The Great American Ale Trail - Christian DeBenedetti [4]
KEY BEER
There are fifty taps and seventy-five bottled selections, but before you drink anything else, order Younger’s Special Bitter on cask (Y.S.B.), named for Bill, who died first, and raise a toast to the Youngers.
DETOUR
OREGON BREWERS
FESTIVAL
Summer is the ultimate season here, and no weekend says it better than the one known locally as “brewfest”—the OBF, or Oregon Brewers Festival, at the end of July—when upwards of 60,000 revelers gather in the city’s sprawling Tom McCall Waterfront Park under massive, beer-filled open-air tents, and, every ten minutes or so, spontaneously start cheering like fans at the Super Bowl, glasses held high. 2012 marks the festival’s 25th year.
Chalk the good cheer up to the setting: With the city and its Willamette River as a backdrop, some eighty breweries from around the country show up to pour their latest. Live bands jam on stages as local-fave restaurants like Horn of Africa proffer healthy, spicy, beer-friendly fare. Trading wooden nickel tokens for tastes, imbibers mingle good-naturedly, old friends reunite, and, as the sun goes down, those cheers grow longer and louder, and, well, a heck of a lot more infectious. When the kegs run dry—sic transit gloria mundi—downtown taprooms fill with beer lovers celebrating the bounty until the wee hours. (www.oregonbrewfest.com)
THE GREEN DRAGON BISTRO & BREWPUB
928 SE 9th Ave. • Portland, OR 97214 • (503) 517-0660 pdxgreendragon.com • Established: 2007
SCENE & STORY
The Green Dragon (named for Boston’s historic public house frequented by Paul Revere and his fellow Sons of Liberty) is a curious beast with a few tricks up its sleeve. There’s brewing equipment in the back, but it’s rarely steaming; (part of it is reserved for infrequent, pub-only beers and part for local home brewers when they have the time).
On its third owner—Oregon’s Rogue Ales (a large Oregon brewing company) took over a few years ago—the Dragon’s inner southeast Portland location and claim to one of the largest walk-in coolers in Oregon (ask for a tour, especially if glow-in-the-dark stars on the wall and rows of cold kegs set your heart racing) was an attractive purchase. Adjacent to an army green Quonset hut with bar offices (and a secret mini-arcade with pinball machines), the interior is a roomy warehouse-like space with two bars and an all-ages dining area. The entire place is supplied with beer from the “front” and “back” bars comprising fifty taps in all (there are forty-nine bottled beers for sale as well). But weather permitting, the place to be is the huge patio, strung with lights and shaded by a big tree. The beers aren’t all from Rogue, either, and the selection changes daily. Count on a solidly contemporary mix of craft brews from around the country and sometimes Europe. When hunger hits, the best eats on the menu are the french fries (ask for a side of mac-and-cheese sauce) and buffalo blue meatballs (deliciously deep-fried upon special request).
PHILOSOPHY
As Samuel Johnson said, “Where secrecy begins, vice or roguery is not far off.” Hmm—is that a bad thing?
KEY BEER
Twirling your mustache, ask about Tap 19, the “secret” tap, always reserved for rare beers (like Cantillon Lou Pepe kriek), and never advertised. But it’s so secret, the servers may not even know what’s on it. Delicious.
CASCADE BREWING BARREL HOUSE
939 SE Belmont • Portland, OR 97214 • (503) 265-8603 cascadebrewingbarrelhouse.com • Established: 2010
SCENE & STORY
Pucker up, Portland. To the truly devoted beer geeks, tart, barrel-aged beers are the next IPAs, and brewer Ron Gansberg—a veteran of the wine industry and residencies with both BridgePort Brewery and Portland Brewing Company—is Stumptown’s master sourpuss. His award-winning wine-, whiskey-, and port-barrel-aged Belgian-style brews crackle with acidic notes and woody tannins that blur stylistic lines