The Great American Ale Trail (Revised Edition) Read online

  Various locations, Bend, Oregon • BendAleTrail.com

  Deschutes may rule the roost in terms of sheer size, but there’s something about that high desert air, with no less than twenty-eight established breweries in and around the city of Bend (population: 82,000). Deschutes former head brewer Larry Sidor helms the innovation-minded Crux Fermentation Project (cruxfermentation.com), opened in 2012, with a solid menu (and crowds) to match. GoodLife (goodlifebrewing.com) and Worthy (worthybrewing.com) are large production breweries canning up cleanly made, summer session-worthy brews like the latter’s Easy Day kölsch. Silver Moon (silvermoonbrewing.com) has regular live music and makes a tasty pilsner, among others; Bend Brewing Co. offers great Berliner weisse these days (bendbrewingco.com). The once-scrappy-but-now-big-dog Boneyard excels with IPAs like the aromatic, 6.55% ABV RPM (boneyardbeer.com). Stay at McMenamin’s Old St. Francis School, a brewpub and hotel built in an old school, or the stylishly renovated Lodge at Suttle Lake, outside of Sisters (thelodgeatsuttlelake.com).

  BEST of the REST: OREGON

  BUOY BEER CO.

  1 8th St. • Astoria, OR 97103 • (503) 325-4540 • buoybeer.com

  Buoy’s motto is “Where the Unstoppable Meets the Unyielding,” a memorable koan for the river it overlooks: the mighty Columbia, sliding west, perhaps five miles from the Pacific. This 2014 newcomer (built in a ninety-year-old cannery along Astoria’s historic boardwalk) has a handsome split timber and steel-appointed taproom from which you’ll gaze out at sea lions, barges, the occasional tall wooden ship as you sip well-made Czech-style pilsner, IPA, and cream ale. Bonus: an impressive menu—try the fried oysters with jalapeño jam and goat cheese. Buoy’s perfect throwback logos and clever, cool tap handles simply deepen the vibe of coastal cool.

  PELICAN PUB & BREWERY

  33180 Cape Kiwanda Dr. • Pacific City, OR 97135 • (503) 965-7007 • ourlittlebeachtown.com/pelican

  Pelican, founded in 1995, began a $1.4 million expansion in 2013 into downtown Tillamook with a shiny, new restaurant and production brewery (and planned brewpub in Cannon Beach). But to find out what made it famous, hit the original location in Pacific City overlooking Cape Kiwanda, a stunning seaside monolith, at sunset. Actually, get there at least an hour before sunset, because you’ll definitely wait for a beachside seat. Their Kiwanda Cream Ale is an unfussy, 5.1% ABV Oregon favorite.

  BARLEY BROWN’S PUB & BREWERY

  2190 Main St. • Baker City, OR 97814 • (541) 523-4266 • barleybrownsbeer.com

  From Portland, the trip to Baker City (population: 9,800), nestled between the Elkhorn and Wallowa Mountains, with the Powder River wending through town, is not a quick one (5 hours/300 miles). But it pays off with some truly great beer. Founded in 1998, Barley Brown’s sailed under the radar for years. Now they have dozens of decorated beers, with a growing presence throughout the region. Look for the crisp, floral Hand Truck pale ale and work your way up through their decorated IPAs and stouts.

  THE HOP & VINE

  1914 N. Killingsworth St. • Portland, OR 97217 • (503) 954-3322 • thehopandvine.com

  A quiet, cool little combo bistro and bottle shop with connoisseur-friendly taste but no attitude. Expect terrific food and an ever-changing tap list with a little extra focus on esoteric wild and sour ales. Events in the light-dappled back patio area have included memorable beer brunches with the likes of the Rare Barrel, Sante Adairius, and Almanac of San Francisco, and Zwanze Day, the annual global toast to Cantillon, Brussels, Belgium’s, most celebrated lambic brewery.

  EX NOVO BREWING CO.

  2326 N. Flint Ave. • Portland, OR 97227 • (503) 894-8251 • exnovobrew.com

  In 2014, local engineer and home brewer Joel Gregory founded perhaps the nation’s first nonprofit brewpub in a big, old 1940s warehouse with soaring wooden trusses and the sort of lived-in, weathered wood and clean, steel details that have defined the modern brewpub movement. What elicited a few eye-rolls soon proved to be more than an earnest publicity grab, with well-crafted beers (I like the Damon Stoutamire, named for former Portland Trailblazer and local hero Damon Stoudamire) and a solid menu of food offerings, including “bacon for the table,” eight dollars, (“because we can, and you should”).

  ECLIPTIC BREWING CO.

  825 N. Cook St. • Portland, OR 97227 • (503) 265-8002 • eclipticbrewing.com

  Ecliptic is an ambitious northeast Portland brewpub restaurant with a star at the helm—and stars in its eyes, named for the astronomers’ term for the Earth’s path around the sun. This is a spacious brewpub with diverse beers and very good food. It’s no surprise to see it reach high: founder and head brewer John Harris, a jolly deadhead who always seems to have a grin, started his career with McMenamins and moved to Deschutes (where he created the recipes for some of the nation’s best-selling and most decorated craft beers, including Mirror Pond Pale Ale). He spent the next 20 years as brewmaster at Full Sail before founding Ecliptic.

  BAERLIC BREWING CO.

  2235 SE 11th Ave. • Portland, OR 97214 • (503) 477-9418 • baerlicbrewing.com

  In a city literally jammed with breweries, it would be all too easy to overlook Baerlic, a quiet spot on a leafy street in Southeast with no food, video games, few crowds, and no hype. Don’t make that mistake. What you’ll find is very good beer in a squeaky clean environment that is simultaneously pristine and cozy at the same time. Try whatever’s on, especially Primeval, a 6.8% ABV American Brown Ale, falling somewhere delicious and chocolaty on the spectrum between IPA and India Black Ale.

  OCCIDENTAL BREWING CO.

  6635 N. Baltimore Ave. • Portland, OR 97203 • (503) 719-7102 • occidentalbrewing.com

  Like Heater Allen out in wine country, Occidental is oriented toward sturdy Germanic traditions of the Old Word, with outstanding hefeweizen, kölsch, and altbier (a German-style of ale conditioned at cooler temperatures, made famous in Dusseldorf) and all in gorgeously simple, colorful, throwback cans. Located out in St. John’s, once a standalone city northeast of the Rose City that was formally annexed into Portland in 1915, making a trip here affords not only the great beers at the brewpub but also nearby views of the magnificent, Gothic-style St. John’s Bridge (2,000 feet wide), plus funky dive bars (Slim’s) and quirky shops on the old main street, under perpetual pressure from gentrification. See it before the less-cool locals sell out.

  FALLING SKY BREWING HOUSE & GASTROPUB

  1334 Oak Alley • Eugene, OR 97401 • (541) 505-7096 • fallingskybrewing.com

  With a home-brew store around the corner and the much-loved Pour House delicatessen opened in 2013 (on Blair Boulevard, about half a mile away), Falling Sky is quickly becoming one of Eugene’s most beloved craft beer businesses. All three locations are worth visiting, but it’s the sunny, spacious brewpub on Oak Alley that seems to brighten even the darkest Oregon afternoon. It’s got vaulted, white-painted wood ceilings and a handsome, polished copper brewhouse behind tall barn-glass windows, making it a perfect place for a fresh pint with old friends.

  THE VICTORY BAR

  2509 SE 37th Ave. • Portland, OR 97202 • (503) 236-8755 • thevictorybar.com

  A diminutive but perfectly thought-out beer bar out in neighborhoody Southeast, Victory (established in 2007) has six taps and sixty bottled selections from Oregon and around the world. Food options go the tapas route, from soup to clams, burgers, and some very tasty spaetzle. A recent gem on tap: the funky, bready, and sour Moinette Brune (8.5% ABV) from Belgium.

  THE BIER STEIN BOTTLESHOP & PUB

  345 East 11th Ave. • Eugene, OR 97401 • (541) 485-BIER • thebierstein.com

  A central meeting place for Eugene beer fanatics since 2005, the Bier Stein has ten taps and over 1,000 bottled selections from all over the world and a small menu of salads, sandwiches, and soups. Owners Chip Hardy and his wife, Kristina Measells, cultivate close relationships with breweries and distributors to get specialty bottles and drafts. The only thing you won’t find? B.M.C. (Bud, Miller, Coor
s) and 40 oz’ers.

  CHATOE ROGUE

  3590 Wigrich Rd. • Independence, OR 97351 • (503) 838-9813 • rogue.com

  Independence, Oregon, was once known as the Hop Capital of the World, and the land there is still embroidered with huge stands of trellised hops supplying brewers in Oregon and beyond. Chatoe Rogue is essentially a compound in Independence consisting of forty-two acres of proprietary hops surrounded by cherry and filbert orchards; a 100-year-old, five-bedroom farmhouse available for rent as accommodation; and a small tasting room containing Rogue’s Farmstead Nano-Brewery operation.

  THREE CREEKS BREWING CO.

  721 Desperado Ct. • Sisters, OR 97759 • (541) 549-1963 • threecreeksbrewing.com

  If your trip to Bend from Portland takes you through Detroit Lake on the Santiam Highway, a.k.a. Highway 20—and it should, as it’s an incredibly pretty drive in good weather—you’ll pass through the historic town of Sisters (population: 1,700). Just south of Sisters, this big, comfortable log cabin–like brewpub opened in 2008 amid a stand of Ponderosa pines. A combination family restaurant, beer bar, and brewery, it’s worth seeing. Try the 5.8% ABV Firestorm Red if Rudolph’s Imperial Red (8.6% ABV) isn’t on.

  WASHINGTON

  SIP ON THIS: WITHOUT WASHINGTON’S CRAFT BEER REVOLUTION, STARBUCKS COFFEE MIGHT never have gotten off the ground (read on to see why). The fact is, Washington’s beer history goes all the way back to the 1850s, but it’s the last couple of decades that tell the most about this beautiful and diverse state’s beer potential and how it’s now a part of daily life for many living here. With a gold mine of hops from the Yakima Valley (the country’s biggest hop-growing area and second-largest in the world, after southern Germany), this was fertile ground for Red Hook, the first microbrewery to make a major impact in the early 1980s. In converting beer drinkers from the classic (if under-flavored) Northwest beers like Rainier and Hamm’s, newcomers like Red Hook, Pike, Hales, and later pathbreakers like Holy Mountain have carved out quite a legacy. Now Seattle is a genuinely great beer bar town, and new breweries are popping up all around the state. So what if it rains all the time? One- and three-day itineraries plus Chuckanut, Diamond Knot, and Walking Man

  ITINERARIES

  1-DAY Holy Mountain, Beveridge Place Pub, Naked City, The Masonry

  3-DAY One-day itinerary plus Parkway Tavern, Brouwer’s Café, Pike Brewing, Latona Pub

  7-DAY One- and three-day itineraries plus Chuckanut, Diamond Knot, and Walking Man

  Seattle

  HOLY MOUNTAIN

  1421 Elliott Ave. W. • Seattle, WA 98119 • holymountainbrewing.com • Established: 2015

  SCENE & STORY

  For a time, Seattle seemed to lag behind Portland and San Francisco’s zeitgeisty progress, where so many new breweries were nailing all the latest styles. No longer. Holy Mountain is one of several new breweries that have changed the game in the Emerald City. Nestled in an industrial building along busy Eliott Ave., just west of Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood, Holy Mountain debuted to hearty local acclaim in early 2015. With a focus on innovative styles (and no IPA), they debuted with beers including Brettanomyces-kissed saisons, Belgian strong ales, and a lager aged in rye whiskey barrels. The taproom is, like Tørst, in Brooklyn, New York, a study in understatement, with swaths of clean white tile, polished cement floors, stark chalk boards and warm, weathered wood. It’s the epitome, in late 2015, of brewhouse chic, but the brand doesn’t come off as humorless hipster. They are truly serious about making excellent beer. The sky’s the limit for these holy mountaineers.

  PHILOSOPHY

  Small batch, one-off, wild-yeast influenced, distinctive beers presented in minimalist packaging (think: thin black fonts and contours on white or beige labels). The names are as much tongue-in-cheek Tarot card (“Astral Projection”) as Game of Thrones (“River of Ash”), all in good fun.

  KEY BEER

  Kiln & Cone is Holy Mountain’s “house” pale ale; previous batches have been hopped with catty Nelson Sauvin and passion-fruity Galaxy hops, but look, too, for the Goat, a hazy-gold saison brewed with four grains, ample hops, and three months of aging time in a huge oak foudre with a secret strain of Brettanomyces. It’s got the funk and tang of traditional farmhouse ales from the motherland, Belgium.

  BEVERIDGE PLACE PUB

  6413 California Ave. SW • Seattle, WA 98136 • (206) 932-9906 • beveridgeplacepub.com • Established: 2003

  SCENE & STORY

  If for nothing else, step inside this west Seattle landmark beer haunt (on the corner of California and SW Beveridge Place, hence the name) to check out the eleven-foot-high, twenty-foot-wide back bar, a turn-of-the-twentieth-century showpiece salvaged from a defunct Kent, Washington, tavern called the Buzz Inn. At first, its three mirrored archways and gorgeous carvings were stained a deep brown (thanks to a century of cigarette smoke), but after three months spent cleaning the patina, a sumptuous cherry-stained tiger maple was revealed. A local metalsmith provided a custom tap tower and today the thirty-six-tap, 150-plus selection of bottles draws a steady crowd of locals.

  PHILOSOPHY

  Owner Gary Sink was inspired by a trip to the British Isles; the bar exudes community with couches, books, darts, a few (but not too many) TVs, well-maintained pool tables, and retro video games—Tron, anyone?

  KEY BEER

  The list focuses on Washington crafts and international bottles, with casks frequently. Look for the orange-hued Manny’s Pale Ale (5.4% ABV) from Georgetown Brewery, which is slightly sweet and honey-ish, but balanced with fresh, floral hops. Or kick the hops up a notch with Bale Breaker Topcutter IPA, brewed on a working Yakima Valley hop farm (6.8% ABV), which massive waves of Citra, Simcoe, Mosaic, and other tangy hops.

  BIG TIME BREWERY & ALEHOUSE

  4133 University Way NE • Seattle, WA 98105 • (206) 545-4509 • bigtimebrewery.com • Established: 1988

  SCENE & STORY

  Smack in the middle of “the Ave” in the U District (University of Washington) in Seattle, Big Time is more relaxed-but-thirsty grad student than college-frosh-getting-sloshed. With its faded wood walls and shuffleboard, it’s a sure bet in the area for good beers and a good bite (try the pizzas).

  PHILOSOPHY

  These guys are big-time hopheads. There are up to four house IPAs on tap at any given time, with dozens of recipes in the brewer’s logs.

  KEY BEER

  Old Sol is beer of the wheat wine style, which is something like an English-style barley wine but made with a majority of wheat, giving the beer some softness on the palate. Released on the summer solstice each year, it’s spicy and fulsome at 10% ABV, but disappears all too quickly, like summer in the Pacific Northwest.

  BROUWER’S CAFÉ

  400 North 35th St. • Seattle, WA 98103 (206) 267-2437 • brouwerscafe.blogspot.com • Established: 2005

  SCENE & STORY

  Owners Matt Bonney and Matt Van De Berghe have created a beer fortress of sorts, with a dark and somewhat castle-like interior featuring a parlor-level balcony curling around the main bar floor and some heavy chandeliers. The sixty-four taps and 300-plus bottled selections are stored with care and served in beer-specific glassware, but it’s the policy of using a new piece of serving tube for every new beer on tap that shows how far Brouwer’s goes to present craft beer at its best. The food is hearty, stick-to-your-ribs fare like croquettes, mussels, and a spicy lamb burger with fries (and go for a side of roasted garlic to take your taste buds even deeper).

  PHILOSOPHY

  You know you’re in a Belgian beer shrine when you’re greeted by a heraldic metal lion symbolizing Belgium and the Netherlands on the door, while inside there’s a replica of the Manneken-Pis, a Brussels sculpture of a boy playfully taking a wiz that has come to symbolize the carefree joie de vivre of Belgian café culture.

  KEY BEER

  Orchard White, a 5.7% ABV witbier (unfiltered wheat-based beer doped with coriander and other spices) from Orange County, CA’s
, cult-fave the Bruery, is light on the tongue, with hints of dry apple flavor. It would make a good start before heading into bigger beers and barley wines, which are a specialty here.

  Crunch Time

  Local potato chip guru Tim Kennedy introduced Tim’s Cascade Style Potato Chips—the ultimate beer snack—in 1986, giving them a signature crunchiness that may be audible from space. With their classic old-timey, red-and-white bag, they’re easy to spot, too, but even easier to eat in embarrassing quantities. Don’t pass them up when you’re in the area, especially the sea salt and vinegar or jalapeño flavors, and wasabi for the brave. (timschips.com)

  COLLINS PUB

  526 2nd Ave. • Seattle, WA 98104 (206) 623-1016 • thecollinspub.com • Established: 2003

  SCENE & STORY

  Downtown Seattle’s Pioneer Square area can sometimes feel like a drab warehouse district, even a bit sketchy at night. Thankfully, the Collins Pub, fourth-generation local Seth Howard’s craft beer shrine in the historic five-story brick Collins Building, is a welcome oasis, especially on weekends when the work-week happy hour crowds have dispersed and it’s warm enough to take a seat on the enclosed sidewalk patio. There are twenty taps and more than sixty-five bottles, and amid the exposed brick dating to the 1890s, hardwood details, a heavy hanging mirror flanked by hand-blown glass-and-metal sconces, cozy booths, and way-above-average pub fare, it’s easy to see an evening or afternoon disappear in a hurry. Carnivores must try the lamb chops or hand-formed Collins Burger with Oregon Tillamook cheddar cheese. The fresh ling cod fish and chips, fried with a Chuckanut pilsner beer batter, is a strong option, too. For the best service, sit at the bar, and be sure to come long before the 2 a.m.-posted closing time; it often closes much, much earlier, around 11 p.m.