Family Brews in Fall Rivah

Battleship Brewhouse
101 President Ave.
Fall River, MA




“Blue collar cities = Budweiser crap.”
          -- Cousin757 email to Suit757


You can tell we’re kin, huh?

Yeah, Cousin757 loves double IPAs even more than I do. She probably wouldn’t drink a Sam Adams if it were free.

I guess that’s where the similarities end. I’m pretty sure I’ve never turned down a beer.

Ever. Not even a Bud.

But Cousin757’s warning about the perils of finding a good place to sample local double IPAs near her home in Fall River, Massachusetts was well taken.

This is the town that is famous for two things: the gang rape trial depicted by Jody Foster in “The Accused” and Lizzy Borden -- who axe murdered her parents.

Not exactly Chamber of Commerce marketing material.

Folks in this gritty former textile town are perfectly happy with their bottles of Bud, thank you very much. Hoity toity beer snobs like us can keep their “fancy beer” inside of Route 128.

But Cousin757 mentioned a strip mall brewhouse that serves an unusually nice selection of suds in this blue collar town.

Battleship Brewhouse in Fall River.

Deal. Count me in.

If USAir doesn’t ruin my life, I’ll be there at 7:30pm on Wednesday night!

To add yet another layer of festivity, my sister unexpectedly decided to drive four hours round trip to join us.

The lengths people will go to down a few brews with Suit757!

I was honored.

And thirsty when I pulled into the nearly empty trash-strewn parking lot on the outskirts of downtown Fall River.

Next to a nail salon and a Chinese take-out joint, Battleship Brewhouse’s parking lot view didn’t look too promising.

But the inside was much better, freshly painted with pictures of the namesake USS Massachusetts battleship parked on the Fall River waterfront.

Other than a small scattering of a few lonely beer drinkers, we had the place to ourselves.

I kicked off this 757 family reunion in style -- with a beer flight, of course.

While Fall River doesn’t appear to have climbed aboard the craft beer bandwagon with a local brewery, the beer menu offered some tasty options from other parts of the People’s Republic of Taxachussetts.

I chose an IPA from Ipswich Ale and a porter and IPA from Mayflower Brewing in Plymouth for my maiden flight of three.

I thought Mayflower’s IPA was a little thin, but the porter was toasty, malty and full of flavor.

The Ipswich IPA was definitely a notch above the Mayflower. And isn’t that why we order beer flights -- to compare and contrast -- and declare a winner?

Congratulations Ipswich IPA.

But that was just the warm up for one of the greatest beers to ever grace my liver -- Vermont’s Otter Creek Backseat Berner -- a hoppy IPA masterpiece with aromatic piney hops balanced perfected with a tasty malt backbone.

Four beers into the festivities (don’t worry, three of them were 5oz samplers), it was time to join my cuz on the heavy double IPA side of the beer menu.

I opted to leave New England for Colorado’s Left Hand Brewing. Their Nitro Stout is a Suit757 Hall of Famer, so I was anxious to try the Twin Sisters. She didn’t disappoint. Twin barrels of hoppy deliciousness.

By this point in the evening it was past time to start thinking about actual non-liquid sustenance.

Cousin757 had warned me, “The beer selection is decent but you probably won’t be buying the shirt.”

Well, we’ll see about that.

As they say at the kick off of football season, “That’s why they play the games.”

Like many blue collar sections of America, Fall River has developed its own unpretentious culinary traditions (and language) that you just won’t find on your local two-for-twenty Applebee’s menu.

Chourico (pronounced “shar-eese”), Linguica (pronounced “ling-weese”), Quahogs (pronounced “stuffies”), Clam Chowder (pronounced “chowdah”) and Pork Altejana (pronounced “pork and necks”).

Many of these dishes originated in the islands off of Portugal and were transported here to the southeast coast of New England by Portuguese settlers generations ago.

Cousin757 has exactly zero Portuguese blood. I know -- I’ve researched our family history.

Just don’t tell her.

She sure sounds like she knows what she’s talking about because she married into a native family.

She warned me that Battleship Brewhouse probably isn’t your first, second, third or fourth choice in Fall River (pronounced “Fall Rivah”) for sampling authentic local Portuguese dishes, but I was determined to give it a shot.

After all, I can order another cheesesteak or overcooked burger anywhere.

The clam chowder was creamy and chock full of local clams. Not as thick as I usually prefer, but pretty darn tasty.

The quahog was an oversize clam shell stuffed with diced clam bits and seasoned breading mixed together with spicy seasoning. Instead of a crabcake, think a clamcake -- on the half shell. Probably the highlight of the meal.

As a sausage connoisseur, I just HAD to try some local chourico -- a dense local Portuguese sausage. So I opted for the “Mac & Cheese and Chourico Flatbread”.

I hate to say it but it was a bit of a disappointment.

It was basically a thin pizza with some macaroni piled on top.

Cousin757 asked, “Where’s your ‘chareese’??”

On top of the macaroni was a thin sprinkling of red flakes, kinda like bacon bits. No thick slices of sausage I was hoping for.

Basically the flatbread was just a disappointing mouthful of carbs.

Fortunately, the meal was salvaged by the Pork Altejana, a stew of diced potatoes and pork chunks in a well-seasoned garlicy, peppery broth.

Wow. You could put that sauce on my flip-flops and I’d gladly eat them.

The littleneck clams on the side lended a nice balance to this Portuguese version of surf and turf.

While my sister and I were pretty infatuated with this dish, our cuz was left underwhelmed.

“The clams are supposed to be steamed in the broth,” she griped. “I can make better Altejana than that.”

My sister and I took that as an open invitation.

And that’s one of the great perks of this traveling life.

Flight delays, 3am hotel check-ins and TSA crotch gropings aside, the opportunity to drop in on family and friends scattered across America on a random Wednesday night makes it all worthwhile.

After all, double IPAs go down even better in good company.

Rating: Seriously Thought About Buying Shirt.

Man Can Not Live on Seafood Alone

Vista Pub
1009 Chetco Ave.
Brookings, OR





Sometimes a traveling Suit just needs a big juicy burger.

You know what I mean?

Never mind the fact that Brookings is pressed right against the Oregon Coast just south of the spectacular Boardman Scenic Corridor, where delicacies of the sea beckon from the Pacific Ocean just a stone’s throw away.

I knew I should continue doing my suitly “when-in-Rome” duty.

But after four days of traveling the length of Oregon down the Pacific Coast Highway, I’d had enough razor clams, dungeness crab, oysters and halibut to single-handedly create a worldwide seafood depletion crisis.

Local seafood from the Oregon Coast is as spectacular as the scenery.

But today, I just needed a big hunk of red meat.

The Vista Pub was the ideal place to fulfill my carnivorous cravings.

A typical small town local joint, everything at the Vista Pub is local and gourmet in true Oregonian fashion.

And I do mean everything -- from the hamburger buns to the beer.

My friendly and enthusiastic waitress recommended a beer freshly tapped called Raymond’s Big Head Red, an Imperial Red Ale brewed up the road at Chetco Brewing.

“It’s one of my favorites,” she said.

You’ve got to love a chick with good taste in beer.

Always looking for something just a bit different, I gladly took her advice.

Hoppy, but with a nice sweet malty backbone, the Big Head Red reminded me why I love traveling the Pacific Northwest.

I swear you could bar hop to every pub in the state of Oregon and not once get stuck settling for a Budweiser or Miller Lite.

Beer drinkers in this state LOVE their craft beer.

And I love them for it.

Just don’t get into a political discussion.

My burger was a typically Oregonian compilation of delicious locally sourced gourmet components.

Organic beef perfectly cooked to medium-rare juiciness.

Smoked mozzarella from a creamery down the street.

Homemade relish with a tangy remoulade sauce.

Sautéed onions and good thick-cut bacon.

All held together by a big squooshy bun -- baked that morning in a local bakery. Of course.

The result of all these local adjective-laden ingredients?

Burger heaven.

Each beefy bite yielded an appetizing trickle of pink juices.

The relish and sauce added a delicious tangy zip while the gourmet bun was sturdy enough to hold it all together.

I didn’t get much smoky flavor from the smoked mozzarella, the subtlety overwhelmed by all the other more assertive ingredients. But the gooey melted cheese and crisp bacon were nice additions nonetheless.

Instead of fries, I got a cup of Vista Pub’s homemade clam chowder.

Why not?

From Portland to Brookings -- all 434 miles -- I hadn’t passed up a cup of clam chowder once.

Despite my overdose of West Coast seafood, I figured I had to try one last version of this Oregon specialty before I crossed the state line into California.

Vista Pub didn’t disappoint.

There are generally three components to Oregon clam chowder.

Potatoes. Bacon. Clams.

In Suit757’s book, the ratio of those three goes a long way to determining how good the chowder is.

I’ll give you a moment to contemplate which two ingredients Suit757 considers most important.

Yeah. That shouldn’t have taken too long.

As far as I’m concerned, you can leave the potatoes for the fries.

Vista’s chowder exceeded all my demands with massive quantities of big meaty clams and bacon.

You’d think I’d be full after all that. And I was.

But not too full to avoid the temptation of dessert.

You know in a place like this it’s going to be scratch made -- and good.

I mean, it would be a crime to say no to my waitress. Wouldn’t want to disappoint her.

Good call.

The chocolate cake offered up forkfuls of sweet dense decadence -- a perfect cap to my 434 mile Oregon roadtrip.

And what a roadtrip it was.

Breathtaking vistas, windswept cliffs and spectacular fresh seafood plucked right out of the local waters.

But this week proved to me that man is not meant to live on ocean creatures alone.

Sometimes man just needs a big juicy hunk of meat and a slab of chocolate cake.

Thank you, Vista Pub.

Rating: Bought the Shirt!

Serving up Oregon Oysters and Clam Chowder with a View

Roseanna’s Cafe
1490 Pacific Ave. NW
Oceanside, OR





The coast of Oregon is rugged and wild. Beautifully remote, you’re bound to bump into more elk and sea lions than people.

Leave your cell phone in the rental car. There’s hardly any service here anyway.

Don’t worry. You won’t miss it.

Oceanside, Oregon is one of the most spectacular settings on the West Coast.

Monstrous breakers crashing into a cauldron of white foam.

Green cliffs towering high above the surf.

Haystack rocks majestically rising up from the ocean.

That was my view from my windowside table at Roseanna’s Cafe, a rustic little place teetering on the top of a seaside cliff.

Deschutes Black Butte Porter in hand, I perused Roseanna’s menu completely disinterested in whether the food was going to be any good.

I was more than content.

Sipping the dark, sweet, toasty brew out of Bend, Oregon and watching the violence of Mother Nature unfold a couple hundred feet below me, I could have just sat there all day just knocking back West Coast microbrews, riding out this cold, storm-swept fall day.

But a Suit cannot live on beer and gorgeous scenery alone.

The first thing I ordered was Roseanna’s famous clam chowder.

I know New England and Manhattan like to argue about whose namesake clam chowder is best, but I can spare them all a lot of discord and profanity.

The best clam chowder in America is right here along the Oregon coast.

I guess folks in New England can still stake a claim for credit, since Oregon chowder borrows heavily from the New England version.

Every diner, brewpub and mom and pop joint along the Pacific Coast Highway serves up its own version of this thick, creamy soup.

Roseanna’s chowder is the best of the best.

Loaded with meaty clams and oodles of seasoning, the parsley, thyme and other secret ingredients transformed this thick hearty chowder into a party in every bite.

You have to love any chowder sporting more clams than potatoes.

Next up were the “grilled oysters”.

These were huge meaty oysters straight out of Netarts Bay just down the street.

They were coated in a thick well-seasoned breading that really brought out the salty flavor of the local delicacies.

On the side were homemade tarter sauces infinitely better than the crap out of the jar you get served at most seafood joints.

The only downside was that the home fried potatoes on the side looked better than they tasted -- a bit bland, especially compared to the flavor-packed chowder and oysters.

The waitress tried to talk me into some of Roseanna’s delicious-looking homemade desserts, but I was too stuffed to even consider it.

Oh well. Next time.

That’s the great perk of have a job as a traveling Suit.

Sure, the TSA crotch gropings, 757 middle seats and too many trips to Third World outposts like Detroit can be soul-crushing.

But every once in a while, you find a little remote nook of America that you want to come back to.

Mental note: the Oregon Coast and Roseanna’s is worth cashing in some of those frequent flyer miles for.

And next time, I’m saving room for dessert.

Rating: Bought the Shirt!

British Beer Company Will Get Your Irish Up

British Beer Company
120 Worcester Rd.
Framingham, MA




History question for you.

Which imperial power of the last half of the millennium is most notorious for state sponsored property theft, ethnic cleansing, genocide and the torture and execution of political prisoners?

Which liberty-robbing empire outlawed the free expression of religion, fined citizens for refusal to attend state-sanctioned church services and hunted down and murdered recalcitrant clergy?

Which blood thirsty dictatorship subjected innocent civilians to systemic gang rapes, land confiscation and one of humanity’s most infamous mass starvations?

Castro’s Cuba? Stalin’s Soviet Empire? Hitler’s Third Reich?

George W. Bush?

No. No. No. And no.

I mean, those would be good guesses. But not who I’m thinking of.

Correct answer: the English.

No wonder “Bravehart” is my favorite movie.

Just knowing the minefield of British tyranny my Irish ancestors navigated so I can sit here today and drink beer gets my Irish up every time I lay my eyes on the Union Jack.

So what the hell am I doing at a place called the British Beer Company?

Convenience. It’s that simple.

By the time I checked into my room at the Best Western in this suburban wasteland west of Boston, it was 9:30 on a Tuesday night.

The fact that a crowded bar attached to my hotel had “beer” in its title -- and was still serving food -- was reason enough for me to attempt to overlook ten centuries of British atrocities against my ancestors’ homeland.

And it came well recommended by a good friend. A good friend who just named his sons Henry and Oliver, after Henry VIII and Oliver Cromwell.

I should have known better.

Turns out, I should have just ordered Dominos.

Unfortunately for me, Tuesday night is Karaoke night at BBC.

Packed with nose-pierced, over-Americanized twenty-somethings of various ethnicities all belting out completely butchered versions of pop songs that aren’t very good to begin with, the evening was not getting off to a good start.

The fact that I couldn’t get any of the three clueless bartenders to take my order didn’t help either.

No beer. No food. And lots of drunken screeching.

That’s a recipe for a headache.

The British-themed menu didn’t help ease my pain.

First of all, who builds a chain of restaurants around an ethnicity that is better known for inventing novel forms of torture than good food?

Fish and chips? Sheppard’s Pie?

Yuck. I’d rather be tarred and feathered.

I chose to stick to this side of the pond.

The highlight of my meal was a seven dollar crock of clam chowder. A generous supply of clams made up for the blandness of this thick creamy chowder.

My meatloaf sandwich was a novel idea. Topped with melted cheese, bacon and barbeque sauce, it was like a well seasoned, squishy bacon cheeseburger. Can’t get more American than that.

I made the mistake of choosing to upgrade my side to “panko crusted green beans” for an additional two bucks. The menu proclaimed that this was “a BBC original”.

That’s funny. I’ve never stepped foot in this place before but I’ve somehow managed to enjoy fried green beans many times before.

Typical Brits. Taking credit for the good ideas of others.

Most fried green beans are accompanied by a remoulade or ranch style dipping sauce. (Hey, breaded, fried and dipped is just about the only way you can get Suit757 to voluntarily order veggies).

But not at BBC. No sauce. And not any where near a big enough portion to justify the upcharge.

The beer selection wasn’t quite as good as I’d expect from a place with “Beer Company” in its title either.

Of course, I’m always on the look out for new and interesting brews I’ve never tried before. Unfortunately, my bar tender – when I could manage to get his attention, that is – told me they were “out” of my first couple choices.

Of course.

So being a good sport, I decided against my better judgment to go with a British beer.

British Beer Company has at least half a dozen varieties of Fuller’s on draft, one of Britain’s more famous breweries.

At the risk of causing my Suit757 ancestors to roll over in their graves, I rationalized my choice by ordering Fuller’s India Pale Ale, one of my favorite beer styles.

The British invented IPAs, after all. Or so I told myself.

Of course inventing a beer and perfecting it are two totally different things.

The India Pale Ale was invented as a direct result of the British Empire’s unquenchable thirst for world domination.

The poor saps sent to India to prop up that corner of Britain’s empire faced a serious problem. They soon discovered that by the time their shipments of beer from the homeland reached them after the long journey around the African Cape of Good Hope, their suds had spoiled.

Fortunately, the hops in beer, which gives beer its flavor, also serve as a preservative.

More hops means beer stays fresh longer. Thus, the extra hoppy India Pale Ale was born.

The problem is Fuller’s IPA just isn’t that hoppy. I doubt this flavorless beer could make it across the English Channel, let alone the Horn of Africa.

Like every other variety of Fuller’s I’ve ever tried, this IPA is as bland as English mashed potatoes.

Leave it to the Americans to perfect a good idea. (If we can’t invent it outright.)

It was American brewers who took the British IPA to another level.

Sure enough, my second choice, a local beer called Mayflower IPA, brewed near Plymouth Rock, where the pilgrims landed in America after fleeing British tyranny, packed a much stronger wallop of hoppy flavor.

So in a way, maybe we should thank the tyrants across the pond.

Whether it was the pilgrims, the Irish or countless others escaping the murderous clutches of the British Empire, the brutality of British rule led to the rise of a new nation, America, which figured out a better way to do things.

A better way of government. A better way of protecting liberty. And a better way to brew beer.

I’ll drink to that.

Rating: Wouldn’t Wear Shirt if They Paid Me.