Oregon Ale Tales

It's mostly been a tale of growlers since we've been in Grants Pass. Lots of places doing them, but the closest to us, and the best selections can be found at:

• Frank N Stene's Monster Growlers (http://monstergrowlers.com/)
• Cartwright's Deli (http://cartwrightsmarket.com/)

The latter, strangely is a meat company and this is their deli outlet, but they also have an amazing selection of beers, all recorded on the electronic screens above the taps, complete with source information, including type of beer, ABV and IBU's:

The former is a much smaller operation but has a similarly impressive array of taps, albeit no electronic display. It's astonishing to think that this place survives - indeed thrives - on supplying bulk beer directly to consumers, usually in growlers, but also for weekend parties etc in what they call quarter and one-sixth kegs, which are tall, thin cylindrically shaped:

The one sixth keg contains 5 US gallons (4 Imperial gallons) and the one quarter keg 8 US gallons, whilst a full keg is 15 US gallons. Now, I'm not exactly a mathematician, but ........????

We haven't even been to any of the familiar brewpubs/microbreweries in Grants Pass yet:

• Wild River (http://www.wildriverbrewing.com/)
• Climate City/Grants Pass Brewery (http://www.climatecitybrewing.com/)
• JD's (http://www.jdssportsbarandbrewery.com/)
• Greiss Family Brews (http://www.gfbrews.com/)

However, we have been chauffeured (chauffeussed?) to nearby Medford and Ashland for some beers. We spent a couple of hours one Saturday afternoon at the Southern Oregon Craft Brew Festival and managed to sample 10 local beers:

**10 barrel brewing
Piña
Joe IPA•

**Climate city brewing company
Belma pale ale

**hop valley brewing company
Sir orange lot

**Opposition
Cream ale•
IPA

**Nincase
Hop cooler•

**Klamath brewing

Vanilla porter

**Pfriem
Pilsner•
Blonde IPA

There is a definite tendency at all these types of events for an over-supply of IPA's. It's still the most popular style of beer, but it would be nice to have a greater selection of other styles - reds, porters, stouts, wheats, pilsners etc - there were a few around but they were dwarfed by the predominance of IPA's.

Ashland is a beautiful little town, 1,800 feet up on the way to the local ski slopes. It has a slightly artistic bent, which includes a lovely outdoor Shakespeare theatre. Until now, brewpub-wise, we've only ever gone to Standing Stones (http://www.standingstonebrewing.com/), which is OK, but we had taken our growler along with the intention of filling it there, only we couldn't find anything to inspire us to fill it with, despite doing their entire range of 8 tasters:

We moved on - via a couple of nice bookshops - to the fairly new Swing Tree Brewing Company (http://www.swingtreebrewing.com/) - just a taphouse and brewery - no food - out in an industrial estate in the outskirts of Ashland - but a cool place nonetheless:

They only had 2 of their own 4 brews available when we were there, but they supplemented this with a couple of local bought-in brews:

Picked up the Oregon Brewery Guide leaflet here, listing a total of 260 breweries in the state which has a population of just under 4 m. - almost 30% less than Scotland, although it has a land mass 3 times greater than Scotland.

Our 3rd Ashland brewery stop was the much larger and longer established Caldera Brewing (http://calderabrewing.com/). They've recently opened large new premises on the outskirts of town and they still have a taphouse downtown. The new premises are very impressive - the high internal walls are full of old beer bottles:

Their beer selection was massive - it took up 2 full pages of their menu - not far short of 40 to choose from - all types, including German and Belgian styles plus some other exotics. It's amazing they can brew such a range here. Check them out here - http://calderabrewing.com/brews.html

One sampler paddle was nowhere near enough and even the two we tried only scratched the surface. The added bonus was spotting a handpump and they did actually have cask conditioned beer available - Mosaic, a 6.7% IPA, served in a nice logo'd glass:

We then did a circular road trip, covering parts of Oregon we hadn't visited before. We'd had a strong recommendation from fellow CAMRA member Jim Strachan about the Brewers Union in Oakridge, so that was our first overnight stop. We stayed at nearby Oakridge Lodge - we were the only guests and had the run of the place, which was nice. Great breakfast too.

Brewers Union 180 is a great pub - Jim's recommendation was spot on. The brewer went to England to learn how to brew and serve real ale and he's done a great job. There was a choice of 5 ales on handpump:

Some interesting guest kegs as well:

Good food too - just as well, because it was about the only show in this small town in the middle of rural Oregon.

The following day, we headed over to the coast and checked in to our hotel in Newport, Oregon. Handily placed nearby was Rogue Brewery's "World Headquarters":

Long established now, as you can see, it's quite a sizeable operation. The entry to the pub and restaurant is through the red column and the path takes you right through the brewery, passing the signs saying "look out for fork-lifts". You get a real feel - and smell - of the brewing operation. Cool.

The food was good and we chose to take a table in the restaurant with a window seat overlooking the marina. Rogue have a huge selection of beers - many of them experimental and exotic. We decided to order two tasting paddles - 14 beers in all - not quite their full selection, but close. Some of them were OK, but nothing quite hit the spot and we didn't even order a pint of anything after we were finished with the samples.