Oregon and Bust

Don’t expect much and you’ll never be disappointed. That’s the best piece of advice I never got growing up. Admittedly, my recent quick jaunt to Klamath Falls, Oregon and back was really for the purpose of helping a buddy of mine drive a truck back to the desert southwest, but as the time for our departure drew near, I found myself fantasizing about the new beers I would find and acquire, even allowing myself the delusion of thinking perhaps I’d be able to bring some Oregon beers back to Beer Rant HQ.

In the end, I brought back just two bottles of Oregon beer.

My original draft of this post was way longer, but I’m reminded of a new year’s resolution of sorts; I’d promised to be more, shall we say, “concise” in my posting.

So, here’s the quick dope on my trip to Oregon and back.

Had a Guinness and a hamburger at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport.

Got held up at the ticket counter in San Francisco, thus missing an opportunity to visit the Anchor Steam Brewpub in the terminal. Settled for a bottle of Anchor in the waiting area. (I paid about $7 USD for that damned bottle of liquid bread.)

Arrived in Klamath Falls about 10 PM on a Friday. My buddy and I located his son outside the terminal and we quickly decided to stop at The Creamery, a local brewpub. (Now here is where I must violate my new year’s resolution and go into painful, plodding detail, if only to shine the searing light of shame on the place that is “the creamery.”

The Creamery: Don’t Bother (Us)

We wound our way through the rain-dampened streets of town and pulled up outside The Creamery with its blazing neon cow sign. I fetched my beer notebook out of the back of the car and we ambled in, planning to have a snack and at least one beer.

We stepped inside to find the circular bar almost fully occupied and the place well lit, but from there things went downhill in a hurry. As we approached the bar, one of the patrons turned and muttered something ending in the word “closed.” I looked at him like an out of town idiot (which I was at that point) and he muttered again, “kitchen’s closed.”

Okay, no problem, we’ll have a beer. We continued to amble around the corner of the bar and the barman says he’s through serving for the night. It’s barely 10:30 at night on a Friday, people! I’m not enough of a prick to spout off stuff like, “I just flew in from Arizona to sample your beer!” or “I’m a beer blogger and I was expecting to sample some of your product!” It’s just not that critical to me at this point. My buddy and his son (who lives in Klamath Falls and thought the whole episode was ridiculous) wandered back out to his car, proceeded to a Safeway store that looked like something right out of 1970 where we bought a six pack of Full Sail Ale and a six pack of Widmer’s Drop Top Amber Ale.

So here’s where I go all beer-jerk.

If the beer produced at The Creamery is any good at all, I figure they have two options: 1. They need to shut down their storefront “brewpub” and start bottling right now. The owners need to stop pretending to be in the restaurant business, roll up their sleeves, acquire some bottling or canning apparatus and get that tasty beer out to the folks. (They also need to fire any dork barkeep who shuts down the operation at 10:30 on a Friday night.)
2. If their beer actually sucks, they need to get out of the business altogether because it’s pretty clear they don’t have the restaurant business model figured out and if their beer sucks…well, do the math. In the midst of a microbrew/craft brew renaissance they’ll never make it if they plan on catering simply to the good folk of Klamath Falls.

Do I sound bitter? Do I sound like a beer jerk? Darned right I am. I did travel quite a long distance – not simply to sample beer at a place called the creamery – yes I did. In the end, I managed to get back to Beer Rant HQ with two bottles of beer from Southern Oregon Brewing Company, one a nice pale ale and another called a gold ale. I’ll get around to posting comments on them shortly. I won’t be bothering with anything concerning the creamery again, unless it’s to pile on more ridicule. Yeeesh!