Portland. Where the weird thrive and the beer flows like wine. Any walk around this beautiful city will yield you an infinite array of culinary delights and wonderful spectacle. It is one the few cities in the country that has the honor of being called “My Happy Place” and with so much as 15 minutes lost in its abnormally clean city streets it just might become one of yours as well. If on your walkabout you stumble across Great Notion Brewing then do yourself a flavor (that’s right, I said flavor) and stumble inside. You might find the piece of your heart that you’ve been missing.
While the hazy IPA scene is East Coast dominated this Oregon house of hops and glory is making a case for supremacy, and in this debate, haters gonna hate while the lovers gonna love. I have had my liver liberally doused in the likes of Other Half, Trillium, Tree House, among others and can say without any hesitation that Great Notion holds a candle to the east coast behemoths and sets them on fire. I have no guilt in roasting my marshmallows on that fire and parading my s’mores in front of my east coast brethren. So let me take a minute, or many and try to put into words the depth of my adoration for the copious mouthfeels and Disney-like glee I get when I find my seat at their Alberta brewpub. Where the beers are a plenty and the food gives you chest pains… #worthit
So lovingly printed on their cans is the credo “With a Passion for Hops and the Patience for Sour”, which translates to the thirstiest of Uprighticans as a promise to satisfy, not only the lupulin painted palates but the jaw tightened thrill seekers of sours as well, and everything in between. And when I say everything, I’m not just whistling Dixie, mainly because I have no idea what that means, but also because whenever I visit my home away from home I tend run the gamut on the tap list. They serve up breakfast in the form of Double Stack pancakes, a big sumumabitch of a stout brewed with enough maple syrup to give you the diabeetiss and whole bean Sumatra from Clutch Coffee Roasters to keep you buzzzing through the sugar surge. At 11% ABV you’ll be happier sooner than later and feeling no guilt for having pancakes before noon. No shortage of healthy options if you are in the mood for something juicy. Juice Box, Juice Jr, Space Invader, and voted one of the best IPA’s in Mrrrica… Ripe IPA, all take your palate to the farmer’s market for a fruit filled basket of “F@%k Yeah!”
I’m gonna need something to get a little more emotional about so my next lips smacking libation must be a sour. I gaze upon a menu item that might as well have been lit with fireworks. Blueberry Muffin? Yes please. Take a whiff, reflect, tell me where you are right now. I am smack dab in a bakery or in a country kitchen neck deep in muffins a la blueberry, and I mean spot on. Sips turn to puckers, and empty glasses turn to smiles as it goes down with ease and elation. Truly a singular experience and one of my favorite sours, period. Until… these maniacal expectation destroyers decide they want all their eggs in one can, so they haze up a strawberry sour, or maybe they sour up a hazy IPA, either way they do it, and in doing so claim my liver for their own. The Luminous v.03 was a journey. Sweet and tart, hazy and refreshing, drink and drunk. If I had a third eye, it would have been a flood with tear. We’re talking Bambi’s mom dying, Rose letting Jack sink to the bottom of the ocean, stub your toe on the coffee table tears. I will forever yearn for that beer, no shame.
Give me the time and I will peel back the layers of love for this pot of gold at the end of my own personal rainbow. But I don’t have that kind of time. Time is wasted if you’re not at least dreaming about visiting this Portland house of hops and happiness. I don’t waste time anymore. I drown in it.
The Upright Drunk 