“Didn’t Ruby Ale just have a birthday?” I quiz my husband.


“If she didn’t, having another beer birthday isn’t a bad thing,” he tells me. At this point, I could agree with him but how often should you tell your spouse they are right??!

“No seriously, weren’t we just at McMenamins celebrating Ruby’s 27th birthday?” I ask again.

“No, that was Hammerhead’s birthday,” he finally tells me.



McMenamins Brew Pubs (and beer) was started by a couple of brothers, Mike and Brian (of the same last name.) (Side note, soon another set of Brothers Kurt and Rob Widmer would start their brewery which is now the 9th largest in the US) The McMenamin’s created the first post-prohibition brewpub in Oregon in 1985 as soon as the Oregon Legislature legalized brewpubs. Serious,1985. Keep in mind, prohibition ended in 1933. I suppose that is the first time Oregon was really behind the times. My beer friends are now challenging me on this bit of information knowing that Widmer started brewing in 1984 but they didn’t open a brew pub; not yet anyhow.

That same year (back to 1985) McMenamins became the first brewery in the United States to legally use fruit in the brewing of ales and thus, Ruby Ale was born 27 years ago. Now you know why they celebrate her birthday. Pints were $2.50. Too bad they weren’t giving the stuff away but $2.50 is a fair price for a smooth Raspberry beer.

Now that I’ve muddy the waters with trivia and history of some beer, prohibition and brewpubs, I think having a beer birthday celebration is always in order no matter what. Not that I need (yet another) reason to drink; but to Ruby Ale I say “Prost!”

Brewery Tour Reviews

I love brewery tours.

What's not to love, you get to see your favorite drink being processed while gather free swag (the noun and not the verb) and beer (hopefully.) Oregon is crazy for it's Mircobrews. In fact there is more breweries in Oregon than anywhere in the world. Anywhere. Oregon outshines Germany and Czech Republic (the country that gave us Budweiser.)  And it seems mircobrewers love to share their craft to passing tourist who love beer.  I don't bore you with the details of how beer is processed; after all that is what a tour is all about.

I've given you what I think are the best brewery tours based on overall tour experience, swag and what kind of swag.

Without further ado, here is sample of tours in the State of Oregon.




Rogue Ale, Newport Bay Front.

Famous for it's dead guy ale, Rogue Ale has a great free membership plan (see other blogs) and plenty of beers for a wide assortment of tastes.

The beer tours at the bay front are often, three times a day and they are usually packed. What you get for standing in a massive crowd of tourist in a tiny gift shop waiting for the tour to start is.......wait for it......nothing.

The tour is unimpressive. Oh sure, you get to the see the original beer making vessels that are converted milkers (serious) and it's kind of neat to see stacks and stacks of beer just waiting for shipment (if you consider that fun) but that's it. The tour guide does not give a complete picture of how Wort is made into beer or any other sort of science based fact on the beer making process. What the tour guide does give you is the complete history of Rogue Ale, the brewmeister and all the locations you can buy Rogue Ale (including Japan.)

The tour is about 45 minutes and no swag, no beer given out as tasters at the end. Not even a drop. The tour ends back at the gift shop. There you get your name on the list to get into pub. If everyone in your party is over 21 go straight to the bar. Either sit at the bar or at the bay front window and watch fisherman hard at work. To them, raise a toast.



Deschutes, Bend Oregon.

It's a beer making machine and they are serious about their beer. Following your google maps, the building is impressive and you can see the silos in which is made. (You'll  learn later those were purchased in Germany and the freeways had to closed at night to move them to this site. Yes, the are impressive and huge.)

You first walk into a bar. Yeap, a bar. The bartender will tell you the next tour time and then get you started on your first of five samples of beer. He (or she) will describe each beer, IBU and profile. If you are still drinking your free beer when the tour starts, no worry you can take it with you.

The tour guide then shows you the complete steps and process for making beer, and you even get to see the bottling part. You walk past the taster room, oops I mean quality control where employees can sign up for additional duties of tasting beer to ensure quality. (Sounds like my career path has taken me in all the wrong places when I could be tasting beer and get paid for it.)  Anyway.

The tour ends back at the bar about an 75 minutes later where you can either finish  your free samples or fill your growler for later. No swag but the beer tasting and the atmosphere makes up for it. The pub is about 1/2 mile away. So I highly recommend you fill your growler to take the beer with you on your great outdoor Bend area adventure. I recommend the Pauline Lake area. (Just in case you needed to know.)


Widmer, Portland Oregon

Tours are Friday and Saturdays only by appointment. You will not get a tour a few days beforehand. I highly suggest you call more than week to make your arrangements.

The tour starts above the bar in a big room. The tour guide brings up four pitchers of beer and the participants line up for a free sample of a beer. You sit back at your table, make new friends and then stand in line for another beer. (Heck, you need to try them all.) You then watch a video about Widmer and the tour starts about 20 minutes later. No drinking on this tour so bottoms up.

The Widmer tour is the most comprehensive of the tours I'm profiling today. You get the complete history of Widmer, how beer is made and a complete visual process of how that works. You walk around all the equipment and wind up at the bottling process. About an hour later you get swag (Yea! Finally) which includes a plastic cup and a choice of key chains.

Walk across the street back to the pub, drink another beer and order the pretzel and beer cheese soup. The best beer cheese soup around. Trust me, I've tried them all.


Full Sail, Hood River, Oregon


Tours are almost daily and you just show up and wait in a long-skinny hallway that always serves as the entrance to the pub.

The tour guide promptly takes the group to a table with visual aides....all the ingredients needed to make beer. You get to touch, taste hops and make jokes with the entertaining and funny tour guide. He talks about the process and also how Full Sail recycles what they can from the process. (The left over wort goes to the cows to eat. Lucky cows.) You walk a few feet, see some of the equipment and that's it. The guide then takes you back to where you start and gives you a free pint glass. (Yea Swag) but no beer.

The tour ends about 40 minutes later.  Don't worry, you won't feel cheated. The tour guide has such a quick wit and vast knowledge of beer you will feel as he's your long lost beer drinking buddy.

Afterwards, walk a few feet to the crowded pub. Drink more beer and have a burger. I recommend you sit on the outdoor patio and watch wind surfers.

Prost.

My Favorite Harvest



Hop Plant!

 Hops are a binding plant, not a vine.

Hops grow best on the 45th parallel and Oregon used to produce 45% percent of the worlds hops but that number drastically decreased after WWII to a mere 5%.  The primary growing regions are now Germany (which grows more hops than any single country), then Washington State and then Oregon.

Hops are a cone shaped, and are a bitter, tangy plant used primarily to flavor beer. But it's the yellow stuff inside the hop called Lulupin that the Brewmeisters desire.

Shall I go on with the Hop Trivia???



A mountain of hops



Or better yet, attend the Rogue Ale Farm tour. You'll learn all about Hops, see them grow and harvest. You'll have a chance to see fields of hops, hops drying and hops in bundles. You'll see mountains of hops. You'll dream of all the beer you will drink. And you will learn all this hop trivia and best of all, see it in action.



I have been on a lot of beer tours, but seeing how the primary ingredient for beer is grown was interesting and peaked my interesting in the whole process of beer.

The tour lasted over an hour. And best part, it was free. No swag was given out at the end. No free pints of beer afterwards. However, the knowledge I gained all for the love of beer was priceless.

The end product!

What are you waiting for??? Go visit a hop farm today and get drinking.

Rafting Adventures....and a Child Guide

The dirty, old looking van with broken door handles didn’t worry me as much at the 12 year-old looking kid who stated without much enthusiasm he was going to be our guide for the day.




If I wasn’t a bit nervous about white water rafting before; I am now.

Our driver looked to be…oh about 17 years old. He had to be a teenager since in between sticking his head out the door in the steep, rough not-made-for-driving-on road to make sure the tires stated on the loose gravel and instead of over the edge (to which I thought I’ve had a good life and it was sad it was going to end this way) he would text. (Now I’m convinced my life is going to end in a dirty, beat up rusted out van.) As in, take out the cell phone and text and not have his eyes on the road all the while our “tour guide” slept. He must have been at least 13 because that is what teenagers do; sleep and nap for long periods and 12 years old would make him a child. None this is behavior was lead to my eagerness to raft.

My rafting mate for the next four hours was a mother-daughter team with whom I was camping with for the weekend. (Along with eight other women, camping in tee-pees.)

The other three rafters were Korean. A father and two nine year old children. The father spoke English although his listen skills were not keen. The child/teenager/river guide would command us (okay maybe command is a strong word for his soft spoken, non-authoritative voice) to paddle three strokes forward. I took these commands seriously. No way did I want to end up in the icy cold river in class four/five rapids. Our Korean man would paddle until someone told him to stop unless he was keeled over in the raft. Yes, he had a tendency to fall inwards often going over the least powerful rapid. The kids; well were kids. They did not do anything that assembled paddling. Nor did they understand our child/teenager guide since they did not speak English. This left three women and one child/teenage guide to steer, move and get the raft safety downstream.

It’s a wonder I lived. But I did. Next time I raft, it will be with a guide that is older than 12; and it will be on US Federal lands. And if a rusted out, beat up, broken handle van comes to pick me up I’ll know to walk away.

Beer time!

Variety of Mircobrews

• Check.

BBQ Pork.

• Check.

Live Music.

• Check.

Plenty of shade trees.

• Check.

Lawn Games.

• Check.

Friends and family.

• Double check.

Looks like this picnic had it all. Five brewers on tap and a ciderhouse. The breweries are local beer with a passion for brewing. Participating breweries included Block 15 Restaurant and Brewery, Calapooia Brewing, Flat Tail Brewing, McMenamins on Monroe, Oregon Trail Brewery and 2 Towns Ciderhouse.  Block 15 did the BBQ’ing and that pig couldn’t of tasted any better with the bean or potato salad. For the non-meat eaters there was a tofu option (which actually looked good to this pig-bacon-loving-meat-eater.)

The setting at Alton Field Farms was as near prefect as you could get. Plenty of grass with rows of pear and apples trees to sit underneath surrounded by might Oak trees for the complete blanket of afternoon shade.  Plenty of room for people to set up blanket, lawn chairs and we played UNO while sipping suds.

Thinking of everything, the event was set up with a dozen or so picnic tables for those without lawn chair and hay bales facing the live music. Three different (or was it four) bands played through the afternoon. In between band breaks, a raffle for swag in which you had to be present to win. 

The picnic was in honor of Craft Beer Month as celebrated in Oregon. Oregon has more mircobrews than anywhere in the world with over 80 today. And that number in increasing. Last year we attend the Craft Brew Festival in Portland Oregon. It was packed. Wall-to-Wall people. Beer lines were 40 minutes. And this blogger was not a happy camper after waiting in a hot tent with thousands of people in a line for beer just to have them run out.

My experience was not like that in the least bit. The line was short, and never waited more than 5 minutes for a beer.  And the event was not overwhelmed with people that you couldn't walk or more about. Unlike the Portland Festival held the very same weekend.

Local Reporter with our neighbor.

People at work asked me if I had a good time; indeed I did. So-much-so I hope the Craft Beer Picnic is an annual event. And then I could be "one of those people who have been to them all." I'll never go back to the Portland Brew Festival. I think.

PROST.

Bacon & Eggs Farm Style.