Waiting for something slow
Okay, my title line doesn’t quite rhyme with Godot, but I recently heard that it was pronounced ‘God-doh’ and was alluding to a lack of faith in God. Well, I have no intention of discussing anything that heady, but I am stuck with a two-hour plane delay so you can expect this blog to cover all the things I used to claim I didn’t have time for it. Fate called my bluff and handed me two hours of time that aren’t good for much of anything, so I figure this is a great time to talk about my weekend. My fiancee and I did a little trek down to Portland for a variety of reasons, chief among them a belated-Valentine’s Day at the McMenamin’s Edgefield. Also, we knew that the McMenamin’s franchise was hosting a beer-fest at one of its locations and we figured ‘why not devote an entire weekend to beer?’ And that turned out to be the mission statement of the weekend.
Before we left for the weekend, we picked up some bottles of the Abyss from Deschutes. The backstory goes that Deschutes did a limited release of this special stout that was reviewed by Men’s Health magazine as being ‘the best stout ever made.’ With a label like that you can see why Portland stores sold out. Turns out that the Co-Op in Moscow ID had a supply of Abyss and my mom asked me to pick up some. Also, the idea of a rare beer is truly a new concept to me. And the beer may not be the best stout ever, but it doesn’t fall very short of the hype. Beer count – 1.
The next day my parents joined us as we hit my first ever McMenamin’s beer-fest. Just the concept for this event is exciting. There are 20+ McMenamin locations around the OR/WA area and all of them were asked to prepare a new beer. Then, each of the beers are sampled at several beer-fests around the state, with drinkers voting on their favorites. Then the winning beer represents the McMenamin’s brand in a national brewfest next fall. So, with visions of 20 fantastically new beers dancing in our heads, we entered the establishment and immediately saw the commemorative cake and the belt for the winning brewery. We grabbed our seats and started drinking. Some of the titles were more inspired than the beer, but the opportunity to taste beer that will probably never be bottled or reproduced was inexplicably exciting. Some of my favorites: Don’t worry be hoppy (with it’s hoppy zing), Bada-Bing (a porter brewed with chocolate and bing cherries), and M (the thousandith brew from one of the brewmasters – also our tables top pick). We then went and saw Cloverfield with our bellies full of beer. Beer count – 21.
On Sunday, the day we were heading out to the Edgefield, Sarah and I went into Portland to meet with a wedding florist. After our meeting (which went very well) we saw that there was an old theater on our block playing this years Oscar nominated short films (live action and animated). It was a no-brainer (even without beer in our systems) and we hopped into the animated collection. I’d like to go into the impressive and bizarre shorts we saw, but this blog is about beer now and I’m sticking to my theme. Post film, we saw there was a local brewery right across the street and we continued to figure “what the hell?” The place is called the Laurelwood public house and brewery. They made a mean cannoli and nifty 10-beer sampler. Standouts included their vanilla stout and tree-hugger porter. Beer count – 31.
That night we visited the Edgefield and made a point to switch from beer to wine. Mostly, we did this because we wanted to taste what options would work best for our wedding. However, after a great round of meals and 7 glasses of wine, we switched back to beer. Oh, glorious beer. We ended our night, and our weekend, with glasses of Sleepy Hollow Brown Ale and Nitro Cream Ale, while watching Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox story. Beer count – 33 plus wine – 7: total 40!
All in all, it was a fantastic weekend full of…beer. And movies, and fun, and families. And beer.
Burp.