My wife and I, God bless her soul seriously, decided to take a road trip to the US for our honeymoon. During this road trip we stopped in a handful of places in Oregon and we visited Davis California, our future temporary home. I won’t get in to the details of our honeymoon, but I will elaborate on some beer related insights, which I’m sure many are familiar with. First, I was blown away by the sophistication of the breweries I visited, the quality and variety of the beers they had on tap and the sheer number of breweries I came across. We only had a day and a half in Portland and a couple of days in Bend, and there were a lot of other things we wanted to do then visit breweries. But still we got to visit Breakside, Rouge, Cascade, Hopworks, Lompoc, Deschutes (Bend and Portland), Crux, Boneyard and McMenamins. We wanted to keep going but our beer bellies told us we needed to go snowshoeing instead.  But wow, what a list and just scratching the surface.

Breakside was a must visit for me ever since I tried their Wanderlust IPA at Alibi Room. Their idea of an IPA is everything I like about the style: very floural, decently bitter (not over the top), clean and refreshing, moderately strong (6 to 7% ABV), light in colour. No wonder they brought home two top three medals from the GABF for their IPAs. I have to mention Cascade because it truly blew my mind. I have had sour beers here and there and have usually enjoyed them. But it wasn’t until we visited Cascade that I really came to appreciate them. We tasted at least eight of their sours and the two that stood out were their Foudre #1 and Manhattan NW. I really came to appreciate the complexity of these beers and just what is possible with sour beers in general. My wife also declared that sour beers were her favourite style, which comes as no surprise as she has impeccable taste in wine. Figures though that she would choose the most expensive style as her favourite, as the two 750 ml bottles we picked up were $25 and $35 each.

Our short visit to Boneyard Brewing gave me a lot of encouragement for the industry as a whole. As I understand it they began about four years ago on a 20 barrel system. They do not sell bottles or cans, just growler fills and kegs to restaurants. And in a city of 80,000 and 19 Breweries and counting they are planning to expand with another 40 barrel system. Of course their beer is top notch, they have good branding and a cult following, which doesn’t hurt.

We also spent a few hours at Sudwerk in Davis, a place where I will be spending many more hours in the near future.  I got a really good vibe as a customer at Sudwerk. We first hit the back alley ‘tasting room’ consisting of a garage door and picnic tables set out beside the freeway. Then we checked out the brewpub with part of its 15-barrel Caspary brewhouse in the centre of the bar. I had a great time chatting with Chi, one of the locals who admitted he was “there pretty much every day” and enjoys his half pale ale, half pilsner mix, which I nicknamed Chi.P.A. (he seemed to like that better than simply the Chi-special). Seriously this pub reminds me of places my Dad would frequent when I was younger and where I’d pick him up and drop him off once I got my drivers license, always taking the time to see how all the good ol boys are doing.

We also visited a few beer bars in town, University of Beer, Davis Beer Shoppe, and Burgers and Brew. Let me tell you, the people that frequent these places are really excited, and really knowledgeable about beer. When we rolled in to UofB the bar tender told me “man, we have Pliny on tap, everyone is really excited around here”. It helps that UC Davis has a 4 year program and a 2-year Masters program focused on fermentation and brewing, and of course the Extension courses including the MBP I’ll be attending very soon. I have to say I was really excited and a bit intimidated all at once. Oh man, am I ever getting excited…

After Bend we high tailed it back to Canada but headed a bit east and ended up in Nelson, BC for a few days of relaxation and no driving. We hit the slopes on our snowboards at Whitewater and had some of NBC’s Wild Organic Honey Ale between runs at the pub. NBC’s beer is featured in every pub we visited (we did a bit too much drinking over the holidays) and people in town seemed to be pretty loyal to their home town brew. We visited Torchlight, the second brewery in town. It’s nano and was started by two homebrewer buddies, we also found their beer on tap at a couple other pubs. The brewer I spoke to told me that people were excited to have a new brewery in town and that NBC was super supportive, offered to help in any way they could and looked forward to a collaboration brew with them.

Oh man, am I ever getting excited…