Eugene: Winging It With Samples

Sampling Oakshire Brewing's finest

Eugene was one of the places where we well and truly just winged it. You hear people say they have winged it around entire continents but we just don’t buy it. Winging it may very well give you the freedom to go wherever you please, but if it’s summer and you are heading to some pretty popular places, chances are leaving it to the last minute will only result in overpriced accommodation and more chance of missing out on something, than actually scoring something out of the blue.

Having said that, it wasn’t exactly the middle of summer and Eugene isn’t high on many people’s wish lists when they are road tripping through the States, so our chances were a little better than normal. Still the only reason we decided on Eugene was we needed some work done to the car and heard that Eugene was a hell of a lot cheaper than Cali.

And Rodge was in dire need of some new tires.

Risking the drive into Eugene on tires balder than I will be in a few years wasn’t the best of ideas, but we didn’t have much choice after we noticed the wire showing through on the two front tires in Crater Lake.

So upon arriving in town we pulled up to the first McDonalds we found and, like the homeless bums we are, took advantage of the free wifi. Thinking I would waste the best part of the afternoon getting quotes and booking Rodge in for his makeover, I was pleasantly surprised that most places we called were dirt cheap and could fit me in whenever I rolled in the door.

Whilst all this was happening Nic booked our accom which turned out to be far better than even she could have planned. Usually we book accom based namely on price – cos we are cheap – and then factor in the other elements. As we said, somehow we scored. The Econo Lodge came up trumps – the door locked, the toilet flushed, the wifi mostly worked and the location could not have been better.

Oregon is the state for craft breweries and Eugene did not disappoint. Owing to the fact that the next day was my birthday, we found a local place that had about 30 beers on tap and over a thousand in the cool room, and settled in for a session and a feed.

The next day was when we hit the jackpot, and I learnt the invaluable lesson of free samples. Realising how good a location our hotel was in, we decided to pick up a cake for me to eat entirely by myself and spend the afternoon walking from brewery to brewery.

Birthday lunch all to myself

Now, for those like me who enjoy the free things in life, samples are the way to go. Most breweries offer sample trays and in the US these are where the money is at. They are usually the same price as a pint, you get a fair bit more, and you don’t get stuck with a full pint you’d rather throw out than finish...but that would be sacrilege and is frowned upon in my world.

But the trick to the ‘sampling’ is to actually sample a few of the beers before you even decide on the sample tray. It’s all above board when the brewery has over a dozen beers on offer, sometimes up to 30 odd on tap. So even if you know which pint you want, or which 5 beers you actually want to sample, hit up old mate behind the bar to try a few before you actually buy a few. Given America is the land of the free pour, they aren’t too worried about handing out samples to any homeless looking bum.

You usually get to chatting to the barman this way as well. It’s hard not to when you’re a few pints deep, its 2pm on a Thursday and you’re the only drunk in the place. We even managed to score a few free samples off one of the local lads we ambushed in the third brewery, who joined us for the rest of our merry jaunt.

15 Samples at Hop Valley may have been our undoing - Cheers Cody

We had planned to stop somewhere for dinner along our staggering, and there was talk of hitting up a local nightclub, but by the fourth brewery there wasn’t too much clear thinking going on and it’s safe to say the walk home would be memorable if we could remember it.

If you ever find yourself in Oregon, which you really should try to, make a trip out to Eugene and get amongst the froths. And if you’re into college football get along to a Ducks game and make it a weekend you won’t forget.

Falling Sky - Brewery 2 of 4 on