Ten Years of It's Pub Night

Well, time flies when you're having fun.  This week marks the 10th anniversary of the first post on It's Pub Night -- fittingly, a rundown of fresh hop beers I had tried that year (thanks, Lee!).  It's ridiculous to think this blog has lasted longer than Nirvana; thankfully Beervana: The Blog is still around and in fact something of a global phenomenon these days.  Let us pause briefly to lament the demise of other PDX blogs from the last decade:  The Beer Here, Portland Beer and Music, Beer Around Town, and others, even poor benighted Dr. Wort.  Someone is still paying to keep the lights on at portlandbeer.org and the Champagne of Blogs -- maybe one day they will again grace us with their insights.

If the New School or Brewpublic had existed in 2007 I might never have bothered to start It's Pub Night, since they are filling the role that I thought was missing in Portland at the time, and doing it way better than I would be able to, even in my most perfect fantasy world.  Meanwhile, there are still some plucky citizen bloggers who keep regularly putting out original content year after year, like Dan at A Pint for Dionysus and Kris at Beer Musings PDX, to name only two.

About seven years ago, Jeff commemorated the fifth anniversary of Beervana with a self-published book called the Best of Beervana.  We now know his best was yet to come, but this wacky one-off is one of my prized possessions.  I can't even approximate something like that (though you can get the Six-Pack Equivalent App for either iPhone or Android), but I'd like to mark today's milestone with a list of posts that show off the high points -- so far! -- of It's Pub Night.  Enjoy.

Classics

• Beer Review Generator (2009)
• Six-Pack Equivalent Calculator (2009)
• Portland Beer Price Index (2009-2014)
• Incidental Contents Are Not Intended for Consumption (2008 -- successful Ebay auction of empty Abyss bottle!)
• Portland Growler Price Map (2008)
• Beer Tipping Etiquette (2010)
• Attention! Dried Hops are NOT Fresh Hops (2010)
• Historic Portland Breweries Map (2010)

Actual Drinking

• Jubel Vertical Tasting, 2007
• Portland Sample Tray Marathon (2008, reprise 2017)
• Beer Martini (2008)
• Double Alt Smackdown (2010)
• Jubelale Ten-year Vertical (Plus Jubel 2000) (2013)

 The April Fools Collection

• Russian River Objectification (2011)  
• Beer Licensing Agreements (2012 -- people actually fell for this one)
• Lagunitas Buys Dr. Bronner's Soap Company (2013 -- foretold the Lagunitas San Diego expansion!!!)
• Upcoming Portland Beer Festivals (2014 -- pretty lame actually)

 Did These Things Really Happen?

• Governor of Beervana (2011)
• Where to Find Ninkasi in Portland (2007)
• I Won a Major Award! (2009 -- last place in a photography contest!)
• A New Low in Advertising (2010)
• San Francisco vs. Portland (2010)

It has been a blast getting to know the beer family in Oregon and beyond, and this hobby project has brought me a wonderful group of friends.  I'm going to celebrate 10 years of It's Pub Night this Saturday, December 9, 2017, with an informal SE Portland pub crawl.  If you happen to read this before then, feel free to come join us.  It's not an organized event -- there's no swag, no collaboration beers, no discounts, and not much of a schedule.  On the other hand, there are no wristbands, drink tokens, or entry fees.  Here is the plan:

• 5-6:30 PM gather at Baerlic Brewing, 2235 SE 11th Ave.
• Walk to Pacific Pie at 7th and Hawthorne, in remembrance of Roots, where It's Pub Night became a glimmer in my eye.
• also pay respects to first Commons location
• maybe eat something at Pacific if we want to.
• Lucky Lab from 7-8:30 PM (another original pub night haunt).
• Walk-by taunting of the ex-Green Dragon, which was also an early inspiration.
• We might be tempted to stop in for a beer, maybe taunting is enough.
• Base Camp Brewing from 9 - 9:45 PM
• Burnside Brewing, arrive by 10 PM
• Another homage to Roots.

The schedule is only a guideline; if you're joining us partway, track our progress on Twitter.