quote: Originally posted by Flashpro quote: quote: Originally posted by Stoutlover72 Well, the way I look at it...if you're gonna travel to go to a beer place, go to the Mecca in the U.S. where you can immerse yourself in not just 1-2 or even 25 great beer places, but hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of great beer places? Oregon/Portland (Full Sail) is FANTASTIC...no doubt there and if you're short on time...you make an excellent point. Portland is tight enough so if you have just a few days or even a week, it's got a great concentration in just one or two cities. I think San Francisco rivals Portland, even San Diego rivals Portland IMO. I see your point about Cali being a place, not a destinatio...agree to disagree though. Cali is beer and you can close your eyes, throw a dart on a map of Cali and be an hour or two within several beer locations (providing you stay away from the Southeast portion of the state...lol). I lived in San Francisco for 6 months and I don't think it comes close to Portland. Only a few in the area or known much for beer, and Anchor isn't exactly a fave of mine. The Beach Chalet Brewery is nice because of the view, and 21st Amendment was good, but nothing close to the exotic stuff you can get in Portland like Cascade, Upright, Hair of the Dog and Deschutes. If you're going to talk about driving around for hours in CA, then you'd have to include Seattle with Portland as well, for nearly 200 breweries. At less than 3 hours away, that would get you not even 1/4th of the way up Cali, which has 302 breweries (on our site). And I only showed that 25 breweries are within 3 miles. There are many times that when you increase to 10 miles or 100 miles. I have never lived in Southern California, so it's hard for me to compare the beer cultures, but up here they claim to be the Beer Mecca lol.

Well, when I bring up San Francisco I also include the surrounding areas of a 60-90 mile radius. I mean, you know that living in California...you drive everywhere. So that would also include places like Lagunitas, Bear Republic, Anderson Valley, Russian River, Drakes, Marin/Moylan's, etc. Not even mentioning SoCal with AleSmith, Stone, Green Flash, The Bruery, Pizza Port, Port Brewing/Lost Abbey, Alpine, Ballast Point, etc. You cannot go wrong if your destination is Oregon OR California. Splitting hairs. I appreciate that I'm within driving distance to all locations mentioned and have made a weekend getaway to all of these locations many, many times.

just back from Russian River/3rd Street Aleworks/and "The Bear"...all within 13 miles of eachother, and hit Moylans on the way home. wine country my ass! though i did have a purple tongue Monday...

It's definitely not Kansas City, but maybe someday. http://www.pitch.com/2011-06-16/news/boulevard-craft-beer/

quote: Originally posted by slowrunner77 just back from Russian River/3rd Street Aleworks/and "The Bear"...all within 13 miles of eachother, and hit Moylans on the way home. wine country my ass! though i did have a purple tongue Monday...

Word. Forget the wine. I take that back, I'll have my cake and eat it too. My only regret was going to Bear Republic 3 times from 2004-2006 and never to Russian River Brewery!

yeah, i don't SKIP the brew for wine - but over a long weekend there was time for plenty o both! [:D]

quote: Originally posted by Flashpro quote: quote: Originally posted by slowrunner77 just back from Russian River/3rd Street Aleworks/and "The Bear"...all within 13 miles of eachother, and hit Moylans on the way home. wine country my ass! though i did have a purple tongue Monday... Word. Forget the wine. I take that back, I'll have my cake and eat it too. My only regret was going to Bear Republic 3 times from 2004-2006 and never to Russian River Brewery!

I will be making a trip to Portland, Oregon next week. Anybody know of some good craft brew places to visit there?

quote: quote: Originally posted by Cybercat I will be making a trip to Portland, Oregon next week. Anybody know of some good craft brew places to visit there?

There are a lot of good places, so it kind of depends on what your likes and dislikes are. Upright brewing has some open fermentation tanks and good beer but they have limited hours. Hair of the Dog tasting room has awesome aged kegs you most likely won't see anywhere else, and bottles aged several years that you must drink there. Problem with them is they're only open wed-sunday from 2-8pm. Unless you really don't like sour beer I would highly recommend Cascade Barrel house. They have 2 barrels pouring and maybe 18 taps total. They'll do taster size glasses so that you can try a lot of them. They brew a lot of unique stuff, and if you can make it on Tuesday at 6pm you can see them tap a barrel and make a mess. I've gone there the last 4 tuesdays and then went around the corner to The Green Dragon. You basically have to go to there if you go to Cascade. They are owned by Rogue, but what's nice is they have 50 killer kegs on tap, and 80% of them are local. They're usually some of the more interesting beers around, meaning not the flagship stuff you can get anywhere on the west coast. They will also do a 4 beer sampler for $5 or $6. A couple weeks ago they had Deschutes Black Butte XXI, Mirror Mirror, Jubel 2010, The Abyss 2009 and The Abyss 2010. I'm actually going with some people for a private tour of the brewery inside the Green Dragon (Buckman Village) tomorrow after my last day of work in Oregon. If you like Rogue beers then it might be worth stopping at their location downtown on the west side of the river. I know a lot of their stuff is widely available, but the nice thing about this place is they give you a big binder of their beers and you can try pretty much every beer they make. It's insande. It's also walking distance from Deschutes and Bridgeport. Those are on the classier side for Portland, since the west side of the river is the yuppy, revitalized area. I had dinner at Deschutes last night, for the 2nd time, and I loved my food both times. Only downside is it always seems to be very busy there. Most other breweries are never very crowded. If you are open to driving a few hours, you should probably take 84 East of Portland along the Columbia River Gorge, then stop at Full Sail in Hood River. That's about 1.5 hours one way, and I'd recommend stopping at Double Mountain Brewing, a couple blocks from Full Sail. You're lucky because the good weather pretty much started this month, and possibly the last rain of the season is this Saturday.

quote: Originally posted by Flashpro quote: quote: Originally posted by slowrunner77 just back from Russian River/3rd Street Aleworks/and "The Bear"...all within 13 miles of eachother, and hit Moylans on the way home. wine country my ass! though i did have a purple tongue Monday... Word. Forget the wine. I take that back, I'll have my cake and eat it too. My only regret was going to Bear Republic 3 times from 2004-2006 and never to Russian River Brewery!

You were that close and you didn't go there????? Are you crazyinsane? LOL. Wow. Bear Republic is great and all, but...you could have landed some early Supplication on tap before it became what it became.

quote: Originally posted by Stoutlover72 quote: quote: Originally posted by Flashpro quote: quote: quote: Originally posted by slowrunner77 just back from Russian River/3rd Street Aleworks/and "The Bear"...all within 13 miles of eachother, and hit Moylans on the way home. wine country my ass! though i did have a purple tongue Monday... Word. Forget the wine. I take that back, I'll have my cake and eat it too. My only regret was going to Bear Republic 3 times from 2004-2006 and never to Russian River Brewery! You were that close and you didn't go there????? Are you crazyinsane? LOL. Wow. Bear Republic is great and all, but...you could have landed some early Supplication on tap before it became what it became.

Well I was there back when only the original BP site was around, and there were a lot less members. I don't think I even knew Russian River was good beer at the time, although I knew Bear Republic was. It was a long drive from San Fran so I didn't go up there much.

quote: quote: Originally posted by Flashpro quote: quote: quote: Originally posted by Stoutlover72 quote: quote: quote: quote: Originally posted by Flashpro quote: quote: quote: quote: quote: Originally posted by slowrunner77 just back from Russian River/3rd Street Aleworks/and "The Bear"...all within 13 miles of eachother, and hit Moylans on the way home. wine country my ass! though i did have a purple tongue Monday... Word. Forget the wine. I take that back, I'll have my cake and eat it too. My only regret was going to Bear Republic 3 times from 2004-2006 and never to Russian River Brewery! You were that close and you didn't go there????? Are you crazyinsane? LOL. Wow. Bear Republic is great and all, but...you could have landed some early Supplication on tap before it became what it became. Well I was there back when only the original BP site was around, and there were a lot less members. I don't think I even knew Russian River was good beer at the time, although I knew Bear Republic was. It was a long drive from San Fran so I didn't go up there much.

I understand. I had trips to NYC, the Bay area and Philadelphia in the early 2000's. This was right as I was beginning to appreciate craft beer and while I had a few in each place, I had no clue what I was missing. About '04 I started to find things on the internet to seek out. I wished I had seriously tried to seek out the locals.