Celebrating beer writer Fred Eckhardt's birthday for the seventh year in a row while raising money for charity, the annual FredFest at Hair of the Dog Brewing showcased rare and one-off beers from 22 breweries for its 2012 extravaganza. Read on to discover our choices for the 8 most memorable sips from FredFest 2012. More

1970s rock gods Jimmy Page and Robert Plant embodied one characteristic above all else: excess. And the aptly named Egg Zeppelin ($8) at the Fried Egg I'm in Love (sensing a pattern here?) food cart on SE Hawthorne in Portland mirrors its namesake's penchant for overkill with a fat, salty, spicy stack of eggs, sausage, cheese, and hot sauce designed to transform your groans of agony into sighs of delight. More

A cube of fatty pork belly and several hunks of tender pork shoulder first spend several hours in a marinade of soy sauce, sesame oil, and chili oil. The meat next undergoes a long braise in a syrup of caramel, garlic, ginger, and chili paste before it's ladled on a bed of steamed white rice. The dish gets a touch of Portland (or is that Portlandia?) with the addition of chopped egg pickled in honey, soy sauce, and star anise. A second egg draped over the pork to allow the yolk to spill over everything beneath it completes the stew and helps nudge it a little closer to the breakfast end of the meal spectrum. More

The outer crunch of the underside of the memelita gives way to warm, sweet corn flavor, heated just slightly by the creeping burn of the red salsa on top. (Bite into the grilled jalapeno served alongside if you dare.) A cooling crumble of fresh cheese and silky slices of ripe avocado add to the comfort factor. It's not complicated food, but it's pretty perfect. More

Huevos ahogados en caldo de pollo, literally "drowned eggs in chicken broth," seems tailor-made to get you back on your feet after a long and ill-advised night of alcoholic debauchery. As served on the weekend brunch menu by Autentica, one of Portland's premier purveyors of upscale Mexican cuisine, the dish ($10) clears both headaches and sinuses with equal aptitude. More

With a couple of exceptions, Oregon amber ales are a mellower and maltier bunch than their California counterparts. The beers are a little less assertive, but the best strike a delicious balance of malt and hops. More

Every time I find myself in a Whole Foods out west, I fall into a fit of beer-jealousy. The beers you West Coasters can buy! At the grocery store! I picked up a little Russian River Consecration and this guy, a bomber of 6.5% ABV IPA from a Bend Brewery I've been hearing good things about. More

I think of Portland, Oregon as Beervana—and it is—but freshly brewed ale isn't the only impressive thing on the PDX beverage scene. Last week I sipped my way around Puddletown, sampling creative cocktails, micro-roasted coffee, and yes, a few excellent beers. See the most delicious drinks we tried in this slideshow. More

Back in April, Michael Honig reminded us that at the heart, winemakers are farmers. "We don't grow bottles," he said, "we grow grapes." So today I wanted to take a look at how those grapes have been growing around the country. The weather has been somewhat erratic, hotter than usual in New York's wine regions, and cooler in California (with a few scorching days), but winemakers are hopeful about what they're seeing. Will 2010 be a great vintage or a catastrophic one? More

IPAs from Oregon lean more toward mandarin orange and grapefruit flavors than lemon, more fruity than dry, and more resiny than malty. We tasted nineteen of them to give you our reviews. More