Saturday
morning we woke up and got some coffee before heading out on a 12 mile
run. The trails in Portland and how they
connect the whole city was great. The
only bad part was it was rainy and windy, but otherwise a nice run. Following our run, we headed to the east side
across the river to Ecliptic Brewing
for some recovery beers and lunch.
Ecliptic is a newer brewery that hasn’t even been open a year yet, but
putting out amazing beers thanks to their founder who has a background at
Deschutes and Full Sail Breweries. We
tried a variety of their beers and all of them were great if not
fantastic. My favorites were Lacerta
Frambuesa, Downkriek Cosmic, and the Orbital IPA. The food was also fantastic; I had a Lamb
Dip, while my husband had the Trout Po’ Boy.
We decided to drive around to a few other beer spots that were not reachable by foot, and since it was my birthday weekend, my lovely husband drove! We headed to Saraveza, which is a bottle shop and beer bar. We had a beer and did a little shopping in the old looking tavern. They had some great beers on tap and old bottles in the fridge.
Next, we
headed to Belmont Station which
is also a bottle shop and beer bar, separated by a wall but you can still take
your beer with you while you shop. In
the bar you can order beers in three different sizes which allowed me to get a
few beers I hadn’t had before in a taster size.
We did a lot of beer shopping at this place, and got some gems that are
not available in Washington. Oregon has
no sales tax, so the beer was cheaper to buy, and if you used cash at Belmont
Station, they gave you another 10% off.
We made out like bandits with the amount of beer we got and the price we
paid compared to our local bottle shops in Seattle.
With our
trunk just about fully loaded with beer, we walked over to the Horse Brass Pub to check it out and have
a beer. They had Pliny the Elder on tap,
so I got a glass, and it was tasty! Horse
Brass is an old English looking pub decorated with old beer signs and English
furniture. They also happened to have a
great tap list with about 50 taps.
On our way
back to the hotel we stopped by a random park to throw the ball for Kona and
tire her out. We then set out on foot to
more breweries that were within a walk able radius. First up was Upright Brewing, located in the
basement of multi-use building. I had
the Oyster Stout while Rich had the Fantasia.
We’ve been to Upright before so we didn’t do a taster flight, but we did
get several special bottles to go!
After successfully
navigating our way out of the basement, we headed to Cascade Brewing, aka
‘House of Sour!’ We snagged a spot at
the bar as I looked over the giant list of sour beers in front of me. Rich got an IPA, while I started to do
flights 3 beers at a time of almost everything they had on tap. They had a special collaboration/hybrid
beer-cider on tap as well that they brewed with Reverend Nat’s called Strawberry
Pippin, and it was lovely. Some of my
favorites from the few hours we spent there were the Cranberry, Tawny Port,
Elderberry, Manhattan, and Gingersnap. We
also got a few appetizer/snacks while at Cascade that were pretty darn tasty.
After
enjoying all the sour beer one could want in a day, we started heading back
toward the hotel, stopping at Hair of
the Dog Brewing on the way. They
specialize in old style ales and barrel aged beers. We had the Little Dog, Brandy Beerweek, Greg,
XXXX Mild, and Doggie Claws Barleywine.
All were fantastic and so were the duck wings we enjoyed.
We picked up
Kona at the hotel and ventured to a few dog friendly places. Starting at Lucky Labrador Brewing,
which we thought was appropriate for our little Labrador Puppy. We each enjoyed a beer while Kona entertained
us on the porch outside. Next we headed
to the Green Dragon, which is part of Rogue Ales string of pubs and breweries. We had a few beers and some amazing Blue
Cheese meatballs before heading back to the hotel for the night.
Sunday we
woke up and the St Paddy’s Day 5K/10K race was happening on the street we were
staying on. Since we couldn’t get our
car out of the parking garage we wondered around Portland’s river front for a
bit with Kona taking in the scenes of the cherry blossoms and snapping a few
pictures. Once we were able to get our
car out of the garage we headed to Lompoc Brewing for some
lunch and to try a few of their beers.
We did a taster tray and most the beers were good, but nothing
special. The lamb burger I had was quite
tasty though!
We decided
to head south before heading back north to Seattle and stopped in at Breakside’s production
brewery and taproom located just south of Portland in Milwaukie. We sat down at the bar and started tasting a
few of their beers, which were all great.
After talking with the bar tender for a bit she offered to give us a
tour of the brewery, so we did a quick walk around to see their operation and
barrel rooms. A lot of the beers on in
the tap room were experimental and not available in bottles or draft up in
Seattle, so it was a treat to enjoy them!
After grabbing a few bottles to go, including their GABF Gold medal
winning IPA, we headed back up to Seattle.
It was an
awesome weekend full of beer and fun with my husband and puppy. We didn’t hit quite a few breweries I wanted
to, as there are just too many to visit in one weekend. We’ll have to try out some more on our next
trip to Portland.
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