Dave Knows Portland

Review: 3rd Annual Cheers to Belgian Beers

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pcbbWe made it to the NW Lucky Lab (1945 NW Quimby) Saturday afternoon to take in a bit of the Cheers to Belgian Beers. I say a bit because we were only there for about an hour (we had to get to the Timbers game!), long enough to try five beers and to witness the Great May 2nd Storm of 2009.

I didn’t take any tasting notes – I seldom do. But I think I can remember a bit about each of the beers I tried:

I enjoyed Amnesia’s Double Whammy enough to go to the brewpub Sunday hunting for a full pint (I succeeded).

Deschutes Portland Pub’s Streaking the Quad was the strongest beer I tried, at 9.4% alcohol, and also the best.

Though Lompoc’s barrel aged Le Chat Noir wasn’t bad.

In homage to my girlfriend, I always try the Heather beers, and Frauline Heather from Silver Moon Brewing was quite good (I’m quite fond of Fraoch Heather Ale).

Pyramid’s Smooth Operator was perfectly named.

This was the first time I’ve made it to Cheers to Belgian Beers. The festival had the same issues with crowds and badly laid out pouring stations that most indoor beer festivals have; but the lines weren’t too long if you could figure out where they started or if there was a line at all. I enjoyed all the beers I tried, and I don’t believe there were any IPAs present, though if there had been a Belgian style IPA I would have wanted to try it!

Some other folks have more to say about the festival than I do:

Review of the Mount Angel Wurstfest: Just rename it Bestfest!

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UPDATE: 2011 Wurstfest is February 12-13!

Wurstfest is the Best fest!Giant Spaten banners fluttered in the breeze outside the Oktoberfest Community Building (500 S Wilco Hwy) in Mount Angel Saturday afternoon. The melodic aspirations of an amplified accordion greeted us as we stepped from the car. The scent of sausage and sauerkraut beckoned.

In the past if you found yourself craving Bavarian-style revelry in the dead of winter, you were out of luck. But those Oktoberfest-minded geniuses in Mount Angel came up with a remedy this year: Wurstfest, a celebration of the mighty German (wurst) sausage.

In the few hours we were there the requisitely lederhosen-clad Greg Meier Alpine Quartet provided the requisite polka music.

Greg Meier Alpine Quartet

At 3pm, after eine, zwei, drei biere, we joined everyone in the beer hall to sing happy birthday to Oregon, in English and then in German.

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We tried the fittingly famous frickadelwurst, with sauerkraut and onions!

What the heck is frickadelwurst?

Besides fun to say, Mount Angel Sausage Company‘s fricadelwurst is a spicy chicken sausage with many different spices that create a medley of different delicious flavors that will explode in your mouth.

Indeed.

The beer was fantastic; Spaten’s Premium Helles, Optimator, Helles Bock, Pilsner, and Franziskaner Hefeweizen were available. The glühwein was good; almost as good as mine.

This was the inaugural Mount Angel Wurstfest. From what I saw, it was clearly a success.

beerhall

Let’s hope it becomes an annual tradition.

Photos courtesy of Mile73.com‘s Heather. Read her blog entry, I Went To A Sausage Fest, to learn about the profane wood carver, and to see video footage of the singing of Zum Geburtstag liebes Oregon.

Culinary road to Portland, in the Oakland Tribune

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As a commenter pointed out recently, it is believed Portland was built on an ancient unicorn burial ground.

Next time you, a Portlander, are interviewed by a reporter from afar, throw that fantastic fact into the conversation, and act as if you believe it. The goal is that someday we’ll be reading in the New York Times about Portland’s grungy flannel hip urban greenness and we’ll also learn that many people believe Portland was built on an ancient unicorn burial ground.

If you think an ancient unicorn burial ground is too far fetched, suggest some alternatives in the comments!

Laurel Miller’s article in the Oakland Tribune, Fork in the Road: Culinary Road to Portland, introduces the reader to boilerplate Portland (emphasis mine):

I have a certain affinity for knit hats, inked skin, loud music and creative types. So it is no surprise that I love Portland, Ore.

When I visited, I stayed at the funky, uber-hip and uber-Portland Ace Hotel, located in the Pearl District.

Grab a seat at the zinc bar or at one of the communal farmhouse tables, and watch the team of tatted, beanied, vintage T-shirted cooks gracefully orchestrate the bustling lunch and dinner service.

Anyway, it goes on and on.

Actually in the second quote above, you’ll notice that the Ace Hotel is “located in the Pearl District”. This is news to me, as I never considered SW Stark Street to be part of the Pearl District. I think I’ve read this before in one of these Portland travelogues; perhaps the marketing department at the Ace Hotel has their own unicorn burial grounds tale to tell . . .

El Blog de Rudy (de Bart King)

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I have a new favorite Trailblazer blog: El Blog de Rudy (not to be confused with el blog de rudy at ADN.es, the newspaper with a Sexo section!)

The blog’s first post in December was merely the (bad) translation into English of a post from Rudy’s Spanish language blog. The Spanish post, ¡Greg Oden es enorme! became ¡Greg Oden is huge!

The blog continued in that vein, with a link to the original Spanish, for the next several posts, but then it got weird(er) . . . some examples:

Now my team heckles my sweaters. This amuses me less than others are.

Sometimes fans say I am like Pistol Pete Maravich. I am not sure about him. He played for the Polish National Team?

Since first being in Portland, I have noticed an oddness. Greg Oden was more anxious in his demeanor at the start of the season. Today, he is more youthful. When I asked him about this, Greg said, “One day you’ll be as old as I am, if you go backward like a crab!”

Then he laughed really hard.

The blog is the brainchild of Bart King (yeah that Bart King).

So yeah, highly recommend.

ScanFair 2008: Sights, sounds, and Pickled Herring

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Saturday morning found us at PSU’s Smith Center for the 24th annual ScanFair, celebrating the sight, sounds, tastes and traditions of a Scandinavian Christmas. The event raises funds for PSU Nordic language classes and the Scandinavian Heritage Foundation, the mission of which is to preserve, communicate and celebrate Scandinavian heritage and culture.

Events like the ScanFair are not really my scene. I’m part Norwegian, and who doesn’t occasionally crave some lutefisk? But the ScanFair is primarily a holiday bazaar; there isn’t even a beer or aquavit garden!?

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