Pac 12 North Craft Beer Championship

YellowSnow said:

TurdBomber said:

Entirely too much IPA in Seattle. Yeah, Yeah, prattle on lads. Whatever. You're drinking the Star Jeans of Beers.

Ever since Bud Grant died, there hasn't been a Scotch/Scottish Ale worth shit brewed anywhere in the PNW, but for two very good ones from Bridgeport, which is now closed thanks to Portland Antifa Faggots, and Cold Smoke from Montana. Washington has no Scottish Ale worth shit anymore, and that chaps my Scottish Brogue Ass to no end. One more reason I spend much time East of the Mountains, as I can buy Kettle House Cold Smoke in Cle Elum.

Well shit @TurdBomber i didn’t know they closed. Guess it was 2019 so pre Antifa fags getting their reads down. I always thought their IPA was great although I’m not a huge IPA guy.

My son BTW had as tuff as a Scottish name as it gets. I’ll tell you some time over whiskey at Tumalo happy hour with @dflea

https://www.beervanablog.com/beervana/2019/2/12/oregons-oldest-brewery-bridgeport-has-closed

The closure of Bridgeport is an immeasurable loss to Portland. Been going there since the mid-90s and the beer was still great even after the gentrification of the neighborhood and the expensive, lavish remodel of their space.

Well you still have Deschutes. Great beers, but what a let-down their taproom is/was in downtown Bend. Wow. I was shocked when I went there the first time. Did they borrow an interior designer from an old Denny's? Fuck me.

Always wound up in the cocktail lounge at that McMenamins, even though I'm not crazy about their beer, so downed as many Whisky Sours or Bourbons as possible before seeing the in-laws.

Anyhow, Bend still has some good beer joints, and even the ones by the roundabouts on Century don't suck. But hitting Bridgeport in Portland for lunch at the midpoint between Seattle and Bend was a family ritual I miss.

BleachedAnusDawg said:

Mostly these kinds of lists come down to what style of beer you prefer.

Was going to say exactly this. I like big stouts (and sours when I'm in the mood for something light). Fremont stouts/barleywines are good. Darkstar is a fine base stout for what I can pick it up for in a six-pack. Their specialty stuff is overpriced, but I never pay for it since I always have it when I'm digging into my brother's collection of verticals.

My favorite beer is out of St. Louis of all places (Abraxas), but it's $20 per bottle, so special occasions only. Firestone Walker, like Pumpy: good at everything. Used to be into The Abyss from Deschutes, but they've gone too heavy with the bourbon and priced it stupid like Fremont. Way back in the day, Pikop Andropov from Hales was the shit--thickest blackest beer money could buy at the time. Anymore, it's hard to say which brewery is better than which when the stuff I usually like best is all small release and comes and goes. I know it's hard to beat some of the specialty stouts from Evil Twin in New York, but they're hard to find here. I've walked into Cloudburst to find three stouts on tap that all rocked my balls, but the most recent time, they didn't have a stout on at all. Ditto Structures (although they have one now that's fucking amazing). Wander's base stout is meh, but when they do something special, it's usually right up there. My brother just turned me on to Great Notion, and they're a similar kind of brewery that tries big things and can seemingly do no wrong.

It's splitting hairs, and at this point it just comes down to where you live, therefore what's readily available, and what style you're into. One thing's for sure is that you get what you pay for, and once you have some of this big specialty stuff, it's harder to appreciate the off the shelf beer. My drinking habit has gotten car-payment expensive!...