Hey guys. Welcome to 2019. As you can see, I have officially gotten no better at being a blogger. You would think that at some point, I would either close up shop or just write a goddamn blog post but you know that I’m not good at doing either of those things. I like the blog but I’m remarkably good at finding an excuse to not write for it.

Today’s post is going to be about the time I went to Portland back in October when I had a job and things were going well (Narrator: Things were not going well) and the weather was warm and the sun was shining in the Hipster Capital of the World and I drank beer. But I’ll be honest, I just referenced my notes and, not surprisingly, I do not have any notes about this. But I’ll do my best to fill in the events.

So, what brought me to Portland was my dear friend JD’s housewarming/birthday party. He bought a house. He turned 25. He moved to Portland. It was reason to celebrate. And one part of that celebration was going to JD’s favorite brewery in all of Portland, Ecliptic Brewing. We also lucked in and it was their first birthday! While I know excuses are not fair or fun, I will say that part of the reason why I do not have notes is because we were with a big group of people who did not know about the blog and I was too ashamed to explain the whole blog to these new people. I’ve got a delightfully aloof and disinterested reputation to maintain and me giving a shit about something does not allow for that, not when I was with some Canadians and some other people(?).

But honestly, I ended up having to explain the blog anyways. If there are people who do not maintain chill well, it’s my friends who haven’t stopped drinking for 32 consecutive hours. So I made a new friend (shoutout to Brady is most decidedly not reading this blog post) and then proceeded to explain to him that I run a blog. About beer. And worse than that fact, it’s not even a good blog. On its best day it’s passable. On its worst day, it’s not even a blog because there is no fresh content and it’s just stale ramblings of a madwoman.

Sorry, I digressed.

Since I was playing the role of a Good BloggerTM that day, I got a six pour flight. And better news than this delightful flight was that it was only eleven dollars for a six pour flight. I quickly learned through my short (but still too-long) stopover in Portland, that it’s insanely cheap to drink there. It’s dumb expensive to rent an apartment or drive a car or anything else that is incorporated with the idea of cost of living. But the beers were cheap. And that’s coming from someone who is used to drinking in Milwaukee, where we already have the luxury of cheap beers. But Portland’s coming for our brand on that.

But then again, what Milwaukee’s got on Portland is that I can afford to live in one of the trendiest neighborhoods in the city for like, what most people pay for their monthly parking spot in other cities. Then again, when was the last time you ever heard Milwaukee mentioned when it wasn’t the butt of some joke? Sorry, you didn’t come here for me to rehash my constant love-hate relationship with the city of Milwaukee. I need to save that for our couples therapy.

Back to the beer!

The flight included the Orbiter IPA, Capella Porter, Carina Peach Sour, Starburst IPA, Phobos Red Ale, and Spectra Hoppy Pilsner. The Starburst was my favorite, because, as I learned about six months ago, I have a favorite hops and it’s galaxy hops. For the most part, it reminds me of Blue Moon ice cream, which is also my favorite flavor of ice cream*. But overall, the entire flight was very good. I do remember that there was one beer that I was surprisingly not too fond of, I think it might’ve been the red ale, but as I didn’t take notes and I do not have access to my Untapped profile right now (I’m on an airplane! I’m in the sky! This is the highest I’ve ever been! Praise.)

Another fun thing about the brewery was, as previously mentioned, it was their first birthday so they were doing beer giveaways (maybe?) and free hor’d’oeuvres  (most definitely). So, a little more on Ecliptic in general, is that they have a full menu and are rocking the brewpub thing pretty well. It didn’t feel gross or sell out-y or anything like that. I feel like sometimes places that decide to go with a full kitchen do not balance good beer and good food well. Either they lose sight of the passion (lol I hate myself) of the beer in the pursuit of a decent food offering, or they go for the full menu thing and it ends up like an overpriced Applebee’s. And while we did not eat there as we had just come from brunch, the hor’d’oeuvres were bomb (can I type that on an airplane?).

And then we moved on with our day from there.

I will also briefly mention that we did also go to another brewery that day, but I only had water there because I was a little beer’d out. I wasn’t drunk or anything, but it was still early in the day and we had a whole day of drinking ahead of us. I couldn’t risk ending up like Jake Smith or something (look at me calling your dumbass out my dudes). But the brewery that we went to (and I think I ate bacon at for some reason?) Was called Ex Novo. There’s photos.

Also, everyone else went to a third brewery called Reverend Nat’s or something (again, I’m on a plane and can’t google it and sure, could I just look it up when I go to post this? Definitely. Will I? Of course not. That takes the charm out of the blog. I can’t be a good blogger all the time). And everyone loved that place. I, however, did not go there. Ashley and I took a Lyft to the nearest Target which, news to us in the moment, was in Washington. So that was fun. I had never been to Washington and now that I can say that I have, and it was to go to Target to get cake mix for JD’s birthday.

Overall, Portland, in all it’s hipster glory, is obviously killing it on the beer front. There is so much more that I did not get to in my weekend trip, but I’m excited to go back and see JD and Andrew and Emily (none of those people are reading this) and drink beer. Maybe rent a car and head out to Bend, OR which is essentially the Mecca of Craft Beer. Now, if only there was an easier and cheaper way to get out to Portland, that doesn’t require a whole fucking day spent in an airport (don’t ask, I’m still tired), I’d try to get out there soon.

But yeah, that was Ecliptic. My next few posts are probably all going to be set in Michigan? I know, that’s a weird place for me to be fucking around, but I’ve been a lot lately. Other than that, it’s nice to be back and I’ll catch y’all sometime soon. Maybe next week, maybe next year? Who knows! Happy 2019 my dudes.

*For those of you who live outside of the Upper Midwest, Blue Moon ice cream is not beer flavored ice cream. It’s a fruity, creamy artificial kind of flavor that I think also have notes of lavender. It’s been my favorite ice cream my whole life and I didn’t even know that it didn’t exist outside of the Upper Midwest until I moved to Florida and we had a HILARIOUS (or not) misunderstanding in the break room at Innoventions before the start of our morning shifts when a bunch of grown ass people were talking about their favorite flavors of ice cream and no one had any idea of what I was talking about until Rebeca (shouts out girl!) (she’s also not reading this lol), who is from Michigan, walked in and was like “Oh yeah, I love blue moon.” And I was validated in that moment.