West Coast Beercation

http://beeradvocate.com/community/threads/visiting-portland-fall-winter-2013-14-update.120173/

Portland thread.

 

Aside from recommending Upright in Portland as a must, I can say I did the NW Oregon Pinot Noir tour and was not very impressed.
Now when you get into northern Cal... wine gets quite interesting.
The BV winery in the Napa valley (their Carneros Pinot Noir was excellent) had some memorable tastes, but honestly that whole area had some impressive offerings including some interesting Ports.

 

There are some great wineries in Oregon! I highly recommend going to Soter in the Willamette Valley.

 

I can't disagree with this assessment of Oregon Pinot enough. Willamette Valley Pinots blow most California Pinots out of the water. And the 2012 vintages that were just released are on point.

In the valley, I recommend tasting at Trisaetum, Raptor Ridge, Adelsheim, Brick House.

 

From Seattle I'd recommend at least hitting Fremont, Reuben's (may not be possible depending on day), and Black Raven for breweries. A couple beer bars / shops would be good as well: Brouwer's, Sixgill, Pinebox Noble Fir all have great tap lists (there are many others; I'm just giving some "greatest hits"). For bottle shops check Bottleworks, Chucks, Beer Junction and, if you make it out to Black Raven, Malt & Vine. All these spots have good tap lists too.

There's something of a dead zone brewery wise between Seattle and Portland - I know, people are going to disagree, but there aren't any "must stops".

Portland has it's own thread to check out but I'd say Upright, HotD, Cascade, and Deschutes are the must hit breweries. There's a big second tier: Commons, Base Camp, Ecliptic, Hopworks, Gigantic, Rogue, Laurelwood, Lompoc, and on and on. For shops Belmont Station and Beer Mongers are probably the cream of the crop. They have good tap lists too. I really like Hop & Vine and Seraveza as well; both near each other. I think Hop & Vine is a small bottle shop but IMHO always yields something surprising. Good tap lists at these spots as well. Imperial and Tin Bucket are good spots for growlers - also have bottles and solid taps. Imperial counter pressure fills, so that's a plus. For bars, Apex / Horse Brass / Baileys won't let you down.

If you have time to venture east to Hood River you won't regret it. A nice drive and a beautiful area. Pfriem, Double Mountain, Logsdon, Solera, and Full Sail are out there along with Volcanic Bottle shop.

If you venture West, it's also a beautiful drive ... and though the options are thinner, you do have De Garde and Pelican in Tillamook. Or keep going to Pacific City and hit the Pelican brew pub there. A nice environment for a drink. You could also head up north to Astoria for Fort George. Nice spots but, unfortunately, this is probably a lot of driving for a lower yield of spots.

If you can head out of your way to Bend when head to CA, it's worth it. Boneyard, 10 Barrel, Crux, Silver Moon, Bend Brewing, more Deschutes, Worthy, Ale Apothecary and on and on. Broken Top Bottle Shop and Platypus are your good shops. I've never been, but I have some friends down there that really like Crows Feet Commons - Bikes, Skis, Coffee, Beer. Sounds like a VERY Bend sort of place ... and hits my sweet spots.

 

I don't know how long we'll get away with this since this is a beer site but I'll get in my plug for Willamette Valley Pinot's. Some of my favorites are Sokol Blosser, WillaKenzie & St. Innocent. Napa & Sonoma Appellations are great too but for Pinot, Willamette is best in the world in many opinions including mine.

 

In Seattle, I think Naked City and Big Time are must hit breweries, and you're not likely to see much of their beer outside of their breweries.

That said, I'm going to suggest coming North for at least 2days/1night. Skookum, Kulshan, Flyers, Anacortes, Boundary Bay, Skagit, Chuckanut, North Fork and North Sound are all worth your time.

 

The Commons belongs firmly in the first tier imo; personally, for qc, customer service and price I place it well above HotD.

cheers

 

Alright, alright... beer-centric on BeerAdvocate!
Really great info, but I think the wine stuff is sufficiently covered

Cheers,
Brian

 

In retrospect, that was a bad call on my part. I just didn't know how accepted that opinion was since they haven't been around too long and don't make any real "whales" yet along the lines of, say, Fantasia. I'm sure they'll come ...

 

I haven't visited most of these but I'd put a solid thumbs up behind Chuckanut, Boundary Bay, and Kulshan ... all in close proximity to one another.

 

Ashland in southern Oregon makes a nice stop on this trip: the Caldera brewery is excellent. Ashland is a pretty good place to overnight before heading down to northern CA. You can then spend the morning driving south, and arrive for lunch at Sierra Nevada in Chico, or if you go off to the west, you can cut over and hit Russian River or a lot of other great breweries in that area.

 

I don't think a brewery needs to make whales in order for them to be excellent (though I would argue that Ortucky Common, Plum Bretta, Braam, Bier Royale are just as good as any sours in the state).

I place the commons (especially their sours and german styles) in the mix with any like producer in the state.

 

I have been unlucky enough to miss Braam, Plum Bretta, and Bier Royale. Ortucky was great ... hope it wasn't a draft only one and done, but I suspect it was.

 

Bier Royale hit Washington. It was fantastic.

 

Full disclosure, i claim major homerism as I live 1 block from the brewery and try everything they have.

I think Braam (sour stout with blackberries) has been my favorite they have put out. So incredible, I hope they make it again.

 

A Beercation, from Seattle to San Fran right, and no one has yet mentioned Russian River Brewery as a must? Or have I missed something? I would plan to spend the night somewhere either in Santa Rosa or nearby, maybe even Healdsburg (Bear Republic brewery), or even Lagunitas in Petaluma, but I can't imagine not going to Russian River Brewery at least once and suckling from the holy teat.