November News – Back to Beerchasing!

Posted on November 22, 2022 by Thebeerchaser

My idiosyncratic pursuit of new bars and breweries – initiated as a retirement hobby in August 2011 – was waylaid by the pandemic in 2020-1 and major back surgery in June, 2022.

It’s resumed, albeit at a slower pace than the rapid stride that saw me at the end of 2019, having visited and reviewed a total of 366 watering holes of all kinds. 119 were in the Portland metro area and the other 247 scattered throughout Oregon, many of the fifty states and even a few in Europe.

In 2020, I only added nine – as establishments temporarily closed or went out of business permanently. While I’ve lost the formal count, going back in my files, I arrived at a new total.

It appears that during temporary breaks in the lockdown in 2021 and after starting the routine again in 2022, I added 25 more – meaning my Beerchasing exploits have taken me to approximately 400 wonderful (at least most of them) watering holes in a little over eleven years.

Aside from seven listed below in 2021-2 – all in Oregon – I have not written complete reviews on the other eighteen. That’s because with the exception of road trip visits, I always try to hit a tavern or brewery at least twice before I write up my reactions.

You can read the reviews of the following by clicking on the links below:

(The photos above are in the order shown below)

Falls View Tavern – Oregon City – August 21

Steeplejack Brewing – Portland – September 21

Breakside Brewery Taproom – Lake Oswego – April 22

Howells’ Bar and Lounge – Oregon City – April 22

McMenamins Old Church and Pub – Wilsonville – October 22

The Helvetia Tavern – Hillsboro – September 22

Corner 14 – Oregon City – June 21

Since a number of the others in Portland merit at least a mention, in one of my next posts, I’ll give a thumbnail sketch of some of these establishments.

Communication From Former Colleagues

That said, I have to relate an e-mail from one of my good friends from working days – Howard Mudrick – now the Executive Director at Winstead – a large national law firm based in Dallas, Texas He worked with Schwabe (my firm) as a legal consultant for almost twenty years on a variety of projects from mergers to strategic planning.

(Mudrick and Peterson below – photos from their respective firms)

Howard and I co-presented at a number of national and regional Association of Legal Administrators’ conferences and, of course, shared many beers and martinis over the year. He is well aware of my Beerchasing hobby.

Pete Peterson is another consultant and CPA at Maxfield Peterson with whom we worked on a number of great law projects and also made presentations practices with his wife, Catherine, in Ridgeway, Colorado. He is also well aware of my Beerchasing exploits and raised a mug on numerous occasions.

Howard sent the following e-mail and link on October 28th with a copy to Pete:

“Don – hope this finds you and Janet doing well and staying healthy. I hope she doesn’t kill me, but this article SCREAMS YOU. Quite an interesting idea. Take Pete with you. I still have to work for a living.”

(Pete replied by e-mail that he had already applied!)

The following article from the October edition of Food and Wine is entitled:

“This Company Will Send You on a Two-Year RV Trip to Visit Breweries:”

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

“Harvest Hosts is looking for someone to create the ultimate brewery and distillery road trip across America. For beer and spirits lovers, the idea of spending two years traveling around the country in an RV hitting up hundreds of breweries and distilleries might sound like a dream come true.

Well, the RV campsite company Harvest Hosts is looking for someone to do exactly that — and will cover a lot of the expenses to make it happen.”

Without being presumptuous, I would suggest that Thebeerchaser would be one of the most qualified people in the US to take on this onerous project. Howard’s assertion re. qualifications is correct since the requirements – besides being over 21 and having a driver’s license, are:

“Evidence of your love of breweries and distilleries with ‘images and videos highly recommended.'”

The evidence makes a convincing case for Thebeerchaser!

When I enthusiastically showed the article to wife, Janet, she pointed out the wording about them paying “some of the expenses” and the paragraph:

“As for actual pay, the company says they are only offering a daily stipend of $50, meaning that despite all the free drinks and rent-free RV, the effective salary isn’t much more than $18,000 per year.”

(Janet said she didn’t want to kill Howard as suggested in his e-mail above, but I should just send all his missives to my spam folder.)

She also reminded me that I also got very enthused (albeit naively so) in May this year when I saw the following story in Taste of Home:

“The folks at Oscar Mayer are looking for a new Wienermobile driver, or “Hotdogger,” to escort six giant wieners across the nation. It’s a pretty high honor considering the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile has been going cross-country since 1936.

According to Oscar Mayer, there are more people who have gone to space than people who have held the title of Hotdogger.” (#2)

800px-Oscar_meyer_weinermobile

“The position isn’t just driving, though. The newest Hotdoggers to carry on the legacy will be spokespeople for Oscar Mayer for one year. This means public appearances, some time on the small screen and radio and newspaper interviews .

As a Wienermobile driver, you’ll also receive a competitive salary on top of the sightseeing bonus.”

So even though I reluctantly gave up the idea, my creative juices started to flow thinking about a term I haven’t used (fortunately) since retiring in 2011 – “Synergy.”

I would persuade these two firms that they could combine the two positions based on the dynamic and almost divinely inspired relationship between beer and hot dogs as evidenced by just the examples below:

Dog Beer

We all viewed with morbid fascination the video at Yankee Stadium, as explained in the following excerpt from an 8/22 post on NBC Sports.com

“In a video captured by @NewYorkNico on social media, a Yankees fan at the game was seen turning a hot dog into a straw for their beer.

Yes, you read that correctly. The fan poked holes in both ends of the hot dog before placing it in the beer and taking a sip through the makeshift straw.”

(Unfortunately, all of the images of the guy at the Yankee game are copyrighted, so I’m just alluding to the stunt in the photos below. #3 – #4)

And how many of you – and, of course, broadcast media personalities – tried to replicate this feat of hand/glass coordination yourselves?

Beer Dog

The sacred bond between Brat and beer can be further explored by demonstrating the topic “Hot Dogs Cooked in Beer,” as artfully explained in this mouthwatering article in Bikehike.org:

“Hot dogs simmered in beer are deliciously tender and have a mild flavor that works perfectly with our beer-infused sauerkraut topping. Slow-simmering hot dogs in beer gives them a mellow flavor and tender texture that’s a great alternative to grilling or frying.”

This raises important questions such as how long do you cook the dogs, how much beer do you use and most importantly, what beer is best – a topic which draws diverse views from the experts:

“Miller High Life. Rich Depascale, beverage manager at The Wilson in New York City. Budweiser. Laura Mitchell, bar lead at BEER PARK in Las Vegas. Others: Reissdorf Kolsch. Old Style. Avery White Rascal. Dogfish Head SeaQuench. Coors Light. Dos Equis Lager.”

I would add PBR and Sticky Hands IPA (#5).

And in Conclusion….

Should I have been selected for the job, I would have proposed my first trip – driving the vehicle to Toppling Goliath Brewery in Decorah, Iowa. That’s where Clark and Barbara Lewey – former home brewers – founded this enterprise in 2009.

And one of their collaborations with Hop Butcher for the World of Darien, Illinois, was Hot Dog Time Machine Beer. ( A double IPA brewed with Vic Secret, Sabro, Simcoe, and Mosaic hops, this beer clocks in at 7.8% ABV.)

A hot dog fueled time travel adventure.

As Toppling Goliath states in the review by Untapped.com)

“What is a Hot Dog Time Machine? We’re so glad you asked! To begin, we have to explore why it even matters. Our amigos at Hop Butcher for the World shared the same interest as us in exploring the alternate reality of the ‘fluffy’ IPA.

We threw multiple types of wheat into our fluff capacitor, heavily hopped it everywhere except the 88-minute boil, and fermented with yeast primed for trans-temporal travel.

Last year was certainly the wurst of times, but now it’s time to ketchup with us on our journey and relish in this hot dog fueled time travel adventure.

(I called Toppling Goliath to see if they still brewed HDTM Beer. They don’t and the person couldn’t explain why, but it must have been a good “trip.”

Not totally willing to give up, I said to my wonderful wife of 42 years, “Janet I would relish this job and, to be frank, after a year, they would appreciate what I Brat to the table.”

Before she walked away, she asked me how badly I wanted to get to 43 years…..

Cheers and Happy Thanksgiving (#7)

External Photo Attribution

#1. Wikimedia Commons (File:Four Winds Chateau Sport RV.jpg – Wikimedia Commons) Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Author: Noah Wulf 20 January 2018.

#2. Public Domain – Wikimedia Commons: (File:Oscar mayer weinermobile.jpg – Wikimedia Commons) I, the copyright holder of this work, release this work into the public domain. This applies worldwide. Author: user:Bachrach44 – 8 January 2006.

#3. Public Domain – Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hot_dog_with_mustard.png) This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

#4. Public Domain – Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki

/File:A_paper_straw_for_bubble_tea_and_the_popular_straw.jpg) This work has been released into the public domain by its author, WrS.tm.pl. This applies worldwide. 17 February 2022.

#5. Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Happy_Saturday_(238576229).jpeg) Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. Author: Terry Lucas
9 December 2017.

#6. Facebook Page – Terra Ferment Image of Hot Dog Time Machine Beer

#7. Image courtesy of Pam Williams.

The Helvetia Tavern

Posted on September 10, 2022 by Thebeerchaser

(Welcome back to Thebeerchaser. If you are seeing this post through an e-mail, please visit the blog by clicking on the title above to see all of the photos and so the narrative is not clipped or shortened.)

Visitors from out-of-state often inquire, “What classic watering hole should we check out?” In Oregon, one will often hear the response, “The Helvetia Tavern.” This quaint rural bar was established in 1946 and has been a favorite of both locals and tourists ever since.

Whether one is from out-of-state, on a country ride by auto or cycling or just making a short stop off Highway 26 on the way to the Oregon Coast, it’s a destination with a reputation that draws robust crowds especially in Oregon’s good weather months.

So when our friends, John and Barb Senger, from Boulder, Colorado came to town recently for Barb’s and my wife, Janet’s 50th McMinnville High School Class Reunion, they asked for a Beerchasing recommendation. The Sengers immediately agreed that we should try the Helvetia Tavern although they’d been there before. Janet hadn’t been there since shortly after college.

I’m a bit embarrassed to say that although it’s been many years since I became eligible to raise a mug in its legendary quarters, I’d never been there.

The Sengers both had outstanding careers in educational administration and in retirement, we have visited them both in Boulder and Pueblo Colorado where John has relatives. His daughter, Cassy, is married to Kirk Taylor, the Sheriff of Pueblo County and they were wonderful Beerchasing companions in a pre-pandemic trip..

And besides the highlight of seeing the Oregon State Beavers beat the Colorado Buffaloes in Boulder in a thrilling overtime victory for the Beavs on a perfect autumn day in 2018, we’ve visited some memorable bars and bistros together. (John is also known to make a great martini……)

Our favorite was The Sink, a famous, historic dive just off the University of Colorado campus, once visited by President Obama. His unannounced visit on a 2012 campaign trip resulted in a new pizza – The POTUS Pie. Although I digress, some info about this and some of the other bars is context for my comments on The Helvetia below.

Helvetia is a small unincorporated community in Washington County, Oregon along Highway 26 about forty-five minutes from Portland. According to Wikipedia:

“It was named by Swiss immigrants to Oregon in the 19th century. Notable features are the church, cemetery, the Rice Rocks and Minerals Museum, Helvetia Vineyards and Winery, Roloff Farms, and the Helvetia Tavern.”

When a cemetery and a church are enumerated as “notable features,” in a community, it makes one pause and I have to admit that the “prospect” of a mineral museum did not seem that exciting. The Rice Museum, however, is affiliated with the Smithsonian and after I investigated, it’s worth checking out (on a future trip……):

“The Rice Museum of Rocks and Minerals houses a world-class collection recognized as the finest in the Pacific Northwest and one of the best in the nation….The Museum showcases not only fine rocks and minerals, but also fossils, meteorites, lapidary art, and gemstones from both the Pacific Northwest and all around the world.”

(# External photos attributed at the end of the post. #1 below)

And of definite historical interest – the Holcomb Creek Trestle, purportedly the highest (90 feet) and longest wooden railroad bridge currently in use in the United States, located only about a minute or two from in the Helvetia Tavern.

“This 110 year old beauty was used by the Portland Western Railroad! If you like railroad trestles, you’ll love this one! Built back in 1905 for the Oregon Electric Railway by United Railways, the timber stringer type bridge is a classic wooden trestle.

Since fire is always a danger with wooden trestles and bridges, this one was constructed with well spaced concrete partitions to prevent the uncontrollable spread of a fire, should one occur. No one really knows how many board feet of lumber is included in the 1168 foot long span of the bridge.” (https://trainfanatics.com/holcomb-creek-wooden-train-trestle-still-standing/) (#2)

One can’t help wonder if any inebriated patrons of the Helvetia Tavern have ever tried to scale the structure or walk across it – that’s almost four football fields. Obviously, it’s not one that you could make a fast exit over the side if a train appears like the classic scene in movies!

Okay, but let’s get back to the Tavern……

While we enjoyed our visit and the company was outstanding, based on my visits over the last eleven years – to almost 400 watering holes in Oregon, throughout the US and a few in Europe – I would not rate the Helvetia Tavern as a “classic” or one of the more memorable.

Now I will admit this assertion is based on only one visit – and that one shortly after a global pandemic, but hear me out…..This may shock some of its fans, but I’ll set forth my reasons below:

The Ambiance and Character – The inside is clean and spacious and has a long, attractive bars and numerous booths and a pool table. There are also some old beer signs and memorabilia. It reminded me of a typical sports bar without as many televisions. (#3 – right)

The main element of character is the ceiling which is bedecked with numerous colored baseball hats – obviously left by patrons over the years.

I asked a waiter about the origin and he thought it was because years ago, they had unmatched sections of the ceiling and decided that the headgear would “hide” the discrepancy.

There was nothing on the website which provided any insight and while it was an attractive and interesting touch, it doesn’t compare with the effect and the stories of some others I’ve seen in my journey – at least from the information available.

I would suggest that a number of other “ceiling accoutrements” I’ve seen overshadow the hats. Two examples are the bras that adorn the ceiling of the Dixie Tavern in Portland’s Old Town and the Bacaro Jazz – just over the Rialto Bridge in Venice. From my Beerchaser reviews:

At Bacaro Jazz:

“The tradition is all the women walking in who donate their bra to the collection tend to get a free drink and a rise from the crowd. The Bar has every drink you can think so if your intent is to walk in sober and leave the same way, forget about it.”

At Dixie:

“Evidently, when female patrons dance on the bar – a tradition at The Dixie – they inconspicuously remove their bras and attempt to throw them on the antlers of the large moose-head hanging on the wall. Then each year, Dixie’s donates $5 for each bra on the ceiling to the Susan Komen Race for the Cure – a great cause.

(There were also about an equal number of baseball caps on the ceiling which I assume were worn by the male patrons chose not to wear a bra, but didn’t want to feel left out.”)

And it doesn’t have to be apparel – for example, the traditional Christmas lights – which have never gone out on the ceiling along with University of Portland students’ signatures throughout the years at the Twilight Room or the signatures, graphics and comments on the ceiling at Gil’s Speakeasy in SE Portland

The Deck and Patio – One of the best aspects of the Helvetia is both a covered patio and an adjacent deck area with large umbrellas which drew most people the night we were there. Although it was hot, the shrubs and trees around the deck provided some respite. On it’s website, it states “voted best patio” but it doesn’t quote the source. (#4 – left)

That said, given the weather during much of the year in Oregon, in my opinion, one can’t rely on the outside seating areas to provide the ambiance one needs to be considered a “classic” bar.

The Food – The menu is pretty much pub food and the prices are very reasonable. On its website, Helvetia prominently displays “Home of the Jumbo Burger,” and the burger has a reputation for excellence, as do the fries and onion rings. For example, this Yelp review:

“Old school tavern that my family has been visiting since the 50’s – when Fred and Boots owned it. Then it was a tavern, grocery, and gas station. The burgers are old school, fresh, simple, wonderful. The 1/2 & 1/2 fries and onion rings are simply a must.”

Willamette Week in its March Burger Madness in 2017 which evaluated 100 burgers from Portland bars and bistros, wrote of Helvetia’s offering (It lost to Mike’s Drive-in‘s burger in the first round):

“The famous Jumbo Burger – with two thin beef patties, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle and mayo stacked inside a giant bun – the whole thing is like a Big Mac the size of your face…if your face were maybe a little bigger.” (#5 – 6)

I’ve eaten at quite a few of the places in the competition such as Slow Bar, Interurban, Ecliptic, McMenamins, Grain and Gristle and Expatriate and a few not on the list such as Stanich’s which one reviewer called “a national treasure” and Thrilllist rated in 2018 as the “Best Burger in America.” And don’t forget The Sink Burger from Boulder. Helvetia’s Jumbo does not compare favorably

Most of the food reviews’ however, are good and the onion rings and fries were excellent with plentiful servings; however, my assessment of the burger was similar to the two below – (Yelp on 8/6/22):

“The food was ok and the service was excellent. Had the jumbo cheeseburger and it was OK. Don’t really understand the hype.”

Or from 12/27/20:

“Interesting concept of the larger burger. The burger was simple and good. It’s because there was no ‘wow’ in burger I got, seemed pretty basic.”

Our servers were courteous and efficient. By the way, Helvetia only takes cash or checks although there is an ATM located on site.

The Story – Perhaps the most disappointing (and lacking) element for an establishment that has been a community fixture since 1946, is any meaningful attempt to convey its history. The website is woefully deficient and in the “About” section has a scant paragraph – only revealing the 1946 inception date.

The last entry on the Facebook site is dated December 26, 2021 and states:

“Due to the snow..We will be closed today.”

The element may not be a priority of the owners or important to most patrons; however, to be considered a watering hole icon, the story needs to be conveyed. Regardless of whether the bar or brewery is relatively new or has a rich history (I assume) from having been around for almost eighty years like Helvetia, the legacy should be communicated on site and through social media. And the staff should be oriented on it when they commence employment.

Earlier, I mentioned our visit with the Sengers in Pueblo, Colorado for an outstanding weekend of Beerchasing. One of the highlights in visiting Gus’ Place, Eilers’ Place, Walter’s Brewery, the Greenlight Tavern, Shamrock Brewery and the Star Bar was that all of them emphasized the tradition and legends which preserve the sagas though narrative, photos or memorabilia.

One of my favorites from the eleven years of Beerchasing was from Eilers’ Pace (above) where after I mentioned my Beerchasing hobby to the bartender, she came back with the old photo below taken in the late 1940’s. The bar was a family place and mom’s often brought their infants for a visit.

She then said, “See that guy over there?” pointing to one of the guys in the booth by the door. “He’s the second baby from the end on his mom’s lap in the photo.” I went over to meet him and He stuck out his hand and said:

“I’m James “Horse” Mohorcich. But you should just call me ‘Horse.’ I live across the street and I’ve been coming here for at least forty years.”

Later when we joined the Sheriff and his family, I told them the story and showed the picture and Sheriff Taylor said, “Oh yeah, that’s Horse. I know Horse!”

So in Closing

I hope to return to the Helvetia Tavern at some point and the Lampros family who own it should be commended for maintaining a thriving small business through the years including during a pandemic.

They have a loyal following in the community and the region. I just hope they make some additional efforts so the full story is not lost in the future.

Cheers