Cheers to Belgian Beers

Cheers to Belgian Beers
Originally uploaded by pete4ducks.

Emily and I on Saturday got to do something that we hardly ever get to do any more and that is to get to enjoy Portland for an afternoon sans children. We decided to head down to Hopworks to check out the Cheers to Belgian Beers. This was a very fun event, all sorts of local brewers getting to be very creative and yet each taste was only a dollar. Yummy. We were in line to get a taste when a fairly sloshed man came up to the woman who was serving the McMennamins tasters (and some other beers as well and she was not an employee of McMennamins) and started going off on her about how their beers suck, service sucks etc. Pretty much being a big A-hole. I can understand some criticism of McBeers because they are definitely not known for service and they have 7 or 8 beers they have had forever which don't stand up to the quality of many other local brews but their beer is not swill. Go visit about 90% of this country where all you can find is Bud , Bud Light, Coors Light and maybe Heineken or Corona on tap and come back to me about swill. You can find some great beers at McMennamins if you avoid your local strip mall version and head to one of the many places that brews on site. Chances are your local brewer has put together an interesting special or two and many of these I have really enjoyed. I hear this same complaint about Deschutes, Widmer and Full Sail a lot. Yes these beers can be disappointing if all you are judging them on is Widmer Hef, the newest incarnation of Mirror Pond or Full Sail Amber. All of these places make some excellent seasonals that shouldn't be missed and if you go to the actual pubs and have the small batch versions of specials or even their regular faves you'll be surprised that they taste different and better. The only reason that events like Cheers to Belgian Beers exist today is the pioneering spirit of places like McMenaminns and Widmer that created an industry that has flourished in this state and allows for the creativity of the many great brewers in Oregon to experiment and raise the bar on what is great and daring beers. The man who was chastising McMennamins should instead be thanking them. Without McMennamins and their early pioneering brethren coming along he'd probably be drinking a bud light instead of enjoying an event that would only happening in a few places in the world.

Evie at the Children's Museum

myintrotoletuknow

Thought I'd start one of these up . . . I have been on Myspace (http://www.myspace.com/pete4ducks) for almost a year and that was my first experience with the whole blog thing, been liking it so far . . . well who am I may you ask? I am a 30 year-old man (so far being 30 has rocked I was so scared to leave my 20's but it has been great) who moved from from Eugene, Oregon to Portland, Oregon in April of 2005. I guess you could say my late 20's were somewhat of a quarter-life crisis. I had a good stable job stable job that I knew how to do well but unhappiness from my personal life and boredom from the sameness of my job in Corporate America and life in general swelled up to the point where I knew I needed a change. I have enjoyed my time in Portland, in a way re-inventing myself in the process. I work for a non-profit organization in Lake Oswego I enjoy here though I hate my commute. In between leaving my job in Eugene and moving to Portland I spent a great couple of week's in Asia visiting my parents in Taiwan and then we went to Thailand to spend some time on the beach in Koh Samui and then off to Bangkok for a few days of shopping and trying to avoid the scorching heat (106 F with tons of humidity).

My interests are varied. I am a very big sports fan but outside of the NFL I could really care less about pro sports. College is definitely where I like to be when it comes to athletics viewing. My love is the University of Oregon (www.goducks.com) Ducks of-course but I just love the emotion of th college athletics so much more than professional sports. I was never very much a political person however the Bush administration really changed that for me. Somedays I hope that I could wake up from the bad dream that has been leveled on this country and planet by the Bush cartel. I guess my goals for the future are varied. I am working on plans to develop a eco-friendly resort somewhere in the developing world, whether that be Central America, the South Pacific or even somehwere else I would love the opportunity to live in paradise yet at the same time fight to protect the culture and environment of the area I move to and prove local folks with employment opportunities. I like my job now but I would really enjoy moving into something that allowed me to travel internationally frequentely, so if anyone has any ideas of how I might go about doing that I would love to hear from you.

Well that is my first blog of hopefully many to come. Hope my spelling and grammar weren't too offensive . . .

Pete