The Beerfather » Reviews

Review: Double Mountain Brewery

admin — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 06:48:20 +0000

This is a very cool place. It’s a cozy little brewery located off the main street in Hood River . It really has that small local bar feeling similar to one found in a ski or surf town. Everyone seems to know each other (Norm!), but the funny thing was, it was filled with tourists. The service wasn’t overly friendly, but I wouldn’t call it bad. Everything came in a timely fashion; we just weren’t served with a high five and a batch of warm fuzzies. We started with the Hop Lava and the hummus platter. The Hop Lava was a very hoppy IPA, but it was more on the florally smooth side then the bitter side for IPA’s. The hummus plate was tasty! The second beer I had was their strong golden ale, Devil’s Kitchen. This was an excellent beer. Mildly carbonated for a golden, this one was not on the heavy Belgian side of a golden ale, but it still had an excellent smooth fruity taste to it. It was an excellent choice on a warm summer day as opposed to milk, which would have been a bad choice. Double Mountain fits in perfectly with the casual vibe of Hood River and we’d definitely go back.

Review: McMenamins Grand Lodge

admin — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 05:58:32 +0000

So we head out to McMenamin’s Grand Lodge…my woman has some work to do there and I’m coming along to help her. They have beer (McMenamins has their own brewery and they serve it at all of their locations), so it’s not like she had to twist my arm. I was a little disappointed when we first arrived. It didn’t look like a “lodge” to me but that was fine; the fact that they had beer on the premises helped me to remain open minded. Shortly after entering I realized it had a much more lodgy feeling on the inside then the outside (the building is brick which doesn’t make me think lodge). Anyway, I wander into the bar area while the wife does her deal. It’s a cool old craftsman style bar area. It’s called Ironwork Grill. It’s got a cool copper bar counter with lots of stained glass…typical Mcmenamins arts and crafts sorta feel. It feels a little dank and musty, but it’s Oregon and it does rain a lot so that comes with the territory. I order the Sunflower IPA and Cajun tater tots. Not real exciting, but hey nothing about this place really is. I figure if something is going to be good, it’s the IPA and some tater tots. After savagely destroying two IPA’s and an order of Cajun tots (yes I know they weren’t exciting, but I don’t call myself the Beerfather for kicks…put an IPA and pub food in front of me and you’re gonna see a show), the wife shows up. We head into the restaurant and get a nice little McMenamins style booth by the window. We order a couple more beers and some hummus. It was Copper Moon (their seasonal) for me this time. It was pretty good as far as McMenamins goes. Kind of sweet and tasty. We sat there for a bit and watched the rain…it was definitely cozy!

The place was pretty cool overall; the beer wasn’t great (as it never really is that great at McMenamins). The food passes as good but not fantastic (it’s your typical pub style); the wait staff speaks some sort of gruntish and apparently always has some place better to be. But, the lodge itself has a lot of character. The lawn out front is huge with a lawn bar (Yardhouse Pub) and Frisbee golf baskets all around. Definitely a good place to hit up on a nice summer day, just don’t expect AMAZING things to happen.

Ice Axe Grill/Mt. Hood Brewing Co.

admin — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 06:11:58 +0000

Ice Axe Grill/Mt. Hood Brewing Co.
87304 E. Government Camp Loop
Government Camp, OR 97028

We decided to venture up to Mt. Hood and try out “The Microbrewery with an Altitude”, so we stuffed ourselves into the car and drove up to Ice Axe Grill, which is home of Mt. Hood Brewing Company.

We were starving and thirsty, and when we walked in we were immediately greeted with smiles and hellos. The décor wasn’t the most happenin and hip, but really, we didn’t care. It was cozy…and we were there for the beer and food anyway.

Started things off with Multor Porter and Cascadian Pale Ale. They also had the pale ale on cask but my wife was in the mood for cold and crisp so she stuck with the draft. We both went straight for the Old English Cheddar Pub Burger and fries. UH-MAZING. The burger was insanely good. The fries? Oh, the fries. So crispy and delicious. They also had some ranch on crack…don’t know what was in it or why it was special, but special it was. See, places like this sneak up on you. That’s why you can’t judge a bar/pub by its cover…sometimes the most mediocre looking places will kick your ass with their beer and food.

After we finished our food, we ordered more beer (what, did you think we’d go all the way up to Mt. Hood and just have one beer?), this time it was Hogsback Stout and Ice Axe IPA. The Hogsback oatmeal stout was just freaking awesome, they did an excellent job on this one. I highly recommend getting one while you’re there.

Definitely worth the trip. Good beer, good food, and good service. Plus, you can wander around the town while you’re up there. Good times, I tell ya.

PUB REVIEW: Kells Irish Pub

admin — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:20:27 +0000

Kells Irish Restaurant and Pub
112 SW 2nd Ave
Portland, OR 97204

We knew St. Patrick’s Day was coming up, so we thought we’d review an Irish pub. We’d heard about Kells before…it’s rumored to be the best Irish Pub as well as Irish Restaurant in the USA. No seriously, that’s what we heard.

Kells is your typical Irish pub…in a good way. The staff is friendly, it’s clean, and you do feel a bit Irish when you’re in there. One nice thing about Kells was that they didn’t plaster the entire place with Guinness paraphernalia and shout, “OK NOW WE’RE AN IRISH PUB!” The décor was cool and fun to look at. They’ve got a big huge stone fireplace to welcome you when you walk in, a good number of tables and cozy private booths, and also a large bar to sit at. Our waiter told us that they have live music 7 days a week, including an open jam session on Sundays. Pretty cool. We asked about all of the money stuck to the ceiling and were told that patrons donate a dollar and 2 quarters, the waiters magically make it stick to the ceiling (leprechaun magic, we’re told) and every once in a while, they sweep the ceiling and donate the money to charity. The owner matches whatever is on the ceiling, which is nice. Good old fashioned warm fuzzy feeling while you drink your brew and take in the Irish ambiance.

OK, now onto the beer (ahem and of course food). They had 13 beers on tap, which included Boddingtons, Guinness, Harp, Kells Irish Lager (brewed by Rogue), Mt. Hood Smoked Porter, Smithwicks, Stella Artois, and 3 Widmers. The beer selection was pretty good for an Irish Pub. Usually these places have about 5 on tap; 2 of which are good. We were there during happy hour, so our food only cost $3 each. We tried the Kells Irish Nachos and the Gorgonzola Spread. The nachos were okay. The chips (which were actual chips, not fries) were kind of burned and the cheese wasn’t melted enough so it was sort of goopy and hard to eat. We might have just had a bad batch. It LOOKED yummy though! The gorgonzola spread was UH-mazing. Get it. You will want to marry it.

Kells is a fun place. Good beer selection (relatively speaking), good food, and good service. Not the best Irish Pub we’ve ever been to, so we have to disagree with the word on the street, but a great place nonetheless.

BAR REVIEW: CI Bar & Grill

admin — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 01:16:20 +0000

CI Bar & Grill
18786 SW Boones Ferry Rd.
Tualatin, OR 97062

Well, we were hopeful. Everyone wants their own personal Cheers…the sign said free WIFI…we thought this might be it!
The menu was promising. They listed about 10 craft beers at $10 a pitcher. We ordered a pitcher of Deschutes but quickly had the menus swatted away and were informed that they “only had 3 craft beers”; none of which were on the menu. We went with Winterhook, not amazing but at $10 a pitcher there wasn’t much to cry about.

We needed something to wash all that beer down, so we ordered the combo platter. It wasn’t too offensive—it was your standard platter of assorted fried things dipped in ranch. They had good ranch, too…nothing worse than excitedly dipping a big fat onion ring into your ranch and then finding out it’s not the yummy ranch, it’s that lame bottled healthy tasting ranch and it is certainly NOT what you are looking for. So yeah, the ranch was good. A plus.
If you are in this part of town and just want to go somewhere easy, low profile, and cheap to enjoy a game of pool or pinball and perhaps hang with the locals, we’d say go. Otherwise, eh.