Tour de Taps
Four breweries serve samples for Craft Beer Month
Posted by: John Chandler on Jun 30, 2010 at 12:00PM
7 Comments
Now that’s a bus!
View Slideshow »As members of Portland’s esteemed press corps, it was absolutely essential that we travel in style.
View Slideshow »Our first stop was McCormick and Schmick’s Harborside Pilsner Room, where Full Sail brewmaster John Harris concocts a handful of exclusive brews.
View Slideshow »The Dunkopple is actually the brainchild of a Full Sail lab tech Kristy Holsopple (hence the cute name). It’s a full-bodied, lightly hopped brew with a firm malty foundation.
View Slideshow »Rock Bottom brewer Van Havig makes a point about his American Dream IPA, a vibrant and hoppy brew with abundant citrus notes.
View Slideshow »Brian Butenschoen, the head of the Oregon Brewers Guild gets a bright idea at Rock Bottom Brewery: “Let’s have some more beer!”
View Slideshow »In addition to the American Dream IPA, Rock Bottom brewer Van Havig also poured samples of his Saison, a light, Belgian-style ale.
View Slideshow »The view from the back of the bus. I-5 traffic never seemed so tranquil.
View Slideshow »Lompoc brewmaster Jerry Fechter regales the assembled bloggers and brewers about the origin of Big Bang Red. By this time John Harris and Van Havig had decided that a double decker bus ride in the afternoon sun was a fine idea so we invited them to hop aboard.
View Slideshow »Lompoc’s barrel-aged Big Bang Red was the most potent brew of the tour. Still bearing traces of its bourbon-barrel incubation period, with lively shades of vanilla and spicy mustard, the Big Bang had many of the same opulent characteristics as a glass of port.
View Slideshow »At Widmer Brothers, the beer of choice was the mighty Odin. Despite the formidable moniker, the beer proved to be a refreshing and highly drinkable gose-style lager with banana and light mustard flavors.
View Slideshow »A meeting of the beer brain trust: (From left) Rob Widmer, Kurt Widmer, Van Havig (Rock Bottom Brewery), John Harris (Full Sail), and Jerry Fechter (Lompoc Brewing).
I don’t drive—I ride the bus. And I consider myself a master of all things in the bus universe. I know when to ring the bell so as to give the driver plenty of time to stop. I enter in the front and exit in the back to alleviate corridor congestion. I cheerfully surrender my seat to the elderly and infirm. I am stoic when confronted by the hygienically challenged. I remain calm when fellow passengers are suffering from grand mal seizures, conniption fits, and full-blown psychotic episodes. In short, I am usually as serene as the Buddha beneath the bodhi tree.
However, that doesn’t mean I like riding the bus. In the cruel heart of winter, when the driver thoughtfully cranks up the heat to volcanic levels, and half the riders are sweating profusely while the rest are coughing like TB patients, I can envision better modes of travel. Like maybe being chained to a galley oar in the bowels of a tempest-tossed ship and beaten at 10-minute intervals while Yul Brynner keeps time on the drums. If anyone from TriMet is listening, there is a solution at hand: Try to adapt your vehicles so that they more closely resemble the bus I rode last week during the Craft Beer Month brewery tour.
Along with several other local beer bloggers, I was invited to ride along on a tasting tour of four breweries that had prepared special release beers in honor of Craft Beer Month (also known as July). That in itself would be reason enough to skip and jump, but it was our method of transport, a pimped out bus from a new Portland business called Double Decker PDX that proved to be the sprinkles on the cupcake. Spacious, comfy, and equipped with a fridge and a bumpin’ sound system, the double decker bus is the only way to fly.
With stops and samples at the Harborside Pilsner Room, Rock Bottom Brewery, the Sidebar tasting room adjacent to the Fifth Quadrant, and finally, Widmer Brothers Brewing, it was a stellar example of edutainment and the brilliant assortment of beers poured added to my already giddy anticipation of Craft Beer Month. Follow the action in our web-exclusive slideshow. You can almost feel the breeze and taste the hops.
Tags: Craft Beers
How about a field trip to Heater Allen? Or better yet, a field trip to the Brooklyn Brewery? (do I really have to type “bottom sanitary” to get this posted? ew.)
food carts!
Wine tours for us winos seem like a good option for another bus ride. But, also, what about one of those suckers for the distillers in town? Then, the selfish part of me remembers the skanky drunk bus from college, and wishes that thing were around back then. To give you a vague idea, it was the Shermer’s bus in Pullman, WA (WSU), but we called it the Spermer’s bus for a good reason…(let’s say it together shall we—ew)
JC said: “With such a bus available, perhaps there are other tours we could arrange?” … When I see a red double decker bus, the first thing that comes to mind is tea and crumpets. So how about a tea and crumpet crawl? Another thing that comes to mind is Monty Python, which makes me think of dead parrots. Hmmm, maybe not the best theme for a tour…but how about cheese shops? As in: “Have you, in fact, got any cheese at all?” “No sir, I was deliberately wasting your time.” ‘Twould be a lark! Let’s see, what else? It also makes me think of Paddington Bear. So what about a tour of all the toy stores that sell stuffed bears, and all the cool children’s book stores? But not build-a-bear, because that’s too trendy.
Keep ’em coming. These are all pure gold.
Craft distillers? I’m in!
I’m down for a cheese crawl! xoxo