Tomorrow (Saturday) is the Hood River Hops Fest and I know plenty of people that are looking forward to it. I have yet to make the drive out to this festival, especially when there are so many fresh hop happenings going on without leaving the comfy confines of Portland.
Already in progress is Concordia Ale House's Fresh-Hop-a-Palooza where one can get a "groovy taster tray" of 10 fresh hop beers for $12. Those who have been to their events before know to expect that the beers will be presented blindly with the names of the beers revealed the Monday following the conclusion of the event (September 30) and a people's choice winner announced from the votes submitted.
Next weekend Roscoe's throws their 4th Annual Fresh Hop Summit and the Fresh Hop Fest takes place at Oaks Park. The Summit, or if you prefer "tap takeover-style event," starts Friday, October 4th and will feature 17 fresh hop beers. Since that number is greater than the number of taps they have the beers will be presented on a rotating basis throughout the weekend with taster trays available. A partial list of breweries and beers is currently available on the Facebook event page; expect more details to be announced as the Summit approaches.
Running Friday evening and Saturday Oaks Park Fresh Hops Fest will be serving up another line up of fresh hop beers. Drink packages run $15 - $40 for glasses + tickets and can be purchased in advance or at the door. I've yet to see a beer or brewery lineup released, which is generally par for the course for this festival.
The following Tuesday (October 8 for those not following along with their calendar) is White Owl Social Club's Heathens & Hops Fresh Hop Celebration. This music venue and quietly-working-on-becoming-a-beer-bar had their first beer festival last month, Lager Fest. As I understand it, the turnout was lower than optimal, due in part to some early fall weather raining on the parade. I'm pleased to see that didn't seem to deter them as they take another stab at it with a festival featuring 15 breweries, primarily from Oregon. The brewery and beers list can be found on their Facebook event page.
Besides the festivals there are of course plenty of fresh hop beers to be found at breweries and bars all around town as well. With all the choices you're sure to find a time and venue to get your fill of bright, fresh-from-the-vine hopped beers.
I suppose it was only a matter of time until there was a backlash against all the craft beer festivals in Portland. Or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say it was only a matter of time until someone figured out how to make money on it. Either way the Macro BrewFest is going on at "Foster/Powell dive O'Malley's" (Thrillist's words, not mine).
The three-day festival runs through today (Saturday) and for just $7 one can get your choice of four tallboys (from a selection of 14), live music and comedy. In case you're wondering just how macro things are, here's the list of 14: Genesee, Icehouse, Iron City, Hamm's, Olympia, MGD, Old German, Rainier, Busch, Rolling Rock, Miller High Life, PBR, Bud and Coors.
OR
You could go get yourself a bunch of well-made craft lagers over at White Owl Social Club's first Lagerfest (running today and Sunday). The decision is yours. Choose wisely, my thirsty friends.
I've talked about happy hours before and the focus has been on how inexpensive one can purchase a beer, a good craft beer, for. While I still love being able to spend a mere $2 or $2.50, I recently visited two places suggested by and with a friend. Although these places don't offer discounts on the beer the happy hour food is spectacularly priced. And it's not "cheap food" but really tasty food and not the two-little-bits-on-a-plate variety either.
The first is tucked away in NW Portland, tucked away at least for this SE dweller. Rae's Lakeview offers happy hour daily 3 - 6 pm with the only beer special being $1 bottles of Miller High Life. The happy hour food menu however boasts 16 options all priced $2 - $5, including a cheeseburger and Croque Monsieur for $5 each or biscuits & gravy for a mere $2. On our first visit we ordered and shared a majority of the offerings and on my last visit I had to give the biscuits and gravy a try. I found all of them to be tasty and enough of a bargain to offset the non-discounted beer prices (about $5 each).
The second, while not tucked away, is located in a restaurant and bar heavy area. One might walk or drive by it a dozen times without even thinking about stopping in. The place, Jake's Famous Crawfish, is a part of the McCormick & Schmick's family of restaurants but that doesn't mean they don't offer a hellava happy hour food menu. Their happy hour, also 3 - 6 pm daily, has dishes that range from $2.95 - $5.95. I can't speak to as many of these dishes mainly because the Northwest Seafood & Sausage Gumbo that I ordered and the Jake's Cheeseburger that Mag ordered turned out to be full sized meals. And they were only $3.95 each. Oh yeah, did I mention that the Tillamook cheese-topped burger was accompanied by a mound of French fries? Well, it is. The beers were similarly priced to Rae's ($5 - $6) and again, the delicious, filling food at rock bottom prices offset the full priced beers.
Finally, while we're on the topic, a quick reminder that for inexpensive beer, and only slightly higher happy hour food prices, there's the White Owl Social Club in SE. If you missed my post about it last month you can check out all the details here. Are there other places with similar happy hours I should be checking out?
Last weekend I met up with a friend to get the latest pair of bottle cap earrings she had crafted for me. In the course of our conversation she mentioned that she'd recently been to the White Owl Social Club where their happy hour included $2 pints and tasty food. Not one to pass up an inexpensive pint, especially one so close to my inner SE abode, it only took three days from hearing about White Owl into visiting White Owl.
Housed in a black corner building on SE 8th between Madison and Main, the space had been known by multiple names in the past, most recently Plan B. I had never been to Plan B although I did recall walking by it during a visit to a few distilleries in the area mostly because it seemed like such an odd name. So while I don't know what it looked like before I can say that the impression the solid black exterior gives (divey) is incongruent with what is inside. The interior, while modest in size is clean and contemporary, if a bit dark, with a combination of tables, booths, bar seating and an outdoor, covered patio.
Hunkering down at a booth and taking a look at the menu it was clear that my friend had not led me astray. Indeed, happy hour is offered everyday from 3 - 6 p.m. with all of their draft beers $2, potato boots are 2-for-1 and burgers are $5. The beer was the primary draw and I was not disappointed in the 10+ offerings with Migration Black Hearted IPA and Stone Ruination particularly catching my eye alongside brews from Boneyard, Upright, Oakshire, Ninkasi, Cascade Lakes, Deschutes, Hopworks and Double Mountain.
Being that we were there during happy hour we decided we should give the food a go, too. Potato Boots (loaded potato skins) can be made to order but we chose to go with the premade combinations of "Southeast Style" and "Gresham Style." Both were quite tasty as were the buffalo burgers we ordered a short time later. They aren't gigantic 1/2 lb burgers but neither are they the barely there "burgers" you get at a drive through. The non-happy hour price of $9 might be a bit steep but for $5, they're well worth it.
It was a good visit (with none of the service issues noted on some Yelp reviews) and a place we'll likely be returning to soon, often or both. If you've checked it out I'd enjoy hearing what you thought of it. If not, make plans to stop in soon.
For a good look at the place, check out Thrillist's slide show.
Already in progress is Concordia Ale House's Fresh-Hop-a-Palooza where one can get a "groovy taster tray" of 10 fresh hop beers for $12. Those who have been to their events before know to expect that the beers will be presented blindly with the names of the beers revealed the Monday following the conclusion of the event (September 30) and a people's choice winner announced from the votes submitted.
Running Friday evening and Saturday Oaks Park Fresh Hops Fest will be serving up another line up of fresh hop beers. Drink packages run $15 - $40 for glasses + tickets and can be purchased in advance or at the door. I've yet to see a beer or brewery lineup released, which is generally par for the course for this festival.
The following Tuesday (October 8 for those not following along with their calendar) is White Owl Social Club's Heathens & Hops Fresh Hop Celebration. This music venue and quietly-working-on-becoming-a-beer-bar had their first beer festival last month, Lager Fest. As I understand it, the turnout was lower than optimal, due in part to some early fall weather raining on the parade. I'm pleased to see that didn't seem to deter them as they take another stab at it with a festival featuring 15 breweries, primarily from Oregon. The brewery and beers list can be found on their Facebook event page.
