Ambling in April

Posted on April 26, 2025 by Thebeerchaser

In the last several posts, I’ve highlighted a few breweries (Baerlic, Ferment and Thunder Island) and two great bars (Holmans’ Bar and the Hi-Top Tavern). This edition of Thebeerchaser will just take a miscellaneous stroll through some random musings and relate a great week-long trip to Kauai in late February.

Upon returning, my wife and I decided that for the rest of March and April, we wouldn’t drink alcoholic beverages except on weekends (Friday and Saturday). This may not seem like much of a sacrifice, but I often enjoy a gin martini on weeknights while watching the Portland Trailblazers. (There were times when it assuaged the pain…).

And I have to say, besides ingesting fewer calories, the few non-alcoholic beers I’ve had are pretty good. It’s a trend. According to an article last month in The Beer Connoisseur:

“Non-alcoholic beer is booming as more consumers seek flavorful, alcohol-free options for social drinking and wellness.”

External photo attribution at the end of the post (#1)

I wondered what the reaction would be in the first dive bar I requested one and thought the conversation might go like this:

Beerchaser: “I’d like a pint of your best non-alcoholic beer.”

Bartender: “Sure buddy. You want to show me some fake ID?”

And Speaking of Kaui….

Kauai is our favorite Hawaiin Island and we had perfect weather. Besides just relaxing on the beach, we explored the island.

And speaking of relaxing, one of the best methods was on the beach – with a cold brew or an exotic drink with a little umbrella in it – reading a good novel. And that raises a good news – bad news situation.

The good news was that I got immersed in Warren Easley’s, last novel Deadly Redemption – a great read. The bad news is that I finished it and have now enjoyed all ten of his books. There aren’t currently any new Cal Claxton novels to read.

Friends had recommended an interesting and unique way to see the sunset on the north part of the island. We would certainly recommend the two-hour sunset golf tour on the Princeville Makai Golf Course. It was well worth the $60 per person fee.

There were about nine golf carts – each seating two – and the charismatic golf pro led the entourage with about six stops where he related the history of the island and other great anecdotes.

We saw amazing natural habitat including several fascinating albatross families and just reveled at what is a beautiful (and incredibly challenging) golf course.

“The final stop on the tour is truly one of the most stunning locations in the world to witness a sunset… our signature par 3, seventh hole on Princeville Makai that makes for the perfect viewing spot….”.

And we learned, among other facts, the wild chicken population – an estimated 450,000 compared to 80,000 people residing on Kauai, evidently dates back to Polynesian settlers in 1200 AD. Although strikingly colorful and perhaps keeping the bug population down, the constant crowing of these scavengers is annoying.

The golf pro also told us about a more recent infestation of large green parakeets when we saw one in one of the trees by the golf course. There are no natural predators.

“Along Kauai’s resort-studded south shore, thousands of wild rose-ringed parakeets with bright green feathers and brilliant red beaks obliterate hotel parking lots and vehicles daily with their poop. Full of seeds, the bird dung attracts rats. If not quickly removed, it can ruin car paint.

Transported to the Garden Isle as pets and then either intentionally or mistakenly released into the wild in the 1960s, the birds now number at least 11,000 on Kauai, according to the scientists who study them.” Honolulu Civic Beat – 6/2/21

Given this bleak history of infestations, it made me wonder if the Kauai Legislature might start restricting lawyers from visiting the Garden Isle. (#2 – #4)

And on the way back from the golf course…..

Some friends told us about a relatively new brewery we should check out for dinner and beer when returning. It was a good tip (although how often does Thebeerchaser not have that assessment when it involves a watering hole…).

NaPali Brewing opened in 2023 and is a family enterprise – the dream of Blake and Kati Conant.

“Our journey to create this space has been one of passion, dedication, and a deep love for the island we call home. We started this brewery with a dream to share the flavors and spirit of Wailua with every person who walks through our doors.”

It has an expansive floor plan, good live music and food you’ll enjoy. Janet and I sat at the bar and our bartender, Quade, was very personable and told us the story of the brewery. I still salivate when thinking about the Poke Bowl I had that night. (#5)

Leaving the Island

As we parked at our hotel on the return from the golf cart tour and brewery visit, we were approached by a couple who I initially thought was just trying to avoid one of the chickens roosting by the cars.

They stated, however, that they had been staying with some friends who stocked up on “salty snacks” and they were leaving for the airport for their night flight home. “Did we want them – otherwise they were going to have to throw them away?”

Janet puts rigorous rations on my consumption of these, but I quietly whispered to her that it would be rude to refuse their kind offer. Did we want to add to the Kauai landfill? And we were not leaving for another day and one-half.

Chipping in…..The goldfish were for the granddaughters at home.

Since we didn’t order a meal on the six-hour flight home, I enjoyed some Doritos and Lays Barbecue Chips. They paired well with one creative offering of Alaska Airlines – it’s new Cloud Cruiser Beer.

“(It’s) created exclusively for the airline through its partnership with Seattle-based brewery Fremont Brewing….this exclusive India pale ale (IPA) has been brewed specifically to taste great at high altitudes. It’s served in cans designed with bright and colorful artwork that pays homage to the Pacific Northwest region.” (emphasis supplied)

The statement “brewed specifically to taste great at high altitudes” may mean the intoxicating effect of a 6.5% ABV at 30,000 feet, but I took one can home and really enjoyed the beer just as much at our residence in West Linn, Oregon which is just 105 feet above sea level.

As we got home and reflected on the superb weather we had, I skimmed the Darwin Theory Winter Newsletter named appropriately, “Monkey Business,” which had arrived in the mail. No it’s not a recap of the Scopes Trial. Darwin’s Theory is one of my favorite dive bars – in Anchorage, Alaska. We visited it when we were on an Alaska cruise in 2014.

Talk about a contrast. The newsletter told the tale of the weather conditions they faced at the beginning of the year:

“One of the worst snowstorms ever, and there have been many, came through the first week of January. Solid hard rain for two days, winds that reached 100 miles per hour (that’s Hurricane level) followed by a cold front that froze the standing water.

Darwin’s did something that it has never done in the 45 years of operation, that’s closed its doors for the safety of its staff and customers, the glare ice was incredulous. Best never to see the likes of this storm for another 50 years.”

External Photo Attribution

#1. Wikimedia Commons (File:Bartender – Malmö-1992.jpg – Wikimedia Commons) Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. Author: John Leffmann – 1992.

#2. NaPali Brewing Website (Napali One Year Anniversary -capturedbyjolie-05-3aef4a24.jpg (1920×1280)).

#3. Wikimedia Commons (File:Green Parrot Cairns-1and (4197620649).jpg – Wikimedia Commons) Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. Author: Sheba_Also – 13 December 2009.

#4. Wikimedia Commons (File:Red Junglefowl by Tisha Mukherjee 06.jpg – Wikimedia Commons) Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Author: Tisha_Mukherjee – 21 March 2025.

#5. Wikimedia Commons (File:Martin Lipton, McGraw Hill lawyer, cropped.jpg – Wikimedia Commons) This work is from the Bernard Gotfryd collection at the Library of Congress. According to the library, there are no known copyright restrictions on the use of this work. Author: Gotfryd, Bernard, photographer – 1979.

Author Warren Easley – Beerchaser Notable – Part II

Posted on November 21, 2024 by Thebeerchaser

Welcome back to Thebeerchaser. If you are seeing this post through an e-mail, please click on the title to bring up the post so the narrative isn’t clipped or shortened. (External photo attribution at the end of the post #1)

In my first post about this interesting Northwest author – he just published his tenth mystery novel in the Cal Claxton series, entitled Deadly Redemption – you learned about his educational background, culminating with a PhD in Physical Chemistry from Cal Berkley.

His goal was to be a university professor, but there were no jobs, so two years of post-doctoral work in chemistry followed at the University of Florida.

Below, you’ll learn about his dual career as a research scientist and international business executive and his writing journey started in 2002 with short stories and then publication of his first novel Matters of Doubt in 2013.

On a business trip for DuPont where he worked for thirty years starting in 1969, he fortuitously left the book Heaven’s Prisoners by his favorite author, James Lee Burke, in his motel room. On the long non-stop flight home from Atlanta, he had nothing to do and arrived at his destination with twenty-three pages of what eventually became his fifth book – Blood for Wine in 2017. (“I laid it aside and came back to it after I knew what I was doing.”)

I was first drawn to Warren’s books after reading a 2023 Willamette Week review by my friend, Richard Meeker, the former publisher of the paper. Easley’s five novels I’ve read to date have lived up to this description:

“The Cal Claxton mysteries are well plotted with believable, multidimensional characters. They are so good and compelling I plowed through all nine in the past three or four months, in the order in which they were written.” (#2)

And if one reads multiple other reviews, the above praise is not colored by the reviewer’s parochial Pacific Northwest bias. Take this one from Publishers Weekly on No Way to Die:

“In Easley’s satisfying seventh mystery featuring genial Oregon attorney Cal Claxton, he creates authentic characters and relationships, and his eloquent descriptions of the Oregon wilderness are sublime. This well-plotted, character-driven series just keeps getting better.” (#3)

“Well Plotted” – Publishers’ Weekly

Deadly Redemption (#4)

Now before telling you more about his fascinating background, let me give you the scoop on his latest book. In a recent telephone chat, Warren described it as “kind of a miracle book.”

“We were moving after 28 years, so it came in short bursts – five to ten pages at a time and by the end of August, I got the ending – always a challenge for me. I wrote furiously for four days and didn’t show any of it to Marge, my primary editor, until the first draft was done.”

I’m pretty excited about the positive feedback and sales have been brisk.” (#5)

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Warren and wife, Marge – his primary editor

He was leaving the next day after our conversation for a book tour in California. I asked him about his typical writing schedule for his books which average about 90,000 words. (It made me glad that I write blog posts and not novels – mine average about 2,500 words):

“It’s not real regimented – usually first thing in the morning for a couple of hours then 9:30 or 10:00 PM until midnight. My goal is five to ten pages every other day.”

He described Deadly Redemption as a

“….capstone, – Cal Claxton returns to LA after 13 years in Oregon to right a miscarriage of justice – I may decide to launch another series at this juncture.”

By the way, I asked about the origin of his protagonist’s name:

“Claxton was my mother’s maiden name and I thought Calvin was just kind of a ‘clunky’ moniker! And I wanted Cal to be a lawyer, not a private investigator.”

Beerchasing Expeditions

In 2023, I reached out to Warren by e-mail and told him about my blog and my thirty+ year background in the world of law and invited him to have a beer so I could interview him.

We raised our first mug at the Aurora Colony Pub – in the historic burg of Aurora – about twenty-five miles south of Portland, where Warren and his wife, Marge now live. (#6)

We had a great chat and discussed the setting of most of his novels – in beautiful Oregon Wine Country – above the City of Dundee – where Cal Claxton has his residence and law office in an historic home.

Cal resides there with his loyal pup, Archie, which coincidentally happens to be the same name and breed (Australian Shepherd) as Warren’s own pooch who will be four in January. (Next time we go Beerchasing, I will pick a place that is dog-friendly so Archie can join us.) (#7 – #8)

Since Dundee is the home of one of my favorite dive bars – one that prompted me to start this hobby in 2011 – I gently chided Warren that although Cal Claxton frequents a number of real and fictitious enterprises in Dundee (such as Red Hills Market), he had never been to Lumpy’s Landing – nor had Warren himself.

I suggested that we remedy that by having our second interview over beer in that colorful watering hole and Warren agreed. Although I hadn’t been back to Lumpy’s since my original visit and review in 2014, it retained the same great ambiance – probably most of the same regulars as well…..

The external reader board slogan which used to read, “Our beer is a cold as you exe’s heart,” was replaced with the one below:

Warren had a draft Breakside Wanderlust IPA and I opted for one of my favorites – a cold bottle of Miller High Life. And while the regulars played pool or lost their money on video poker, we drank-in some of the signs and memorabilia that typify most dives.

An Amazing Background

While Credence Clearwater Revival’s “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” played in the background, I interrogated the author about how a guy with a long career as a research chemist and international business executive became a popular crime novelist.

His twenty-seven years at DuPont as Technical Director involved relocation and a lot of travel including a six-year stint in Geneva, Switzerland from 1983-89.

His friendship at DuPont with Mark Suwyn, a fellow chemist (PhD in inorganic chemistry from Washington State University) resulted in what must have been a lot of boring work lunches with discussions ranging from the periodic table of elements to modular calculations of biopolymers and the resulting index for molecular complexity:

𝐶m=∑𝑖𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑖𝑠𝑖⁢log2⁡(𝑉𝑖𝑏𝑖)−12⁢∑𝑗𝑑𝑗𝑒𝑗𝑠𝑗⁢log2⁡(𝑉𝑗𝑏𝑗).

But that relationship would be fortuitous (or perhaps come back to haunt him, given his new assignment….) after Warren initially retired from DuPont.

After years of educational achievement and twenty-seven years at DuPont, it would seem logical that Warren was ready to enjoy the fruits of retirement. He was not worried about being bored.

Warren was a good athlete in high school and college (UCRiverside ’59 – ’63) basketball and a football quarterback and is an avid hiker, fisherman and skier – adventure awaited. (#9 – #10)

A Side(ing) Trip!

Louisiana Pacific was founded in 1973 based in Portland, Oregon and Harry Merlo became both Chairman and CEO in 1974. Merlo, who died in 2016, was an Oregon power broker, philanthropist and sports team owner. But there were problems:

“During the 1990s, LP was the defendant in a major class-action lawsuit over its siding product known as Inner Seal, manufactured from the early 1990s through 1996….Many homeowners alleged that Inner-Seal siding, which carried a 25-year warranty, began to rot prematurely—discoloring, disintegrating, and even growing fungi.” Wikipedia

In addition to the siding issues, Merlo got into trouble as reported by Willamette Week:

“But in 1995, a confluence of events prompted its board of directors to abruptly boot Merlo. The feds charged the company with environmental crimes and fraud, and a female subordinate of Merlo’s sued for sexual harassment, alleging women were hired as assistants only if they were stunning, young and ‘likely to acquiesce to sexual advances by the CEO’, according to a 1995 story in Business Week.” (#11 – #12)

Replacing him in 1996 was Mark Suwyn, who needed help in resolving what resulted in millions in legal fees and payments to customers of about $750 million. Suwyn turned to his now-retired friend, Warren Easley, to fill what became a new court-mandated position at LP – Vice President of Quality and Technology.

Warren worked at LP from 1996 to 2002. He’s a modest guy, but some research reveals his influence in the company:

“In 1997 LP unveiled its Advanced Technology Center, which provided the company with the facilities to conceive, test, and improve new offerings. LP soon introduced a bevy of new product systems, including Smart Start siding, TechShield energy-efficient structural panels, TopNotch flooring, and Cocoon insulation….In 1998, LP returned once more to profitability, achieving $12.8 million of net profit from $2.29 billion in sales.” Wikipedia

The photos below show Warren with Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, LP CEO, Mark Suwyn and Warren speaking at the opening of LP’s Advanced Technology Center: (#13 – #14)

A Real Retirement

After writing several full-length novels and receiving numerous rejections for publication, Warren wrote Matters of Doubt. He knew it was good, but when he submitted it to Poisoned Pen Press, who had shown interest in his work, he got no response.

He was dejected and ready to quit, but his wife, Marge, talked him into following up. It turned out that they had lost the manuscript and a month later they offered him a three-book contract.

His “retirement career” has flourished with now ten novels and multiple awards including the Kay Snow National Award in 2012, named the Northwest’s Up and Coming Author by Willamette Writers in 2017 and the Spotted Owl Award for best mystery novel by a Pacific Northwest author in 2022. (#15)

In Conclusion

Having worked in the legal environment for over thirty-five years, I thought Warren showed a good understanding of how law firms work, legal ethics concepts and client representation for someone who wasn’t a lawyer. I wanted to find out if some others who had worked in that environment shared my perceptions of Warren’s book.

The short answer is “They do.”

Don Bowerman is a trial lawyer practicing in Oregon City. He has been my family’s attorney since we moved here in 1962. He has been the District Attorney for Clackamas County and the Vice President of the Oregon State Bar. An expert litigator, Don is a Fellow in the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers, and a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates.

I loaned him Fatal Flaw on a Friday afternoon and Don called me on Monday and said he would drop by and return it stating, “I started reading it and couldn’t put it down. I finished it a 1 AM.” (#16 – #17)

Hap Ziegler is the President of Mesa Consulting in Santa Barbara. After earning his BS in math, economics and computer science at the University of Pittsburgh, he received his law degree at Duquesne University.

He has had a national practice in law firm consulting for many years and worked as a consultant on numerous projects at my firm Schwabe Williamson & Wyatt. I recommended Warren’s books to him and got the following e-mail:

“Warren is an interesting character and he owes you a beer: I bought his first two books!” (Matters of Doubt and Dead Float)

In a follow-up e-mail, he stated:

” Cal Claxton is my new hero! Very enjoyable, well written.”

Warren Easley’s books are a good read and he’s a great guy with whom to raise a mug. (#18)

Cheers