I'm slacking, flashback/link post.

(Found these today! The spuds was only released in 1987 for the openings of new bars, and it's a light!)

I've been slacking on keeping this blog updated, but I've drank a lot of beer since my last post none-the-less.

For posterity's sake, I'll make note of the recent highlights.

We'll start w/ the hood river fresh hop festival. Anyone who remembers reading about the big (and somewhat comedic, in retrospect) ordeal that occurred at my last hood river hopfest, will find this report incredibly boring in comparison. I went, the weather was nice, I enjoyed some of the beer, and then I went camping on Mt. Hood again; at the scene of the disaster. This time I felt good, got a great night's sleep, and felt awesome the next day; when I watched the Eagles on TV with a few more beers. Unfortunately, I think the part I enjoyed about going to this festival the most wasn't that I had a great time or particularly enjoyed the beers. It was just good to not have to worry about what I missed. I might be confident enough to just not go next year, we'll see. To be fair, the fest was well run, the selection was great, and the value was good, so there aren't any complaints there. I just don't really like pales and IPA's much anymore, so fresh-hop fests just don't do it for me like they used to. I think my favorite beers of the event were extras that weren't even fresh hopped. I liked the bourbon barrel aged oatmeal stout from big horse, and the redwood smoked lager from upright the most.

After the fresh hop fest, I had a new friend in town that I had previously only known from beeradvocate.com. He was visiting from Germany with his lovely new wife, on their honeymoon. He had previously provided me with a copies of the FANTASTIC beer show, Tournee Generale, and then later, sent me a surprise package from Europe, containing a bottle of westvelteren 12; a beer that I had only ever consumed in Belgium, and hadn't seen again since. We both had busy schedules while they were in town, but we managed to get in a couple of bars while they were around, and they saw many more on their own. First, we had dinner at produce row, then we cruised over to the cascade barrel house, where we enjoyed such wonderful beers as bourbonic plague, vlad the imp aler, beck berry, funk II, sang noir, and noyeaux.

I've been back to cascade twice since that night. A few beers have changed, the crowd has become more varied (this is a good thing, I can only stare at other beer geeks for so long), and they've announced the much anticipated bottle release of vlad and bourbonic, which will take place this saturday from 9 am to 6 pm; coinciding with a performance by Ron's band at the barrel house.

Other than that, I've been buying and collecting beers, trying to put away a little cash for the release of Mother of all Storms at Pelican next month, and getting some sweet breweriana for the cave.

Oh, and a movie filmed a scene at my store today.

I promise to be more proactive on this blog in the near future.