It's a Soy Pretzel!

So my next stop in the quest for the cheapest/best cask beer in Portland took me a bit further down Hawthorne boulevard, to the Lucky Labrador brew pub. They had their pale on cask, which was a solid beer, but the cask-markup, to $3.75 for an imperial (British (20 oz)) pint is too expensive. They do not appear to have a happy hour, which is too bad, since the $2.50 pints at Bridgeport are too much a draw to for Lucky Lab to overtake with its betterness.

Also at the brewpub, which has no bar, but just a bunch of tables (dare I say, European style) in a big open room, I had half a veggie (mostly hummus and an ambiguous white spread (it was not tahini)) sandwich and a bowl of vegan corn chowder. The vegetarian cuisine at Portland brewpubs continues to impress me - the soup was absolutely delicious. I also tried a pint of their Doppelbock, which was pretty good, but there's something about almost all of the Doppelbocks that are brewed in this country, some kind of grainy quality that just misses the mark of the truly great doppelbocks (Salvator, Bajuvator, Optimator, and of course the best beer in the entire world, the Aventinus Weizendoppelbock). There should be that grain aspect to the palette on the beer, but somehow, eh, most American doppelbocks are just kind of a let down. The notable exceptions are Hooker's Liberator (hands down, best doppelbock brewed in this country) and Troeg's Troegenator, neither of which are available on the West Coast (which is the better of the two coasts ("we don't like the East Coast")).

In other news, I'm about 70% of the way through Against the Day now, so hopefully I'll have something to post about that pretty soon.

Also, Trader Joe's, at least on the West Coast, has discontinued the Soytzel, which is terrible news. Is it still available on the East Coast? If so, someone please buy some and mail them to me.