Finally, Oregon Represents

Many of these labels are from a trip we took to Oregon for the Davis Cup finals a few years ago. One of our friends lived in Oregon and he hand selected a few bottles of west coast beer for us to try. Only two of the labels actually are from Oregon (and one from Washington), but we had a lot of good beer there. We were in Portland for three days and it rained the entire time. In fact, I think three storms collided and stalled off the coast for a few days. We flew out in the morning, which is a good thing because they closed the airport later in the day. Anyway, back to the beer. We dragged my mother to Bridgeport Brewing on the bus in a torrential rain storm. She loved it and mentions it every once in a while. The brewery was very cool and the food was good. I know we sampled all of their offerings that day, but I only have a label from the ESB, which was my favorite. We did not get to an of the other breweries because we were there for a short time, but we both liked it and are looking forward to getting back to the Pacific northwest for another visit.

As for the rest, I liked the Alaskan Amber and the Sand Creek Cranberry Special Ale. I like beer with fruit, as long as it does not taste like a wine cooler. We took a chance on this cranberry ale and were pleasantly surprised. I think I have one more in the auxiliary fridge, maybe I should promote it to the real fridge. The Pizza Beer was, well, interesting. After the success with the Banana Bread beer, we decided to try the pizza beer. It sat in the fridge for a few weeks before I opened it -- and it exploded all over the kitchen. Over half of the beer spilled out of the bottle before I managed to pour the rest into a glass. Yes, it tasted like pizza. That's about all I have to say.