Beer Ambassadors Half-Time Score

23 June 2010

misc 3 min read

Well this is it for me. The final day of my leg of the Beer Ambassadors at Large USA tour.
It’s been a whirlwind tour of hops, malt and yeast. There have been many highs and almost as many lows in this crazy tour. One Beer Ambassador is still without a passport and another is on prescription medicine, but we have sampled some awesome beers and it has opened my eyes to the world of these beer-nerds. I’ll never drink another pint of Foster’s, that’s for sure!

The last few days in Portland (formerly Beer-City USA - a title that now belongs to Ashville NC) have been given us a well-earned rest from constant drinking and travelling - we haven’t done any travelling.
The Portland beer-market is dominated by craft breweries, 1 in every 2 beers sold are craft beers. It shows. The number of brew-pubs, breweries and beer-bars in this town is amazing.

We started off with a visit to the Bridgeport brewery with Matt Sage who also took us out of town to visit an Oregon hop farm. Thanks to Matt and Gayle Goschie for your time and insights.

The next day we continued paying visits on Portland’s finest purveyors of amber liquids, but the highlight must’ve been the unexpected passing of the annual Portland World Naked Bike Ride - a couple of the Beer Ambassadors also managed to attend the mostly-naked after-party (but they shall remain nameless).

I am Laazy J, Prince of Darts…

And on the third day they rested. Sort of. A quiet walk around the down-town area visiting Rogue’s Portland pub and the Deschutes brew-pub.
Dinner and a few bars and the night was capped off back at the hotel with some bottles of oak-aged Odells.

The full Beer Ambassadors report on Portland is available at BeerAmbassadors.com.

Anyone in the London area on the 1st-4th July should make there way to the White Horse in Parson’s Green where Doug Odell will be attending the Great American Beer Festival.

From beerambassadors-usa (June 2010)

The final day we woke and made our way to Portland Union Station to catch the Amtrak to Seattle.
We arrived in Seattle late afternoon and had to be at the airport at 6AM the next morning to catch our flights. But there was still time for a couple for breweries & bars: Pike Brewing, Hales Ales and Brouwer’s Cafe.
A four bed dorm, Tom’s snoring, Miro’s farting and a 5AM alarm and the next thing I knew it was over…

Fare thee well ye noble men of beer.

Don’t forget to follow the east-coast stage of Beer Ambassadors at Large USA on www.beerambassadors.com and at twitter.com/beerambassadors. To read up on some of the previous west-coast adventures see my blog history and the photo album.

The full (brewery/brew-pub/specialty beer bars only) itinerary so far…

Day 1 (LA)

Day 2 (Escondido)