ooo, a big pint for a little girl like you?

it’s a funny old world. as a woman (although that makes me sound much more grown up than i feel) who likes a more than an occasional pint of beer, you’d think that i’d be well behind current initiatives to get more women into the wonderful world of beer drinking. even more so because my better half is a craft brewer/brewery owner, so any increase in trade has to be good financially. but, hand on heart, i can’t say that i am. and it’s not just because i like to jealously guard all the beer for myself. although that may be part of it.

it’s definitely not that i think women shouldn’t drink beer, or that they shouldn’t drink pints. i guess what i object to is the exclusivity and overly patronising tone of many current initiatives [i’m trying to resist linking to some of them - i don’t want to single them out or make this personal, and i’m sure that most of them mean very well. except possibly for the ones trying to make a name/reputation/fortune for themselves ]. and i also flinch at the way that it’s all too easy to play on the role of woman-as-weaker-sex-and-therefore-needing-special-attention-and-approval-and-validation-of-other-women-rather-than-making-decisions-for-themselves. don’t get me wrong, i’m as easily distracted by chocolate and shiny things as the next girl and while i rarely cry at films, i’m not *especially* butch.

however, i started drinking pints of beer when i was 16. and over the intervening (*cough*) 18 years (*cough*) i’ve noticed attitudes change. comments along the lines of “big pint for a little girl like you?” or “you do realise that’s beer, don’t you love?” are less common now than they were back then. they haven’t disappeared completely, and i doubt they ever will (no more than the howls of cackling that will ever cease to meet a man who admits going to yoga classes. or similar). neither do i think they should disappear – but the point surely isn’t to shy away from them, or to retreat into women-only drinking sessions (or, erm, men-only yoga sessions), or to go back to the days when women would be given a lady’s glass for a beer. surely the point should be to debate, to challenge, to laugh along at what are generally non-hostile comments and ultimately to (*gasp*) educate people about drinking beer? even my poor old gran eventually got over the shame of having a pint-loving beer-swigging granddaughter (and as she was fond of telling me, she had *never* been drunk. except for that one time she fell in a gutter.).

so where are my problems with women-only tasting sessions, or glasses designed specifically for women? to begin with, setting up real ale tasting sessions that exclude men present me with a couple of problems. the first one is the exclusivity of it. there are plenty of people out there who have never tried real ale – or maybe they tried it once, found it unpalatable, and never went back. i was lucky enough to love it from the outset, but i know that’s fairly uncommon. we’ve worked several beer festivals and you can always spot a few stragglers behind a group, looking desperately for something they can recognise. with enough encouragement, many of them will sidle up to the bar and ask something along the lines of “have you got any lager?” or (my own personal favourite) “have you got anything that doesn’t taste like beer?”. sometimes they’re women, but from my experience they’re as likely to be men. and by just taking a few minutes out of the day to talk to them, find out what (if anything) they don’t think they like about beer, what kind of tastes they usually go for, and giving them a few little tasters, the vast majority of the time you can find something to suit them. and they walk away happy. a few minutes of your time, and a bit of understanding. i don’t doubt that there are women out there who think that they need a women only group. but how many of them will then feel confident away from the group-hug approachhow many of them will remember the beer rather than the self-congratulatory exclusive experience in a separate area? and how many of them would be pleasantly surprised to know that there are plenty of men out there who struggle with the same doubts and uncertainties, and need the same sort of advice after all?

the glasses thing is a slightly different issue. by starting to discuss the ‘problems’ with traditional pint glasses for women, by extension you start to suggest that there’s something abnormal about women who find pint glasses ok as they are, thank you very much. i’m happy to be abnormal but personally, i don’t want to be asked if i want a lady’s glass when i order a pint or – even worse – to be given one automatically. i don’t want to step back to the time when it was ok or accepted for women to drink one sort of drink, not others; or where it’s ok for them to wear certain sorts of trousers, not others. i know there are women out there who stray away from pints because they don’t find the glasses appealing – and you know what? that’s *their* choice, and i’d find it patronising if someone was trying to force a different drink or a different measure onto me. again, surely it’s more valuable long term to challenge the notion that traditional pints = not suitable for girls, but also to accept that: a) if you’re happier with a half, then go for it; and b) that if you want to try a pint, it really doesn’t matter if it feels a bit blokey to start with – you’ll get used to it, and so will whoever’s opinion you’re worried about. and if they don’t get used to it, they’re probably not that worth worrying about anyway.

equally, surely it’s more important that a glass suits the beer that’s served in it – that it enhances the experience of drinking, tasting, smelling the beer? a pint for me is something to be savoured (unless i’m late for a train) and the traditional pint glass does that very nicely. belgian beers on the other hand come with a range of fancy pants glasses depending on style/brand, ranging from the almost-phallic to the chalice to the cut crystal vase. and you don’t find blokes asking for something a bit more masculine, do you? i was in a bar the other night when someone asked for “a pint of that strawberry beer, in a suitably girly glass, for him”. true enough, a pint of foaming pink fruli was delivered in something akin to a carnation vase and, after a bit of light taunting, everyone settled back to what they were talking about before. a few of his mates even snuck a taste out of this outrageously girly drink. i’m not sure what the point of that anecdote is but you know what? i’m off for a pint. in a proper glass.

bacchus to the future

last weekend saw us trade the d.i.y.-oh-why offensive (which has somewhat taken over our lives recently) for a 2-day trip up north.

bacchus presents...

 the main reason for this was an 8-course food and brew company beer pairing extravaganza at the bacchus in newcastle on the sunday – but we figured it’d be rude not to spend some more time in the city sampling a few beers. so on saturday morning, off we trotted to the station for what proved to be a remarkably glitch-free train journey.

saturday was spent pootling around some of the excellent pubs on offer in newcastle. stand-out amongst these was the  crown posada - a gem of a city centre pub with an intriguing looking exterior and decor to match. it was also packed to the rafters within a few minutes of the doors being opened at midday and – incidentally – had a good offering of sandwiches behind the bar to soak up some of the ales that were available :) i was pleased to discover jarrow beers that afternoon – we had some excellent rivet catcher, and jarrow bitter: the latter was surprisingly pale and refreshing, but had a lovely bitterness to it, and i’ll definitely look out for more of their beers in future.

we ended up later on saturday evening filling our boots in rasa, a fantastic keralan restaurant. in hindsight, with the prospect of an 8-course dinner the following day, we should probably have skipped the desert. and we could very possibly have survived without appetisers and starters, but you know how it is…plus, we needed something to soak up the beers/gin + tonics. ooops.

anyway, all of that was a mere prelude to the main event on sunday. bacchus was due to open at midday so, at about 11.50, we wandered nonchalantly up to the pub and hung around for a bit looking from side to side, trying desperately not to look, well, desperate. a couple of other small groups of people were gathering nearby in a similar fashion so we didn’t feel too self-conscious – especially when one of our fellow loiterers turned out to be ToonBeerFest, a fellow tweeter and beer blogger.

now then. we’d had a couple of pints in bacchus the previous afternoon, so we knew they could look after their beer, but we had no idea what to expect from the food. we had a chat with the chef at the bar, and got a first look at the menu – at which point it became clear that there was going to be some serious eating involved. the write up of the courses was mouthwatering (this is one ginsoak who was feeling tempted to let her vegetarian status lapse for the day) and it was nice to see the thought that had gone into courses/beers that either complemented or contrasted with one another. it was also interesting to see that the order wasn’t dictated by the usual progression from pale-to-dark – and fair to say that we were giddy with anticipation by the time we sat down.

it was a nicely informal/relaxed set up - mr brew company did a quick general introduction to the whole group, and then had a chat with each small group as the courses and accompanying beers came out. and boy did those courses keep coming!

first up was abyss best bitter paired with duck liver parfait and toasted brioche:

abyss best bitter with duck liver parfait

this looked fantastic – the pairing had been chosen to match the “sweetness of the duck [with] the toffee sweetness in the beer”, while the bitterness would balance this up. abyss is a great traditional style best bitter with lovely roasted flavours, and a hint of toffee which rounds it off. this is the first time it’s been available since it took gold in the best bitter category (making it best best bitter…?) at the oakwood beer festival, and it’s a welcome re-addition in my book.

slaker pale ale with thai crab salad

the second course was slaker pale ale with thai crab salad served in raddicho. the colours in this were fantastic and, as with the first course, the consensus was that the pairing was perfectly judged. slaker is light, fruity  and refreshing – and has a lot more body/flavour than most other 3.8% pales. the light lager hops balanced with biscuity malt make it a beer that appeals to a wide range of tastes (and on a summer’s day, it’s perhaps a little too easy to drink as a session ale!). 

hop manifesto with mexicana tart

next up was hop manifesto – a beer brewed by steel city brewing at the brew company as a result of a new partnership – with mexicana cheese tart:  i stole a small piece of the tart – it was gorgeous, a lovely proper dense filling with melt-in the mouth pastry, and the intense hoppiness of the beer cut through it brilliantly.

roast!

at this point, i was very happy to accept delivery of a vegetarian roast dinner. this was seriously good – 2 forms of potatoes (roast *and* mashed – yes!), a yorkshire pudding (heaven…) and some of the most perfectly cooked carrots i’ve ever had. (i don’t often get excited at the thought of carrots, by the way.)

moving swiftly onwards before i turn into a vegetable-obsessed blogger, course number 4 was st petrus stout with fresh oysters, lemon juice and coriander.

st petrus stout with oysters

 now, regardless of what you think of oysters (opinion amongst the diners appeared to be split 50/50 between heavenly/*ack*) there’s no denying that it’s a classic combination of flavours and textures. st petrus is a great dry stout with well defined roasted flavours from the malt, and plenty of body. almost chompable (which i’m assured is a technical term).

the next course provided a perfect balance to the richness of the stout and oysters. the zestyness of hop ripper ipa was matched with thai fried noodles, with the “citrus dryness” chosen to stand up to the thai spices:

hop ripper with thai fried noodles

the ipa was very well conditioned with lovely citrussy freshness; the aroma from the noodles was fantastic – and by this point i was excitedly anticipating the dessert courses, where i’d be able to join in the food again

one last savoury course first, though, which came in the form of tantalus belgian-style dubbel with sticky pork spare ribs. tantalus is a new special, which was brewed for the battle of the beers competition at the chesterfield market beer festival – and which went on to win bronze medal – yay!  it’s a lovely dark, dry malty belgian-style ale (there’s a yeastyness that seems to transport you straight to a dark wintry belgian bar) and the “honey-glazed surface” of the ribs was chosen to match. please note mr brew company’s impatience at this point with me trying to take fancy photos of the food and beer before he tucked into them:

tantalus belgian-style dubbel with sticky pork spare ribs

now it was time for the 2 (count them – 2!) puddings. any meal that includes 2 sweet courses is ok in my book – especially when that meal comes with 8 fantastic ales – and this was no exception. first up was autumnus spiced porter paired with dark chocolate and courgette brownies.

autumnus porter with brownies

i’d managed to have a sneaky pint of autumnus in sheffield the week before – which is more than the brewer had managed to do – and it was fast becoming one of my favourite wintry drinks. the brownies were perfection – dry on the outside, dense and fudgy in the centre – and the dark chocolate was a fantastic match for the delicate nutmeg and cinnamon spices in the beer.

the final course came in the shape of raisin to live black chocolate stout and strawberry creme brulee. you may have gathered that i like chocolate, so it’ll be no surprise that i was looking forward to this. the stout was another special, brewed as a one-off for the sheffield beer festival in october – an exceptionally well-balanced stout enriched with tons (well, maybe not tons, but lots) of dark belgian chocolate and plump raisins. be warned: this does not taste like a 7% stout. at least, it doesn’t if you have it in small amounts. a couple of pints in, you soon start to realise that the world is becoming a little bit fuzzy around the edges though…

raisin to live chocolate stout with brulee

i’ll admit to being a bit cynical about the creme brulee – i’ve had some bad brulees in the past. on a scale of bad experiences in life this isn’t really such a traumatic thing, but nonetheless they’re never top of my afters-list. happily, however, this redeemed them forever in my eyes. it had a perfect glassy finish on top with a gorgeous burnt sugar flavour, and the inside was gooey, creamy and delicate with moist strawberry pieces. perfection – and a fantastic way to round off a brilliant sunday afternoon!

well, when i say round off, i’d be lying if i said we’d stopped there. we still had a couple of hours to kill before the train back to sheffield, so there was nothing for it but to have a couple more pints and some strong liquor while we were waiting. it seemed a shame to leave the bacchus, so we stayed put – it’s a fantastically friendly and welcoming bar, and the team there have a great way of making you feel comfortable. not to mention well fed and watered – 10/10 for proper northern hospitality!

i’d heartily recommend the bacchus to anyone. as hinted at above, the team looking after the place are some of the friendliest and most welcoming you could hope to meet. in fact, on the basis of last weekend, i’m almost tempted to make a day trip up there just for the roast…

blip foto

i’ve started blipping! or possibly fotoing – not sure which. anyway, i figured this might help motivate me to blog as well as start taking photos more regularly again (something to do with momentum, i think. let’s see, shall we?). in the meantime, here’s a link to today’s entry, brought to you by a glum dreary drizzle autumn day:

autumnal goodness

pip pip!

from the secret diary of will buckley

dear diary

there’s this girl at school, right, who’s like totally cool and totally out of my league and i think she’s great except she doesn’t seem to know who i am and she never talks to me in the playground and i once told her a joke and she didn’t laugh at it at all. everyone seems to like her – she’s got like a MILLION friends and everything and she’s really good at the tambourine. i really like her. and there’s this totally annoying boy – he thinks he’s so funny, and everyone else thinks he’s funny too – even the teachers think he’s funny which is weird, and he gets to hang around with all the boys on the school cricket team all the time which is like really strange but even worse than that this girl thinks he’s funny too. and he’s not. and i mean it’s just like so embarrasing really, especially when they like talk to each other in public.

so anyway today at school i did something that was just like so totally funny and i’d talked about it to my friend harvey (who everyone else pretends doesn’t exist, like they can’t see him at all, because they’re all so immature and stupid) and harvey agreed it was like the FUNNIEST THING IN THE WORLD EVER, really clever. it was my turn to be editor on the school newspaper so what i did right was i wrote this totally hilarious piece about how pathetic this stupid boy was and about how he was all over this girl (who i really fancy, but who won’t talk to me) and how like totally and utterly embarrasing it is and i snuck it into the school newspaper so that everyone would see how totally funny I am and how pathetic he is and how lovely she is.

except, because everyone else in the playground is stupid and not clever and nowhere near as good as me – and because this boy told some friends that i’d upset him, and then this girl started defending him which was just like totally pathetic (even though i do fancy her) – everyone started picking on me and i got told to go and see the headteacher and the headteacher told me to say i’m sorry. so i had to like stand up in front of everyone in the playground – those stupid kids in the playground always get things wrong, they’re just so stupid and not as clever as me and they don’t have a sense of humour AT ALL – and say that i was sorry even though i wasn’t sorry so i kind of said ’sorry’ but i said it with my fingers crossed behind my back and i think everyone knows that i wasn’t really sorry at all.

anyway, they’re all IDIOTS!

why does she like him and not me?

will

we re-gained the fucking ashes!

i do apologise for my language. i’d love to apologise for my single minded, obsessive and over-frequent tweets, too, but i won’t. this has been a sodding marvelous few weeks. if i weren’t so wined-up, i’d post my review of the series here and now, but i’m a bit too tipsy to do that. so, here are a few random, tipsy thoughts:

• we re-gained the fucking ashes!!!
• it’s been a good series for twitter – i’ve enjoyed following the insane ramblings of many tweeters; i’ve made some new friends, and undoubtedly lost many others. ho hum.
• swanny (http://twitter.com/swannyg66) is an absolute fucking hero. top all round bloke, top cricketer, and just bloody marvellous. *hugs*
• jimmy (http://twitter.com/jimmyanderson9) is also fab. despite being from the wrong side of the pennines. and despite saying that swanny has the profile of a witch… *hugs* anyway.
• has anyone noticed that we re-gained the ashes?
• stuart broad – for the first time ever, australia have been the side without the prettiest blondest player. broady, you’re a star, for your bowling and your happy, bouncy, tigger-esque celebrations. technically, i’m old enough to be your mother (slight exaggeration there – but very very slight) which makes me feel old and weird, but you’re lovely anyway. *hugs*
• punter. oh punter. secretly, i’ve always liked you, always respected you. and now, i’m watching the highlights, and although i’m ecstatically happy that we won (whoop! whoop! whoop!) i’d like to offer you a big virtual *hug*. you’ve tried to hide your nice-guy side for a long time but we’ve always known: you’re a fighter, a gent, and an amazing player. you’re bound to cop some stick from the press, but they can bollocks – you’re a star. oh, and you’re hard as nails. respect.
• we re-gained the ashes!!!
• bumble (http://twitter.com/bumblecricket) – what can i say? you’re a legend in your own commentary box. and out of it. legend.
• the delightfully lovely, funny, and silly tweets of the two captains (http://twitter.com/straussvponting) – star. or stars? great fun anyway.
• straussy – oh straussy! passed over for the captaincy before, but boy did you show your quality this time. and you recovered from the voice breaking emotion in the post-match presentation.

mainly, though, the spirit of cricket won. i know that sounds soppy (i told you i was tipsy) but really. big up to everyone.

YOM!

i likesh beer…*hic*

so. there you go. 3 days of the oregon beer fest, and we’re all out of tokens. i meant to blog about each day of the festival but, inexplicably, lost my camera lead. i know, it’s possible to blog without pictures, but it just didn’t seem right. so here, for your enjoyment (or annoyance, whichever way you want to look at it) is a quick run-down of the highlights of the festival. i probably won’t go through all the beers i tried, just my faves – though i have to say, for probably the first time *ever* i didn’t try a beer that wasn’t up to scratch. before starting on the beers, big up to the nice people at the flying elephants delicatessen for providing a very excellent breakfast burrito and peanut cookie on the first morning – some much needed stomach lining, and some cool art on the walls too:

waiter, waiter, there's an elephant in my soup...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

elephants elephants elephants

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

anyway, beer. first up was marin brew co bluebeery ale (yes, i am reading this off the programme that i ticked. oh dear…). it was nice – very subtley (sp?) flavoured, but pleasant. someone who hadn’t tried it told me that their friend had rather cruelly described it as ’soapy’ – having never eaten soap, i don’t feel qualified to comment, but it certainly didn’t taste like i’d imagine soap to taste.

next up was one of my favourites – caldera hibiscus ginger beer. quite delicately gingered, but nice. and in this heat, very refreshing too.

(at this point, i feel at pains to point out that i don’t usually go for fruity beers – but this time, most of what i had was fruited or spiced in some way. maybe it’s the heat; maybe it’s the fact that while i love the heavily hopped ipas, after a while they all start to blend into one for me. anyway, enough excuses – most of what follows will read like a fruit beer menu.)

see? just as i start to make excuses about the light fruity beers, i check my list and see that the next one i had was laht neppur brewing company’s neddy’s brown nut brown ale (i’m sure there are too many browns in that description, but i type as i see). this was gorgeous – dark ales are what i tend to go for most of the time, and it was lovely and rich. very malty in flavour, barely any hops. yummy.

next i went for a peach beer – dogfish head festina peche. i like dogfish head beers, but have had a bad experience with a peach beer before, so was quite nervous about this one. i went for a sample taste rather than a full mug…but was soon back for a full mug i guess i’d describe this one as an acquired taste – quite sour, and a bit like a gueuze in its tartness (but then i love gueuze, so am probably quite biased).

cheers!

this may or may not be a picture of the peche. who really knows (or cares).

however, next up is one of my other favourites – bridgeport brewery’s stumptown tart. crazy name? really *really* gorgeous beer. apparently, a ton of sour cherries go into each batch, and it’s made with a belgian yeast. *SLURPS* – my mouth is watering just thinking about it, absolutely beautiful. [i wanted to go back for this for my final beer of the festival, but it had all gone by early afternoon saturday. ]

i think my other nearly-favourite was bison brewing organic chocolate stout. this tasted uncannily like mr brew company’s very excellent eclipse porter (for those of you who’ve tried it) - dark, smooth and roasted. and very very quaffable, no matter what the weather.

self portrait

talking of the weather, it was really, really hot, so i decided to treat myself to a beer festival straw hat to keep the sun off. here’s a self portrait to prove it.

there were a few more beers that day, but let’s move swiftly on. the following were all consumed at some point over the next couple of days [sprinkle in some repeats of the above beers, too ] :

• kona brewing coconut brown ale – nice, and quite dry – i’d had a horrible experience with a coconut beer at a festival in the uk once, so needed to see whether it was a one-off or just that coconut doesn’t go with beer. am happy to report that this one was quaffable, not at all like the disgustingly cloyingly sweet one that i’d tried before.
• cascade brewing raspberry wheat – i ended up having quite a few of these – it smelled like fresh raspberry canes and had a lovely earthy taste. verrrrry nice indeeed.
• vertigo raspberry wheat – or maybe it was this one that i had quite a few of? i *think* this one was a little drier than the other one…but in all honesty, i can’t really remember. either way, it was excellent

and now – well, we’re out of tokens. all done. the festival carries on until tomorrow – but the first couple of days were definitely the best in terms of shorter wait times for beer. the food has been really good too – lots of fast food joints, including  beer crust pizza and some very lovely beer battered onion rings (yomf!). all in all, it’s been excellent – friendly, lots of happy people, and some ingenious ‘free rain’ stations where they mist you a fine spray of water to keep cool. the festival is definitely recommended for anyone who gets the chance to travel here. i’ll be v sad to leave portland on monday…but we still have one day of exploring left, and am sure we’ll be back one day soon.

so much beer, so little time!

day 2, portland. today started with the immortal words “what can we do today that doesn’t involve drinking  solidly?” (i think mr brew company was regretting getting the 2 litre take out from deschutes, and drinking the lot). after some confusion about where we were heading to get breakfast (it’s a long story…) we ended up going for a walk out into the suburbs in north portland. it was a nice walk, but ultimately breakfast-free, and by the time we’d circled back into the city it was time for dinner (or ‘lunch’, if you’re that way inclined. anyway, it was nearly midday). and whaddaya know! we were near deschutes again. oops.

now, i’m a big fan of brew pub food. i had a lovely pint of cascade while trying to decide what to eat, finally settling for the veggie burger. i know, i know, vegetarianism sucks, but this was made with spent grains from the brewery. and look at the fricking size of it!:

oh burger

i’ve never had guacamole on a burger before (at least i hope that’s what the green stuff was…) but it was lovely. there was absolutely no need for me to eat the whole thing…but of course i did. and of course then i was in need of something to wash it down with.

the nice bloke behind the bar offered me a taster of their belgian quad. now, a taster of a 9% beer in the uk would probably be non-existent, but here it appears to equate to about a 1/3 of a pint. *slurs drunkenly – i lovesh portland* needless to say, the taster was all the encouragement needed for us to order 2 full ones (1 standard quad, 1 cherry quad which had had sour cherries added during fermentation – almost lambic like in its smell, but much smoother in flavour). win!

cheers!

at this point, we tore ourselves away from the bar so as not to spend the whole afternoon sinking exceptionally strong beer. that would never do, would it? instead, we went for a short amble over to bridgeport brewing (seriously, you weren’t expecting a trip to the library or a museum, were you?). these are probably some of the more english-style beers that i’ve tried since we’ve been here – slightly flatter, and not as aggresively hopped – but very acceptable! i started off with a haymaker pale, then we decided to share a sampler tray of the 8 beers on offer:

sample tray

i think my favourite was the blackstrap stout – it tastes like it sounds, very smooth and with a nice hint of molasses in the background (mr brew company is under the mistaken impression that i had more than my fair share of the stout – quite frankly, i don’t believe it for a second). we then bought 3 mugs and an extortionate number of beer tokens for the beer festival, which starts tomorrow (whoop! whoop!):

beer tokens! whoop!

we’d been advised to stock up in advance to avoid the queues at the gate, and most of the breweries around here seem to be co-ordinating well with the festival, selling tokens and offering transport between their bars and the festival. i have to say, though, on the strength of the last few days, i’m struggling to imagine how there could possibly be more choice on offer. but it’ll be a hell of an adventure trying to get around them anyway >:s

my only regret about bridgeport was the fact that i was still to full of burger to try any of the lovely smelling baked goods on offer there – the smell of coconut cake alone was amazing – but i decided against it and we had a slow amble back to the hotel via the backstreets. it’s an intriguing looking area that’s had a lot of redevelopment/regeneration over the past 10 years or so (as a very nice, chatty couple told us in deschutes bar):

carton service?pella

doing our bit for economic recovery!

so, our first full day in portland. we succumbed to the fact that everyone (and i mean *everyone*) was walking around with starbucks cups and headed there for breakfast. turned out to be a very good choice, although on reflection it was probably a mistake to have 3 cups of coffee before 9 o’clock in the morning.

mr  brew company had noticed an enticing looking area on the map called “brewery blocks”. well, it would have been rude not to check it out, wouldn’t it? obviously it was still way too early to get a beer but we did a good job of getting our bearings for later that day, locating henry’s tavern, deschutes brewery, and rogue ales. the sun was out, the streets were quiet, and everything was looking just perfect.

now what to do while waiting for the pubs to open? only one thing for it – help the economy get back on its feet by selflessly spending money! first stop, doc martens shop (i’ve always had a weakness for dms), then macys (whoop!), then billabong. 2 pairs of shoes (1 pair each), 1 dress (mine, not mr brew company’s, obviously), and numerous tops later and we were feeling quite weighed down. and hungry. cue a trip to the original india chaat house food cart for curried loveliness:

yomf!

 

curry in a hurry?

(you can read about the strange goings on and the curry wars here - all very odd, but the curry was v nice!).

at this point the day took a rather, ahem, predictable turn, as our attention turned to beer. now, clearly my memory of what we drank gets a little hazy towards the end of the day, but here’s a quick run down of sorts. firstly, in henry’s tavern, i had the odd sounding but utterly lovely watermelon wheat beer (very subtle watermelon flavour, very refreshing). i then drooled over (though not into, honest) a very delicious black cherry chocolate stout:

this was absolutely gorgeous – definite cherry flavours and just a hint of dark chocolate, in a lovely dark and slightly sweet stout. i guess we should have moved on at this stage – and i *know* that mixing beer and cider is a bad thing to do – but i couldn’t resist a pint of spire dark and dry cider, made with a hint of molasses:

oops!

check the colour on that! it was lovely – and tasted quite earthy.

after that, it was time for a quick shuffle over to rogue ales. this is a great little bar, and i couldn’t resist a few (2? 3? who knows) hazlenut brown ales (we’d tried this earlier in the summer at the good food show, so it was only fair to try it on tap in the name of research). i’m happy to report that it more than lived up to expectations – one of those beers that tastes like it smells, lovely subtle hazlenut flavours in a really good base ale.

dare, risk, dream (DRINK!)

then we headed over to deschutes (well, it was on the way back to the hotel…) for a few mirror pond ipas. on reflection, i think deschutes is probably one of my favourites – the mirror pond was gorgeous, really nicely hopped and quite bitter. but after a few of those, it really was time to head back for some much needed sleep. this 8 hour time difference is seriously interfering with my drinking, goddamn it!

welcome to portland!

so, after we’d landed, and queued for an hour to get through border control, mr brew company uttered what turned out to be quite fateful words: “well, after that wait, at least there’ll be no excuse for our bags not to have arrived”. ho ho ho.

well my bag was sitting there, but i watched the conveyor belt go round and round a few times with a growing sense of dread. no sign of mr brew company’s bag, and no more bags coming down the chute. whoops. after trying to convince us that we might not have seen it and checking the labels on every bag that was left in case we’d forgotten what it looked like (“no, it’s not that pink one, it’s a green one. no, it’s not that black hessian bag either, it’s a green one.” etc, etc) the baggage handler conceded that it might not be there after all and we should go and talk to an agent outside. turned out the bag never made it out of schipol, and was due to arrive later that night. by now, things were looking less than promising and, having left our hotel address so they could deliver the bag, we headed out to the light rail station for the final leg of the trip.

oh my! sunshine! lovely hot sunshine, not a cloud in the clear blue sky, and a nice dry non-humid heat. and sunshine! suddenly, things started to look up. all we needed now was to get to the city, find the hotel, and pray that there was a brew pub nearby for some much needed ale.

you know when you have a fixed image of exactly what you want? well since we’d set out, i had this fixed image of a dark high ceilinged brew pub where we could sit at the bar, and down a few beers, browsing a food menu and probably have some nachos or something. by this point in the trip, that was what was keeping me going. enter the rock bottom brewery! it was the first thing we saw when we got off the light rail, which we took as a sign that the trip was finally coming together and, having dropped out bags at the hotel (ok, so we got a little bit lost on the way, but it’s a lovely hotel) we headed straight back to the rock bottom brewery.

dark wood! high ceilings! beer – lots of lovely lovely beer! and nachos! it was everything i’d been waiting for, and just what we needed after the trip. it’s just a shame that 4 pints and 1 plate of nachos in, the fact that we’d been on the go for nearly 24 hours suddenly hit us and we had to retire for some much needed sleep. and i neglected to take pictures – but i guess we’ll just have to go back to get more evidence

klm = :(

first up, apologies for starting out with a grumpy post. we’re here now, the weather was lovely yesterday, and the beer/bar food even more lovelier. we’re in an ace hotel, just a few blocks away from where the beer festival is (whoop!) so not far to stumble home drunk. *however*…

i knew it was too much to hope for. firstly there was the online check-in failure from home, when everything looked ok then it presented us with a blank screen on the seat selection page; then a second online check-in failure when we were in manchester and it refused to recognise the same details that it had happily recognised a few hours earlier. but when we actually went to talk to a klm rep at the airport on sunday afternoon, we really did think that would be it. i mean, when someone says “i’ve allocated your seats on both legs of the flight, all you need to do is use the kiosks to check in in the morning, drop your bags off, and you’re set” you’d like to believe them. he even said that there was no need to turn up 2 hours before the flight.

well. luckily, due to a bout of insomnia (yes, i did end up paying £4.20 for a bottle of peroni at 2 o’clock in the morning – ooops) we were at the airport 2 hours before the flight, figuring we’d have plenty of time for breakfast, and maybe even a breakfast pint. ha! no such luck.

now i have to say that manchester airport has never looked so pretty:

early morning blues

and at this point, everything was looking good. we duly headed to the kiosks to do the final bit of check in…to find out that they’d unallocated our seats. grrr. we went through the check in process on the screen, pressed ‘print boarding passes’ and waited. mr brew company’s boarding pass appeared, mine didn’t. instead, there was a nice message saying that there had been an error and to see an agent. at this point there was a huge queue at the baggage drop counter so we walked over to the desk and explained what had happened to the agent who was sat there. now, maybe i expect too much, but when the person at the desk has a face like she’s been sucking lemons, and sounds pissed off from the minute she opens her mouth, that’s not a good start. she sourfacedly pointed out that “you have to queue over there, i can’t print your boarding pass”.

*sigh* so we walked over to the baggage drop queue, which was looking suspiciously unlike a baggage drop, and more like a queue of really annoyed people who hadn’t moved anywhere for a few months. it’s less the fact that klm had screwed up that annoyed me, and more the attitude of their staff – excuse after excuse from them. and i’m sorry (well, actually i’m not) but when i’m having problems with a company’s lack of service, the last thing i want is their so-called customer service agents complaining back at me about how difficult their job is. just bleeding well sort it out, ok? needless to say, there was no time for breakfast, let alone a breakfast pint

< / end rant >