Growler Guys chain serves up variety from Ashland taps | Daily Tidings

Ashland Daily Tidings (Ashland, OR — Wayback)

2019-01-14

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A chic, new pub — refurbished from an old gas station on Lithia Way — is open and throbbing as Growler Guys, with 46 kinds of beer, 13 kinds of kombucha, six ciders, a range of espresso drinks, root beer floats and shakes, plus pizza, wings and breadsticks of all sorts. There's also a new coffee bar, Stone Ridge Coffee. This gusher of fun pub foods and drinks may be consumed in a splendidly stylish and urban indoor-outdoor environment — that is, you can sit at tables inside or go out on the patio and chat it up with your gang beside a couple of long natural gas-fed fires. Just like a ski lodge or tailgate party! You can sit all over the place on low block walls or stand around or move from gathering to gathering of your pals. It’s a new model — the “community hangout model” — for Growler Guys, which started in Bend and expanded to Eugene, Portland and other spots in the Northwest, including Washington and Idaho, but, until now, focused on the growler filling station model, tiny shops in strip malls, says manager Emily Jablonski. This one is the full tamale, with any beer and coffee you could ever want, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and midnight  on Fridays and Saturdays. This place has hilly views to the south, ample parking and a great, youthful Millennial era energy. It retains the double garage doors of a filling station, which, in a way, it still is. They pull down the big doors when it gets cold, but Jablonski says people still love to go outside and quaff the suds, even if it’s chilly. This is not a brewery. It’s also not a wine bar, but Jablonski, an environmental ed grad of SOU, with experience at Evo’s, Greensprings Inn, Café 116 and the National Park Service, says they are going to stock up on some local vino. They only serve two kinds right now. The Stone Ridge coffee bar, run by the owner’s sons off to the left of Growler Guys, serves organic Equator coffee roasted in Eugene and, when Jablonski says she means to be competitive in this coffee-rich town, you only have to look at the prices to know she means it. An 8-ounce coffee is $1.50. The 16-ounce is $2, prices not seen in Ashland for many years. A latte or cappuccino are $3 for 12 ounces. Tourists will be blown away. The coffee bar serves granola with yogurt and fruit, as well as pastries from the esteemed local Four & 20 Blackbirds bakery. The increasingly popular kombucha, beloved by the increasingly large non-drinker set, can also go in your growler, starting at $10. Refilling of beer growlers (take out only) starts at $11. The long, playfully illuminated line of taps invites you to explore and sample nano-cups — and this includes sangria, flavored with pineapple-mango. It’s from Volcano Vineyard in Bend. Check out the very long beer menu at bit.ly/1ijMynt. John Darling is an Ashland freelance writer. Reach him at [email protected].   null