructing a late-1940s building to his specifications. When “HUB” opened in 2008, it spoke to his commitment to sustainability with everything from skylights to rain barrels to a frontdoor bike-repair stand. Ettinger’s hand-crafted beers use organic barley malt and other local ingredients. Even the brew kettle is fired with biodiesel fuel, using fryer oil from the brewpub’s kitchen. The beers include a lager, a pale ale, an India pale, a bitter and a stout, as well as seasonal additions and two cask-conditioned brews. I found the Crosstown Pale to be excellent. Like the beer, HUB’s menu is creative and organic in theme. Salads ($4.75 to $9.75), sandwiches ($8.75 to $10.75) and pizzas ($15.75 to $28.75) are the primary fare. Diners are seated in four separate areas, ranging from an outdoor beer garden to a familyoriented section with a play area.
to flow together. He keeps the prices down — a hand-seasoned, 10-ounce ribeye steak is $14.95 — and the quality of beer up. With his background in English tradition, Burkhardt prefers classic beer styles to the newer trends, like sour beers and farmhouse ales. “I stay within the accepted boundaries,” he said. I did a tasting of several of his brews and found a favorite in the malty Ground ’n’ Pound Double IPA. “It’s got six malts, four hop additions and two dry hop combinations,” Burkhardt said proudly. His other brews include the Hop Heaven IPA, “which has really taken off,” he said; a complex and yeasty Belgian dubbel; a Germanstyle hefeweizen, a wheat-based raspberry ale, an English-style bitter and four lighter ales. He said he is also about to introduce a German-style bock, a porter and two stouts. “I have never had so much fun in my entire life,” the former Bend home brewer said.
African excursion: Where to start? The Washington Post
Q:
I have finally decided to fulfill one of my dreams and take a trip to Africa in May. After reading a few articles and websites, I am totally overwhelmed on where to even begin. I would like to do Victoria Falls, go on safari and hit up Cape Town. Any tips on how to start the daunting task of making this dream a reality? This is a daunting task, and I think in your case, you might want to enlist the help of a travel agent or specialist in travel to Africa. For example, I think you might be doing too much trying to squeeze in Victoria Falls and Cape Town. Better to pick maybe just South Africa and hit Cape Town, a safari on an animal wildlife refuge, the wine country, etc. Another option is a combo tour of Kenya and Tanzania.
A:
Q:
To Eurail, or not to Eurail? My sister and I are heading to Europe. We’ll be flying in to Munich, then heading out to Salzburg, Venice, Naples, and finally Rome, which we fly out of (plus transit within each of these cities). My thoughts up to this point were that it would be cheaper to buy train tickets as we go, but now I’m secondguessing myself. Given that you can get a three-country pass that allows both of you to travel first class, for $389 total, yes, consider going that route. Call the Rail Europe service center (800622-8600) and get them to price things individually, and then you can make the decision.
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The Washington Post travel staff fields readers’ questions once a week at www.washingtonpost.com.
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Customer Appreciation Sunday - Tuesday, November 14-16 Please join us in celebrating our 28th year of keeping the Pine Tavern in our family. Come dine with us for a special evening where we have rolled back the prices on some of my dad’s favorite entrees to the opening prices of 1982!
Columbia River Brewing Back at Rick Burkhardt’s Columbia River Brewing Company, the food and the beer seem
Where were you in 1982? My dad Bert Bender and his partner Joe Cenarussa bought the Pine Tavern in 1982. Rolling out a new menu they defined the Pine Tavern as you know it today, bringing mouth-watering scones (affectionately known as the dinner doughnut), excellent steaks and classic American comfort food.
Prime Rib - $13.95 Baby Back Ribs - $11.95 Fresh Mountain Trout - $9.50 Fried Chicken - $8.95 Unbelievable drink specials too! Dinner Service Only - No Reservations - First Come First Serve November 14th - 16th Only