How amazing does a beer taste after a long day on the river in bars with names like Oasis Tavern, The Blue Anchor or Joes Bar to name a few
Coming home from a deer hunt we stopped into the Oasis and it reminded me how great these places are. 95% of what is spoken inside of them in pure 100% grade A bullshit. The beer list is never fancy or full of microbrews and a mixologist, the bartender is not one.
American beer, Irish and Canadian Whiskey and some of that Mexican tequila if you want to get fancy.
There's a great dive bar in St John, Washington by the name of The Rialto where I remember sitting around having a beer with hunters and farmers alike, all sharing stories of the day's hunt, wheat prices, politics and women. I think out of the 14 hunters in the bar, 12 had bucks hanging. Many were tired, many were happy. Many were drunk.
I remember on my first big guided trip with OMR where we had a brutal day on Missouri River with terrible weather. Temps went from 85 at 10am to 40 with howling winds out of Canada and we were stuck on the river as the winds kept us from rolling downstream. We screwed up and left our raincoats in the truck and to top if off our aloof and grizzly old guide pulled out his G3 coat as we froze our balls off. I wanted to punch him in the nuts. It's basically the only time I've ever wanted to throw the towel and walk to the damn road out
At the very end of the day, the storm passed and we were the only boat left on the water and I ended up catching the biggest brown of my life
OMR, the guide and I descended upon Joe's Bar in Craig and because of that brown at the end of the day and a high amount of fine American macro-brews, the perspective of the day changed dramatically. Soon we were making plans to come out and fish again with the old cuss of a guide.
I bet there's a million stories like that out there about these great places. Drop a comment here and let us know where your favorite dive bars are. I mean, research is in order, right?
Lived in Spokane/Fairchild for eight years in the 90's. I spent many hours on the waters and ground you write about. Fond memories, great blog. We used to stop at The Oasis after, or some times during deer season as well. It is the only bar that I have ever seen Black Label on tap. I swear. And the other three on tap were Olympia, PBR, and Ranier. How great is that?
ReplyDeleteOther memories:
The Dirty Shame in Medical Lake, The name alone is worth a visit
The Rialto is awesome.
The Green Parrot in Edwall had great burgers.
The Harrington Haus, which I understand is closed now, had a wood stove in the middle of the bar/restaurant. Felt great after a day chasing roosters.
My suggestion: Bucknum's Bar, Heppner, Oregon. Heppner has a great St. Patricks Day celebration.