Everyone is coupled or grouped up at Bailey’s when I arrive I and I’m considering taking the author’s prerogative and picking whatever I want when a woman on the rail abdicates her seat to use the restroom.
I lean in to a man who looks like a stereotypical ski bum from the 80’s (long hair, wool cap, dirty woolen coat) and ask him, just as his glass arrives, what he’s drinking.
“Number 22!”I smile: he sounds like the cliche, too.
The number 22 is the Ex Novo/Ft George collaboration “Back & Forth,” a hazy IPA with rye. The scents fade rapidly, leaving me with a grapefruit flavored beer that has told sweetness to jump off a pier, followed up by the spiciness of the rye malt.
“Smooth,” the ski dude says and I have to agree, at least on my initial sip. We toast, and I let him get back to enjoying his date.
It’s also $8. That is wholly two dollars more than it ought to be, given it’s ABV (6.2%) and it’s style (basic IPA). For an $8 pint, I expect far, far more. The cost of setting expectations via your price point: when you miss, you burn a lot of customer goodwill.
Out of nowhere, the evening is disrupted by barking. An invisible dog decided to make herself visible and comes out from under a table of patrons to be vigorously and adoringly pet by other people. Sometimes, I love Portland so much I don’t even know what to do.
Today’s second pint goes to Families Belong Together.
Happy holidays, everyone!
A pint for Dionysus 