A Weekend of Beer Gathering

Most of the time when I buy beer to restock the fridge, there isn't much of an advance plan. Maybe there was one beer I had in mind that drove the me but it's often a spur of the moment decision that I want something besides what is already in the well-stocked fridge. And usually my plan for moderation flies out the window when all the tasty choices are in front of me. This weekend was different; I had a solid, four part plan in advance.

Part I – Growler Fills at The Guild

As I mentioned last time around, the offer of $8 growler fills at The Guild Public House was a can't-pass-this-up type of deal. I knew I had to get there before the end of the month, when the promotion would end, and the coupling of an impending out of state work trip with the announcement that starting Monday (today) they were scaling back their hours, opening at 4 pm daily, put this on the must do list for the weekend. Although I didn’t know exactly what beers I would pick up due to the rotating nature of taps, I knew I’d be getting two growlers filled. (Any more would probably overload my limited fridge situation.)

Part II – Cascade Barrel House

Being in the flight path between The Guild and home, I knew a stop into Cascade would be an easy one. The hard part, I figured, would be getting a bottle of the already-a-week-past-the-release 2008 Apricot Ale. Lady Luck, who pinch hits for The Beer Gods from time to time, was with me. A quick call confirmed I hadn't missed my chance. I made two bottles mine, along with a pint of their freshly released, and very refreshing, Spring Gose.

Part III – Belmont Station 14^th Anniversary Sale

This weekend was the 14^th anniversary for Belmont Station and as a gift to their customers, they were offering 14% off all purchases on Sunday. 14% isn’t a lot, but when you buy good beer, beer that generally doesn’t go on sale at all, it’s worth making a point to take advantage of it. Knowing that I easily get distracted when I walk in there with all the choices and I could easily spend hundreds of dollars there on a day without a sale, I went armed with a list. There were four beers on it and it was four beers I walked out with.

Part IV – Four Play

Upright Brewing, was also celebrating an anniversary (their 2^nd) this weekend. A major component of the festivities was the sale of their much talked about Four Play. As you might guess with a name like that, they had fun with the artwork for the label. This year's artwork wasn't as racy as last years, yet there was still back and forth about it. I personally think it's much ado about nothing, especially in a town where there's at least one strip club in every neighborhood. As for the beer itself, it is Belgian in character, starting out with a wheat base, and then aging for a year in former pinot noir barrels with cherries, souring yeasts and bacteria. There were no limits on how much one could purchase but I practiced some rarely used restraint, bringing home just two bottles.

Weekend Total:

1 growler Everybody's Brewing Country Boy IPA
1 growler Prodigal Sun Rye

2 bottles Cascade 2008 Apricot Ale

12. 7 oz bottle Russian River Sanctification

6-pack Widmer W'11 KGB

22 oz Firestone Walker Double Jack

22 oz Laurelwood Espresso Stout

2 bottles Upright Four Play

In lieu of any photos from me, check out the links in Part IV. That should satisfy your eye candy cravings.

$8 Growlers

You’ve heard about some great places around Portland where good pints of beer can be had for $3 or less. Well, I’ve got another doozie to tell you about.

Earlier this week a member of my Twitter-verse alerted me to $8 growler fills at The Guild Public House for the month of March. The Guild? Sure, there are more places I haven’t been to and haven’t heard of than I have, but being situated along a strip of Burnside I like to think I’m relatively familiar with I was surprised not to have gotten a whiff of this place earlier. Besides, $8 growler fills? Even if they only had one or two good beers on tap it was bait enough to hook me.

After looking at their food menu online, I wasn’t sure they’d be a good destination for a meal so we decided to put a trip to The Guild on hold and head to Burnside Brewing for lunch. As we pulled into Burnside’s parking lot, we realized why we’d been remiss in making a second visit here: they don’t open until after lunch on the weekends. Bummed, but not deterred, we headed east on Burnside, intending to hit up Migration.

We made it just a couple blocks down the road before spying The Guild so we decided to switch gears and try it out. Walking in, cursing myself for not having a couple growlers in the car, we found it to be quiet but with a promising eight-tap line up and a friendly bartender.

With the first pints ordered, Double Mountain Spicy Brown for me and Oakshire O’Dark :30 for Mag, it was time to look at the food menu. Previously the only thing that had caught my eye was the pulled pork Cuban but they also offered a muffuletta. Tweeting out our visit, I found out our food choices were good ones, but also that they apparently offer some rockin’ jambalaya on Tuesdays.

After a great lunch (I’d happily order either sandwich again, although the happy hour snacks available 4-6 sound great, too) and another round of beer we headed out. But not before agreeing this was another spot to add to our list of places to come back to. And you can bet I'll be returning, growlers in hand, before the end of the month to take advantage of the bait I was glad I'd bitten on.