Beer + Bears makes a Busy weekend

Janel and I had a nice busy (yet unproductive) weekend. Saturday we headed downtown and went to the Holiday Ale Festival in Pioneer Square with Allen and Melvin. This was by far my favorite beer festival since coming to Portland (and I have been to a good number of them). For whatever reason, winter is the time for Stouts and Porters, which I am a big fan of ... while summer time is all about hops and IPAs (which do very little for me).

Some beers that I really liked ...

• Sleigh'r (Ninkasi Brewing) -- a 7.2% ABV, 50 IBU "Amber Hybrd" -- Something other than a Stout or Porter is at the top of my list.  This was good stuff.  Pretty dark for an Amber.
• Santa Baby Stout (McMenamins Thompson Brewery) -- a 5.8% ABV, 30 IBU Stout -- McMenamins is a big brewery out here in Portland, and they hold a contest across all their brewers every year for the festival entry, and this selection did not disappoint.
• Babushka's Secret (Widmere Brothers) -- a 9% ABV, 70 IBU  Stout made with KGB (one of their Stouts) along with 14lbs of local rasberries per barrel during fermentation.  I am not a big fan of "sweet" or "girly" beers, but this was good stuff. 

Some other beers of note ...

• Smoked Porter w/ Vanilla Beans (Stone Brewing Company) -- A 5.9% Smoked and Wood-Aged Porter -- This thing tasted a lot like a Root Beer Float.  Very strange.  A bit too sweet for me, but interesting
• Abbey Grand Cru (New Belgium Brewing Company) -- A 9.5% ABV, 19 IBU Belgium Strong Ale -- This was the "first" beer made by the makers of Fat Tire, and it was really really bad
• Black Pepper Chocolate Stout (Lagunitas) -- This thing was interesting because it actually tasted of pepper.  I thought it was a bit too much, but it was worth tasting

There were a lot of other good Stouts and Porters, but I won't list them all.

For dinner we went to Mio Sushi on 23rd and Johnson -- our new favorite Sushi place in Portland.

Sunday we went to watch the bears game at a new place -- Cactus Jacks.  It is a "Bears Bar" that is a bit of a drive, but it was way better than our standard Sunday hang-out of BW3s.  We will be spending our future Sundays (and next Thursday) there with all the other Bears fans.  After the game, we played in two soccer games (luckily Soccer Plex is really close to Cactus Jacks).  I will be heading to bed early tonight :).