Culture: Page 264

Sky-High Aspirations

Corvallis brewery builds up

Drink

Sky High Brewing, located in downtown Corvallis, currently lacks a kitchen, seats not even a fifth of its desired capacity and has a second-floor staircase leading straight into the ceiling a la the Winchester Mystery House, but Scott McFarland, his co-owners and brewer Laurence Livingston were too excited to wait. They didn’t mind opening with a half-finished brewery in August 2012.  Getting into beer has long been McFarland’s dream. “I did pizza for a number of years but always kind of had a hankering to get into the beer business,” he says.  Continue reading →

One Percent for the Watershed

You can give back with Oakshire’s IPA

Drink

Remember those old Olympia beer ads? “It’s the water.” When it comes to good beer, it really is the water, and that’s why Oakshire Brewing has begun its “1% for Watershed” program, donating one percent of the profits from its Watershed IPA in the lower Willamette Valley to keep the watershed and its water clean and healthy. In 2013, the McKenzie River Trust (MRT) will receive the funds to continue its restoration and conservation work.  Continue reading →

Feeling Crotchety?

Drink

As usual, we begin this month’s wine column with a digression, about thinking and the emergence of taste, eventually returning to wine: In classes I taught at LCC, we had a rule: no use of cell phones during class (exceptions for possible emergencies). One morning, I was filling the whiteboard with notes and noticed a student in the back row looking down at his cupped hands. My students might think I’m a bit dim about their current stratagems but I knew what was going on. “Kyle,” I said, “are you on your cell?” Continue reading →

Bike for Beers

Drink

Whether you’re a tour guide for out-of-town friends during Eugene Beer Week or you just want to soak up some sun while enjoying a few brews, a self-guided bike tour of breweries is an entertaining way to get immersed in the feel of Eugene and Springfield. Continue reading →

A Day in the Menagerie

Trout Creek to Rooster Rock

Outdoors

The Menagerie Wilderness is relatively unknown to those who aren’t rock climbers or from nearby, and the Trout Creek Trail showcases a good taste of what the Menagerie Wilderness outside of Sweet Home has to offer. This area was protected primarily because of the plentiful rock pinnacles, which are favorites of climbers and threatened birds. Even if you aren’t a rock climber, the unique forest that blankets the area is reason enough to visit. Towering Douglas fir, western hemlock, Western redcedar and Pacific madrone all surround the trail. Continue reading →

Earth Day On Wheels

Culture

Bicycles make the world go round, or at least they will as more and more people see them as essential transportation rather than a toy. There are a lot of great ways to celebrate Earth Day (for events check out the Earth Day listings in Calendar), but if you want to celebrate Earth Day every day then park your fossil-fuel guzzler and start biking. Critical Mass: It’s all about the bike community Continue reading →

Critical Mass

It’s all about the bike community

Culture

We’re living in a golden age of cycling. And we might have a bunch of loud, traffic-stopping cycling activists with anarchistic tendencies — better known as Critical Mass — to thank for it.  For the uninitiated, Critical Mass (CM) is a quasi-organized monthly bike ride that takes place on the last Friday of the month in cities across the globe. Founded in San Francisco in September 1992, the ride is part-rolling street party, part-pro-cycling demonstration, often chaotic and a heck of a good time — minus the occasional arrest — but, hey, even those can have side benefits. Continue reading →

Bike Couture

Innovations in helmets and attire for your commute

Culture

Attention all car commuters! Your excuses for pushing the gas pedal instead of the bike pedal — at least from a fashion perspective — won’t be worthy much longer. Yes, we all know it’s better for the environment and our health if we bike, but often it’s superficial justifications that keep us from trading four wheels for two. Here are some nifty tricks and cycle-centric designers who are making roadblocks like helmet head, or stuffing a change of clothes in your pack while pedaling to work like a spandex-encased sausage, obsolete. Continue reading →