Fat Tire?? Yes, Fat Tire.

Having returned from the Long Beach / Orange, CA area, I was a little surprised about the options at various drinking holes. Oregon is definitely a one-of-a-kind place - the mean of places up here contain, at worst, three or four beers that are 'micros'. I took my wife to a birthday dinner at Ken's Artisan Pizza yesterday and had Hopworks ESB, Caldera Pils, and Upright Four as three of the four draft selections. But the ol' OC wasn't quite like that.

In fact, right after your basic openers of Bud, Bud Light, and Coors, the absolute #1, dead-certain, ask-for-it-and-it's-there option was always New Belgium's Fat Tire. I can't be sure of the market share, but just the places we went to, the options at supermarkets, and what was in my friend's beer fridge, I'd say 1000% is close to the mark.

Fat Tire is a PA beer (perfectly acceptable) - it's not going to knock your socks off, but as far as ambers go, you're not drinking dishwater swill by any means. It actually seems to be a decent lead-in for people who want something more than Bud/Coors but have not yet dipped their toes in the waters of microbrews. No mockery from this end - I just was a little shocked by the lack of ubiquitous good-beer in this area. Cali is supposed to be one of the five "This State Brews Better Than You Can Imagine" places in the US and I had thought I'd get the same experience in restaurants as I do in Portland: not a wide selection, yet what's there is killer. But to find any off-the-beaten-path brew in the LBC, you had to hit a Gastropub or something that screamed 'BEER!' from the rooftops. Standard bars or restaurants and you had no shot at ordering anything with more flavor than Fat Tire.

Moral of the story and continued personal reminder: give thanks to Beer that you live in Portland - you honestly don't know how good you've got it until you leave.