Stop 2: Bill's Tavern

Friendly, busy place with a comfy feel in a comfy town.  This is the first stop that Sammy Quatch the 3rd.

Tate: blackberry and pale
Ryan: blackberry and summer IPA
Derrick: loved summer IPA

All: the red is "real bad"

Stop 1: Public Coast

This place was great, the Brewer invited us in to see the operation and got a done straight from the bucket samples.  Coconut Brown!
Tate: tangerine, black stack, toasted grandma
Ryan: imperial IPA, coconut brown. Hated toested grandma
Derrick: toasted grandma, uncle punk pumpkin ale

Stop #11 / Old Ivy Brewing

After our morning history lesson, we took one more pass through downtown.  A small farmers market provided a snack and some questionable local music and art.

Don't spook the natives with talk of "ports" or "lands"

From there, a short couple of blocks took us to the last stop on our tour, Old Ivy brewing.  A small place with a friendly, relaxed vibe, it fit in alongside the other stops on the journey.

Empty chair not symbolic of anything

Interesting beers were tried, including a corn-based lager and a brown ale with figs.  Both hit the spot, and gave us the fuel we'd need for the long car ride back across the bridge.

---

Our trip was shorter than usual, but still very enjoyable.  It also brought us a surprising fondness for the town of Vancouver.  Quiet, no crowds, and a lot of interesting beer choices.  We all spoke of making future visits, and will probably actually think fondly of the place.  Shocking, I know.

We're hoping that this trip will not be the only one of 2016.  Talks of one-day adventures here in our little beer metropolis are being considered, and would be a good chance to try places we've been meaning to go to for a long time.  So, keep checking this bloggy for more brew-tales.  Maybe you'll see some soon!

Cheers!

Oh, wait, that's a lame sign off.

Bock bock!

That's better.

Laters,
neil

Stop #10 / Fort Vancouver

Having not grown up in the northwest, my elementary schooling never contained any info about the history up here.  Oh, if you want background on the California missions, as well as the applicable missionary position (teehee), well, I've got that in spades.  But, we never learned about anything that happened above the redwoods.

Thus, with a wander through the historic site of Fort Vancouver, I was forced to make up my own story of the past.  I'm sure the following is pretty close to what really happened, anyway.

A Song of Trees and Flannel

It started in, oh lets say, 1879.  Early settlers in Portland, fed up with the long lines at the popular dirtpods, (mounds of mud and sticks that people would gather at, sometimes ironically, though they weren't sure what that meant), would look elsewhere for their artisan rickets and locally sourced dysentery.  They considered going west, but had to stop that migration when more than a third of them drowned from water not falling from the sky, but rising from the ground.  It was the ocean, and it was way too corporate.  So, instead, they went north.

Fencing to keep the colonial hipsters out

The natives called it Big-Box-and-Chain-wee-un-suk-la.  That was too complicated to say, so the immigrants just stole the name of a cool outpost in Canada and made it their own.  They hoped for a quiet life, and to lure confused explorers who were expecting hockey and poutine upon arriving.

And that has continued...until this day.

Now you know as much as I do.

I was not drinking when I wrote this.  I thought I should make that clear.

Stop #9 / morning interlude

This is what you see the morning after making stop #8.

Your standard, post-late night fast food delusion

Be safe out there kids.  Don't do drive thru.

Stop #8 / interlude

Choices were made.

Questionable, late night choices

More later.  If possible.

Stop #7 / Fortside Brewing

So, take a look at this picture, and then answer the question that follows;

Down, and to the left

Is that grey-haired fella sitting barely in the frame, in actuality, disgraced, former Oregon governor John Kitzhaber?  One of us was somewhat convinced that it was.  One of us drinks, by the way (but you knew that).  We couldn't verify this, but what if it was?

You wouldn't care.

No, of course not.  Neither would I.

But, if it was, I think that would be a fascinating way to disrespect your former state.  "Hey, no-longer constituents, you know that boozy thing you're so good at making?  I'm not gonna drink it!  Nope, I'm crossing the state border to drink Washington beer.  How do you like them apples?  Oh, and we've got LOTS of apples up here, so, you know, I hope you really like them.  Pricks."

Politics is weird, man.

Vote beer!

Fortside had some nice brews in their garage-like space, by the way, including two on nitro (a chocolate and a brown) that really hit the late night spot. As we sipped our tasters, we discussed the serious issues of the day, and considered all the vital matters to the affect the world on a daily basis.  And butts.  I mean, ya, one of us drinks.  So, you know.