My Father's Place

After another visit to B-side on Friday, my companions, esteemed cohort, and I decided to forsake the clubs and loud bars and went to My Father's Place in search of greasy food, cheap beer, and pool. Most importantly, no cover charge. The food is greasy and yes, I found a hair in it, but that chicken fried steak and eggs at 1:30 in the morning has a special place in my heart. Nothing completes a meal like a Jagerbomb and PBR. I love My Father's Place because you can get cheap diner food til all hours of the morning, the crowd is usually industry and chill people and the drinks are nice and stiff. With old leather booths and carpet from when Christ was a baby, it's place that won't do you wrong.

Pabst Blue Ribbon

Portland, Oregon orders, sells, and consumes more Pabst Blue Ribbon than any other city in the world. Which is strange as Portland also has more craft breweries per capita than any other city in the world. With so many craft brews and local beers circulating in this city, how did PBR become one of the most popular beers (according to some recent studies, PBR is ranked #5 in Portland)? Why so many people enjoy the cool, crisp American lager may never be fully answerable, but the history of the company has had a long and interesting history since its inception.

Jacob Best began the original company in 1844 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin calling it The Empire Brewery. He ran the company with his sons Phillip, Charles, Jacob, Jr. and Lorenz until Phillip took control of the company in 1860. Phillip Best's son in law, a ship captain named Frederick Pabst bought a share in the Phillip Best Brewing Company. By 1875 the company had begun bottling their signature lager which they called Best Select. At that point Phillip Best Brewing Company was the largest Brewery in the nation.

Jacob Best, Sr. 

In 1985, then finally named Pabst Brewing Company, was purchased in a hostile takeover for $63 million. On May 26, 2010 current owner C. Dean Metropoulos purchased the company for nearly $250 million.
Pabst Brewing company also made a number of moves all across the country. Starting in Milwaukee, eventually moving to San Antonio, TX, then to Woodridge, IL, and finally to Los Angeles, CA where its headquarters now resides. The Company started with a paltry 18 barrels a year and at its peak hit almost 16 million barrels per year.

Pabst Brewing Company won "Large Brewing Company of the Year" at the Great American Beer Festival in 2011 and 2012.

PBR now has a licensing agreement and joint venture in China, which recently released a new beer called Pabst Blue Ribbon 1844 for consumption in the domestic market; it sells for $44 U.S. dollars a bottle.

The Old Gold

At only a year and a couple months old, Old Gold is perhaps one of the finer dive bars in Portland. Why, you ask? WHISKEY!! Located at the corner of N Detroit and Killlingsworth, The Old Gold has more varieties of whiskey than almost any other bar in this fair city. And not ridiculously priced either.



















With a chalkboard spirits menu, they are able to constantly update their vast assortment of bourbons, sour mashes, ryes, scotches and other whiskey variations.







With an elegant bar, spacious floor-plan and well-stocked whiskey shelves, The Old Gold offers a comfortable environment that has attained more of a "neighborhood bar" feel rather than a "dive bar" feel.

A large, outdoor patio contains a few tables for smoking and non-smoking patrons to enjoy, obviously better during the summer months, as most of it is uncovered.

The only real complaints I would have with this place are that the bar itself doesn't really have much to do in terms of pool, darts, etc. and the scotch selection leaves something to be desired. But the ever-flowing bourbon tends to draw in my type of people and I have had many a conversation with a random stranger that inevitably ends with buying each other rounds of whiskey. 

My Sweet Charlie Boy

This is not a post about a bar or drinking (though I did annihilate a bottle of R&R to squash my sorrow)
but a tribute to my sweet dear kitty who had to be put to sleep last night. I won't go in to the exact gruesome details of what happened but at he had a blockage in his urinary tract that had caused other organs to start to fail and shut down. He was hypothermic and the doctors didn't believe he would make it through the night. It was well before his time and barely nine years old. My best friend Marco had taken my Charlie in before I moved down to school and had been living with him and my other best friend Katie for some time now. I'm so glad that he was with them during his last moments and I know that this is a loss to their family as well.

Charlie had a rough go of it his first few years, pretty similar to myself actually. He was my grandmother's cat  but would come and stay at my parents house when she was in the hospital or with her brother in Nebraska. This happened more often then not and it was hard on Charlie to keep going back and forth. It would always take him a day or two to readjust and he got more and more skittish every time. We finally took him in permanently and Charlie was home. When he was a kitten his little heart shaped nose and bright green eyes took up his whole face, his ears were the biggest thing on his body, and his paws gave us a very good idea of exactly how large he would become. With a gentle soul and the sweetest heart he became a gentle giant. He lacked in grace and typical feline abilities, he always landed his jumps a little splayed, but he loved his people and was always down for a good cuddle. Unaware of his size and stature, he was scared of his own shadow and had to be left to grow comfortable on his own time. (It took him 6 months to get used to Marco and Katie's and stop hiding in the basement of their house.) He was one of the most adorable and lovable cats I've ever had and known and he will always have his own place in the middle of my heart.

The Alleyway

The Alleyway Cafe and Bar, located on NE 25th and Alberta, is a local dive spot featuring laid back yet friendly staff, competitive food and drink prices, and food that's actually pretty decent compared to a vast majority of dive bars in Portland. Their drink selection ranges from your average wells and macro-brews straight up to top shelf scotch and local micro-brews such as Ninkasi and an Irish Red Ale, the name of which I can't pronounce. Amenities include a single pool table, a few pinball tables, for some reason a photo booth, not a tremendous amount of seating indoors, but the covered outdoor patio has several more picnic-style tables, room to roam, and a Foosball table set on uneven gravel to give it a little extra thrill. While especially pleasant during the warmer summer months, they do have heating units built into the outdoor patio to help take off the chill during the wet, cold, rest of the year.

The Alleyway has made a few different transitions in management, each one changing the feng shui slightly. The ambiance, the music, sometimes the layout of the bar itself. Most recently the music selection has been more Metal-themed, with live bands that occasionally play on a tiny stage. The background music is usually Metal-themed as well, though the bar does have a weekly Karaoke night which of course is customer's choice.  Being located right in the heart of the constantly-evolving Alberta District, it stands up to the myriad of neighboring bars and restaurants.

The Alleyway is a great spot to bring a few friends, host a birthday celebration, drop in to grab a beer and a bite to eat, or add to a list of stops on an Alberta Street bar-hopping escapade. If you ever find yourself in this area of Portland, make sure to at least check out this dive bar gem.