A strange thing happened on a recent Sunday en route home from the Oregon Coast. It will play like a blend of farce and fable and, more than a week after experiencing it, I see it as a tale that simply smacks of Our Oregon.
My wife and I look for quality beer and places to drink it – a true joy of traveling anywhere in Oregon, though I hesitate to use the term “beer tourist” – just as I have frequently written about beer but do not consider myself a “beer writer”. Suffice it to say we base many of our decisions of where to stop and eat based on availability of good beer.
On this occasion we stopped very much on a whim at a small establishment that keeps odd hours, a place we had pulled into two other times and found it closed. This time, the sign said open, and indeed it was. But one must be careful with expectations.
The entry was not clearly marked so we went in through what we learned was the side door. Once at the counter, we were brightly greeted by the proprietor who had just opened (a half-hour later than the sign indicates) and immediately poured a pint for a gentleman who came in the correct door at that moment. The proprietor was beyond friendly, though I should mention here that I neglected to ask him his name, so I will call him Cyrus, because he kind of looked like a Cyrus and the name might provide an obscure clue to the tap room I am talking about.
The experience was good, overall, but before proceeding, I must add that I will not reveal the name of the establishment, to avoid casting an unfortunate light; weirdness did follow. I will say only that it is a taproom located in a small northern Willamette Valley town and that, in addition to the main seating area with space for about 15 customers, it offers a good-sized patio with a selection of plastic and metal chairs. (Some were in the shade; it was about 70 degrees out, and sunny, so the shade was welcome even on a mid-April Sunday afternoon.) We ended up on the patio, after a long conversation with Cyrus in which, among other things, he remarked on my Corvallis Brewing Supply shirt and how I must know my beer.
I can tell you the name and origin of one of the two beers we ordered. I did not know, and would not be told, the name of the other selection. My beer, in fact – and that is the kernel of the tale.
There was no posted tap list nor menu that I could see; this is usually a red flag, though there was a small board describing food choices.
When asked, Cyrus said, “I have a couple IPA and a pilsner and a porter – and an amber.” (During our conversation Cyrus “smelled something burning” and rushed out to turn and brush the brisket.)
Lorre ordered a short pour of the porterv-- our hometown Golden Valley Brewing Dundee Porter, it turns out. The sasparilla-esque beer we are well familiar with. For variety, I opted for the amber.
“Before I pour it, you need to know it’s a fairly high octane amber,” Cyrus tells me.
“How high octane?”
“Don’t know,” Cyrus answers. He is a fast talker and adds something -- but I am in a slow-paced Sunday afternoon mood.
Red flag number two, but Lorre is driving so I say bring it on.
As he pours I ask him the brewery name. But here things get a little confusing. For one thing, and I am giving away something here, it turns out he does not brew his own beer but serves wares from area breweries.
Bottom line is he refuses to tell me who made the beer: something about how he doesn’t want to give them credit, since the beer was delivered to him with no alcohol content and he had to take steps to secondarily ferment it.
It has been pointed out to me that the reason for his reticence might be he wanted to avoid offending the brewer. That’s as close an explanation I can deduce. In any event, I really did not follow his explanation as I’m in a state of slightly perturbed confusion at the prospect of being served a beer That I Don’t Know Where It Came From. After a brief exchange in which I essentially tell him it’s unheard of not to reveal the name of a beer being served, he does ask, “Do I have to tell you?” The guy who came in at the same time as us pipes up, “yeah, you kinda do,” but still Cyrus demurs.
“I really don’t want to. It’s my secret.”
At that point I taste it to see what I have gotten myself into. The beer rated an 8.5: all the right aromas and flavors, complex without being fussy, great mouthfeel, all of it. I liked it very much.
“Maybe you can guess who made it? You’re kind of a connoisseur.” At that Lorre registers a joke along those lines but I say it’s pretty unlikely. And indeed I could not.
I attempted one more time to get the brewery name out of Cyrus, but in the raconteur style I had by now grasped was a combination of cheerful and glib, he repeated something about not wanting to give them credit. It’s nonsense, of course, though I did not come out and say it. I asked if he would at least tell me if it came within a 60-mile radius and he said he serves no beer farther than 100 miles away – which, since this is Oregon, hardly narrows it down.
“Is it from the _______ _______” area, I ask, naming the geographical region where we are, one that has recently celebrated “tap season”.
At the mention of the brewery area in question he did not say yes or no, but looked down and sideways and shook his head after a moment, which pretty much told me the answer was yes. (By the way, branding slogans aside, it is always tap season.)
And that led to two related conclusions that helped decrease my degree of curiousity: the region in question, while not far from where I live, is not familiar to me. I don’t really know the breweries in question, so it reduced my stake and interest.
The other conclusion was either simple or counterintuitive, you decide: it was a very good, if anonymous amber that he served me. In light of that, it mattered less to know where it came from.
“This beer is good, but if it was bad I would have to insist you tell me,” I told Cyrus.
The experience is interesting to compare to one we had the day before at a coastal brewery, where our server said, to a question about the hoppiness of one of their beers, “I don’t really know the beers, I’m 19.” I’ve run into this before. I try not to pepper busy servers with too many questions about what a beer might feel or taste like, but it’s not uncommon to have the server reply that they are either too young to sample the beers or “I don’t really like beer so I couldn’t tell you.”
That’s an issue unto itself I won’t get into here other than to say, “managers should give the servers notes,” but it stands in contrast to a guy serving beer who could tell you all kinds of things about a certain beer, but won’t.
My exchange with Cyrus was indeed the oddest beer joint experience I have ever had.
But, to leaven it, one last comparison. Consider that the beer was unnamed, but good, opposed to 40-plus years ago when, in any tavern, the predictable Coors-Bud-Miller-Oly taplist was virtually anonymous. — N.R.
The piece seemed like a great idea for a mystery novel.
Amber is not my favorite but a strong double fermented amber? Lets try a Barley Wine instead methinks. Or perhaps it was the malt at fault? With a source this mysterious it makes makes one wonder, was it plunder? What evil lurks in the hearts? Was it possible a brewmaster went missing in the recent past? This is indeed a mystery! I vote for more episodes.