Back in 1984 I got my first job out of college working at the Hawthorne Farms, Hillsboro location for Intel Corporation. We had internal conference rooms for meetings but many of the one-on-one meetings I had with my manager took place at what we called the McMenamins conference room. McMenamins is an iconic Pacific Northwest family pub chain founded in 1983 by the McMenamins brothers. They opened one of their first pubs in Hillsboro in 1983. It was a short drive from our offices and my boss liked a good beer. At first, I thought that it was odd that all of our one-on-ones were always booked from 4PM onwards. It didn’t take me long to figure out why.

From my memory, the Hillsboro McMenamins was fairly non-descript – just a pub in a strip mall. Back in their early days the McMenamins brothers probably took what they could. As they grew McMenamins moved on from strip mall pubs into creating grand pubs and hotels, mostly out of disused or retired historic buildings. Today they have over 60 properties throughout Washington and Oregon. Many of their properties are old schools or buildings that have been transformed with guest rooms added.

We haven’t been on a bike tour since last summer’s USA Chris-crossing ride and our riding season is coming to an end – we’ve been busy with lots of things for the last 6 months, and we finally have a chance to take a breath. We need to get in a quick trip in before the rains arrive. As luck would have it between Portland and Tacoma, WA, McMenamins has restored three fine old buildings spaced about 50 miles apart. So really, who could argue with a short pub crawl micro-adventure?

Finishing at the McMenamins Elk’s Lodge in Tacoma guarantees a replenishing amber beverage but it also means we can easily catch the train back to Portland. We don’t have to box our bikes at the start or finish of this ride. At the start we can simply ride out our driveway. At the finish, we can hop on the Amtrak Cascades train without bike boxes. Back in the day Amtrak used to require bikes to be boxed, making trains barely better than flying. These days, Amtrak has added bike racks to certain lines and roll-on bike storage is possible – a nice upgrade to their services.

As this trip will be short and it hardly seemed like a blog was merited. With only 3 or 4 posts, it felt like a bit of overkill. Honestly, what tipped me over the edge to post was watching the news last night. There is so much crazy stuff happening in the world right now, having a few stories out there on the internet that focus on bikes, brews and nice old buildings seemed like a good idea.

In spite of being an over 40-year customer for the McMenamins brothers, they have made no offer to sponsor our trip. To be fair, we didn’t ask them. And really, we are only visiting 3 of their establishments. Maybe next year we can plan a trip hitting all 60 of their pubs, or maybe just the ones with hotel rooms. That would be an effort worthy of a free pint perhaps.

And finally, if you visit the McMenamins website and click on the “Bike Friendly” logo on any of their properties, the following message pops up:

Bike Friendly

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment. Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities and not your inabilities.

I’m not sure what that message has to do with bikes or staying at McMenamins but it’s a nice sentiment to throw out there into the next news cycle. So, this Thursday we’re off – first stop Kalama and McMenamins Kalama Harbor Lodge. Hotel and pub reports to follow. Thanks for following.