West Coast Grocery Company Opens

Nope, we haven't started covering the opening of new places to do your grocery shopping. West Coast Grocery Company is in fact a brewery located in the heart of inner SE across Stark Street from Beer and Meat Cheese Bread and kitty corner from Revolution Hall. The name speaks to times past when the heart of the neighborhood was the corner grocery and in fact the owners' family has a history in the Northwest wholesale grocery business dating back to 1891.

Occupying the corner space of the building, the brewery features a sunken brewing floor that is open to the main level of seating, accessed by entering from street level. The bright space is made up by a combination of tables and bar rails on the perimeter. Go up a short flight of stairs from there and one reaches the second seating area where the bar is located. In addition to more tables there is a cozy living room like seating space as well as a shuffle board table.

WCGco has brewed a handful of beers with local breweries - Laurelwood, Breakside, Level, Baerlic and Victor 23 - that they will be pouring with guest beers from their 12 taps. As it turned out we had already tried the collaboration with Level, a Norwegian take on a Grisette, while at Level. An easy drinking 4.3% and exactly what we would expect from the style, it's great for warm weather drinking or the start of any session. As good as that was, we opted to try a couple of others that we had not yet tasted, starting with the hazy IPA collaboration with Victor 23. Fuzzy Balls Hazy IPA clocks in at a moderate 6% and features a pleasant hop presence. The other IPA available during our visit was Bo-De-Ga, a collaboration with Breakside. As expected from such an IPA powerhouse, this is a solid IPA that fans of Breakside's beers should enjoy. While they were out of the Laurelwood collaboration (a pale ale) and we didn't get around to the Baerlic (a pilsner), this initial line up offers a well rounded representation of styles.

To accompany the liquid libations their kitchen offers a small but something-for-everyone menu of snacks, salads, sandwiches, wings and burgers. At the preview we attended we were able to try a slider sized version of their burger, wings (both garlic soy and sweet & spicy), fries with Portland ketchup and spicy feta dip, potato salad, won ton chips, pork cracklings and jalapeno nacho cheese. All were well made with our favorites being the burgers and anything coated with the addictive jalapeno nacho cheese.

The soft opening takes place today, July 24 5 - 10 pm, with the grand opening scheduled for Thursday, July 26. Follow them on Instagram or Facebook for the latest updates on both events.

West Coast Grocery Company
1403 SE Stark Street

Why Untappd?

Recently I overheard part of a conversation about Untappd. The non-user didn't ask the usual, "Why would I want to log my beers?" but instead, "Why would I want to know what other people are drinking?" At the time the answer that readily came to my beer geek mind was, "Why wouldn't you want to know what your friends are drinking?" Clearly that's one aspect of others' lives not everyone finds as important as I do.

A couple days ago, I found a different and possibly more important answer to that question. The answer I discovered was, "so I know what to drink." Not that I can't make my own decisions about what to drink, but by knowing what others are drinking, I might become aware of other beers I might like to try. Here's how it played out.

I was going to be in the vicinity of Bailey's Taproom with just enough time for one beer. A couple hours before my arrival, through a tweet, I learned they had just tapped a firkin of Laurelwood Ink Heart. While a firkin will always peak my interest, this announcement was particularly intriguing due to a recent logging of this beer by one of my friends. It was getting good ratings and I made a mental note that if I found it somewhere I should probably give it a try. That turned out to be a good decision. The beer was delicious as I had anticipated.

So beyond having an interest in keeping track of what I'm drinking (which I've referred back to more times than I can remember) and knowing what my friends are drinking, I can now add that it clues me into beers that I may well want to seek out. If you use Untappd, or something similar, why? If you don't, why not?

Settling In

For anyone who has been checking in on the blog lately will notice the lack of posts. I apologize. It’s not that I’m not drinking plenty of good beer, but there just hasn’t been anything that I’ve felt has been interesting enough to write about. I think I finally am finally able to pinpoint why.

We’ve been in Portland about seven and a half months now and although there are places on the list yet to visit and the local/regional breweries are turning out new or seasonal beers we’ve never had before at a greater rate than we can keep up with, we are getting settled in. Settled into our favorite places to drink, our favorite places to eat, and settled in to a set of go-to beers. Don’t get me wrong, getting settled in feels good but it also means that there’s a good chance the majority of beers I’m drinking are ones I’ve had before. I may have told you about them when I found them, or maybe they are ones, like Rogue Dead Guy, that I’ve had access to for years, that like Summit EPA, are just good, solid beers. Yet they are neither earth shatteringly great or so incredibly bad that I feel compelled to tell you about them.

This weekend I had beers from two local breweries that I’ve put into the go-to brewery category and in doing so, have discounted a bit. It was wrong of me to do so and drinking these beers has reminded me not to gloss over offerings from these places just because you can find their beers at most places in Portland. So who has been getting the short stick in my mind? Laurelwood and Deschutes.

About a week ago I picked up a bomber of Laurelwood Organic Portland Roast Espresso Stout. You know how much I love coffee and how much I love finding a coffee beer that does justice to both the coffee side and the beer side of the equation. I had seen this beer around and finally decided I’d better try it before I realized I was no longer seeing it around. Good thing, because this coffee beer goes on my short list of the best coffee beers out there, right next to Surly Coffee Bender. This is the kind of coffee beer that you’d drink with your breakfast (if drinking before/at work wasn’t frowned upon).

Next up was Deschutes Red Chair Northwest Pale Ale. The first problem for me was the name. Red Chair immediately, although incorrectly, makes me think that it is a red. Being a hophead, I don’t generally think much of reds. They are middle of the road beers that are fine but aren’t good enough to register for me unless they are not true to style (like Coalition Kitty Kat Red – Meow!), usually with a stronger hop profile. The second problem was that it is billed as a pale ale, albeit a Northwest pale ale. Similar to my issue with a red, rightly or wrongly, I’ll take an IPA over a pale any day of the week. In this case I was wrong, just plain wrong. This is an outstanding beer and I understand why there has been so much buzz about it.

To rectify the error of my ways, I’ll be making a trip to one of my favorite bottle shops in the very near future to pick up more of both of these great beers. If you happen to be able to get either beer in your neck of the woods, DO IT!