Portland Growler Station: Growlers Hawthorne Plus Brewvana and Zwickelmania

What: Growlers Hawthorne
Where: 3343 SE Hawthorne Blvd
When: Noon-8pm
Honeys Heart: Meet the Brewer Nights

Portland has quite a few growler stations (Tin Bucket is Doug's and my usual pick) with even Fred Meyer getting in on the act and adding growler stations at its Burlingame, Hawthorne and Hollywood locations.

However, what Portland didn't have until very recently was a dedicated, single-purpose growler fill station, a niche which has now been claimed by Growlers Hawthorne.

Just opened and offering 40 rotating taps, Growlers Hawthorne is unusual in that the store offers no on-premise consumption aside from tastings. This allows the store to bypass a lot of those pesky full on-premise liquor license laws (must serve food, etc), resulting in relatively competitive pricing starting at $10 for a 64oz growler fill.

When Doug and I popped in for opening night this past Tuesday, Fort George was hosting a "Meet the Brewers" night and doling out samples of their canned Vortex and Java beers. Growlers Hawthorne owner Jim Hillman told me that he plans to hold these nights often. In fact, in honor of the store's opening week, Oakshire Brewing will be stopping by on Thursday Feb 6, Firestone Walker on Friday Feb 7, and Pelican Pub & Brewery on Feb 8.

We also happened to run into the lovely Ashley from Brewvana brewery tours. I interviewed Ashley a year or so ago for About Face and it's been so fun to watch her business grow. Doug and I have yet to actually make it on a tour (soon though!), but we're pretty pumped that Brewvana is working with Zwickelmania to provide transportation for the weekend.

What's Zwickelmania you ask? Why, it's a free event that offers beer lovers the opportunity to tour various Oregon breweries, meet the brewers, and sample their favorite beers. This year's Zwickelmania will take place Saturday, Feb. 15 from 11am to 4pm. Check out participating breweries and bus schedules at OregonCraftBeer.org/events/zwickelmania. 

P.S. You guys, I did a bit of research about the OLCC's different types of liquor licenses to fact check my liquor law reference above (responsible journalism, yo), and their manual for newly licensed businesses is actually a pretty interesting read. Check it out here.  

Portland Restaurant: Life of Pie

What: Life of Pie
Where: 3632 N. Williams Ave
When: 11am-10pm Sun-Wed, 11am-11pm Thurs-Sat
Honeys Heart: $5 Margherita Pizza on Happy Hour 11am-6pm daily (for now, this won't last forever!)

Katie and I walked into Life of Pie's media preview and were immediately welcomed with a glass of house red wine (only $3 on happy hour!) and a bar full of delicious looking arancini and kale salad. Now that's the way to start a tasting!

After doing the typical blogger tasks of excessive photo taking on cameras and phones then posting to Instagram and Twitter, we took plates of Arancini ($6) and Kale Salad ($7) to a two-person table by a wood pile and tried, what ended up being just the beginning, of a series of delicious plates.

Okay, back up, I'm sure the "table by the wood pile" sounds odd, but it worked and created a warm environment that is definitely family-friendly. Life of Pie owner, Jason, stopped by to introduce himself and said that he imagined the wood-fired pizza joint as a place that is casual enough to come on a whim but also offers great food and service. So far, it looks like he's achieved that vision!

Katie and I both loved the arancini and kale salad. The outside of the arancini was crispy with a soft, warm, and cheesy inside. The simplicity of the kale salad was a great accompaniment. Kale salads can sometimes be overly tart with lots of lemon, but this was really well balanced with honey.

First out of the wood-fired oven right behind the counter was a Margherita pizza, which is only $5 on happy hour. Basically I would recommend you quit reading this and go there now. What a deal! And also it was delicious.

Katie and I quickly realized we did not properly pace ourselves. The Margherita pizza was the first of three more that we were able to sample. Next up was Fennel Sausage and Mama Lil's Peppers ($11) which we both really enjoyed. The peppers are pickled which adds a unique tartness.

Following this was the Seasonal Mushrooms with Shaved Pecorino Roman and Truffle Oil ($12). I enjoyed this, but I'm kind of obsessed with mushrooms these days. This was rich though with the truffle oil and mushroom mix!

Okay, at this point we'd had two glasses of wine, arancini, kale salad, and three types of pizza. It was all great, but we surely couldn't eat more. Then the last pizza was walked over and we changed our minds. The special Bacon, Goat Cheese and Oven Roasted Leeks ($12) was last. We both thought we would love this, but it ended up not being our favorite. It was a little sweet and instead of arranging whole slices of bacon on the pizza I would have cut them up and spread it out more. Oh well, can't win them all!

In addition to the abundance of food, we were also impressed with the attentive service. Life of Pie is a counter-service spot, but the servers were very prompt about removing used plates and filling up glasses of wine, which is always appreciated.

Overall a fun night with great food and a very gracious host. Thank you so much for having us!

P.S. The little block of N. Williams that houses Life of Pie is now jam-packed with tasty destinations- you could make a whole night of it without leaving! We'll lay it out for you:

Date Night on N. Williams: 

Drinks at Tin Bucket
- This beer shop boasts state-of-the-art growler fillers but you can enjoy pints in-house too.
Dinner at Life of Pie
- See above 
Dessert at What's the Scoop
- Super creamy ice-cream frozen with liquid nitrogen. The Bourbon Toffee is crazy good.