Barbur World Foods

This Middle Eastern grocery in Southwest has become something of a standby for me. They carry the items you would expect to find, i.e. labne cheese, flatbreads, turkish delight, all kinds of olive oil, teas, regional cereal grains... But they also have an excellent produce department and meat counter, and there's a deli where you can buy all kinds of wonderful offerings: fatayer, kibbe bites and bulgur pilaf, to name just a few. And their prices on most items are quite reasonable.

But the secret of the place is its beer. Occasionally you will see a customer stride purposefully to the back of the store and disappear. You expect them to turn, maybe study the chip shelves, but they seem to walk right through the back wall.

At either back corner there is a swinging door, darkly colored and very inconspicuous, essentially a secret panel. Behind them is a large room, a walk-in cooler stocked with an impressive selection of beers and ciders. I even found a large pint-plus bottle of Hitachino red ale in there, the first time I've ever seen it in that size bottle and only the second place I've seen it on the shelf, after Uwajamiya in Raleigh Hills. There's German beers, Asian beers, regional beers, Dutch, French, Belgian... They even have my new favorite Schlinkerla Rauchbier. And all in a nice roomy space on open shelves. No squatting in front of foggy cooler doors, no sharing the aisle with people that want to study cheese labels. Just rank after rank of carefully chilled beer.

Their wine selection is also quite respectable, and if you study the cooking and juice aisles carefully you'll probably come away with some flavorful and inexpensive mixers. For one thing, they carry large, inexpensive bottles of lime and lemon juice, an item I hate to buy in American groceries and liquor stores because it's always packaged in a tiny, impractical container and always seems too expensive. At Barbur Foods they're considered a staple and offered in staple sizes and prices.

But probably the greatest revelation is the easy access to wine-bottle sized units of grenadine syrup. True, the label says "Pomegranate Syrup", but that is precisely what grenadine syrup is. And a big bottle costs between five and seven dollars.

Drop in sometime and see what they have to offer. I guarantee you'll leave with more than was on your list. Perhaps you'll even chat with Mr. Attar, the owner, who also operates the very fine Ya Hala restaurant out in Montavilla. Don't hesitate to ask him ingredient or food questions; he likes to mingle with his customers.

Pub Crawl

We had a wonderful time. I had the honor to join Noelle and Celeste at Bushwhacker after some errands of my own. The crowd was almost frightening, with more crammed in the little garage than I've ever seen. Strange and poignant to think how cavernous the room looked when we came in for our first drink and wondered if they would make it past the first month of operation. The deafening noise of happy and engaged drinkers tells us for certain that that time of uncertainty is over. We sampled an excellent, officially unavailable cider, Burro Loco, with a musty, down-home kind of flavor. This only because we were fortuitously close to Jeff and Erin, the proprietor/operators, when they found a moment to pour themselves a drink.

We escaped to Stone Barn Brandy Works (location on Google maps, website), where the very personable owner showed us their brand-new German still and talked about heads and rye whiskey. Their own is excellent and clear because it does not age in a barrel. Celeste bought a bottle of a very tart and mysterious apricot liquer (bottle, label) and we sampled maybe a half-dozen other offerings. Please visit these people and buy their spirits; it's almost too good to be true that a small distiller and cider maker are this close together and it's our responsibility as thirsty Portlanders to maintain a good consumer-producer relationship with them.

Then it was on to Beermongers on SE 12th (Google maps, site). This place, too, was filled with noisy Saturday-night walla and we were forced into the ghetto behind the main space, near the bathroom. Never mind, they had one of my new favorite beers, Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier, a dark, heavy beer that tastes like a campfire.

At Apex (map, site) I felt it was important to have more German beer and ordered the Spaten Dunkel. Perhaps not the most adventuresome choice, but steady and calming after the giddiness of the rauchbier.

This concluded our tour, after which it was home and time for one more beverage. I made mine a mug full of the very fine Duché de Longueville Antoinette (available at Bushwhacker and Barbur World Foods; if you visit the latter you will find the ciders in their immense but well-hidden beer cooler. Walk to the back of the store behind the drink coolers and you'll find the door). The hangover in the wee hours was intense, but the next morning I was fine. This proves, to me at any rate, that good beverages have a salutary effect when enjoyed in moderation, and in excess are much less likely to torture the penitent. At any rate, I will certainly have cause to repent some time very soon, hopefully with more of you to join me.