Taking bicycling and beer seriously

In Portland, they take beer drinking and bicycling seriously.  In combination, it becomes the Brewcycle that ventures out from the Bridgeport Brew Pub whenever the Punkin-Chunkin'-like machine gets enough people on board who want to drink and pedal simultaneously.  The drinkers sit on seats facing the bar portion of the Brewcycle, facing each other down each side so conversation doesn't have to suffer during the pedaling and drinking.  Up front, the designated driver keeps the vehicle on course while the riders take care of their chores.  There might even be a meter on board that measures whether the calories exerted in pedaling match the calories being consumed from elbow-bending.  Signs of the Portland bicycle riding culture are everywhere.  I'm including a few of them here for your viewing consumption.

Becky and I were in Portland last week to help out with the wedding of Nora Diver and Jeff Scott. I grabbed a photo of the brewcycle while the wedding processional juked and jived its way to the reception about 17 blocks from the Willamette River which, along with Burnside Avenue, divides the Oregon city into four quadrants, like Washington D.C. without its river down the middle.  (How do you pronounce the name of that river? Willamette dammit.)

Before our trip out Nora had told me that the latest, emerging brewing trend in that micro-brewery-crazy town is a hoppier concoction being called Cascadian Dark Ale (CDAs) - darker than the famous India Pale Ales (IPAs) that have long been the benchmark brews for  micro, craft breweries.  I was between seasons for the CDAs, according to our waiter at Deschutes Brew Pub, so I will have to wait to sample this new flavor.