Day 1: Portland

As we rolled into Portland after a three-hour drive from Bend, we headed for an old favorite, Hopworks. I have discussed Hopworks on this blog before so I won’t repeat myself too much and only say it is awesome and if the Velvet ESB is on tap, try it because it is a deliciously underrated beer (and ESB’s in general are an underrated style).

As our next planned stops opened a bit later in the afternoon, we dropped in at Gigantic Brewing, always a good choice and one of my husband’s favorites. I was really excited to try their new Project Pilsner beers because I love a clean, simple, delicious beer when I can find it. I ordered the Project Pilsner Citra. One of the things I like best about Gigantic is that they like to take big swings when it comes to their beer. Often this works out well for them, but I feel like they fell a little short of the target with this beer. While the beer was in no way bad (I don’t think they make a pour down the drain beer) the Citra overwhelmed the Pilsner to a distracting degree (citra is a very flavorful hop and pilsners tend to be more understated beers).