Last Minute Gifts

The older I get the less I'm interested in receiving stuff as gifts, preferring instead to receive experiences. Don't get me wrong, I'll never look a beer-toting gift horse in the mouth and in fact, in my mind "experiences" include edible gifts.

For those of you that are behind the eight ball in buying a gift for the craft beer person in your life or you need to send some suggestions to the panicked relative that calls mere days in advance here's a short list of experiences that have the added bonus of being available for online purchase with online delivery.

Imperial Bottle Shop & Taproom
Imperial is one of the best combo bottle shop/taprooms in town and by purchasing a gift card from them you're giving the gift of beer without the worry that the bottles picked out are going to be up the recipient's liking or figuring out how to get those bottles to them since as we all know, it's illegal to ship beer.

Portland Craft Beer Festival
The folks behind the festival, which debuted this year and takes place July 1 - 3, 2016 at The Fields Neighborhood Park, are on the ball and have made sure that you can purchase festival tickets as holiday gifts. To sweeten the pot a $25 ticket includes mug and 15 beer tickets (for the same price at the door it's only 10 tickets).

Brewvana Brewery Tours
Brewvana offers multiple tours weekly, as well as specialty tours (like the January 8th Join the Dark Side tour that includes dark beers, chocolate and coffee) and gift certificates can be purchased in multiple amounts, redeemable for any tour or even merchandise.

Can You Tell Me How to Get, How to Get to Zwickelmania?

It's only Tuesday and things have just barely started to return to normal after Portland Snowpocalypse 2014 however it's time to start focusing on what's important. This Saturday is Zwickelmania, Oregon's largest brewery open house and if you don't have other plans (like Ft. George's Festival of the Dark Arts), there is no reason not to start thinking about which breweries you'll be visiting.

Statewide over 100 locations will be swinging open their doors, with half of those located in the Portland metro area. That's a lot of ground to cover during the five-hour event and to help you do that both safely and efficiently there will be multiple shuttles running in Portland. BREWVANA and Kells Brew Pub will both be offering free shuttles and Rogue will be utilizing a larger fleet to cover three different routes, with a $5 charge that will cover rides all day on any of their shuttles.

Five shuttle routes, 51 breweries, where's the beer lover to begin? Maybe you'll aim for places you've never been to. Maybe you'll focus on a specific area of town. Either way perhaps you'll find my Zwickelmania Google map helpful.

I'm still working on my list of places to visit; look for a post with the ones I'm most anticipating later this week if you're so inclined.

Zwickelmania
Saturday, February 15th
11 am - 4 pm

Beer & Food Delights on a Brewvana Tour

This week I was thrilled to hop on one of the newly wrapped, beautiful Brewvana buses for a three-course beer pairing dinner. Having done all of the planning for the tour it was extra special that I was able to enjoy, quite literally, the fruits of my labor.

The first stop was Beer on SE Stark for what in the early stages of planning was simply soup and two beers. Even after learning what the soup was going to be prior to the tour it in no way prepared me for the deliciousness that would be presented. Our first beer of the night was a crowd pleaser: Pints Brewing Amerikaner In Berliner Weiss. Low in alcohol, lightly tart and loaded with flavor it's one of my favorite beers Alan has made. Up next was the soup, a generous bowl of pastrami and cabbage soup with light rye bread, and Double Mountain Black Perle Double Stout. The 9.5% ABV beer was a great match for the full flavored soup and I would have been quite content to halt the night right there, ordering additional soup and stout. Alas, once our bowls and glasses were drained we hopped back on the bus.

A short jaunt across the river took us to Sasquatch Brewing in Hillsdale. Upon arriving we were led back to a table laid out for us, complete with personalized menus. Shortly thereafter plates of our entrée, crispy pork belly atop Bertha brown risotto with braising greens accompanied by a pickled spaghetti squash fritter and celeriac cream, were brought out. I was sold at pork belly and enjoyed every morsel of it but what really blew me away was the fritter. I mean have you ever heard of pickled spaghetti squash? And on top of that made into a fritter? It was beyond delicious. Paired with the amazing food was their Celilo Cascadian Dark Ale. I love CDAs and this was a great compliment to the rich, full bodied meal. With two incredible courses down, we headed out for stop #3 - dessert.

Imperial Bottle Shop was our destination where owners Shawn and Alex had paired Lauretta Jean's blackberry-raspberry mini pies with two beers and a cider. To top that all off, there was also a serving of Salt & Straw's olive oil ice cream. Both the Block 15 Figgy Pudding and the cider were great with the pie and the Fort George Coffee Girl Imperial Stout was magical with the ice cream. The final course rounded out a very delicious and enjoyable night.

Buckman Village Botanical Brewery

Before yesterday, at the first stop on the Brewvana Behind the Scenes Tour, I hadn't given much thought to the full name of the brewery that resides inside Rogue's Green Dragon. Buckman Village Botanical Brewery has turned out some enjoyable beers, with the Chamomellow being my favorite, and although I wondered in passing about the "Botanical" part that was it.

After sampling four of Buckman's beers, where I found a new favorite, a single hop IPA using Saaz hops, we went into the brewery and heard about their operation, including the botanical reference. Get the scoop straight from head brewer Danny Connors' mouth, unless of course you're a smarty pants and already know.