Beer Around Town

Leaving the dark den of Brouwers was like stepping out of a movie matinee, early afternoon daylight remained even though the brain says it shouldn’t. The Seattle crew had suggested we head over to Uber Tavern to have some beers with them while they watched the Huskies in the NCAA tourney. Knowing that Uber is one of Seattle’s best beer bars we were sure to accept. We headed out and a short trip later we arrived at our destination. Uber is small, made even more so by the crowd there to watch the basketball game, but introvert aside it had a comfortable familiar feel to it, the kind of place that makes you feel like a regular at first visit, sort of reminding me of my trip to Saraveza. Uber had around 15 taps, all pouring quality brews, and a massive selection of bottles(quite a few we don’t get in Portland). Some of the excellent brews I tried were Silver City Le Fat and Woody scotch ale, and Southern Tier Gemini. Next up the Seattle crew was kind enough to share a bottle of Southern Tier Krampus, which was a self described Helles, but was the closest thing to an Double India Pale Lager, you’ll find. Massively over hopped, a delicious display of spicy citrus hops built upon a bready and biscuity malt foundation. Also I was treated to a sample of the Three Floyds/Mikkeller Hvedegoop, labeled as a barleywine, this was the farthest from any I’d tasted today. With a nose of pungent cheese, not quite as footy as the Chimay cheese, but getting along that line. Flavor seemed to have less of the funkiness, more soft caramel and a light raisin note, Belgian barleywine hybrid? In the end Washington fell short in a close game against Purdue, and with that we decided to move on to the next stop, the Naked City taphouse. I know, the name is interesting, doesn’t lend itself to acceptance by the girlfriend.. “we went to this placed called Naked City”… It’s a beer bar, I promise.

I’m not 100% on the whole situation, but from what I gather this is just a taphouse at the moment contracting out brews from another local brewer that sport the Naked City name. Maybe there are plans in the future for their own brewery, but the 20+ beers on tap didn’t lead to any disappointment. It was at this point that I felt it a good time to take a break from ordering more beer, knowing that dinner would be a goal in the near future and being totally intoxicated was not in my plans. So sadly I don’t have much in the way of beer reviews for this place, but I highly recommend it none-the-less, the Portland and Seattle crews enjoyed an excellent assortment of brews, a few of which I sampled. Good turnover on their beers, each one that drops brings up another exciting offering. Naked City didn’t quite have the warm atmosphere of Uber, a bit more industrial and artsy, but any beer geek would feel at ease here.

Alas it was time to move on, I needed to head out to meet back up with my friend to grab some dinner, so I parted ways with the Portland and Seattle crews after one heck of a good day. For dinner we headed out to a place that completely caught me off guard, were we really at a place call Pies and Pints for dinner? I’m not a big fan of sweets or dessert in general, so pies were somewhere behind baby food and tofu on my list of what I would like for dinner. What I didn’t realize was how short sighted I was. These pies weren’t of auntie Edna’s strawberry rhubarb variety, these were full on over-stuffed dinner pies, think chicken pot pie filled with sausage, onions, mushrooms, ect. Almost like mini calzones, but baked in a buttery flaky pie crust. An to top it off, they offer to “float” the pie in your soup, which means they stick the darn thing right in the middle of a bowl of split pea or some other variety of soup for you to scoop away at. This was real imagination, a strange experiment gone right, why haven’t I had this before? It has now been two days since I’ve had my first Pies and Pints pie and I still can’t stop thinking about it, I’m hooked and left in ruin, 3 hours separated are we.

The weekend is now a few days gone, it has taken me a while to write all this up, so I’m sure some details have faded. I didn’t bring my camera to Pies and Pints, so I’m kicking myself for not being able to supply imagery to my ranting. A big thanks goes out to the Seattle and Portland crews for hosting me and making this such an outstanding weekend. Another trip north is a must, there was far to much missed. And did I mention there is an upcoming sour fest at Brouwers?