Advantage, Washington

While Mrs. N-B and I failed in our quest to drive both ends of Interstate 90 on the same day, our trip to Seattle did allow us to complete a tastier feat: tours of both Red Hook Breweries in Woodinville, Wash., and Portsmouth, N.H. in the space of about two weeks. We hit the Washington brewery last month and the Portsmouth on yesterday.

And while the tours were substantially the same ($1 for five five-ounce samples), I have to say I preferred our tour in Washigton.

Two reasons for that. First, in Washington the beer drinking was mixed in with the tour, while in New Hampshire the drinking was all at the end. Second, though the New Hampshire tour guide was entertaining, he relied on jokes about his ex-wife to carry the load of his humor; our Washington guide was just all-around funny.

Plus, he was willing to lambaste the ridiculous new marketing campaign for Red Hook's repackaged "Long Hammer" IPA, which reads in part:

Everything great that was ever built required a long hammer. A trusty tool used by ordinary men to make extraordinary things. Transcontinental train tracks. Impossible pipelines. Soaring skyscraper. Long Hammer IPA puts this bold spirit in a bottle.

Ugh. Fortunately the beverage itself isn't as heavy handed as the advertising. Beer hasn't come so close to making me barf in a several years.