Beer Around Town

The worst part about traveling is passing places that deserve a stop. This last Saturday we hit the road for a trip up to Kennewick Washington to pick up the new member of our family, Marmaduke, our new 7 week old Bernese Mt. Dog. The drive through the gorge was beautiful, an early fall morning where the sun seems to slept in late. We slipped along the highway eastbound before the fog had awoken to lift off the low-lying roadsides. The sun finally managed to break the cliffs and the cool damp morning started to feel a bit more welcoming. Sure, it was a bit early for a pint, but that “Hood River Next 3 Exits” sign looked mighty tempting. “Maybe on the way back?”, yah, I’d tell myself that, but I doubt the new puppy would have much patience while I savored a pint or two.

We continued on through the beer wasteland that resides between Hood River and that other part of the state. I have always been eager for a visit to Barley Browns I thought to myself.. keep dreaming. Between the truck loads of Walla Walla onions and the factory ridding Umatilla of their squirreled away agent orange, this had to be one of the most intense smelling places on earth. Time to step on it before I run out of oxygen.

We arrived in Kennewick early enough to stop for lunch and with beer efficiency in mind I’d make it count with a trip to Ice Harbor Brewing. The pub and brewery are situated in a big white building that looks like it once housed a discount furniture store, oh wait there is one on the other end of the building. Maybe not the most welcoming place, but it would take a lot worse for me to pass on checking out a new pub. We arrive just at opening so the place was completely empty. The restaurant area is much smaller then you’d imagine, I could see this place getting pretty noisy at even half capacity.

The beer list featured ten house beers, pretty standard stuff overall. Here’s one complaint, when all your pints cost the same amount let people pick what beers to get with their sampler plate, or just put all the beers on the sampler. I ordered up a sampler plate, my fate was chosen, 6 of 10 selected for me to taste… and the sampler tray was $8, pretty steep for six samples. Mostly I was disappointed that the fresh hop beer wasn’t included… or was it?, at least put one seasonal on your pre-built sampler. Here goes some quick thoughts.

Kolsch – Not a style I’m really into, but this was more enjoyable then the average Kolsch you find in the US since it had some extra hopping going on. Rather than being bland and balanced this had a more assertive citrus hop presence of the soft bready malts. None of that grape yeast flavor garbage going on, not just something brewed to appease the macro crowd, pretty solid.

Tangerine Hefe – I like the whole American Wheat class hiding behind the Hefe name, it’s like we tried to create something and failed, but we still use the term for what we were trying to make. Reminds me of US car makers selling “Hybrids”, we can’t seem to make any that can compete or match the Japanese “Hybrids”, but we still use the term, when in reality we should just call them “American Hybrids” so people understand they only get 25 mpg.  Anyway… the Tangerine “Hefe” smells like citrus and coriander. They probably sell a lot in the summer, but to heavy on the tangerine flavor for me. What, no wedge of tangerine on my glass? didn’t you get the memo?

Runaway Red – Another heavy hopped for the style brew, lots of citrus piny hops playing of the malts. Balanced and fruity with some cascade hop aromatics. I thought it was interesting that they gave a name to the Red, but the others are just know by style.

IPA – Golden bodied with a thin white head. Nice floral nose of NW citrus hops, we are near Yakima after all. Malts give a slight taste of honey but are quickly overtaken by the piny bitter finish. Pretty nice IPA and best of the sampler. I could see this surviving in Portland even with our over-run of IPAs. I did notice that they had “Fresh Hop” IPA on a smaller chalk board by the bar, so I’m not sure if I got the regular version or if this was fresh hopped, it didn’t have a green hop taste though.

Brown – Another style I just don’t really get into. Faint roast, soft chocolate, more hop character, but the watery bodies just irk me in this style. Just give me a porter.

Harvest Pale – Tasty pale ale with a big hop bouquet. Lots of pine hop character in this as well, but still remains balanced. This was right up there with the IPA for best on the tray.

Sadly the stout that I was excited about was not included on the tray. I was going to ask for a sample at the end of our meal, but we were running a bit late and had to pick up the pup and head home. I’m not the biggest hop head, 4 years in Portland has stripped a lot of my hop lust, but still I found the beers rather nice. I was a bit let down that their barleywine wasn’t available. Oh, and instead of just typical fries with your pub grub you have the option of “Spuds” which turn out to be like a jalapeno-popper/potato hybrids, very tasty. Overall Ice Harbor comes off a bit like a Lucky Lab to the north. Hop heads rejoice, if you find yourself out this way you have your safe haven, a hop pit stop of sorts.

Marmaduke thanks you for reading all this.