Ninkasi is crafted in Eugene, Oregon, and the company is a huge supporter of Cascadia Wildlands, a non profit working to educate and advocate for protection of Old Growth forests in the Cascadia bioregion. Cascadia was also the beneficiary of Rootstalk, and anyway we got our first Ninkasi Tricerahops Double IPA at the Cascadia Wildlands office. By the time we got to drink it though, it was warm and not as refreshing as we hoped, but still good. Next time though, we have to spend some time at the Ninkasi tasting room because we didn't get enough of it to write the review it deserves.
Next beer on our list was at the festival. Oakshire Brewing is also a Eugene crafted brew, and this was the first time we'd had it. Wow!! They made a special batch of herbal ale with over 14 herbs. They also had a delicious Overcast Espresso Stout and and the tasty Watershed dry hopped IPA. We had a lot of this stuff during our 4 day stay at the camp, and really want to visit their brew pub (I think they have one) the next time we go to Oregon.
After the fest we spent a day urban hiking around Eugene, and of course made our way to the Eugene City Brewery, which is a ROGUE operation. OMG! Well any person who claims to truly love beer absolutely also truly loves Rogue beer. We tried so many delicious beers there, including the Chatoe Rogue First Growth Wet Hop Ale, brewed with hops grown on the Rogue farm...I don't honestly even remember what else we tried but the Juniper ale (duh). But their taps were impressive, I'm guessing around 30 or so delicious brews from which to choose. Highly recommend Rogue, all the time, to any one, of course. Our bar tender was super nice, and gave us a whole stack of beer publications and brew tour info...We're still enjoying reading it, and are really excited when we try something new at a pub and then go home and see it in one of our magazines.
After our time in Eugene I headed up to Vancouver, BC for some good times with my best friend. I got to try a few local Canadian beers, but no matter what anyone says, I did not have a single Canadian micro brew that was stronger than its American counter part (according to style of beer). I still enjoyed it, and my favorite was the Granville Island Ginger Beer. An actual alcoholic ginger beer, first time for me, and damn was it good! The disappointing thing about Granville was the brewery tour was full, and they only had a tasting room so you couldn't buy more than 12 ounces of beer. Never heard of such a weird thing!
I'm primarily a big fan of the Pale and India Pale Ales, and the Canadian pales just weren't bitter enough for me. I was surprised that while there I favored the local lagers, and fruity ales. Granville's False Creek Raspberry Ale was surprisingly yummy, and I don't even like raspberries! Whistler's Bear Paw Honey Lager was pretty good, and mild, and very sessionable.
All in all, the Pacific Northwest is a great place to get beer, in case you didn't know.
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