Monday, June 29, 2009

Devil's Churn, Oregon Coast

We've been spending the day driving down the coast and this picture is
representative of the many viewpoints we stopped at. Shooting for
Redwood national park tonight so we'll see how it goes.

Rogue Brewers on the Bay, Newport, OR

Stopped at the brewpub at Rogue brewery and loved the atmosphere and
the 30 or so beers on tap. Split a couple samlplrs with my wife and
loved Old Crustacean, chocolate stout, dry hopped red and the
imperial pilsner. Though not my favorite style, this may be the best
pilsner I've ever had. After a quick break, we'll be heading south
down the coast to the redwoods of northern California.

-Chris

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Pelican Brewing, Pacific City, OR

A short drive down the coast to the beautiful coastal town of Pacific
City. This place was gorgeus and I'd love to spend a week in a
vacation home here. But our time was short so we got the sampler and
were on our way. I have to say that Pelican, licated on the water, is
easily the most scenic microbrewery i have ever been to. Tsunami
stout and the Indian pelican ale were the highlights, as expected and
I picked up Stormwatcher winter and wee heavy Scottish to go. Then a
quick drive down the road to south beach state park for sunset and to
spend the night. Great start to the trip.

Cape Lookout Oregon

After a quick visit to tillamook we were off to the beach near Cape
Lookout. A beautiful day and the picture says it better than I ever
could.

John's Marketplace and Raccoon Lodge Cascade Brewing

Made a stop at John's Marketplace outside downtown Portland and I can
say that this was, by far the biggest bottle store tha I have ever
been to. Picked up some hair of the dog Fred and Adam as well as some
other west coast goodies. Then off to Raccoon Lodge.

All day happy hour in the den and if was great to see so many barrels
right in your face; immediate cause for salivation. They were pouring
Mouton Rouge, among other things, and this was another great sour by
cascade. Managed to pick up some bottles of kriek, blackberry, apricot
and Sang Royal, one of my favorite sours ever.

Harborside, Henry's Tavern and Bailey's taproom, Portland, OR

Spent the rest of Saturday touring some taprooms starting with
harborside restaurant for their Full Sail lineup. Slainte stout on
both cask and nitro were both solid and the imperial porter was a
great take on the style with nice coffee notes. But the barley wine,
old boardhead, had some nice sweet honey and maple and was incredibly
drinkable.

Henry's was next up with 160 taps...what a selection. I have to give a
big thanks to the bartenders who were incredibly helpful with tastings
and suggestions. Highlights were hair of the dog blue dot IPA,
Oakshire espresso stout, and Fanno Creek vanilla porter. We enjoyed
those couple of hours so much that we went back later in the night.
Definitely recommended for anyone visiting
Portland.

In the mean time we made a quick stop at baileys taproom which had a
great lineup for only twenty taps. My sampler consisted of deschutes
mirror mirror, laurelwood tree hugger porter, amnesia double
desolation, new old Lompoc Brussels stout and new
Belgium la folie. Some great Oregon beers, but la folie is still one
of my favorites. Great first day in Oregon and looking forward to
heading down the coast next!

On the way: John's marketplace, raccoon lodge (cascade brewing),
Tillamook cheese then to the beach. I'll check back in later.

-Chris

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Deschutes Brewpub, Portland, OR

A bit early for the Black Bute XXI release party but the keg was
already tapped so drink we did. What an
Incredible porter! Incredible coffee notes hit the nose up front as
well as some great oak and caramel aromas. Nice sweet up front with a
balanced bitterness. Incredibly smooth 11% brew and i can't wait to
see how this ages in the bottle.

Also had a great sampler (see pic) with red chair ipa, ocho negro ipa,
twilight cask, cellar door on cask, and harms way. Great start to the
day and can't wait to be back later in the day for the 21st party!

Diamond Knot, Mukilteo, WA

Well, we are officially on the road to Portland and thought I'd throw
a little love to a local "Seattle" brewery: Diamond Knot. Decided to
make one last trip before hitting the road and had a nice sampler.

The front street bitter poured a nice golden with smooth lacing a long
bitter finish and this definitely outshines the ESB, which has a nice
sweet balance but not the bitterness I was looking for. Next was the
stout on a nitro tap which was a beautiful dark brown with frothy tan
head. Mild coffee and vanilla aromas with a sweet nut flavor. The
porter was solid but they also had an oaked cask porter which was the
highlight of the day! Incredibly smooth, with nice roasted nut and oak
aromas, this had the perfect amount of complexity while still being a
solid drinkable porter. Finally I have to recommend the industrial IPA
which is a northwest classic and typifies a Seattle IPA. I'll be back
someday, dknot, but until then keep making great brews!

Next stop: Portland

-Chris

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Trip Preview

Okay, so now that I've got the whole mobile blog thing figured out from my new iPhone, I figure you're due a trip preview (from a real computer).

First of all, for those of you who don't know, I'll be beginning my MBA at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania this coming summer. But in order to make that happen, I need to leave Seattle and make my way across the United States to Philadelphia. Cue 3,000 mile roadtrip. So that's what this blog is all about: my wife's and my month-long journey traversing this beautiful country.

Here's what you need to know (in bullet-form, as any typical engineer would do):
- Mode of transportation: 2000 Jeep Cherokee with 128000 miles on it and an intermittent A/C; don't be surprised if you hear me complaining about this in Arizona and Utah in July
- Sleeping venues: primarily car camping and backpacking with an occasional hotel thrown in for good measure.
- Cuisine: While I'd love to say that we'll be sampling the western U.S.'s favorite cuisine, it's just not going to happen. Baked beans, ramen noodles, sandwiches and salads will do the trick for the car, with tons of dehydrated meals for backpacking, with my occasional backcountry specialties as a treat
- Beverages: lots of filtered water. Lots of filtered and unfiltered beer (see below)

As you're probably aware, this country has infinitely too many things for anyone to do them all in their lifetime, let alone in a four-week road trip. So my wife and I decided to put some constraints on the trip. Well, not so much constraints as two points of focus: National Parks and some of the western U.S.'s best breweries.

If you know us, you know that we love the outdoors, but we love beer even more. Given the sheer number of great breweries there are in the western United States, we decided that this would be a great complement to our backpacking, hiking and drive-throughs of national parks. The list below is what we're shooting for, but we'll see what happens.

Breweries:
- Deschutes (for Black Butte XXI release party)
- Full Sail
- Cascade
- Pelican
- Rogue
- Ninkasi
- North Coast
- Russian River
- Lagunitas
- Valley Brewing
- Port
- Lost Abbey
- Alesmith
- Stone
- Oskar Blues
- Great Divide
- Avery
- New Belgium

Parks:
- Olympic National Park (see previous posts)
- Black Sand Beach (Mendocino)
- Point Reyes National Seashore
- Yosemite
- Grand Canyon
- Zion
- Arches
- Bryce
- Canyonlands
- Rocky Mountain


With that in mind, if you really know me, you know that I'm incredibly organized and love to plan out every little detail. However, I realize that my next two years of school are going to be so busy and structured, that I wanted to throw that all out the window. So for the next month, we'll be living without a real agenda, no schedule, and no requirements to be anywhere any time. So really, while I've listed the stuff above, who knows what's going to happen? We might spend two weeks in Yosemite and skip a ton of stuff. We may only have time for 5 breweries (though I'm pretty sure that won't happen). The point is, I don't know what's going to happen, so feel free to follow along this adventure with me.

The posts from here on out will be from a phone, so I apologize for the brevity, but hope you enjoy the updates and pics along the way. And if you have suggestions, comments, etc. shoot me an email or just post in the blog. I'll try to keep up. Take care and enjoy!

Monday, June 22, 2009

Second Beach, Extra Pics





Here's some additional pics (courtesy of my wife) from Olympic National Park, Second Beach without beer. This really is one of the northwest's most beautiful places and it will be missed. Hope you enjoy.


Sunday, June 21, 2009

Silver City Brewery, Silverdale WA

After an incredible weekend with great friends we decided to make a
slight detour for dinner on the drive home. Unofficially the first
brewery on our cross country trip, I finally got to Silver City before
leaving the state for good. Tried the Panther Porter which was okay
but silver city highlights are the Whoop Pass double IPA and Fat
Scotch Ale. Not a bad couple of beers to start things off. Back to
Seatte for a week then to Portland to kick off the official road trip.
Can't wait!

Beers Tasted: Clear Creek Pale Ale, Panther Porter, Whoop Pass double IPA, Fat Scotch Ale*

Second Beach, keg of high life: mission accomplished

I could compose some inspirational words, but instead here are the
stats:

1 keg of miller high life
160 lbs of beer
15 guys
1.5 miles
1 hour and 41 minutes

Yes, you read that correctly. This keg was carried from the trailhead to the beach for the best night of camping ever. I think the picture speaks for itself.


(side note: don't let this be your sole point of reference for judging my taste in beer. Let it be known that I also tried the good stuff listed below. Oskar Blues is definitely my favorite backpacking brewer: "Pack it in, Pack it out." Trust me, more good beer to come.)

Beers Tasted: Miller High Life, Oskar Blues Gordon*, Oskar Blues Dale's Pale Ale, Oskar Blues Mama's Little Yella Pils, Oskar Blues Ten Fidy**, and Caldera IPA* over the weekend.


(*'s for my favorite beers tasted during the trip)

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Second beach, olympic national park

Just testing out blogger from my new iPhone. Here's a nice pic from
the ferry on our way to the pacific coast for a no doubt eventful
weekend. Backpacking a keg to the beach? This should be interesting.