Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Keep Portland Beered

The TV show Portlandia-- an oft brilliant comedic study of Portand, Oregon's cultural eccentricities-- proudly announced Portland's "weirdness' to the rest of the continent. It said nothing, however, about city's centrality to the sub-cultures of both distance running and craft beer-- an oversight I am here to correct, as per my mandate as interlocutor between the worlds of hops and hopping.




The nearby Nike campus and the essentially Nike-owned (as far as athletics are concerned) University of Oregon, along with the congenially temperate climate and consequent leafyness of Portland, have made the city and environs synonymous with serious distance running since the 1970s (around the time nearby Eugene was dubbed Track Town, USA). Each spring the region plays host to three important gatherings of the sport's faithful: the NCAA Track and Field Championships (except for this year, during which the iconic Hayward Field at the U of O is undergoing a major facelift); the Prefontaine Classic (named for American distance running's James Dean, the late Steve Prefontaine, a former multiple American Record-holder and Oregonian); and last (and, to be fair, least), Portland Track Festival.  I was in town last week for the latter.

Running in the city of Portland can be summarized in two words: Forest Park. Central Park in NYC is a well established-- and great-- place to run. It is central, and it is a park. But Forest Park is a park within a forest that is also very central (to Portland proper). Forest Park wins!

I managed to squeeze in two runs of an hour or so during my short visit this year (to go with several similar runs over the past three years) and was once again gobsmacked by the beauty of the place. If you've ever wondered how many shades of green there are in nature, visit Forest Park at high noon on a sunny day and start counting. You will finish sometime in the year 2050. I would strongly suggest starting from the Ridge Trail Trailhead, starting just north of the St. John's bridge (about the 11 mile mark) and heading south. The trail is hard-packed and wide, though studded with smooth rocks here and there. In other words, it is not a "running trail" in the "trail-running" sense; it is a trail in the plain old running sense. As per its name, it follows a ridge on the escarpment overlooking the city from the west. It seems to slope downward in the middle (I ran between mile markers 6.5 and 11.5), making for a net flat runs with some 3-4% undulations throughout. As I say, the highlight of the place is the play of light on vegetation; every variety of Pacific Northwest flora filters and patterns the sunlight in a billion permutations per minute. Views off of the edge of the trail are vertiginously stunning; you are among the tops of trees whose trunks ascend out of the Jurassic green far below. At times you wish you were a walker, so that you could behold the phytogenetic riot around you a little more lovingly. In short, if you truly appreciate your own existence, do NOT go to Portland Oregon and NOT run this trail.



And then there is the beer. And here, a special tip of the hat to the tiny corner tap house Hoplandia, situated in the village of St. John's, at the west end of the aforementioned St. John's bridge, a very convenient 5 minute drive from the trailhead. Upon entry, hip beermen will expertly guide your search for the top west coast brews, according to your personal style-fancy. You can pay top dollar for a rare barrel-aged sour or stout, which you are free to crack and imbibe in-store, to test your guide's acumen; or, you can pay five dollars for a pride-of-Oregon IPA (say, a Block 15 Sticky Hands or Fresh Flow). My pleasure this visit, however, was a draft glass of Hill Farmstead (Vermont) Florence, a mixed wheat saison-- a zesty, bitter/sour concoction perfect for immediate post-run enjoyment. Hill Farmstead beer-- among the best in the country, nay, the world-- is almost never seen outside of central Vermont, so this was a rare treat (about whose appearance so far from home our host was cryptic-- something about a "favour" from allegedly very eccentric owner Sean Hill). But, thanks to a lead from fellow beerster/runner Evan Andrin-- he of Western/Queen's XC and message board (in)fame--, I discovered what would be the trip's winning beer: Mandala, a New England style juice-bomb put together by Portland's Great Notion Brewery. This IPA, were it a runner, would have won the Portland Track Festival men's 10k in a handy 27:55. Unfortunately, other GN ales-- a couple of high ABV IPAs-- were not of the same caliber (due, we surmised, to subtle quality control issues), and, according to our guide at Hoplandia, GN's best efforts are its one-off experimental offerings-- hopped sours and fruity stouts. Still, if Mandala was an example of GN on it's best day, it is definitely in the running for the PNW A-list of breweries. With our time and daily alcohol quota under pressure, we did not get a chance to sample any of these beers, which were available in abundance at their downtown brew pub. But, our targets for next year are squarely in our sights!

Check back next week for legs 2-4 of my ongoing four-city tour, featuring one likely beer/hoofing locale (Vancouver BC) and a couple of less likely ones (Winnipeg MB and Duluth MN).



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