Dor & Bob's Reviews - Beer, Brewery, Pub, and Festival reviews...

Mar 11 / 11:19am

Review of Skagit River Brewery, Mount Vernon, WA

by Bob

Skagit River Brewery
404 South Third Street
Mount Vernon, WA 98273
United States
phone: (360) 336-2884

Overall Score: 93.3

Selection: 4.75 | Service: 4.5 | Atmosphere: 4.75 | Food: 3.5

Skagit has excellent beer and it’s well worth visiting just for that. But it’s also got good pub atmosphere. The overall feeling is local and welcoming. There have always been varied customers when we’ve visited - not city-like but more friendly. During early evening hours there are quit a few kids in the dining area.

The beers cover a range of ale styles. There are seven regular beers and three seasonals. The Skuller’s IPA is one of the best NW IPAs brewed. (You can also buy a growler of beer to-go.)

The building itself is an old brick building right next to the railroad tracks. These tracks are used by the Amtrak Cascades train that run between Eugene, OR, and Vancouver, B.C., and stops at a station about 3 blocks away. The brewery is behind the pub in the same building and you can see it from various angles through glass windows - stacks of kegs, fermenters, the mash tun, etc. Out in front is a raised wooden deck with seating. Inside is a fairly large space with old wooden floors and wooden tables and chairs as well as a few booths. The bar area is small with a standard wooden bar. Overall the feeling inside is somewhat barn-like since the middle of the space has a taller ceiling and there are wooden posts and beams. There is an outdoor deck that is used in summer.

The food isn’t tremendously inspired, but the wood-fired pizza choices are good and there is seafood and more traditional pub food.

By the way, Mount Vernon makes a great home base for enjoying the annual Tulip Festival held during the month of April.

Click here to download:

Review_of_Skagit_River_Brewery.zip (723 KB)

Loading mentions Retweet

Comments (0)

Mar 10 / 12:17pm

Review of Anacortes Brewery and Rockfish Grill, Anacortes, WA

by Bob

Anacortes Brewery and Rockfish Grill
320 Commercial Ave.
Anacortes, WA 98221
United States
phone: 360-588-1720
anacortesrockfish.com

View Larger Map

Overall Score: 95.0

Selection: 4.75 | Service: 4.75 | Atmosphere: 4.75 | Food: 4.5

The Anacortes Brewery and Rockfish Grill is in the historic Anacortes small-town downtown, in an older one story brick building. It’s a friendly, welcoming destination with superb beer, good food, and a great pub atmosphere.

There are four regular beers - Porter, IPA (one of the best NW IPAs), Pilsner, and Amber. There are also six special innovative beers that rotate through, for example, bourbon barrel aged porter, Galena single hop pale, ale, Noel (strong hoppy brown ale). And there’s a cask beer on Fridays. (You can also buy a growler of beer to-go.)

The brewery itself is in the adjacent store front and you can see it from windows in front or from inside the bar area. The bar runs back from the front entrance on the right side and is separated from the restaurant section on the left by a half wall. The bar itself is wooden and has a great wood bar back with several ornate columns and a large mirror. Seating in the bar is on fixed bar stools (soda fountain style) and quite a few stools with narrow tables. The walls are a deep yellow color and the tall ceiling is black with exposed heating ducts and great art deco frosted glass light fixtures. Various fish items and beer or fish framed prints provide the decoration. The canvas curtains and some areas on the walls have modern, minimalist fish imprints that are quite effective.

The food is good. Quite a few seafood options as well as burgers, sandwiches, wood-fired pizza, and salads. The oysters are delicious.

Click here to download:

Review_of_Anacortes_Brewery_an.zip (438 KB)

Loading mentions Retweet

Comments (0)

Feb 20 / 3:49pm

Review of Laurelwood's Battle Ground Brewery, Battle Ground, WA

by Bob

Laurelwood's Battle Ground Brewery

1401 SE Rasmussen Blvd
Battle Ground, WA 98604
United States

phone: (360) 723-0937
laurelwoodbrewpub.com

View Larger Map

Overall Score: 88.3

Selection: 4.8 | Service: 4.5 | Atmosphere: 4.0 | Food: 4.0

Laurelwood's first Washington location is in a new planned community in Battle Ground with a brand new shopping area. It's quite large, and oddly, the space has the feel of a church. There is a very tall ceiling with a peaked roofline and exposed rafters from which hang fake-candle chandeliers, tall narrow arched windows, and even a couple clerestory windows above in the same shape. Lighting also comes from large wall sconces and each booth has a beautiful hanging light globe with a swirling curved shape (like Russian onion dome churches). The floors are concrete.

On one side of the room is family-friendly dining seating with wooden tables and chairs as well as several booths. On the other side is the bar area, also with several booths, and some tall wooden tables and chairs. The bar itself is made of dark wood and is fairly long with tall chairs. There are flat screen TVs here too (sound off). Light wood wainscoting runs around the room and the walls above are painted either brick red or pale green. In the back is a comfortable loft area with leather seating that overlooks the entire room.

The beer selection is quite good. There were 9 beers on tap on our visit, 6 regular beers that cover the normal ale range and 3 special beers: Workhorse IPA, Moose & Squirrel Russian Imperial Stout (both excellent), and E.lvis S.pecial B.eer.

The atmosphere still feels a bit new but it is local in feel and quite welcoming.

Click here to download:

Review_of_Laurelwoods_Battle_G.zip (823 KB)

Loading mentions Retweet

Comments (0)

Feb 20 / 3:46pm

Review of Max's Fanno Creek Brew Pub, Tigard, OR

by Bob

Max's Fanno Creek Brew Pub
12562 SW Main St
Tigard, OR 97223
United States
phone: 503-624-9400
maxsfannocreek.com

View Larger Map

Overall Score: 86.7

Selection: 4.5 | Service: 4.5 | Atmosphere: 4.0 | Food: 4.25

Tigard is part of the greater Portland metropolitan area. The brewpub is on Main Street, and at least this section of Tigard feels like a small town. The building may not look impressive on the outside, but it is surprisingly large inside. The front has full windows and so is quite bright, but the back is a bit dark and cavernous.

Overall, it is somewhat industrial with the flourescent light tubes, metal ducting, and concrete floors. The front has a comfortable couch and armchair. Otherwise, most of the seating is at wooden tables with wooden captains chairs, except for a few booths, and a few tall tables with padded leather stools near the bar. The bar itself has a rich dark wooden top and a brass foot-rail and more stools. The ceilings are fairly high. The walls are painted mustard yellow and the columns are individually painted with the Northwest Cascade volcanos - Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Rainier, Mt. Adams, etc. (keep an eye out for the Sasquatch painted on the mountains on which he has been sighted :-) Several other murals and paintings, also done by local artists, decorate the walls. There is a kids play area and a couple flat screen TVs (sound off).

The feeling in the pub is friendly and comfortable. We had a great visit - we were invited to walk around in the brewery and the refrigerated room where the brite tanks are and the owners stopped by our table for a chat. The brewery itself is in the front and is visible through windows.

There were ten house-made beers on tap. The IPA was good, if a bit cloudy, the Raspberry Oatmeal Stout (made with fresh berrires) was special, as was the dry-hopped Red.

Parking is available in the back.

Click here to download:

Review_of_Maxs_Fanno_Creek_Bre.zip (1004 KB)

Loading mentions Retweet

Comments (0)

Feb 20 / 3:37pm

Review of Calapooia Brewing Company, Albany, OR

by Bob

Calapooia Brewing Company

140 Hill St. NE

Albany, OR 97321

United States

phone: (541) 928-1931

calapooiabrewing.com

View Larger Map

Overall Score: 86.7

Selection: 4.8 | Service: 4.5 | Atmosphere: 3.8 | Food: 3.75

Calapooia Brewing is on the edge of a not very dense residential neighborhood in Albany. The pub is a large room with large windows on two sides; three sides if you count the windows looking out on the mostly outdoor courtyard area (it's open to the air but has a roof and is enclosed on three sides). The outdoor area has picnic tables and propane space heaters. The inside is fairly worn and generic but has a friendly and local feel and is wonderfully bright. We were definitely made to feel welcome. The floor is covered with indoor/outdoor carpeting. Formica and wooden tables with padded wooden chairs fill most of the room. By the windows are two comfortable wooden church pew benches. One corner of the room is dedicated to several dart boards. Beer is ordered at the L-shaped wooden bar that has several bar stools and a wooden sign "Order Yer Beer Here".

There were 8 regular beers and 5 seasonals on our visit, and included two different IPAs that were both good and quite different from each other.

Food is small-town America, fairly generic pub, but is well made if the burgers we had are anything to go by.

Click here to download:

Review_of_Calapooia_Brewing_Co.zip (934 KB)

Loading mentions Retweet

Comments (0)

Feb 19 / 2:03pm

Part 7 - Zwickelmania & KLCC Festival in Eugene, OR - Eugene City

by Bob

Eugene City Brewery

Now that the bus had ceased operation (after completing only 4 runs by our estimate) we headed out on foot to the final destination which luckily was not terribly far. Alas, we arrived at the Eugene City Brewery after the official end of Zwickelmania, and thus we could not expect a tour. However, we could expect and did enjoy the typical friendly Rogue hospitality and excellent beer. Besides having the usual large Rogue beer selection, this is the home of the truly remarkable Tracktown Ales, both 100 Meter and 200 Meter. There are also a few guest taps.

This place is typical of Rogue brewpubs - low-key, not fancy, but functional. The building has a modern glass retail facade, although nicely decorated above with the brewery's running shoe logo. (In the summer there are tables out front which make good use of the available sidewalk space.)

Inside there is a fairly large dining room (where kids are OK) with a dark ceiling, hanging lights, and with generic light colored walls and floors. There are lots of square tables and captain's chairs. Towards the back is a separate bar area with varied seating options in addition to a fairly long bar, all with tall bar stools. The bar itself is made from aluminum sheets with wood trim and has tall chairs and steel foot rests. The lower half of the walls in the bar area are covered with the same aluminum sheets as employed on the bar. There are several TVs (sound off) and music in the background. The atmosphere is casual and relaxed.

After enjoying a couple of Tracktown Ales, we took advantage of the quiet to explore the basement which offered a glimpse of the brewery, and the serving tanks and a complete downstairs bar to boot!

Finally, a couple small notes about the restrooms - at this place, the men’s room is labeled “hops” and the women’s room is labeled “barley”. The Rogue in Issaquah, WA uses the opposite labeling (which we think is more accurate). The women’s room itself is an exception to the usual Rogue decor and is quite beautiful with walls painted in blue and scattered with paintings of pink shoes and various characters from the Yellow Submarine animated movie.

Conclusion

And so we come to the end of Zwickelmania 2010 and a fantastic weekend in Eugene. One cannot fail to be impressed with the general friendliness and sophistication of this town. (Hopefully, they can overcome the delays in shuttle bus route before next year.) With six breweries, five of which participated in this event, this is a true haven for the microbrewery fan. Not all Oregon breweries were able to be part of Zwickelmania, and the Steelhead Brewery in Eugene which did not take part, is nonetheless an excellent brewpub and well worth a visit as well. We had a wonderful time here and plan to come back often.

Cheers!

Go back to Part 6…

Click here to download:

Part_7_-_Zwickelmania_KLCC_Fes.zip (704 KB)

Loading mentions Retweet

Comments (0)

Feb 19 / 2:00pm

Part 6 - Zwickelmania & KLCC Festival in Eugene, OR - High Street

by Bob

High Street Brewery

This McMenamins outpost was the first microbrewery to open in Eugene since the days of Prohibition. The High Street Brewery is located in a renovated house that is more than a century old in a partially residential area, not too far from the University of Oregon. It has two picnic tables out front, and a large front porch which is set up with a couple of tables in the summer. There is also a great deck and patio in the back with more picnic tables.

Our bus, the last run of the day, disembarked and as we entered the building our group was greeted and directed to the rear deck to meet the brewer. He graciously poured a sample of his version of the Collaboration Ale for each of us. This seemed like a very nice dry Cascadian Dark Ale with a hint of extra spiciness. After we finished our samples we followed the brewer into the fairly cramped basement of the house.

Here we encountered a cozy brewery with a brew kettle decorated in a typical McMenamins fashion, and a very idiosyncratic rectangular open mash tun with attached grain mill. Finally we had a peek at the cold room with the bright tanks and kegs, several of which were hooked up to the taps at the bar upstairs.

After the tour, we explored the pub. The main room and a couple smaller rooms on the left are filled with dark wooden tables and chairs. The small bar area is on the right with a few tall chairs in front of the copper-topped bar and a tiny table. The walls and ceilings are beige with a dark green swatch painted at the top of the walls with classic McMenamins odd-ball painted designs (such as various ears in the bar area).

There are ten beers on tap. This is a fairly large selection, but the beers themselves aren't quite in the top league of craft beers. It's still worth visiting, however, as the feeling inside is a lot like being in a house and contributes to the true pub feel.

The menus is fairly generic pub, but there are still some inspired choices, such as the excellent tomatillo salsa & chips, and the superb happy hour carnitas tacos we tried. Lovely!

Go back to Part 5…

Continue reading Part 7…

Click here to download:

Part_6_-_Zwickelmania_KLCC_Fes.zip (816 KB)

Loading mentions Retweet

Comments (0)

Feb 19 / 1:57pm

Part 5 - Zwickelmania & KLCC Festival in Eugene, OR - Hop Valley

by Bob

Hop Valley Brewing

In neighboring Springfield is the newest brewery, Hop Valley Brewing, which opened about a year ago. This brewery is close to Interstate 5 and is surrounded by business hotels and casual restaurants. Actually, Hop Valley is located in a building that used to be a German restaurant, and before that it housed Ninkasi's first brewery. Most of the space inside is taken up by large main dining area and a smaller bar area. The dining section has some booths and a lot of tables and is in a fairly generic style. Decorating the walls are historic black and white photos of hop cultivation, i.e., growing, picking, and packaging hops, etc. (Hops were once grown commercially in this area, possibly even at this exact location.)

The brewery itself is along one side of the building and separated from the restaurant and bar by a solid interior wall, and is only visible from the several large windows on the exterior wall facing the parking lot.

There were no free samples, but we grabbed a couple of pints in the bar. Shortly an assistant brewer led a group of us on a tour, starting with the brewing tanks which are sandwiched in a fairly narrow corridor between interior and exterior walls. But this part of the brewery does have generous natural lighting provided by several large windows. Walking away from these tanks, we encountered four fermentation tanks and nestled between the legs of two of these we found two sealed oak barrels with beer aging inside.

After a few more samples, we followed a group of fellow zwickelmaniacs outside to wait for the last shuttle run of the day. (By this time, we had tossed the now useless schedule aside, trusting instead in the inherent righteousness of our quest.) Lo and behold, a bus cometh!

Go back to Part 4…

Continue reading Part 6…

Click here to download:

Part_5_-_Zwickelmania_KLCC_Fes.zip (1194 KB)

Loading mentions Retweet

Comments (0)

Feb 19 / 1:53pm

Part 4 - Zwickelmania & KLCC Festival in Eugene, OR - Oakshire

by Bob

Oakshire Brewing

The Oakshire Brewery is in an industrial area way on the outskirts of town near a large railroad yard, so you reallly need to have a car to visit. They are normally only open Saturday afternoons, but it's well worth the journey, especially since their beer is so good and is currently only available in Oregon. This stop turned out to be the highlight of the day.

The brewery is composed of two attached warehouses. A smaller one in front houses the tasting room and the brewing tanks. The larger one in the back contains the fermentation tanks, supplies, kegs, etc. The bus let us off on the road in front of the brewery. We walked through a parking lot to reach the large open garage door that led to the tasting room. On one side there is a bar where we were offered free samples of any of their beers. They had an experimental IPA called 2-Wheeler in addition to their excellent regular Watershed IPA. They also had 22 oz. bottles (3 of their beers are bottled right now), t-shirts, and hoodies for sale. To the right of the bar is the grain mill and stored grain.

The large white room has concrete floors and is lit by industrial florescent tubes on the high ceiling (as befits a working brewery). Opposite the bar against the far wall are the mash tun and brew kettle. In the space between are several wooden picnic tables. Seated here, you really feel like you are in the middle of a production brewery, and are truly sampling beer at the source.

The Brewmaster, Matt Van Wyk, conducted a magnificent tour of the brewery. Their small system has relatively little hard piping and no hot liquor tank as yet. (Currently they are relying on an on-demand hot water supply.) Directly in front of the brewing tanks there is a 10 gallon homebrew system that Matt intends to use to teach homebrewing classes.

We entered the larger rear building through one of the two large open garage-style doors. Here we were shown the fermentation tanks and the bright tanks, as well as a refrigerated area. Matt offered us samples of the Cornucopia Frog's Wort Pale Ale directly poured from the zwickel valve on one of the brite tanks. It doesn't get fresher than this. There is also a large coffee grinder that is used to produce the cold extract of coffee that ends up in the brite tank to make the delicious Overcast Espresso Stout.

We also tasted the Amber and the Collaboration Rye Cascadian Dark Ale made for the KLCC Microbrew Festival. All were quite good. They don't serve food but there is regularly a mobile foodcart (Devour) in the parking lot that serves grilled panini sandwiches and soups (the food looked quite good).

After the tour was over, we stayed a while to talk with Matt and sample more of his creations. When the shuttle arrived many of us in the tasting room rushed out to meet it. (It was now even further behind schedule, but there was still plenty of beer to keep us happy!)

Go back to Part 3…

Continue reading Part 5…

Click here to download:

Part_4_-_Zwickelmania_KLCC_Fes.zip (935 KB)

Loading mentions Retweet

Comments (0)

Feb 19 / 1:50pm

Part 3 - Zwickelmania & KLCC Festival in Eugene, OR - Ninkasi

by Bob

Ninkasi Brewing

On a mild but gray Saturday morning, we walked to our first venue, Ninkasi Brewing. The brewery is located in a small industrial complex in a low-key neighborhood northwest of downtown. They opened early, and when we arrived, a few minutes before 11:00, there were already a dozen or so people standing around the bar in the tasting room drinking beer. This tasting room is new and quite attractively decorated in a modern industrial style emphasizing polished metal and light wood. It has a tall ceiling and large windows on two sides. Besides the aforementioned bar, there are several tall tables and chairs around this large room. On one side there is also a window to order merchandise and beer to go.

We had a few free samples, before asking about a brewery tour. The staff behind the bar were unsure of the day's schedule as the owner, Jamie Floyd, had not yet arrived. As we waited we were offered free sliders cooked up in the tent out in front by folks from Oregon Natural Meats, a local company raising cattle fed a diet of spent grain from local micro-breweries including Ninkasi.

Soon we were offered a tour by one of the employees who had been tending bar. A small group of us first walked through a large construction site where a new 60 barrel brewery is to be located. Then we strolled through the current 30 barrel facility which we learned is running at full capacity 7 days a week. Their market which now includes Washington as well as Oregon is growing rapidly.

Although we did miss meeting Jamie, we did encounter an assistant brewer on the tour and all of us had a chance to ask detailed brewing questions. After the tour we returned to the tasting room for more beer while we waited for the shuttle to arrive. (It did arrive, but was more than 30 minutes late. Well, at least we were waiting in a Brewery!)

Go back to Part 2…

Continue reading Part 4…