Monday, January 26, 2009

Fred Eckhardt recovering from open heart surgery

It has come to my attention though a Twitter posting by my friend Lisa Morrison that the "Dean of Beer Writers"  (and overall  beer guru) is in Fair condition after undergoing open heart surgery.  I don't know any other details at this point. 
I just wanted to let everyone know about this.  Please feel free to send healing thoughts or prayers (or whatever works in your belief system) Fred's way.
Thanks.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Catching Up: Day Trip Part 1

A few  weeks ago I was able to take 2 beer related day trips both with my friend (and tour guide of sorts), Marc. I have been trying to figure out the most efficient way of posting about these trips. I decided that it would be better to break them up into several post.
 
On Monday on we down to McMinnville, OR .  But we of course had to stop a few places along the way.

First stop was Max's Fanno Creek Brew Pub in Tigard, OR. We wanted to stop there and see how things were going after all the changes at the pub. Despite the changed we were happy to find that the pub is turning out some very tasty beer.  Marc had a O Holy Hop Ale and I had Dopplebock. Both were well made defiantly worth a return visit.


Next up was Golden Valley Brewer & Pub in McMinnville for lunch and a beer. The food was good but more importantly, so was the beer.

Marc had a Chehalem Mt. IPA, which was good and clean but could use some more hops in the bittering to balance the malt. I had a Tannenbomb, which is there winter sessional and, as the name suggests, is very much a malt bomb.
Jason the brewer was nice enough to talk to us and invited us back into the brewery. We had a nice chat about his brewery and these are a few of the pictures I snapped.