Micro Meccas A Bit Cozy On Sandpoint’S Cedar Street

When it comes to pub crawls, Sandpoint makes it particularly easy.

The North Idaho resort town’s two major multitap microbrew places — Pend Oreille Brewing and Eichardt’s — are just two doors away from each other on Cedar Street.

Pend Oreille serves its easy-drinking, house-brewed beers in a bright, airy space with plenty of light wood and windows.

The brewery’s best-known beers — the crisp City Beach Blonde pilsner, the delicately hopped Idaho Pale Ale and the chocolaty HooDoo Porter, all available in bottles, and the draft-only summer seasonal Huckleberry Wheat — are best sampled at the source.

And the pub pours Pend Oreille products you aren’t likely to find elsewhere, such as the latest addition, a light, clean Sunshine Rye with just a hint of the spicy grain. Other offerings include a silky oatmeal stout, a dark, low-alcohol English mild and a strong Scottish ale made with smoked malts.

Eichardt’s is a smaller, darker, more traditional tavern with dozens of different tap handles screwed into the thick ceiling beams.

They need those handles to keep up with the ever-changing selection. Last week, highlights among the 16 taps included Rogue’s rich, hoppy Brutal Bitter and poetically complex Shakespeare Stout (the latter cask-conditioned, no less); Fish’s Mudshark Porter; Leavenworth’s Dirty Face Stout; Deschutes’ Paulina Pilsner; Lang Creek’s Hefeweizen and, for Belgian fruit-beer fans, Lindemans’ Peche Lambic.

Extra kudos to Eichardt’s for serving half-pints — true 8-ounce glasses — for those who want to sample several beers in a sitting, or just limit their intake.

X marks the spot

Fort Spokane’s light, refreshing summer rye beer has started showing up in quart bottles in supermarkets — although you wouldn’t necessarily know it from the label.

You will see that the beer is sponsored by a local radio station (which we’ll refer to as Brand X, in the interests of noncommercialism). Fort Spokane general manager Ryan Hopkins had hoped to call it Classic Rock Rye, but the feds pointed out there already were distilled beverages using the name “rock & rye” and wanted to avoid any confusion. So he settled for Special X Ale instead.

Maybe somebody should hook up with KGA for a Rick Miller Wry. (Or would that be Rick Miller Bitter?)

New James town

With this month marking the one-year anniversary of Birkebeiner Brewing’s demise, some of you may be wondering whatever happened to the ill-fated Spokane brewpub’s outspoken owner, James Gimurtu.

According to a recent review in The Salt Lake Tribune, he and three friends from here have opened a restaurant/brewpub in that fair city called Marmot Mesa — named in honor of their former hometown, “where marmots run through the streets like squirrels.”

According to the reviewer, Marmot Mesa offers “an interesting lineup of freshly brewed beers, most of them worth drinking, and a menu that strives to be more than just a beer sponge.” Sounds familiar, no? (And better luck this time, James.)

Falling fast

It was during our recent string of endless 90-degree days that word arrived that Pyramid had just released its new fall seasonal: Broken Rake Amber Ale, “just the remedy for a hard day of raking leaves.”

And as if that weren’t enough, Widmer’s Oktoberfest makes its official debut Monday.