Brew Review A – Ft. George Brewery
I’m trying to be better at getting my brew reviews posted in a timely manner. Since I reviewed the Ft. George brewery on October 30 and it is currently November 11, I think that significantly beats my last lag time of two months! Go me!
So – the architect & I went to Astoria for a night at a B&B for our anniversary. I was pretty excited to check out the Ft. George Brewery because they are almost always the guest tap at the McMenamin’s we go to, and I really like their beer! Also, the brewery was just 3 blocks from our B&B so it worked out well.
We’d gotten into Astoria later than we planned and I was hongry so we ate ‘lunch’ at about 3:30. A big, big lunch. We headed to the brewery at 8 and I was still not hungry again AT ALL. However, I was not going to let that stand in the way of my sacred duty to my loyal readers who expect real reviews!
So, we ordered the sausage sampler appetizer plate (house made sausages, cheese & pita – seemed like a good idea) and a beer sampler tray. I will first review the food, just to get that out of the way, and then we can come back to a more pleasant taste & talk about beer.
This was gross. The sausages, while certainly flavorful, were GREASY! Really, really greasy. I had two bites. The cheese was kraft singles. You’d think that they could at least spring for some Tillamook cheese – it’s just down the road (what’s 60 miles, give or take, when it comes to cheese?). The pita bread was from the ‘two day old really cheap bread cart’ from the local discount grocery store. Also, it was burned. But I don’t think that unburned cheap pita would’ve helped significantly.
It’s a good thing I wasn’t hungry – because I couldn’t eat it at all. What amuses me is the completely different review (and much better photo) Dave Knows Portland gave the exact same sausage sampler (although his sausage sampler was also poisonous, so that’s even scarier).
BUT, we will now move on & try to wash the greasy & artificial flavors out of our mouths.
The beer really was good. Really good. I found myself enjoying beer types that I don’t ordinarily.
- Golden Goose – really, really good for a golden! It had flavor! Complex flavors! (that’s all I wrote in my notes, and since I am writing this almost two weeks after the fact, it’s not very fresh in my memory – note to self: take better notes.)
- Quick Wit – this was really good as well. I don’t generally like Wit beers (again, I’m not a fan of the super light or dark beers, I’m more of a middle ground girl), but I would’ve really enjoyed this if it’d been a hot summer evening instead of a super stormy wind, rain, wrath of god October evening.
- Divinity (Belgian fruit) – vaguely sour; neither bad nor good
- Sunrise Oatmeal pale – this was delicious! Which again, surprised me, as I am not a big fan of the pale beers.
- Nut red – I love this beer (it was the current guest tap at my Mcmenamins); and it was still delicious
- Vortex IPA – very complex, very hoppy, a definite winner! This was the favorite beer for both of us!
- Cavatina Stout – my notes here say ‘very stouty’. Which meant, I think, tasty but there’s no way I could drink more than a sampler size of this!
- Drunken Punkin – this was the only one (besides the Divinity) that neither of us had strong feelings about. My notes read “this is your average pumpkin beer.” Which interprets to – “meh.”
After finishing our sampler tray, the architect ordered (not all at once) a Quick Wit, a Sunrise Oatmeal Pale & a Votex IPA. I had two IPAs & a Nut Red. We were there for a very, very long time. It was raining so hard that we could barely see across the street & kept thinking that the storm would let up. It didn’t by almost midnight, so we braved the (three blocks! uphill!) walk back to the B&B. Even with our coats, I was soaked through by the time we got back. Good thing our room had a fireplace. (And cable. It was a magical place.)
So – in conclusion. Ft.George beer = good. Their food = not so good. The public house itself was kinda fun. High ceilings with lots of very large wooden beams that the architect was very impressed with. Board game inlaid tables (you can kind of see our backgammon table in the above pics). The service was pretty average. A little slow it seemed, for the few people there, but friendly!
All in all – I definitely recommend a visit next time you’re in Astoria!
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