Steelhead is one of the early generation brewpubs in Eugene. When we lived there from 1995-99, it was one of the prominent pubs, along with McMenamin's High Street Cafe and a rolling selection of youngsters that came and went (some of which we loved, like Mona Lizza Pasta, Pool, & Pizza, and Fields Brewing, with their scrumptious Marionberry Porter). But all these years later, Steelhead is still going strong.
We stopped by Steelhead on our way home from Diamond Lake, since we couldn't find an open pub in Roseburg on Labor Day that we wanted to visit. As you can see from the photo, we got two dark beers. I'm guessing C's was a nut brown, and mine likely a stout. Lame, yes, but hey.
While I don't remember what we drank (or what we ate), I'm guessing it was because the thing I do remember is hearing the National Weather Service emergency interrupting the TV replay of an NBA playoff game, warning of high winds out of the east causing high fire danger. The day was so beautiful that I found the warning rather surprising at the time. Six hours later, as the winds blew up and the smoke rolled in from the east, turning the early evening sky prematurely orange and causing our clothes drying on the line to need another washing to clear the smoke smell, I remembered that NWS announcement. This was the first day of the Labor Day fires in the Cascades, the ones that turned much of the Willamette Valley into one big smoke-filled room, and forced many residents in the Cascades foothills to escape with barely more than the clothes on their backs. The smoke blanketed us for about 11 days, with Air Quality Index levels beyond hazardous (the highest level) much of the time.
The terrible air quality caused us to stay inside like we were back in the early days of Covid. Such a year, this 2020!
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