Columbia River Brewing, Beer Mongers, and Gigantic Brewing

My brother and I went to a couple of breweries and a Bottle shop this weekend. First was Columbia River Brewing. I have been 2 or 3 times but my brother hadn't been, so we got a taster tray of all current beers and a couple of special releases. Rose City Wheat (Raspberry Ale), Sandy Blonde, ESB, CRB Pale, Hop Heaven IPA, Ground n Pound Double IPA, and Stumblers Stout. Seasonals: Bavarian Pils, Rye Ipa, Barley Wine, Belgian Trippel, Belgian Wit. Beers were all pretty good. It's a bit weird going there as I used to frequent it as Laurelwood's original brewery/pub. Nothing has changed as far as the pub and basic feel of the place, but the beer and food is different. If you haven't been you should go check it out. www.columbiariverbrewpub.com

Next we went to the BeerMonger's, and it was the first time checking it out for both of us. Pretty cool place, pretty small but a very good selection of beers in refrigerator cases broken into American breweries and foreign breweries. Then it has a couple of tables, a long table and a small bar, with 8 beers on tap. We had 5 beer taster trays with Epic Brewing Hop Syndrome Lager, Commons Dark Saison, Logsdon Seizoen, Logsdon Oak-Aged Seizoen, and one more that I can't remember.  All great beers, and I really love that you can get a taster tray at a bottle shop. It really gives you a chance to try a bunch of beers and what's better than that...I also picked up a mini growler of the Epic Brewing's Hop Lager, if you get a chance to stop in at BeerMongers, do it. It's a great place with a great selection of bottles, nice small selection of taps and the owner was super nice. thebeermongers.com

 The last place we went to was the hot new brewery in PDX, Gigantic Brewing in Southeast Portland. It's a bit of a drive to find, but well worth it. The brewery/pub space is really cool, with a patio with tables, a small indoor bar with chairs, and a big garage door that can open up on the nice days. We walked in and were the first customers.  We got the four beers samples that were on tap, Gigantic IPA, The City Never Sleeps, Raychweizen & Bandit and Axes of Evil. All the beers were excellent and the popular Gigantic IPA is going to give the excellent Boneyard RPM IPA a run for its money. So if you're out in Southeast Portland stop in and get some samples, or start looking for their Gigantic IPA in 22oz bottles or on tap in PDX and Vancouver. www.giganticbrewing.com nothing on the web page but you can access their FB page and twitter from it on the bottom of the page, looks like they are using FB as the main social media page.