Three Floyd's

Baker City to Beervana to Bend!

I want to say we visited 21 breweries in 13 days?! Barley Brown's in Baker City, Full Sail, Double Mountain and Big Horse in Hood River, Laurelwood, Hair of the Dog, Hopworks, Cascade, Lucky Lab, and Burnside in Portland, Rogue in Newport, Ninkasi, Oakshire, Eugene City, and Hop Valley in Eugene, Deschutes, Boneyard, Bend, Silver Moon, and 10 Barrel in Bend, and finally (but the hidden gem of the trip) Beer Valley in Ontario, not Canada but OREGON!
TOP 5:,
Laurelwood, HOD, Hopworks, Deschutes, Beer Valley (no specific order)
Honestly other spots were just as much fun: Belmont Station, Horse Brass, Beer Mongers, Bier One, food cart, OBF, the Brew Stein, etc..
Although you can get Deshcutes anytime, still visited the place 3 times in a day and a half! Great food and close to 25 taps, all their own brew! Laurelwood, visited twice; happened to be the first and last brewery we visited. Got lost both times!
more later.....?

Oregon Pics



Full Sail patio overlooking the Columbia River, amazing view and fun watching the wind surfers!




Great little brewery in Hood River




Very tasty brew at Hair of the Dog in Portland





Oakshire Brewery in Eugene



Finally, the pouring is over and time for a drink



Great Divide 17th Anniversary Party

Final hauls before summer?

Lost a 6 pack of New Belgium 1554 to John in New York for a fantasy baseball bet! Sucks, but made it fun. Ended up costing I think $8.50 for the beer + $13 for the shipping= $21.50 for a 6 pack of 1554 to give you an idea of how expensive this hobby can be. I still believe it beats going out for dinner and drinks, cost wise. I plan on taking a break, with Megan going back to Chicago end of month. We also will be taking our summer vacations to Illinois and Oregon in July/August. Have some other fun events planned as well!! Expecting to receive 3 packages this week.
Thursday received a package from Rob in Boston. This is my second trade with Rob!! I guess a regular now? I sent him a 6 pack of Avery IPA and 6er of ODell IPA. Still awaiting the ODell Hiveranno to ship out. In return, a 4 pack of New England Gandhi-Bot (Megan's favorite!), 6 pack of Leatherlips IPA ***1/2(very nice summer session beer: IPA at 5%) from Massachusetts, Allagash Odyssey Ale Aged in Oak Barrels, and extras- New England 668 Belgium style Gold Ale**1/2 and St. Arnold Divine Reserve #11 (DIPA)*** out of Texas. I believe it is one of the oldest breweries in the US.?
Friday package #2 from Nate in Chi-town. I sent 2x Ghost Face Killa's and 3x Myrcenary. (these last 2 trades today have outdone any expectations!). He sent 3 bombers- Three Floyds Blackheart English IPA**1/2, Troegs Flying Mouflan*** (double up today) and Flossmoor Pullman Brown***. All wants! Thanks Nate.
Package #1 Probably my #1 trader and only my second repeat trader, Vince from Philly. Usually kills my wants. Something about Philly and Colorado that have some good stuff to share, otherwise unavailable. Flying Mouflan!! Founders extras-Backwoods Bastard, Imperial and Breakfast Stouts, yummy! S. Tier Jahva, Smuttynose Baltic Porter *** from NH, Pretty Things American Darling **1/2 out of MA Pale Lager , AleSmith IPA ***out of CA (Top 10 Want), Big Black Voodoo Daddy Double Imperial Stout out of PA, Troegs Java Head***, Ballast Sea Monster Imperial Porter and Long Trail DIPA **1/2 out of Vermont. All these beers were from my wants!! And quite diverse areas and styles as well. You can tell this guy has done this before and get a feeling he is this kind to everyone and the type of person that makes the trading so much fun.

That's what friends are for!

Thanks Ben, Andrea, and Jake for delivering the 2 year Chi-town, bday road trip haul! We shared a New Belgium Lips of Faith beer that was decent (not my style), knocked out my Alpine Pure Hoppiness, very good as expected and a Two Brothers Prairie Path Ale (very solid brewery out of Warrenville, IL). He also dropped off, for a fair donation: 6er of Bell's Two Hearted,  Founders Porter***(another solid outing from Founders!!), and Three Floyd's Pride & Joy Pale Ale***, very nice session beer!

Beer Tasting #2

                                      
Beer Tasting #2
In attendance: Myself, Megan, Dave, Scott, the Basalay family and two of Dave's friends (Aaron and??) We really had a good time. I had planned the tasting to start at 4:30 and had planned on grilling and drinking some session beers around 6:30. Dave is a BA as well, so we had some goodies that we have traded for. So I required the remaining guests to bring a 'BIG' bottle or brew that Dave and I could decide to keep for future trades, ourselves or share with the tasting. Also required a 6 pack or so of a good 'session' beer to enjoy with the food and a side dish.  We had quite the spread of beer and a good amount of foo. We decided to keep it simple with hot dogs and brats. Today, the focus was on drinking and tasting. The list is to long to name them all, but some highlights include KBS!!!, Boulevard Imperial Stout, Three Floyds Arctic Panzer, Clown Shoes Eagle Claw Fist, Troegs Nuggett Nectar, Firestone Union Jack, Hopworks IPA, Russian River Consecration, Ballast Sculpin IPA, Great Divide Espresso Aged Yeti Imperial Stout and plenty of other beer including Surly, Bell's, Founders, Dogfish Head, Goose Island, Southern Tier, etc......
So much fun, everyone seem to really enjoy the relaxing festivities. When I saw that the weather was going to be so nice a week out, I thought it was perfect timing. Hard to believe I ran a marathon a week ago, it was almost 85 degrees today!! The last people finally left around 11:30. Thanks to Dave and his hobby of label collecting he took home a very large bag of empty bottles, which really helped our cleaning some the next day! Looking forward to having another tasting in the future.