A Beer Lover’s Bike Tour : Intoxicating views and rich, cold brews

Soaring down a steep decline along the Oregon coast, I thought about the question everyone had asked: Aren’t you afraid you’re going to fall off your bike?

Can’t blame them for wondering. After all, this was a Tour de Brew through Washington and Oregon, a cycling odyssey that would take me to many of the Northwest’s wonderful microbreweries.

Before this trip I had pictured rolling hills and cold, foamy beers; I had anticipated filling my saddlebags with the finest ales and sampling them each night while camped in the great outdoors. My friends had imagined me wobbling from tavern to tavern, crashing into spruce trees.

But I was stone-cold sober as I crossed the double-yellow line and zipped past a braking RV. At this speed, the tears flow out of your eyes and freeze on your face. Scared? Yes. But instead of squeezing my brakes, I reached into my handlebar bag, pulled out a camera and fired off a couple of 40-mph shots of a coast where rock piles as big as my house guard a beach covered with bone-white driftwood.

The view was intoxicating.

This three-week bike trip took me more than 1,000 miles--ultimately, to San Francisco. The focus, however, was the stretch from Seattle through western Washington to Portland, Ore., and out to Oregon’s Pacific Coast. This is the center of America’s great beer revolution. The region has dozens of microbreweries that produce an unmatched variety of beers. Seattle has almost as many different ales as coffee; Portland has more breweries than any city in the nation.

Plus the region is bike friendly, with miles of inner-city bicycle paths and a scenic coastal bike route that stretches from British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to the California border.

For beer drinkers and bikers, the Northwest is Mecca. So, like any devoted disciple, I dedicated myself to months of pious preparation: daily 25-mile bike rides followed by long, grueling sessions of beer tasting. Eventually, I dropped 30 pounds, and developed a beer gut of steel.

But the first couple days of biking the hilly Northwest took its toll on my legs and backside. And I had to learn to pace myself.

Because I did most of my cycling in the morning (before the traffic and the temperatures heated up), I couldn’t stay up all night partying. Also, I couldn’t start sampling too many brews until I’d found a place to sleep for the night. Beer might give cyclists a slight carbohydrate boost, but setting up a campsite after dark with a cloudy mind is like clowning around with a lampshade on your head: strictly for amateurs.

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But biking and beer are not incompatible. In three weeks, I cycled about 60 miles a day, visited about 15 microbreweries, sampled 68 different beers--many of them by the light of a campfire--and still managed to find my way into a sleeping bag each night.

It didn’t, however, start out smoothly.

My first day out of Seattle took me 76 miles south to Olympia. Exhausted that night, I couldn’t even imagine drinking a beer. My dream of sipping ales by the campfire was giving way to the reality of collapsing onto an air mattress after pedaling for eight to 10 hours.

But I had only myself to blame. I arrived in Seattle a few days before to do some warm-up biking, but instead dove into the city’s beer scene. Seattle is home to one of the largest microbreweries in the country, Redhook Ale, as well as smaller ones such as Maritime Pacific, Hart and Pike Place.

All of these breweries provide walk-throughs for visitors. The tours are informative, although the intricacies of dry-hopping and filtering techniques become tiresome even for the connoisseur.

In Seattle, a great place to get a taste of the Northwest is Ray’s Boathouse near the Ballard Locks. The pub’s outdoor deck overlooks the locks, which raise vessels from the saltwater of Puget Sound to the higher freshwater of inland lakes. Passing commercial fishing boats provide a backdrop for pints of Trout Stout from Olympia or Salmon Bay Bitter from Ballard, Wash.

As terrific as the beer drinking is, the biking is better. Though hillier than I had expected, Seattle has miles of bike paths through woodlands and along lakes. Wide bike lanes line city streets, and motorists are uncommonly courteous.

I left Seattle by ferry, a convenient way for bikers to quickly put the metropolis behind them. All of the ferries accommodate bikers and add only a 50-cent surcharge over regular passenger fares.

The ferry crossed Puget Sound and dropped me off in Bremerton. Within minutes I was climbing a 500-foot hill into the forest. With only an occasional logging truck barreling down the highway, the woodlands are a quiet, cool, reflective place. It would be that way for the next three days through western Washington, from Seattle to the base of Mt. St. Helens and down along the Columbia River to Portland. Each day, I cruised smooth, two-lane asphalt roads, winding gently up through groves of spruce that gave way to ugly, clear-cut expanses.

Dependent on nature, the rural people of the Northwest seem appreciative of its wonders. In 1980, they witnessed the awesome eruption of Mt. St. Helens, as well as the return of the lava-ravaged landscape.

Possibly this outlook is responsible for the Northwest’s microbrew revolution. Unlike the bland pilsners produced by corporate giants such as Anheuser-Busch or Coors, these beers often have exciting, distinctive flavors. Like nature itself, microbrews are challenging: Maybe you won’t like it, maybe you’ll come back for more.

At least that’s the theory of Paula Falsano, a spokesman for BridgePort Brewing Co. in Portland. “I think the microbrewing revolution exploded in the Northwest because we’re outdoorsy and rough,” she said, while sharing a Pintail ESB (Extra Special Bitter) at BridgePort’s brewery. “We really savor the elements, and we like strong, different tastes.”

The Northwest also boasts more than 50 types of hops--the flower that provides the bitter balance to the malty sweetness of beer. Grown on vines like grapes, hop varieties such as Cascade, Fuggles and Brewer’s Gold give these local beers a fresh, aromatic essence.

Willamette variety hop vines cover the exterior walls of BridgePort Brewery--built in a 108-year-old former cordage mill. On most days, the bartender offers at least eight different ales, ranging from the brewery’s fresh and light St. John’s Golden Ale to its dark, roasted XX Stout.

Portland has at least a dozen microbreweries and brew pubs. And, like Seattle, Portland is bike friendly.

At Nor’Wester Brewery & Public House, tourists sip the orangish Mai Bock and get a quick lesson from the barmaid on the different types of grains used in the brewery’s malt. At McMenamin’s Bagdad Theater, moviegoers can down pints of Black Rabbit Porter while watching first-run films for a buck. At the grungy Tugboat Brewing Co., the young, funky crowd arrives on skateboards or mountain bikes to suck down the strong Belgian.

Granted, that’s a lot of pedaling for beer. To rest my legs and concentrate on the brews, I scheduled my visit to Portland for the last weekend of July, the date of its annual Brewers Festival. In a three-day froth fest last summer, 73 brewers tapped kegs under a 100-yard row of tents at Tom McCall Waterfront Park and poured their finest to more than 75,000 tipplers.

From Portland, there is a variety of routes to the coast, about 75 miles away. I chose poorly: the largely unpopulated and bland Oregon 18 to Lincoln City. With no hotels or official campsites, I was forced to camp on an abandoned logging road with only a bottle of Deschutes Bitter from Bend, Ore., to keep me company.

Once on the coast, however, a string of Oregon state parks offers campers comfortable, inexpensive places to bed down. The so-called biker-hiker sites are friendly gathering spots for thousands of cyclists who ride U.S. 101 each year.

The next day, I pedaled toward Newport, Ore., a resort town on Yaquina Bay, home of Rogue Ales. During long climbs on this trip, it was the anticipation of Rogue’s Shakespeare Stout that kept me pumping.

The brewery’s Public House sits on a bay-front strip of nightspots and eateries. The 180-seat pub offers more than a dozen Rogue varieties, including its Mocha Porter, Smoke Ale and Rogue-n-Berry.

Rogue was everything I’d anticipated. Farther south I met the unexpected.

Bandon, Ore., is a small town. I’d have rolled right through it if I hadn’t remembered sipping a glass of Bandon Brewing Scotch Ale at the Portland festival. On a whim, I called the brewery. Stop by, the owner, Bob Hawkins, told me.

A techno-nerd working in Seattle, Hawkins had tired of the wired life. So he and his family moved to Bandon, raised some money and built a brewery in their front yard. Using basic recipes that feature English hops, he started making the same kind of beer that he once brewed for just himself and his friends. He sold his first keg of Bogwater Ale in August 1994; today, he produces about 500 barrels a year (one barrel is equal to 250 pints).

This is a small operation; an outfit like Budweiser spills more suds than Hawkins will ever brew. But Hawkins likes stirring his own mash recipe with his own wood-handled oar. “I decided to get back to basics, with my beer and my life,” Hawkins told me.

I pointed my handlebars to the south toward my ultimate destination, San Francisco. Soon I was coasting under the sun, thinking about Hawkins’ brew. To quote an old beer commercial, it doesn’t get any better than this. Cheers! And to my friends: No, I never fell off my bike.

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GUIDEBOOK: Bike and Brew

Getting there: United, Alaska and Delta offer nonstop service from LAX to Seattle; Southwest and Reno Air offer one-stop service. Fares start at $148 round trip, advance purchase.

Biking tips: Airlines charge up to $60 for shipping your bike, which you must crate yourself. Local bicycle shops will crate your bike and ship via UPS for about $45. Riders might consider touring with an outfitter. Backroads (tel. [800] 533-2573), one of the best known, provides guided tours for about $200 a day, including meals, for inn-to-inn trips; about $125 a day for camping trips.

Where to stay: Some suggested campgrounds: Seaquest State Park (tel. [360] 274-8633), Toutle, Wash., at the base of Mt. St. Helens ($10 per night for standard tent sites, $5 for hiker-bikers); Humbug Mountain State Park (tel. [541] 332-6774), six miles south of Port Orford, Ore. (beginning Thursday, $16 standard, $4 hiker-bikers), hiking trails, spectacular view of the coast; Sunset Bay State Park (tel. [541] 888-4902), 12 miles southwest of Coos Bay, Ore. (as of Thursday, $16 standard, $4 hiker-bikers), beautiful sunsets, view of historic Cape Arago lighthouse.

Seattle’s microbreweries: Redhook Ale Brewery, 3400 Phinney North; tel. (206) 548-8000. Maritime Pacific Brewing Co., 1514 N.W. Leary Way; tel. (206) 782-6181. Pike Place Brewery, 1419 1st Ave., tel. (206) 622-3373, call before going.. Hart Brew Pub, 1201 1st Ave. S.; tel. (206) 682-3377.

Others in Washington: Fish Brewing Co., 515 Jefferson, Olympia, tel. (360) 943-6480. Grant’s Brewery Pub, 32 N. Front St., Yakima, tel. (509) 575-2922.

Portland microbreweries: BridgePort Brewing Co., 1313 N.W. Marshall, tel. (503) 241-7179. Hair of the Dog Brewing Co., 4509 S.E. 23rd, tel. (503) 232-6585. Bagdad Theater/Pub, 3702 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd., tel. (503) 232-6676. Lucky Labrador Brewing Co., 915 S.E. Hawthorne; tel. (503) 236-3555. Nor’Wester Brewery & Public House, 66 S.E. Morrison St., tel. (503) 232-9771.

Others in Oregon: Bandon Brewing Co., Bandon, tel. (503) 347-5007. Rogue Ales Public House, 748 S.W. Bay Blvd., Newport, tel. (503) 265-2537. Deschutes Brewery & Public House, 1044 N.W. Bond St., Bend, tel. (503) 382-9242.

jFor more information: Seattle-King County Convention & Visitors Bureau, 520 Pike St., Suite 1300, Seattle, WA 98101; tel. (206) 461-5840. Portland Oregon Visitors Assn., Three World Trade Center, 26 S.W. Salmon, Portland, OR 97204; tel. (800) 345-3214, (503) 222-2223.

--D.R.