Portland Pub Crawl - Portland, Oregon, USA

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I never realized how difficult it was to do a pub crawl until last weekend. You'd think the most difficult part of the night would be downing all the beer and cocktails, but you'd be wrong. The hardest part was tearing ourselves away from the bars we had stopped at to explore new ones.

I had the idea for a pub crawl a week or so ago, and I enlisted my former roommate, Rachel, for help in determining the best bars for a Portland pub crawl. My ex-roomie is always down for some "research." Our first stop of the evening was the Portland City Grill. The line was quite intimidating at first, going all the way out the bar past the elevators, but it went surprisingly fast. We were in the bar within 15 minutes, although there were no tables left and the bar was three people-thick all the way around.

Lucky for us, we are a couple of hotties, and like Moses parting the Red Sea, we scooted past the jostling patrons into a spot at the bar. The bartenders were not kind at first; they purposefully avoided our "come hither and liquor us up" gaze. Understandably, they were hopping faster than Tom Cruise in Cocktail to get all the drink orders made. But they couldn't resist us forever, and the result was two of the best mandarin drops we had ever tasted.

Rachel and I had only nice things to say about the staff at City Grill. Even though there was standing room only, we found a little empty corner big enough for two people right next to the window. One of the waitresses even brought us over some chairs. When the bar is crowded like that, people usually circle the tables like vultures, waiting for the right moment to swoop in and claim the space for themselves. But Rachel was crouching in the corner, waiting to spring on the first table that opened up, and even beat out a group of rather attractive guys, I might add, for the first table that opened up. The guys couldn't stay mad at us for long though, because we offered them our extra chairs and our company. After a couple cocktails, a plate of delicious tempura shrimp and light conversation, we realized it was already after midnight.

At about this time, I got a call from my brother, Dan. He was just getting off work, so I told him to meet us at McMenamins Ringlers with his girlfriend, Jenny. In the meantime, Rachel and I trudged up the hill to Ringlers, talking to just about every passerby along the way. I have no recollection as to what we said to these people, just a fuzzy memory of talking to them. The two cocktails at City Grill had gone to our heads – yeah, I know, we're lightweights – and we weren't quite crawling yet, but "walking in wavy lines" might be a better description.

At Ringlers, we were surprised to find a table. Usually Ringlers is much more crowded on Saturday nights, due to concerts at the Crystal Ballroom upstairs. Although the place wasn't packed, there was just the right amount of people there to energize the place. A DJ played hits from the 80s and 90s, and Rachel and I were in heaven. It was a good thing the music was loud, because we were singing along at the tops of our lungs over Kris Kringle Holiday Ale and Terminator Stout. McMenamins only releases Kris Kringle in November and December. It's a dark ale that has a bit of a cinnamon kick to it. I know you are probably thinking, "cinnamon and beer?" But it's actually really tasty.

Dan and Jenny finally arrived at Ringlers at around 1 a.m., and they were surprised to find us bouncing around the booth like a couple of Mexican jumping beans. Dan needed to catch up with Rachel and me, so I bought him a Terminator Stout and an Adios Mother F*cker (basically a blue drink with a bunch of different alcohols in it). Then it was off to the make-shift dance floor, an 8-by-8-foot square of floor flanked on all sides by tables. We were all strangers on the dance floor, but we all danced together like we had known each other for years.

By the time we had finished our drinks and dancing, it was already after 2 a.m. and most of the bars were already closed. So Jenny, being the only sober one among us, drove all of us home. I fell asleep in the back seat rather early in the trip and woke up to find myself magically transported to my front door. Funny how those things happen. So, we didn't visit all the pubs we had intended to visit, but the night just went on to prove that it doesn't matter where you go, as long as you're with fun people you'll have a fun time.

Here are some other places you might want to hit on your Portland pub crawl:

• Portland City Grill
  
  111 SW 5th Ave.
  
  (503) 450-0030
  
  
• Ringlers Annex – McMenamins
  
  1332 W Burnside
  
  (503) 225-0543
  
  
• Metropolis
  
  311 SW Washington St.
  
  (503) 223-7515
  
  
• Boogie Woogies
  
  915 SW 2nd St
  
  (503) 417-8717
  
  
• Rock Bottom Brewery
  
  210 SW Morrison St.
  
  (503) 796-2739
  

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