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Category: Review

Review: Mill City Brew Werks, Camas WA

MILL CITY BREW WERKS, CAMAS WA On Saturday April 11th, I visited three breweries in the Camas/Washougal area of SW Washington to do some tasting and reviewing that afternoon with my friend Ryan. We started at the Mill City Brew Werks in Camas for lunch and to try their beers as neither of us had been there before. Camas is small river-town that has a lot of history, and this brewery reflects this in attitude and feel. We were fortunate to sit at the bar and discuss some of the beers with the owner/brewer, Mark Zech, who was super friendly and wanted to hear our honest opinions (see below). The restaurant is located on the corner of the downtown main street (quaint with lots of small shops). They have a dining room and bar area on one side, so there is no escaping kids if you want to drink in peace. You have been warned. The brewing production is in the basement of the building and they have a hole/square by the main entrance that you can look down onto one of their kettles. The menu is pretty standard brewery/restaurant fare, with a few daily specials. I ordered tasters of …

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Review: 10 Barrel Brewing Co., Portland OR

10 BARREL BREWING CO., PORTLAND OREGON On the early evening of April 7, 2015, we ventured into downtown Portland to visit this recently opened brewpub by 10 Barrel Brewing. This location was well in the works before they sold to Anheuser-Busch InBev, so we had to at least give it one try before passing judgement. Neither of us had been to any of the other 10 Barrel locations so it was a clean slate to start with when we arrived. As you can see, it’s quite a large space with many tables and large self-seating area around the bar side. The production tanks are behind the main seating area, and the beer list is on a gigantic chalk board above the west wall in the bar area. The only compliant was the amount of noise that was generated once the bar became full. It was hard to hear the bartender when we tried to order, but that’s typical of most bars in large open spaces. The bar wasn’t too busy when we got there during early happy hour, so we bellied up to the long wooden bar and were served immediately with an interest in what we liked in beer …

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Review: Pelican Brewing Co., Pacific City Oregon

PELICAN BREWING CO., PACIFIC CITY OREGON On April 5th 2015, Easter Sunday, some friends of mine decided to head out to the Oregon coast and this was one of the many stops we made along the way. The Pelican Pub & Brewery is located at Pacific City, next to Cape Kiwanda state park literally on the beach (as you can see from the pictures). While this is a great location, it’s a little bit off of the beaten path (15 min off of HW 101) and you should use your nav to get there or risk taking a wrong turn. We were really thrilled when we got there for lunch and it wasn’t terribly busy inside (no wait) and we got sat immediately. By the time we left (about 1pm) it was packed with a 45min wait. The entrance has a lot of swag of the brewery available (inc. 22oz. bottles), the main dining room has the bar on the south side and wall to wall windows that look out onto the beach and ocean. There are additional side rooms for the overflow. We ordered a few appetizers and a variety of lunch items (burger, fish & chips, etc.) and …

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Review: Oregon City Brewing, Oregon City OR

OREGON CITY BREWING CO., OREGON CITY OREGON Friday Feb. 27th, 2015 three of us went to the southern side of the Portland metro and we stopped at Oregon City Brewing (OCB) that night. None of us had been there before so we used our navigation to get us there, which was quite easy as it’s right off the freeway. Basically they are located in an industrial looking building on the corner of 14th and Washington in downtown Oregon City. You can pull into their large gravel parking lot from either street. We noticed that there was a food cart out front providing pizza during the night we visited. You have to order outside at the cart, the guy next to us had a pie from them and it looked pretty good. The brewing equipment (custom 3 barrel system) is located on the back side of the building, you can peek into the production space when you walk in through some windows). The main room has a few tables/chairs, window seating, and bar seating. They have 44 draft taps including local ciders, wines, and rootbeer, all available in a few different sizes including taster trays. We ended up doing this with …

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Review: Stickmen Brewing Co., Lake Oswego OR

STICKMEN BREWING CO., LAKE OSWEGO OREGON On Friday Feb. 27th, 2015 we went to the south end of the Portland metro area to visit a couple of breweries in the late afternoon, to include Stickmen Brewing Co. in Lake Oswego. We have been lucky enough to have visited this great restaurant and brewery a number of times since they opened in 2012. The location is divided into a couple of larger dining rooms, a bar area with booths/tables, beer production area behind glass that you can take a tour of and a wonderful full size, tree shaded patio that overlooks Lake Oswego. During the summer months their patio bar gets super busy as you can get drafts outside directly. The restaurant part of the business recently went through some changes, removing the ‘Skewery’ from their name/logo and changing the menu to no longer provide Yakitori or other grilled/skewered food. They also removed most of the asian inspired dishes (noodles, stir fry, etc.) and now it’s more traditional American restaurant fare such as: nachos, burgers, seafood, sandwiches, salads, and a few one-off BBQ dishes. We tried a couple of the new happy hour dishes and they were quite delish. We sat …

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Review: Fifth Quadrant Lompoc Brewing, Portland Oregon

LOMPOC BREWING, PORTLAND OREGON Tuesday Feb. 24th, 2015 we visited the Lompoc brewery location in North Portland, the Fifth Quadrant. This restaurant and brewery has both a bar area, inside family seating, front-street smaller tables, and outside (smoking) patio/porch that is covered with larger tables. If you want to stay clear of the criPODS, you have to stick to the bar area. Lompoc has a number of locations (bars & restaurants) around Portland and has been brewing beer since 1996. Their recopies have changed a bit over the years and the recent ‘regulars’ have a decent level of complexity and quality that stands against most other mid-sized breweries in the area. The menu at this restaurant/brewery has a good range of NW food ranging from sammiches, burgers, Pork mole tacos (da-BOMB), and salads. The happy hour is pretty decent as well, and we normally visit it during a weekday prior to 6pm. It’s always busy, every time we’ve gone, so be ready to either sit where you don’t want, or show up early. This time around, we were lucky and got a table on the bar side so we didn’t really have the criPOD effect going on. We ordered happy …

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