Dave Knows Portland

Archives for March 2010

April 2-3: Spring Beer & Wine Fest 2010

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Spring Beer and Wine Fest 2010The 16th annual Spring Beer & Wine Fest takes place at the Convention center (777 NE MLK) on Friday and Saturday, April 2nd and 3rd.

Festival-goers will enjoy samples of more than 80 craft beers, 30 regional wineries and many local artisan spirits, plus delectable tastes of specialty cheese and handcrafted chocolate, all while mingling with brewers, winemakers and other craftspeople. In addition, the festival will also offer a global shopping marketplace, cooking demonstrations and educational seminars on the Chef’s Stage, and live music featuring Northwest bands including Keegan Smith & the Fam.

This is perhaps the only regularly occurring local beer festival that I have not ever visited . . . and dangit, I’m going to miss it again this year (I’ll be out of town). Maybe next year! Some of the stuff I’ll be missing:

There are about a million vendors (okay maybe I exaggerate a bit – but there are a lot), beer and wine competitions, a Tour de Cheese and Chocolatiers, and live music.

Both days the fest runs from noon-11pm. Admission is free the first two hours each day, but $5 after 2pm. For $20 you get a tasting glass or plastic beer mug and 10 tokens (standard $1 each for extras). Kids are welcome, with accompanying adults of course, until 7pm (under 12 get in free).

March 25: BrewHOG Blowout at North 45 Pub

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North 45 Brew HogNorth 45 Pub (517 NW 21st) invites you to the 1st Annual BrewHOG Blowout, this Thursday, March 25th from 4pm to 10pm under the covered patio.

Every Thursday evening from New Years until St. Patrick’s Day, North 45 hosted a guest brewer with a featured beer, and served up barbecued pork ribs. They called this Brew Hog, 2010.

Now that we’ve celebrated St. Patty’s Day (or St. Unicorn’s Day, as the case may be), and spring is nigh, the North 45 folks have planned one more BrewHog – the Blowout.

Join us at our 1st Annual BrewHOG Blowout! 10 different breweries represented pouring beers on our heated & tented back patio. Come try some beers never released to the public! Beer mugs and tokens available for purchase at the door. No cover charge. Enjoy barbequed ribs and local brews from 4-10pm!

According to The Beer Here, breweries represented at the blowout include Captured by Porches, Lagunitas, 10 Barrel, Cascade, Caldera, Upright, Mad River, Bridgeport, Amnesia and Mac ‘n’ Jacks — plus special beers such as Miskatonic Dark Rye from Captured by Porches, and Damnesia Belgian Golden Strong Ale from Amnesia. Whew!

My Take on The Life Portlandic

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The Life PortlandDoug Zanger and I recorded a conversation Tuesday evening about the blog, the Portland Timbers [and of course Doug’s goal!], pinball, poutine, Portland’s day in the sun, bus routes, and stylish eyewear.

If any of that sounds mildly interesting to you [cheers!], tune into The Life Portlandic (TLP) on PDX.am at 9am today to listen (or visit the website or iTunes page shortly after the broadcast to download the podcasts).

(The interview will be split into three parts, broadcast on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, March 24-26.)

I’d like to thank Doug Zanger for the opportunity to be on his show. Pre-blog and pre-TLP, he and I used to work together (in a demonstration of how small a town Portland is). We only recently put the pieces together to determine this. Tuesday’s visit to the Bull Mountain Studio afforded us an opportunity to catch up, and, I hope, we got a decent interview out of it (at times I was not completely inarticulate).

Oh, and Heather from Mile73.com makes a special appearance during the interview!

Enchanted Forest Open for the 2010 Season

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Enchanted ForestI am determined, this year, to visit the Enchanted Forest.

The park is now open – every day until March 29th, then weekends through April, and regular summer hours starting in early May.

I haven’t been to this curious amusement park off of I-5 south of Salem since I was a kid. According to the website the Ice Mountain Bobsleds were built in 1983, and if I recall correctly it was under construction when I last visited. That’s how friggin’ long it’s been.

At the Charles Phoenix show in Portland two years ago the Enchanted Forest was reintroduced to my consciousness, when in addition to his usual mid-century schtick, Charles Phoenix threw in some colorful slides taken on his recent visit to the Enchanted Forest; photos of the hand crafted characters and buildings I remember vaguely from my childhood visits. He gave us some of the history, about how against great odds Roger Tofte began building the park in the 60s, and how now it’s still a family run business. Roger Tofte and several family members were in the audience, and when Charles Phoenix asked them to rise they received a standing ovation.

When I got home that night after the show I immediately went online and bought an Enchanted Forest t-shirt and hoodie (the latter being a great score because now it’s only available in children’s sizes!).

I had planned to visit the following season, but with a busy spring and summer I forgot about it again. And then the Portland Mercury did an awesome feature on the park last summer [I wish they’d do a lot more hard hitting journalism like this!], and again my interest was piqued.

So mark my words, this year I will visit the Enchanted Forest. I will drag Heather along with me and between us we will blog the hell out of our visit. I promise.

Thanks to Trashbag for the Enchanted Forest photo

Hair of the Dog is Moving

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Hair of the DogOne of my favorite breweries, Hair of the Dog is moving to a new location with more space for brewing and a tasting room with a small food menu and regular hours, according to owner and brewer Alan Sprints.

The new location will open sometime in May. The new address is 61 SE Yamhill Street (or so I gather from the Facebook page info), which places it a very pub crawlable few blocks west of the Green Dragon and Cascade Brewing‘s new pub, the Cascade Barrel House – also opening soon, and a few blocks north of the Hawthorne Lucky Lab and Roots Brewing. And to further the awesome, Distillery Row kinda connects them all!

I first learned of this news at Beernews.org, which has more, including the video below, where Alan talks about the move: