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‘BACK HOME’ IS THE SADDEST PLACE

“Back home we don’t call it that.” Those are the words I overheard at Tapphoria. Two people at another table were going over things. They weren’t from here and the more they talked the more each mentioned their own ‘back home.’ I know homesick when I hear it.

BAR RESEARCH: DO YOU READ BEER BLOGS

Bar research is essential to bloggers in the know. Just ask me. Goes like this: Mask up, find a seat with space around it, and say the magic words: “Beer, please.” Then retweet a Tapphoria tweet to get on the big screen, Big Time. Things proceed from there, but go slow. If you ask someone […]

BEER TRAVEL: KEEP IT CLOSE TO HOME

Beer travel is not complicated. Nor should it be. Go someplace interesting, drink a beer. That’s beer travel at the most simple. And you don’t have go far. At least that’s the way I like it, but things do come up.

VICTIM DEFAULT AND YOU’RE ALWAYS THE ONE?

Victim default: “There you go again.” Or: “When did passive-aggressive wake up?” My favorite: “That mood swing make you dizzy?” If you want a professional opinion who do you ask? A professional, of course.

If Winners Rule By Winning, Everyone Else Is A Loser?

The safe answer for winners is, “Maybe.” Don’t we all consider ourselves winners at some point? We might say we don’t keep score, but we know the score. Like rec soccer for toddlers, they knew the score of their games even if the parents pretended not to. So why not just say, “screw it,” and […]

REAL THIRD PLACE LIVING SPACE

For a brief time I was an athlete with potential. I’d learned how to not get pinned in wrestling, how to lose by decision, how to win by decision, and finally how to stall to victory. It’s the last one people like referees didn’t understand. They hated it, told me to stay on the mat, […]

MUSIC, BEER, HELP BRAIN FUNCTION? SCIENCE SAYS YES

If math is the universal language, then music rules the galaxy. Play music and things happen upstairs. What better place to check it out than a visit to Be Brain Fit. They show a lot of mental positives with music. “Like what?” you ask.

BEST GIRL, BEST DAY, BEST BEER STOP: TAPPHORIA

The first ‘best life/best day’ of the year to hit seventy degrees feels like being a tourist in a familiar town. The leaves on the trees are greener, I noticed little flowers of many colors. Even the plants my wife bought and left in the garage darkness look like they want to come back to […]

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN MOTHERS IN LAW DRINK

At Tigard’s Tapphoria good things happen when mothers in law drink. The first time I met the lady in white she was fifty years old and climbing out of ’69 Mustang fastback. Wearing black leather. Could have been Steve McQueen’s Mustang from Bullet. She and her second husband drove up from LA to see her […]

PORTLAND TAPROOMS: NINE COMMANDMENTS

A cry for beer opened Portland taprooms, but suburban taprooms like Tigard’s Tapphoria make our day. An ocean of new beer flooded Oregon in the 1980’s. The original Portland Brewing next to the old Acapulco’s Gold on NW 14th and Flanders was enough to make beer lovers cry. Then things changed when small batch beer […]