Up North 65 came to visit Robot Chickens and myself, which became the impetus for a DBO: PDX meetup. Sorry if we missed anyone, but we just sent messages to those who we knew lived in the area. As a result? Iconicbanana, ChaosSociety, and BeardFade dropped by for tacos and some Halo: Reach on Saturday night. Blackt1g3r, the formerly DocMartz, HoboDeathK joined us via the interwebs, and a rather large volume of shenanigans ensued. Amusing moment of the evening? Chaos showed up with Iconic in tow, having convinced him that they were going to a Timbers game (surprise!).

We also set up at 360 FTB for Monday night, and Wu traveled south for some brinner and gaming. We were joined by noisy neighbors, and the online presence of Blackt1g3r, HoboDeathK, and briefly Kermit. Memorable moments involved insane custom game types that caused much swearing and confusion. T1g3r apparently has never stopped playing Reach, and thus owned everyone on pretty much every map.

Pictures, or it didn't happen? See below.

Saturday Crew (Organized from "Least Impressive Facial Hair" to "Most Impressive Facial Hair")
Banana, Chaos, Chickens, Beard, and North


Monday Night Crew: Wu, Beard, Chickens, Rellekh, North, noisy neighbors

Did I mention there was beer? Thanks guys, for a ridiculously fun time. Y'all are good peeps. Thanks for the welcome back to the Portland area.

Side Note: If it sounds like we didn't get out all that much, we did manage to show UpNorth around Powell's Bookstore, the Saturday Market, the Chinese Gardens, and Waterfront Park. Props to AsheVeil (Beard's wife) for taking pictures and baking a cake with me for this bunch of monkeys.

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First of all, awesome shirt, rellekh!

Glad I got to partake in the good times, albeit briefly. Wish I could have been there. I'll make it to Powells someday!

Or the gin & tonics
Or the screwdrivers
Or the whiskey
...well that escalated quickly.

Let us know when and we'll show you around! Powell's is amazing. Stuff Skwatchee in a suitcase. ;)

This was a super-fun weekend for me. Playing against your friends is a highlight of Bungie's games #DestinyNeedsCustomGames. I'm sure North will regale us with the story of his travels at some point. I was just impressed that he stayed up all night on Thursday, and had the stamina to play through the entire original Halo campaign on legendary on Friday. Rellekh and I were crashing before he did that evening.

I honestly never thought I'd be hosting people from the B.org community in my home when I started lurking on HBO around Halo 2's announcement, let alone having the illustrious Claude show up. It's fun to play with you all. I hope there is more to come.

I wasn't sure.

This was a super-fun weekend for me. Playing against your friends is a highlight of Bungie's games for me #DestinyNeedsCustomGames. I'm sure North will regale us with the story of his travels at some point. I was just impressed that he stayed up all night on Thursday, and had the stamina to play through the entire original Halo campaign on legendary on Friday. Rellekh and I were crashing before he did that evening.

I honestly never thought I'd be hosting people from the B.org community in my home when I started lurking on HBO around Halo 2's announcement, let alone having the illustrious Claude show up. It's fun to play with you all. I hope there is more to come.

Was a super-cool night for me. 4am might be a little later than I should end evenings these days, but it was worth it. You guys rock.

(The next evening was almost as late; I dropped North at the Light Rail station around midnight, then came back and played/caught up on emails, didn't make it to bed until 3. Last night, I passed out at 10. ;) I have no clue how Mig does it...)

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did you take country western dancing at OSU ~2004/2005? If so, we were in the same class.

...Yes? *Jaw drops* OSU FTW.

Oh funny. Apparently ChaosSociety went to school with my cousins. Small world.

Was a super-cool night for me. 4am might be a little later than I should end evenings these days, but it was worth it. You guys rock.

(The next evening was almost as late; I dropped North at the Light Rail station around midnight, then came back and played/caught up on emails, didn't make it to bed until 3. Last night, I passed out at 10. ;) I have no clue how Mig does it...)

Yeah, late nights are getting harder and harder.

lol, i would've been the Texan

...Yes? *Jaw drops* OSU FTW.

Wait, which OSU?

LOL! Fair enough. Still, that's a pretty small world.

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The 1st picture I looked at--before I even read the caption, I immediately said "Which one is BeardFade?"

XD

I knew that name belonged to one of those massive beer-nets. ;-) Hope you guys had fun!

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Chickens looked up a picture of you on HBO, and I went "OH YEAH!" I'm entirely impressed with your memory, sir.

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I trimmed an inch or so off my beard just before he got here (had a job interview), but still nothing compared to his.

Well, his tag is BeardFADE, not BeardPops-out

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Reach is still my favorite multiplayer game. Destiny is smoother, but Reach is more strategic and balanced.

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Ah. If you had said Oklahoma State I could have had some connection too. If you had said Ohio State I would have disowned you all.

Having met what I feel is far more than my fair share of Ohio Staters... I whole-heartedly agree.

Thanks for sharing! Glad you guys had a great time.

The Oholiab spawn have already concluded that a trip to the Northwest is in order.

Any three-team game where Blackt1g3r's team had more than one player, it automatically won.

RobotChickens dominated some rounds as well.

Thanks for sharing! Glad you guys had a great time.

The Oholiab spawn have already concluded that a trip to the Northwest is in order.

We already have like... a lot of people here.

Thanks for sharing! Glad you guys had a great time.

The Oholiab spawn have already concluded that a trip to the Northwest is in order.

We would love that!

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Being from Seattle, I feel like if I tricked a Timber's fan into going someplace by telling them we're going to a Timber's game, that I'd get bludgeoned with a unicycle or something.

Looks like good times though! I don't think I'd have made the drive this time, but keep me in the loop in the future! I'm originally from the Portland area so I have a few friends and family down there that would love to see me :)

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Looks like good times though! I don't think I'd have made the drive this time, but keep me in the loop in the future! I'm originally from the Portland area so I have a few friends and family down there that would love to see me :)

Also, I can hitch a ride with him. So this is good.

They just didn't invite me ;-)

Did I mention there was beer? Thanks guys, for a ridiculously fun time. Y'all are good peeps. Thanks for the welcome back to the Portland area.

That's an awful lot of corporate beer for a Portland crew, isn't it? ;-)
I see a Rogue Chocolate Stout though, of which I whole heartedly endorse. Easily one of my top 10 stouts (and coming from me, that's actually saying something).

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Did I mention there was beer? Thanks guys, for a ridiculously fun time. Y'all are good peeps. Thanks for the welcome back to the Portland area.

That's an awful lot of corporate beer for a Portland crew, isn't it? ;-)
I see a Rogue Chocolate Stout though, of which I whole heartedly endorse. Easily one of my top 10 stouts (and coming from me, that's actually saying something).

Funny thing is.. I was just talking to... oh bother, Up North? We did a raid and we talked about that beer cause he was drinking it.

Looks like good times though! I don't think I'd have made the drive this time, but keep me in the loop in the future! I'm originally from the Portland area so I have a few friends and family down there that would love to see me :)

Also, I can hitch a ride with him. So this is good.

We'd totally love to have you two. Truth is, this was very impromptu. It started with North coming to town and then a few others thought it'd be fun to get together. Had we planned this further out, we would have posted an event and recruited more heavily. Consider this a test of the infrastructure.

Next time.

That's an awful lot of corporate beer for a Portland crew, isn't it? ;-)

I was waiting for this comment... Yeah. Corporate beer costs less. Also, most of the local brews ended up on the lower half of the ring with no label showing.

I see a Rogue Chocolate Stout though, of which I whole heartedly endorse. Easily one of my top 10 stouts (and coming from me, that's actually saying something).

True. I'm also a huge fan of Rogue's Hazelnut Brown Ale. Good brewing company.

We'll be moving to Connecticut in May. Just wondering what the chances of a get together are up in that region of the country.

Chickens looked up a picture of you on HBO, and I went "OH YEAH!" I'm entirely impressed with your memory, sir.

I'm really good with faces, horrible with names.

Random Story: My wife and I were in Austin for new year's eve 2014. I see a guy at the Hotel bar that I've sworn I've seen before. I ask my wife if she recognizes him, and she doesn't. It drives me crazy that i know him, but can't place him. Next morning, when we are checking out of the hotel, i see him again in the lobby. Then it dons on me that he might be an actor. My wife says "go ask him if he's an actor." I don't though b/c it's a holiday, and what am i going to say "hey, are you an actor?" So i let it go.

Fast forward 7 months to June 2015. All the movie channels are showing marvel movies non stop in anticipation for Ant-Man, and I'm just sitting there watching the first Avengers, when i see the guy in the ball cap and blue jacket here at 29 Seconds:

I rewind it and say holy @&$#!. My wife is like "what!?" I tell her "That's the guy from the hotel at New Years. She said "you recognized a person from ten seconds in a movie?"

So i look on IMDB and they actually had him listed as "Celebration Montage Interviewee." His name is Jamie McShane, and he's a career extra that's been on 24, Law and Order, Criminal Minds, CSI, CSI Miami, Castle, etc. So i had probably seen him multiple times, but it was while watching the Avengers that i was able to place him.

That's an awful lot of corporate beer for a Portland crew, isn't it? ;-)

Corporate beer? Widmer is here in Portland, Deschutes in Bend, Full Sail in Hood River. Every beer in that picture is brewed locally. It's not an insult to call it "corporate" when you're local beer is so appreciated by others that it's sold regionally.

That's an awful lot of corporate beer for a Portland crew, isn't it? ;-)

Corporate beer? Widmer is here in Portland, Deschutes in Bend, Full Sail in Hood River. Every beer in that picture is brewed locally. It's not an insult to call it "corporate" when you're local beer is so appreciated by others that it's sold regionally.

Widmer's part of the Craft Brew Alliance, which by itself is the 9th largest brewing company in the US (hard to call yourself a microbrew at that point), and is 1/3 owned by Anheuser-Busch now. (The Widmer brothers currently own less than a fifth of the business.)

Full Sail sold itself to a private equity firm last year; they're not owned by a corporate beer company, but they ARE owned by a corporation (that has very little to do with the beer industry).

Deschutes is now big enough that they're building an east coast production facility. (Again, they're local, sure... but they're hardly 'micro'. ;) )

Heh. I remember stopping by Widmer's storefront for whatever was being experimented with on the way home regularly (they were 2 blocks off my standard route) - in those days, the only Widmer available in restaurants was Hefeweizen, but they had some pretty interesting stuff that came and went that you could really only get in that store. I think it's cool they got as big as they did (and I STILL enjoy their Hefe).

Have you guys started getting Boulevard beers out on the west coast yet? They are a Kansas City brewery that does some amazing things. Their wheat is a staple beer in our area. But where they really shine is in their Smokestack Series. Some of the finest beers I've had (and I've had a lot).

Corporate sellouts! :-)

Corporate sellouts! :-)

lol - they got the Corporate Sellout label as early as Marathon 2, when they made a PC version. ;)

Have you guys started getting Boulevard beers out on the west coast yet? They are a Kansas City brewery that does some amazing things. Their wheat is a staple beer in our area. But where they really shine is in their Smokestack Series. Some of the finest beers I've had (and I've had a lot).

Need pictures of bottles otherwise I have no idea. And I don't feel like googling beer bottles at work right now :-)

Bungie should just make craft microgames. Limited run games meant for like 100 or less people dispersed via invite only. And if you (the general you) have heard of them, they're probably bad.

That's an awful lot of corporate beer for a Portland crew, isn't it? ;-)

Corporate beer? Widmer is here in Portland, Deschutes in Bend, Full Sail in Hood River. Every beer in that picture is brewed locally. It's not an insult to call it "corporate" when you're local beer is so appreciated by others that it's sold regionally.

I meant no disrespect, I enjoy a good Widmer hefeweizen on a hot summer day as much as the next guy, and Drop Top was my goto beer in college. I was mostly poking fun as a Seattlite who has disagreements with portlands on a regular basis over who has the most/best beer :)

...but, since you brought it up, it's not the locality but the size of the brewery that I was referencing. 10 Barrel is also in bend (they have a nice homie pub), but they are owned and operated by Anheuser-Busch (incidentally that's why their beer went from being called "Corporate beer sucks" to "corporate beer still sucks" Edit: That was actually Elysian, I mix up my sellouts sometimes :-D ).

Windmer is a brand owned by Craft Brewing Alliance, the 9th largest beer company in the US and 32% owned by Anheuser-Busch (yes, I used wikipedia for that).

Full Sail is still independent, and since I was born and raised in White Salmon and spent a few years living in Hood River, they are still absolutely fine by me. As far as I'm concerned small towns are supposed to smell like hops, and I blame Full Sail for that impression :)
As another aside, Full Sail has (unsurprisingly) better beer at their onsite pub, though the food isn't special enough to make the drive down there.

Deschutes may be big but they are independent and I love their Obsidian (I see someone else at the party does too).
And Bridgeport you get full props for.

Rogue is of course awesome, but hard to make it a staple party beer. Too heavy. For that matter so is a lot of small local Beer. It's hard to down too many Laurelwood IPAs in a row, no matter how good they are.

Did I miss a brand in that awesome circle of beer? :)

I'm moderately impressed that you didn't have (or thought to hide) the budweisers :)

This consolidation of the beer industry (well, it's happening in all industries) actually makes me sad, on an intellectual level... but I haven't seen my worst fears realized yet.

Elysian Brewery (a local Seattle brewery, one of their pubs is a 10 minute walk from the house) was bought a couple of years ago by Anheuser Busch, and I was really sad. So far, their recipes haven't changed. (Prices either.) Maybe large corporations are getting smarter, maybe the fall is coming... but either way, right now, it's the same stuff you could buy before the buyout.

Two pretty funny bits from that sale:

1) Elysian has a pale ale called 'Loser'. Before the buyout, the label read "CORPORATE BEER SUCKS". Today, the label reads "CORPORATE BEER STILL SUCKS".

2) the buyout happened right before (like, the WEEK before) a superbowl (2014? 2015? I'm not sure). That year, Budweiser aired their 'Brewed the Hard Way' campaign, and it had this line in it:

“Let them sip their pumpkin peach ale, we’ll be brewing us some golden suds.”

Yeah, except... Elysian makes a pumpkin peach ale. ;)

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This is their staple beer that I would assume you'd get.

Tank 7 is an amazing beer that you should definitely get if you have a chance.

Smoke Stack series. Chocolate Raspberry Ale

Smoke Stack series. Imperial Stout

More of the Smokestack Series

If you see any of these style handles on tap then give them a shot.

All hail the Boulevard Beer Finder:

http://www.boulevard.com/beers/beer-finder/

I agree. I think it is good for people to have more diverse options. The more companies with different goals in the mix, the better. Conglomerates tend to funnel things through the same processes and that can kill innovation etc. That being said, I don't begrudge any company for becoming successful. It's hard to talk about the integrity of remaining independent when you have people/kids who are dependent on you. Also, if you create a good product and want the world to see it, corporate money can disperse it. Not always a bad thing.

Awesome!

I highly recommend trying the smokestack beers if they have them. Their wheat is a good drinking/cooking beer. But I have others I tend to like better in that style.

Smoke Stack series. Chocolate Raspberry Ale

This is sitting empty on my counter at my house. It was delicious.

More of the Smokestack Series

Definitely had the Sixth Glass, but I forget what it tastes like. Though I do like a good quadruple.

Smoke Stack series. Chocolate Raspberry Ale

Thanks to a company called Tavour I am expanding my beer tasting to other parts of the country. It's still a big endeavor to get out to all the new microbrewies in seattle every summer. I have like 8 or 10 within a 5 minute drive of where I live as it is!

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Bring your home-brewed beverage to share to gain admittance. Destiny/Halo on the side.

Bring your home-brewed beverage to share to gain admittance. Destiny/Halo on the side.

Done, if you like dark beers. Though I like to think my WIT is pretty good...

I'm pleased that this has become a beer discussion. And yeah, as Chickens mentioned, cost factored into our choices, but it was ridiculously fun anyway. And there will be no Coors or Budweiser in my house. Ever. However, I once heard someone describe it this way: "if you like it, it's good. If you don't like it, it's bad. Don't worry about the snobs." Maybe I don't deserve to live in Portland. ;-) We just moved back from LA, and we actually had more beer snob friends there than we do in Portland! Shocking!

Smoke Stack series. Chocolate Raspberry Ale

Thanks to a company called Tavour I am expanding my beer tasting to other parts of the country. It's still a big endeavor to get out to all the new microbrewies in seattle every summer. I have like 8 or 10 within a 5 minute drive of where I live as it is!

Tonight/Tomorrow, in South Lake Union, is the Washington Beer Collaboration Festival.

http://washingtonbeer.com/festivals/washington-beer-collaboration-festival.php

50 breweries, 25 unique beers. $30 (or $35 at the door) gets you 8 tastings.

I'll be there tomorrow afternoon. :)

Tonight/Tomorrow, in South Lake Union, is the Washington Beer Collaboration Festival.

http://washingtonbeer.com/festivals/washington-beer-collaboration-festival.php

50 breweries, 25 unique beers. $30 (or $35 at the door) gets you 8 tastings.

I'll be there tomorrow afternoon. :)

Ooh, this is tempting.

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I just noticed Robot Chickens's shirt, and I have to acknowledge that it is an awesome shirt. I loved that show.

Stop making us jealous! :)

Btw, the hell with your beer. Mead is where it's at!

Do they have an unfiltered Wheat beer? I believe I've had it. One of the devs on my team is from KC and brought some brews from home out here one year.

Definitely had the unfiltered wheat

I remember that commercial and I remember thinking, "But your beer tastes like shit. You're making fun of superior products. You only have the empire you do because the World Wars killed craft breweries as most of their clientele was shipped overseas and you created a bunch of light beer pieces of crap to market to a new audience made up primarily of women and only in the last few decades has craft brewing recovered."

If you think I'm making this up then I suggest listening to: http://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/how-beer-works/ Fascinating stuff on the history of beer in the United States.

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