I'm finally famous! My friend Bill gave me a shout-out in his web comic Not Invented Here, which is set in a software company. I guess that means I can now add the nameless company that Desmond and Owen work for to my resume. At this point, it certainly wouldn't hurt.

I ended up in Eugene, OR, for a day back in December and visited Steelhead Brewing and Ninkasi Brewing. While at Ninkasi I heard about a third place, Oakshire Brewing, but didn't have time to check it out. Next time, I guess.

Steelhead Brewing

Standard six shot taster tray here, but when the waitress set it down and rattled off the beers represented I was a bit disappointed that it didn't include their seasonal winter brew. She took pity on me and brought me a complimentary taste, bless her heart. Mmm, pity beer.

Rob's Picks

• Hairy Weasel Hefeweizen - crisp and refreshing, nice. Doesn't need the lemon, but aroma is pleasant.
• Raging Rhino Red - a subtle red. More of an amber with red tendencies. Liked it.
• Heat Miser - the winter brew. Basically a milder (except for alcohol content, maybe) Hopasaurus Rex. Tasty, though. Hint of peppermint.

The Rest

• Barracuda Blonde - kinda light, kinda bland. Hint of out-of-place hoppiness.
• Bombay Bomber IPA - pretty good, but a bit heavier than I like.
• Hopasaurus Rex - yikes. Way too caramel-y. Sort of a light-colored hoppy winter beer.
• 12 Gauge Porter - okay. A little watery, but otherwise a standard porter.

Steelhead Brewing taster tray + 1

Ninkasi Brewing

As it turned out, Ninkasi had just opened their new tasting room two or three weeks before I stumbled in, and they were pretty busy. So I guess Ninkasi is doing all right as a local brewery, which is nice to know because they have some great beer. Unfortunately they were out of Sleigh'R, their winter brew, but they said their very limited Sasquatch was winter-esque so I got a taste of that instead. Also, the IPA and Pale Ale tasters managed to get mixed up. I eventually figured out what happened a couple hours later, but those comments are made up of what I could salvage from my very confused tasting notes.

Rob's Picks

• Total Domination IPA - very citrusy, very crisp, very hoppy. Yum!
• Quantum Pale Ale - light and refreshing. Like it.
• Believer Double Red - tasty. Not as citrusy as TD, more balanced. Still has a good hoppy/citrus edge. Quite nice.
• Oatis Oatmeal Stout - really nice. Not as heavy as other stouts, but still has that stout flavor. Great balance.

The Rest

• Sasquatch small batch amber - found out from another patron that this was made for a brewfest about ten months before. Last bit of it. Tasted more like a barley wine. Too bad I don't really like barley wines.

Ninkasi Brewing taster strip

About a year and a half ago I went on a brewpub tour with some friends, and one of the stops was the Laughing Buddha Brewery. While it was a fun, informal operation, they weren't really set up for tastings even though they had a bar area. So I only got to try little sips of their various fruit- and spice-styled, east-meets-west-esque brews. I wasn't all that thrilled with what I tried, and they were all out of logo pint glasses. Alas. Then there was some sort of legal silliness with their name, and the next thing I knew they were called Trade Route Brewing and had just moved a bit further south. So before they changed again, I figured I ought to pay them another visit. I went down to exotic Pacific, WA, with a friend, and this time they had the taster thing down, but, unfortunately, the new logo pint glasses wouldn't arrive for another month. Doh! I'll have to call first before heading down again. Might be a nice, if long, bike ride later this spring or summer.

Rob's Picks
• Jet Stream Lager - cidery aroma, bit of an orange-y flavor, light, crisp - not bad. Caveat: If you switch from a darker beer to this one, it'll seem like you're drinking water. Formerly called Dragon King Lager, I believe. 4.5%
• Chieftain Amber - Floral aroma, well-hopped, more like a pale ale. Pretty decent. 6%
• Infidel Lime IPA - actually quite nice. Not a light IPA, and can't really taste the lime, fortunately - masked by regular citrus-y IPA flavor. 7.5%
• Midnight Ale - actually pretty good, quite tasty. Formerly called Pandan Brown Ale, I believe. 6%

The Rest
• Mango Weizen - mango more on the aftertaste - not overpowering. But kind of a blah hefe. No need for lemon wedge, though! 5%
• Ginger Pale Ale - "beer meets ginger ale." Very strong ginger aroma. Ginger taste lasts a while. Slight stale edge. Not very hoppy at all. 5%

Trade Route Brewing - Pacific, WA

Well, this would have caught up my brewery posts, but I managed to hit two others during a road trip last month. Will the breweries never stop? It's becoming a Sisyphean task to visit and document them all. Not to mention that I've nearly run out of shelf space with all these logo pint glasses I keep buying. What's a guy to do?

Attentive roblog readers no doubt have already noticed that the comment functionality has disappeared. This is not a sinister plan on my part to silence any and all negative feedback from my more feisty readers. The real reason is I'm a cheapskate -- the comment hosting service I was using went from free to $12/year, and I decided it just wasn't worth it at this point. Maybe if I head out on another long trip I'll splurge on comments, but for now with nothing particularly interesting going on and, perhaps more importantly, nobody leaving comments, it just didn't seem necessary. And yes, I know, the roblog itself isn't really necessary, but there you go. If you disagree with this feel free to leave a comment and let me know.

Well, I was in denial about the month of November, but now that it has come and gone I should just accept that I'm now [sigh] 40. Someone asked me what I would do for my mid-life crisis, and, after a moment's thought, realized that in my case, I would have to suddenly get married and have a kid, which seemed funny at the time. Now that I'm writing this, though, it occurs to me that a friend of mine has sort of done this. I hope he won't be offended by this post (not that he reads my blog anyway). So, you never know. Someone else asked if I was in denial or depressed about turning... 40, and even though I started off this post saying I was in denial, it's not like I wasn't telling people or lying about my age if asked. But that made me rattle on for a bit, saying that 40 was instead the bargaining birthday. Just a few more years of youth -- I swear I'll be good. It would then follow that 20 is denial, 30 is anger, 50 is depression, and 60 is acceptance. That made me feel all clever and stuff.

I was going to include some other random info about stuff happening with me these past few months, shows I've gone to and movies I've seen and the like, but I managed to put off typing up these bits and pieces, and now December (and 2009) is almost over. Time to just post this and move on.

During the Islands Bike Tour last month we made time to visit three breweries en route. The first one was great, but then it was all downhill from there.

Port Townsend Brewing Company - Port Townsend, WA
Conveniently located at the end of the bike trail into town, this brewery has a tasting room but no kitchen. Which is fine because they have some great beer. There's a Mexican place just across from them, if you're hungry. They also sell logo pint glasses, so I got to carry one of those around in my panniers for the rest of the trip. What surprised and delighted me most about this place was that they had four different IPAs on tap. You don't see that very often.

Rob's Picks

• Chet's Gold - slight hoppy edge, refreshing, goes down easy. Good for a hot day.
• Bitter End IPA - good! Decent hoppiness, citrusy. My fave of the four IPAs.
• Hop Diggidy IPA - little crisper than the Bitter End, floral
• Strait Stout - a touch on the light side, but a good all-around stout
• Peeping Peater Scotch Ale - smoky, really nice
• Imperial IPA - kinda creamy, nice!
• Barley Wine - wow. Best barley wine I've tried (but I usually don't like barley wines). 10.5% - extremely dangerous. Usual strong taste reserved for the finish.

The Rest

• Pale Ale - ok, but nothing remarkable
• Reel Amber - ibid
• Brown Porter - ibid
• Boatyard Bitter - not bad, but kind of blah
• Single Hop IPA - spicy edge, not an intense hoppiness. My least favorite of the four IPAs.

Port Townsend Brewing taster tray - 1

Rob's Pick

• Queen Nina's Imperial IPA - kind of a messy IPA, but good enough

The Rest

• Schwag Lite - kind of meh
• Purdy Pale - has that soapy flavor I'm not so fond of
• Strange Brew Single Hop - well-named. Hoppy, but taste is all over the place.
• Panama Red - vague caramel flavor, but mostly bland
• McPrior's Irish Stout - slight formaldehyde aroma, watery, mostly tasteless. Pretty bad stout.

Water Street Brewing taster tray

Rob's Pick

• Blockhouse Red - decent amber, but only 4.0%

The Rest

• Raging Main Ale (limited edition) - has a stale, paper-y taste. Not bad after a few sips, actually, but not great. Their strongest beer at 6.6%.
• Royal Marine IPA - kinda hoppy, but kinda big for an IPA, which masks the hoppiness. A little too well-rounded for my tastes. 4.3%
• Eichenberger Hefeweizen - kind of watery. Meh. 4.0%
• Haro Strait Pale Ale - slightly floral, mostly meh. One of my least favorite Pale Ales, actually. A mere 3.5%.
• Ale Diablo Pepper Beer - peppery! Gives you something else to think about as you drink this otherwise mediocre beer.
• Starboard Porter - a Zen koan of a beer. From the beer menu: "Molasses" - yup. "Version of a straight-forward stout" - yup. "But without the stoutiness" - odd. What is a stout when it's not a stout?
• Bacon Beer - Wayne sez, "inoffensive"

San Juan Brewing taster tray

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