Michaewa

Better late than never, I decided to document the recent trek to Oregon before I completely forgot the details. Jill organized trip as a birthday present for me, and we left the day after Thanksgiving for a week on and around the coast with a few days in Portland.

A side benefit is that Portland is rich with wineries and breweries, and we sampled some excellent wares. The first night we went to McMenamins after a late flight. They had a nitrogenated porter that was very smooth and choclatey. We also tried the Hammerhead Pale and the Sleepy Hollow Nut Brown, both of which were very nice.

The first morning we walked around Beaverton and tried not to get lost in the thick fog. Once the day cleared up a little bit, we headed south to McMinnville and hit several wineries along the way. Archery Summit was the first stop, and we did a pricey tasting of all their red wines paired with cheese, pâté, and other tasty treats. It was a great location, and the underground cellars were a great backdrop. From there we went to Argyle and tried some sparkling wines and listened to a little live music. Being that is was the weekend after Thanksgiving, most of the wineries were having open houses and turning up the entertainment factor a notch.

Across the street was the Ponzi tasting room where we had a handful of their wines and a few others. Seeing as it was almost noon we decided we’d better get some food to soak up all the hooch and sober up a little.

After one last stop, we headed south to Depot Bay for our second night’s lodging at The Channel House. Our room had a hot tub on the deck overlooking the ocean and we didn’t waste much time in taking advantage of that.

That night we went further South to Newport to stop at Rogue. I’m a big fan of their Dead Guy Ale and had been looking forward to trying a few other beers. We pulled up in the lot and it looked more like a warehouse than anything else, it was a little hard to tell if we were going in the right entrance or not. You enter through a giant red silo, and walk directly onto the brewery floor among the fermentors and equipment. There was a hodgepodge of supplies (bottles, etc) stacked all around, and we eventually made our way to the restaurant upstairs. The food was great, Jill had a Kobe beef hamburger which was pretty fantastic. We tried a few beers with dinner and then went next door to the bar to sample a few more.

• Young’s Special Bitter - One of my favorite Rogue beers. Great body, very well balanced, very muted bitterness.
• Yellow Snow - Very pale and sweet, smells a little bit of biscut malt with no hop aroma
• Organic Brown - Very nice, mild brown.
• Monk Madness - A crazy belgian style beer, a bit like a Dubbel
• Brutal Bitter - Similar to YSB, very clean and crisp with more hop bitterness.
• Chipotle - Much, much smokier than I expected - more like a rauchbier. This was pretty challenging to drink, it was very tasty but I’m glad I just had a small taster
• Old Crustacean - Almost cloying sweetness, and a little hot. This was on tap, and I think it would have benefitted from a little more aging to round out the flavors. Perhaps my taste buds were just cooked from all the tasting that day.

The next day we did a little sightseeing, and went to Devil’s Punchbowl and Cape Foul Weather. Everything we saw along the coast was fantastic, but none of the sights we read about stood out a great deal - the whole coast was incredibly scenic and rugged.

That night we went to hear a Hawaiian lounge singer at the Sea Hag (great clam chowder) and a great dinner at the Tidal Raves restaurant.

Our next stop was Cannon Beach, and it was another great drive up the coast to get there. We took a long walk through town after arriving to find some grub. We went to Bill’s Tavern & Brewhouse and had lunch and warmed up after our long cold walk. Had a few of their beers, nothing that blew me away. They were out of the DuckDive Pale which I was a little disappointed about, but they had a very good porter, with a nice smoky, roasty finish.

On the way back it started to snow pretty hard, so we opted to catch the shuttle back to our hotel - The Ocean Lodge. It was an extremely beautiful spot situated right on the beach. Our room was very comfortable with a nice big fireplace at the foot of the bed.

We stayed in Cannon Beach for a few days and really enjoyed it - the downtown had a lot to offer and we found some really great spots just south of town for hiking. We woke up every morning and took a long walk on the beach - still quite cold but an excellent way to start the day. We took a day trip up to Astoria and walked around their downtown area. We stopped for lunch at (surprise!) the Astoria Brewing Company. We had some more great clam chowder and some tasty brews - their Shark Spit IPA was our favorite.

We had some amazing pizza one night at and another really nice meal at Newman’s. But the best meal of the trip was next door to our hotel at the Stephanie House. They have one seating each night, and the chef comes out before each course and explains what they made and how they made it. Very intimate and excellent food.

Before heading out to Portland we found the DuckDive Pale from Bill’s served at the Warren House Pub. A lucky find, as this was probably my second favorite beer of the whole trip. The pale was fairly cloudy and light in color, with an amazing hop aroma - centennial jumping out of the glass.

Our next stop was Portland, where we stayed in the Marriott right by the water. The room left a little something to be desired after our last two spots but was definitely sufficient. While in Portland we continued our gustatory recreation, and walked through most of the downtown area. We stopped at Lucky Lab for a snack and a few samples - this place looked more like a coffee house than a brewery. There were business men and students scattered around the industrial looking building, working on their laptops and sipping a pint of ale instead of a latte. The Scottish Holiday was probably my favorite, although their beers were all well above average.

Roots was quite interesting, it was decorated inside like a Tiki hut, complete with surfing videos playing on a flat screen in the bar. A few beers worth mentioning were the Berghead Heather which is ’seasoned’ with heather flowers and no hops making for a very different flavor. They had a toasted coconut porter that was a little gimicky but interesting - another one that is great for a sample but might be a little much over the course of a pint. My favorite named beer was their ‘Festivus’ served on cask - this was smooth and sweet with a nice hop balance, and not nearly the alcohol heat of the other barleywines we had on the trip.

We also went to the Holiday Ale Festival downtown one night and tried a whole host of strong, old, and imperial beers. It was a good event but the tastes they served (for $1 each) were a little too large given that most of the beers were 10% ABV or more. If only I was disciplined enough to pour them out rather than downing the whole thing…Some of the ones we tried were:

• Hair Of The Dog - Jim. Belgian Dubbel
• Laguntas - Brown Sugga. Strong Ale, quite tasty
• Pelican - Full House Ale. Imperial American Brown
• Kalamath - Cabin Fever
• Chimay - Tripple
• Collaborator - Sled Crasher
• Pyramid - Snow Cap
• Walking Man - Ho Ho Homo Erectus
• Brauerei Schloss Eggenberg - Samichlaus. Strong Lager

We had some great Thai food and a really good Indian meal on our last night in the city. Downtown Portland felt extremely safe, and we walked across nearly the whole downtown area after our dinner on the last night.

Two more breweries to mention that we hit on our last day, New Old Lompoc and Bridgeport. NOL was a dark and cozy pub that looked to be filled with locals. I gave their Holiday Ale a must miss, it had an overpowering taste of cinnamon. Their Condor Pale Ale was nice and hoppy. Bridgeport had a lot of good but not great beers. Their facility was very chic, lots of exposed brick and mood lighting. The last beer I tasted was my favorite of the trip, called Hop Harvest - served on cask. It was smooth and creamy from being on the hand pull, and had an incredible fresh hop bouquet.

Here are some pics @ shutterfly. Enjoy.

The drought is over…I fired up the brewery last weekend and cleaned some goods out of the freezer. Created a batch of the aforementioned Ginger Peach Wheat with no input from the brewery, I just sort of made up a recipe.

It went a little something like this…
5lb White Wheat
4lb Pale 2-Row
.5 oz Cascade 60min
1 oz Cascade 5min

I replaced one gallon of the brewing liquor in the initial mash with some strong tea (8 teabags in a gallon) and proceeded as normal.

Nate gave me some Pacman yeast and it is chomping away. I’ve yet to taste it after the kettle, at which point there was just a little tea flavor left. My guess is that most of the tea flavor will have been scrubbed out by the boil and the fermentation, which will leave me with…sniff…wheat beer. I can think of worse fates.

Next will be an English pale ale, followed perhaps by an imperial IPA - I tried Goose Island’s a few weeks ago in Lincoln and it was mighty foine.

I think you are supposed to laugh at least seven times each day for health, etc. etc.

This should get you at least one, if not you are either too jaded to be worth talking to or a poor reader.

A list of some of the all-time worst domain names in history.

Thanks, Rigsy.

Recipe, anyone? I was at the 2006 GABF a few weeks ago and tried a sample of this brew from Dogfish Head. It was quite tasty, and not cloying as it sounds. From reading the blurb at the brewery’s website, it sounds like it is made with at least some measure of tea in place of the water. I’m thinking somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-3 gallons, but I’m a little nervous that it would taste like the tea at the Cheesecake Factory.

In other news, the reason I haven’t been here in months? I got a job.

The working man is a sucka.

Less mess.

Interesting article about a commencement speech given by John McCain at New School.

Students booed, turned their backs and held up banners saying “Our commencement is not your platform.”

I think it is great for interesting and dynamic people to speak at a commencement ceremony, but it feels so dirty when it is so obviously a campaign stop. Even worse is the fact that he planned to give the same speech at three different schools, so students had time to prepare rebuttals to his remarks before he even made them.

I would love to see someone who had a thorough understanding of student uprising against the Vietnam war compare reactions to today’s students against a government leading a similar campaign in a very unpopular war.

2008 will be an interesting year indeed.

Thanks to Mike Doughty of Soul Coughing fame for this link. A bizarre Japanese game show where contestants endure pain and discomfort while trying to keep from laughing, screaming, or talking.

My two favorites are ‘Slapping Machine’ and ‘Bad Smell Air.’

Watch.

[Edit: I didn’t want to imply that I actually knew Mike, I am just a reader of his blog. Also, Soul Coughing was a great band, but I think Mike’s solo work (especially Skittish) is much better. He came to KC a while ago and it was the best small-venue show I’ve seen for a long time.]

This is an advertisement for Chez MacDo in India. My how cultures differ.

This in my opinion is the most dangerous intersection in the world, er, at least around my house.

The reason it is so dangerous is not high speeds or tricky navigation but simply the unwillingness of people to follow the rules. Either that or they can’t remember how 4-way stops work.

As I recall, when the car in front of you goes, you should then wait until the other cars currently waiting go, and then take your turn meandering through the intersection. The way it actually works in the minds of drivers is this: “I have waited for one other car, so it must be my turn.”

As you may be able to tell from the picture, matters are complicated further by the fact that on the East side there are three oncoming lanes coming into the intersection, and two on the North and South. The West is the ‘training wheels’ portion of the intersection because there is only one lane.

Each and every time I go through here, I see some combination of blue hair / road rage / speeding teen snarled up in the middle, lurching forward and braking in some stupid game of chicken.

I don’t like to present a problem without a solution, so here goes. Calling upon the infinite wisdom of Mr. Mojo Reiser, each car in Kansas will be issued a single use Stinger missle that will be mounted on their car as of their next license renewal. A large red button on the dash will fire this missle into whatever offending car you like. I believe that the ‘threat of force,’ and knowing that Granny could turn you into a briquette as soon as you cut her off will make drivers more courteous. More courteous means more willing to wait your turn at a 4 (8?) way stop.

Problem solved.

Someone built this at home.

It is a tesla coil. More info via Flickr. Buy your plans today.

Insane.