Julie "pdxJules" M.'s Profile

Great place to escape the city, to sit outside on the deck, have a bargain dinner, and watch the water and sailboats.  Always a few regulars ar the bar looking for conversation too. Lots of sports screens for those who care, but not annoyingly distracting for the rest of us.

Very informal, and relaxed. Check it out.

Salty's is right next door if you want something fancier.
Salty's costs more, but has stellar food and music, with a Sunday Champagne Buffet. The place is downright civilized. If you are married, I'm guessing you owe your wife a nice dinner there.  But invite yer pals over to the Sextant.  Both have huge parking lots. Be CAREFUL Biking on Marine drive! Consider new Bike paths in the Columbia River area instead.

WOW -  what the heck are ya'll whiners expecting anyway, from a Party Room frequented by Sailors and seasoned revelers from all around the world, that has kept heads spinning for DECADES ?!   Way back in MY thirties, much of what you all are +panning+ was just what MANY called ambiance and evidence of a Good Time!  ( Sounds like a few folks are just out of your element - you seem to require every place to look/smell like a Martini bar, yet you'll give 5 stars to a freakin' Food Cart?!)

I agree the tradition of breaking plates is annoying, wasteful, stagey and just so DONE - it actually distracts from the many ordinary delights of Greek Culture .But really, Reviewers,kindly try the food and ouzo before you recoil in horror at the gleeful behaviours of other Patrons, yes?   Leave the white gloves at home, and have a good time, dangit.

The Dining Room on the main floor is Wheelchair friendly,
The #15 Belmont Bus stops on 4th & Washington across the Street, and MAX Light Rail is to the south...and all run reasonably late,
just be sure to head out by 1:30 to get home.

All day Sunday Food happy Hour offsets the higher than usual (for Portland) prices for EXCEPTIONAL craft brews.  

TAPLISTER got me to ignore people's early negative comments about Henry's being too clean, corporate, with difficult to locate entry, too-tony-Pearl crowd, too expensive, ect. I'm glad I went...and called a friend to come join me immediately...who came from Vancouver and agreed it was a great Sunday afternoon choice.

Henry's had on Tap some of my favorite Imperial Stouts and Belgian Ales. Young's Double Chocolate $6 and Nostradamus: $8 - but the beer Cheese Soup is only $2 and was buttery EXCELLENCE in a bowl.  Also $2 for a Ceasar Salad.  I enjoyed the Teriyaki Salmon fillet, stacked with Won Ton and other treats over Rice, for $4.  A great nosh overall, and in air-conditioned comfort, so I'll be back again before end of summer.

Add me to the list of people who LOVE the Sapphire.
Great brunch - my friend and I loved every bite.
Cozy ambiance, funky decor, calm, retro respect,
lots of ways to Like the Place.

Super spot for a special breakfast date, with quiet conversation.
worth the trip...better yet Bike or take a #14
or 71 or 75 Bus.

One heckuva great Club.
Member Brews will be on at least 3 Pub Taps this month.

Our first LIVE SOLAR BREW demo - was at the - NAOBF 2009
We just did 3 days of open air Brewing at the Oregon Brewer's Festival. (Perhaps you saw me dressed as a DRUID?)

If you plan to join, go to the Web Site for the App & do it quick...more great events coming up.
Annually around Aug 15 - Laurelhurst Park. Potluck Picnic.
Bring great FOOD and a tasting glass. A BBQ will be there. Open also to members of the Oregon Chefs de Cuisine Society.

MEAD Day - 1st Sat of August - at FH Steinbart on SE 12 - which is 1/2 block south of Burnside.  9-ish to 1-ish.  Lots of buses cruise near here.  

Teach a friend to Brew Day - in Nov, and BIG BREW 1st weekend of May.  Our Hop Madness team could use some new organizers.

Frankly, there are many Brewing Clubs - and OBC Members encourage you to choose one near your home, and/or with a meeting time that you can attend.  We are Beer education/appreciation and volunteering clubs,  and our members help educate consumer palettes, help create great Festivals, even helped create the craft brewing industry.  It's a happy kind of club.

Many Brewery, Festival Owners, and Beer Writers are Home Brewers, and are active in the Brew Crew. The BIG Festival organizers/Volunteer Coordinators are active with us too, cuz OBC Volunteers help make it all happen.  The Brew Crew has long committed to help in PR and provide significant Staffing needs for the 2 largest Festivals - and they have prospered.  (As other Fests grow, we are open to talk about ways to offer support. For example many of our Members get/renew OLCC Cards to help at Brewery-hosted events.

The Oregon Brewers Festival  & SWBF - heck - all the Fests keep growing!   Volunteer EARLY for the Spring Fest, NAOBF and Oregon Brewers Festival, online. The OBF is always the last weekend of July, and Spring fest the weekend of Easter (but not Sunday)  All these are sited on excellent Public Transit.  USE IT!  

Volunteers get Free Beer, Mugs, and T-Shirts. Also do the PIB, and consdier getting your OLCC Permit to Volunteer for Portland's Cheers to Belgian Beers and the Fresh Hop, and other Brewery-sited seasonal releases and Tasting events.

American Homebrewer Assn affiliated clubs ROCK!

Oregon had at least NINE Brewing Clubs participate this year in the Annual AHA (American Homebrew Assn) BIG BREW Demo weekend. More than a hundred visited ours again this year, which is held in collaboration with FH Steinbarts Brewing Supplies - and the site of many of our monthly meetings. Demo's abound...because Brew Crew Members step up to help. We teach, brew, provide food, coffee, beer.  (told ya we were groovy!)

The OBC offers numerous Brewing Competitions, and Judging Classes. With the Widmer Brothers, we hold a Brew Contest called Collaborator. OBC members design Brews, and get to brew at Widmer Brewery. Find Collaborator on Tap in the Gasthaus and special events.  $1 a Barrel from Collaborator Brews helps Fund a Brewing Scholarship.  The Sasquatch Golf event in July, and others also help.  We love it! that 3 more Clubs have begun Collaborator Contests of their own, with their local breweries.  Cascade Brewing (at the Rac Lodge) and PDX Brewers (a West Side Club) recently launched:  KABALerator.   I love the name, and might join their KABAL - as other Brew Crew Members do.  The KABALerator competition happens more often - so that's reason enough, odds-wise.  It's a smaller club, with excellent Brewers. Their Big Brew was an overnight camp event this year - in a new member's back yard. KEWL!  GOTTA  love BeerVana.

Longtime Brew Crew Members also help Alan Sprints run FredFest at Hair of the Dog Brewing, and annual proceeds generally go to the Lukemia Society.  Fred Ekhardt (the globally famous Beer Writer) remains an active and good-humored Brew Crew Member; and he encourages Members to broaden appreciation to Sake.

Do you Brew?  
Want to improve your skills, and get Feedback?
Want to become a Beer Judge?  
Want to learn to do Meads?  

Search/LURK our on-line List for Free;
and visit 1-2 IN-meetings as my Guest,
before deciding to Join.  
Just $25 - so heck, why not?  ($40 for Beer-afficianado-Couples)

IN meetings are BYOB/Tasting Event/light Potlucks,
and OUT meetings are usually held at Breweries.

We also have special OUT events, like the Picnic - at Laurelhurst Park. IN Meetings are at Steinbarts on SE 12th. November is the last time to visit a meeting - til Jan.  (2nd Thursdays, 7 PM )
Join online, or come as my Guest.  Bring a Tasting Glass, something to share. In June members got to bring,bring Containers - for a gift of free HOPS AND GRAIN - courtesy of Full Sail Brewing. (Thank you, John Harris, Brewer & _contributing_ OBC member!) I brought massive containers for leftovers, and am still sharing the bounty with other Home Brewers. Want some Hops?

http://www.OregonBrewC...

Pr

A quick note to:
THANK HANS!  for the lovely London Yeast.
My Spring Ales were happy fermeters.

Recent visits: I like summer afternoons to enjoy Imperials and seasonals on the upstairs deck.  Really love Moose and Squirrel, and wish it was available year-round. Have mostly outgrown the Space Stout - or has it changed a couple times after the move?  

Several Laurelwood Brewers have won the Brewing Scholarship that the Brew Crew and NAOBF (and others) raise money for all year - and it shows.  Christian Ettinger who owns Hopworks was one of them.

Memories of the 41st Ave Pub abound, and I still drop  in there now and then, too. Limited parking. Use the Red & Blue Max lines,
and / or Bus  # 12 , 75, and # 77  Buses are within walking distance of both Pubs.  Use em!

Things to Like about the Tug:

John
Megan
Books
Memorabilia
Chernobyl
downscale Coziness
free Popcorn
unassuming Jazz
On the Bus Mall
It's not the Benson
Amusing restroom
Super Walkable area
Next to Bailey's Tap Room (drat! also closed Sunday...)
Mexican Food Next door (or a good Tug nosh)

3 things to dislike:

Closed Sundays.
Site Rented, not  Owned, and
Funky  electric system - puts Brews at Risk!

Please Take MAX, the Street Car,
the # 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 40, 44, 19...and more - buses

The CBA is one of the largest Blues Associations in the Country, actively promoting Bands and supporting Venues and Festivals. It is an all-Volunteer organization with a print Newsletter mailed to Members and available at many  Venues in the NW.  The Front page generally features photos and features about the 2 Musical Acts to play that month at the FREE CBA meting. This double header event is held (almost) every  FIRST  WEDNESDAY all year - at the Melody Ballroom on Southeast  7th/North of Morrison St..  A Semi-Formal November Party  features an ALL STAR Band - and the ANNUAL MUDDY WATERS AWARDS Cerermony.

The Newsletter has recently improved, and the center of the CBA newsletter opens to a more readable Monthly Calendar of Gigs.

www.CASCADEBLUES.ORG is the Club Web Site, and it links to an online Blues Calendar, and a Discussion Board where you can get SAME DAY INFO on Gigs.

The CBA would get 5 stars if the Board was not so dang Clubbish.
Self-dealing includes Nominating each other for the highest Muddy Awards. That aspect reached a new height last fall when a life-time achielvement award WAS HANDED TO a Board Member instead of PETER DAMON - who has booked Bands for, and helped fund - and run the Portland WaterFront Blues Festival - with APLOMB for DECADES, not to mention his stunning career as a Blues Gutarist. His role in helping put Portland on the world's stage as a leading Blues city is far and away more significant a contribution than a Club Volunteer.  Peter is also an accomplished Blues Guitarist and Band Member and leader. (This year I did receive my Ballot, and some past Officers have moved on. Hopefully self-dealing in awards is over, too)  

Self-dealing on non-profit/community service Boards is unbecoming - and needs to Stop...just as the IRS made it illegal for Foundation Board Member to disproportionately _reward_ themselves.  

( UPDATE to the Rant - I don't know if the CBA Board has added Policy/practices to prevent multiple BOARD Members from Nominating each other for Awards, but this year I see NO  sign on the ballot of it happening for 2009. Peter Dammann is again Nominated for the Lifetime achievement award, alongside Bill Rhodes and Norman Sylvester)

UYE - Fridays...

UnAuthorized (Recycled) Review Pasted -
with an Happy Hour Invitation below...

This is your opportunity to meet and laff with the legendary Loyd - of the empire.  Search LOYD on the Yelp Bar above and you'll get the idea.

Your life is about to improve.

Jules

From Loyd:

I've missed it.  Now I'm not gonna miss it any more.  And y'all are
welcome to join me at the Virginia Cafe!!  Remember the old VC--a
90-odd-year-old dark, smokey, endearing two-story club that was
perhaps the classiest dive bar in Portland?  Empire alumni and their
friends recall it as the place we used to flock to, usually on
'dollar-drink' Thursdays.   It has moved around the corner from the
original location to 810 SW 10th Ave.  But it still retains much of
the charm of it's demolished forefather, if not the size and
nicotine-stained history.  It has the same old 100-CD changer, and old
decorations--including winners from the bar's napkin-drawing
contest--remain on the walls.  And those tiles are there, including the one displayed so prominently at the old location, which reads "Loyd and the Empirites."  

The Virginia Cafe remains one of the best places to get a
huge cheeseburger ($4.00 during happy hour, which is 4-7 pm.
For beer drinkers, a pint of Guiness is $4.50, and well drinks are cheap)

...Update from Jules... Friday, May 29,: Happy Hour. ...
WE were there...$2 buys a 2nd Long Island Ice Tea. .for a Friend.
That makes it  a Yelp-a-long UYE for under $10.
(See you next Friday? jules)

Loyd:
I will probably  make it there on Fridays
thereafter, whenever I can make it.  

MY mode of transportation will be
tri-met, the safest way to fly  :)

Sip, sip, hoo-ray!

Loyd

Love this park.
This is Portland's origonal Rose Garden.
Come here and feel like a Queen.

It's a great place to bring a Date.
Don't ask how I know.  

The pergola is a super place to hold a Concert.
The Rose Festival people do it to Honor the Rose Court.

Lived across the street for a year, and was impressed at all the positive activity here.  Bring Kids for the Pool in season, and maybe photograph roses or play tennis while they swim?  Dogs love the fountain too, and the Ball field for chasing balls.  

Walk thru the Rose Garden in bare feet sometime. Good Coffee Across the street, and planty of good food and libations nearby on Killingsworth or Lombard Streets. (and beyond)

Held a wine tasting here once. Just set up a small table next to the big fountain, and laid out all the Hors D'ouerves I'd prepared, and Wines.  It really helped friends unwind from their usual lives in the city, and theHosted Wine Tasting got them to committ to show up for  a Democratic Party auction before people knew that sort of thing was Kool.

You can enjoy this garden any time of year.  It is superb place for getting away alone to clear your head.  (Maybe you'll want to become a Parks Dept volunteer to help maintain this park?)

Bus lines: 4, and 40, with 72 at Killingsworth, and the Crosstown 75 on Lombard. All carry bikes. A very bikable and walkable area too.