Gorgeous Gorges and Gorging

Despite being slightly hung over, Saturday in Portland was a blast. We rented a van and took it up the scenic highway to the Columbia River Gorge. As the cliche goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, so I posted a few on Facebook to make up for my lack of motivation to do any sort of descriptive writing. You will have to go there if you want to see them since Blogger sucks at uploading images.

After our scenic tour, we swung by Voodoo Donuts to pick up some dessert. Its reputation had preceded it, and it did deliver a tasty donut with a hip shtick. Leaving the donuts in the van for after dinner, we headed into my favorite place we visited the entire trip: Hopworks Urban Brewery. Normally I wouldn't take my family to a brewpub for dinner, but this one was different. One of their largest dining areas is custom-made for families as it was decked out with chalkboards, toys, books, and plenty of other things for kids to do. There was even organic baby food on the menu for Dexter. HUB uses natural, organic, locally-grown ingredients in their food and beer. They also made much of their building and decorum out of recycled and reused materials. The bar featured a multitude of bicycle frames, and they even have a modified bicycle that carries two kegs and serves customers wherever they are. Oddly enough, my favorite part of the building was the bathroom. The designers ingeniously mounted bicycle seats above the urinals for patrons to rest their heads on while they do their business. Any man reading this can appreciate that.

I ordered the sampler to drink because I wanted to sample as many beers as possible without getting drunk. I was with the family after all. I didn't take any notes on the brews, but I enjoyed all but two or three out of the near-dozen placed before me. The IPA was good (I had had it before as a gift from the Ev), but I think the best was their Survival Seven-Grain Stout. On the nose were tons of espresso and roasted malts as well as some chocolate and hops. The beer had a fantastic mouth feel with all of the flavors in the nose represented. The hops and the espresso did a good job of coming out. I expected a much more malty brew but was pleasantly surprised at its bitterness. At only 5.3% ABV, I would drink this all day no matter the weather.

For dinner I ordered a calzone, Tara got a Greek salad, and Skylar got a hamburger. All of them were better than average, but I have to say that my calzone was the topper. It was literally an entire pizza folded in half and covered in tomato sauce and fresh basil. I was in heaven, but it was too big to eat in one sitting. I finished half of it at dinner, and a few of us finished off the other half while we played Trivial Pursuit back at the house that night. All in all, it was a pretty nice little Saturday.