portland
Portland has a lot of breweries in the city. You can walk between many of them within just a few minutes of walking. The MAX light rail system runs though the city from various suburbs such as Beaverton, Hillsboro, Gresham and the airport. This is also an extensive street car network that goes through the city and easily allows you to avoid walking a few blocks. Plenty of street parking is available and I've had no problem finding parking spots or taking the MAX line in from Hillsboro. Either option is quite easy.
Wayfinder Beer
Winner of Oregon’s award for “Best New Brewery 2018”. They are located in an old brick warehouse that has been very nicely updated, everything is nice and new. There is both indoor and outdoor sitting areas. It was wonderfully sunny during our visit, so we sat outdoor and enjoyed a collection of their beers. The award is well earned as the beer here is very good, you will not be disappointed. Beers enjoyed:
Location: 304 SE 2nd Ave, Portland Updated: Oct '18
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Wayfinder Entrance
Wayfinder Bar
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Deschutes Brewery
Deschutes is fairly well known in the industry and is readily available around the US. This place gets busy, as expected, however it is a bit too commercialized. However, it's nice just to see the place and have a new beer. They have about 15 of their beers at the brewery, including a few that are only available at this brewery. They also often have a special beer or two tapped from their reserves, such as an older vintage Black Butte Porter or Stoic/Not the Stoic. It kind of depend on what is happening in Portland at the time. They serve a decent pub menu including a very enjoyable Elk Burger. Since this place is a bit large and very open, it is missing the intimacy often seen at many smaller brewpubs. It's definitely a tourist destination and is often quite crowded so it can be difficult to find seating in the bar area. But if you do, it's easy to strike up interesting conversations with the people sitting around you who are from all over the world. Location: 210 NW 11th Avenue, Portland Updated Jun '17
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Deschutes Brewery
Deschutes Bar
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Cascade Brewing Barrel House
Visiting here was a totally great decision. It was fabulous, small with a nice casual atmosphere. They had about 15 different sour beers. I enjoy sour beers so this was a wonderful discovery. Sour beers are usually higher in alcohol. The selection here at Cascade ranged from 7%-11% and were all served in tulip style glasses (~8 oz.). One nice option for those of you who like to experiment and try a variety, they also sell the beers in small 2 oz. tasters. The table next to us ordered about 8 tasters. We did some tulips and some tasters.
One final note was that if you find a sour brew you like, they are sold in bottles (wine bottles size) for $20-$30. We did see a few local folks stop in to buy bottles of their favorite and take them home. The actual brewery is located at Raccoon Lodg & Brewpub (see Beaverton page) down in Beaverton. If you are in that area, you can stop in there and get many of the same sour beers plus a few more of their nonsour beers. Location: 939 SE Belmont Street, Portland Updated Apr '17
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Cascade Brewing
Cheers!
Bar Area
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10 Barrel Brewing
Even though they are owned by AB InvBev now, they are still brewing up some decent beer. I was reluctant to stop in because of that, however, I was walking by it anyway so I decided to give it a try. It's a large place with lots of seating indoors which opens to the street and a nice large rooftop patio. It wasn't as busy as other places I went, but it was still a nice crowd as can be seen in the photo. Location: 1411 NW Flanders Street, Portland Updated Apr '16
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10 Barrel Brewing
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BackPedal Brewing
A recent entry into the hectic Portland brewpub scene, they opened the brewery in mid 2015. This is a unique business as it is a combination pedal pub and brewery. So you can enjoy the best of both worlds while grabbing some of their great beer and take it on BrewCycle ride through Portland. The brewery and seating area isn't large but there's plenty of room to just enjoy the beer even if you don't do the cycle thing. Location: 1411 NW Flanders Street, Portland Updated Apr '16
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BackPedal Brewing
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Breakside Brewery
Breakside Brewery, since 2012, now has 3 locations in the Phoenix area - Northwest (walking distance to Pearl District and numerous other breweries, Northeast and Southeast. Where will they go next? I think this is one of the top breweries in the metro area.
Breakside NE Dekum Pub
I stopped at the Dekum location on my way to the airport as it is only about 10 minutes away. It was a great end to my trip because it is probably one of the better breweries in Portland. Besides a list of great beer, they have a decent pub menu of burgers, wraps and sandwiches. I had 3 excellent glasses of beer here and met some great people at the bar. I especially enjoyed their barrel-aged barleywine. Some of their beer is brewed at this location. Location: 820 Northeast Dekum Street, Portland Updated Apr '16 Breakside NW Slabtown The Slabtown location is the most recent Breakside brewery to open (March 2017). This location could very well be one of the best locations for drinking good craft beer in Portland. Spacious taproom with multiple floors. The day I went, the second floor was only open in the late afternoon/evening. There will be a rooftop patio opening sometime this spring. There is also a nice outdoor patio on the main level. This location also brews some of their beer on-site and had a really nice selection of beers when I visited (6 brewed here and 9 others), including a great NE IPA with an aroma you could smell from a distance. That's what got my attention first - the bartender was bringing a beer to a person sitting a few seats away from me and I instantly recognized the aroma and asked for the same. Small pub menu of food is available. You can easily walk to many other downtown breweries from here - I walked to Deschutes afterwards which is about 1 mile. Location: 1570 NW 22nd Avenue, Portland Updated Jun '17 Breakside SE Milwaukie Brewery This location houses the main brewery and a small taproom. As much as I've enjoyed Breakside beer on my visits to Portland, this location was a little disappointing. It was quite cool inside the taproom, even while wearing a jacket. Dogs freely roamed around the taproom, which is wide open to the brewery. The pet's owners seemed oblivious to their dogs bothering other guests. I like dogs, but I also wanted to enjoy my beer without the loud barking and dog drool. Since no one working the taproom said anything, I assumed it was normal and cut my visit short. No food is served here but you can get an assortment of snacks, like nuts and granola. There is a great selection of up to 24 beers on tap and a small cooler with a nice selection of bomber bottles to bring home with you. The wall of award medals hanging over the taps is impressive. Location: 5821 SE International Way, Milwaukie Updated Apr '17 |
Breakside Beer List - Dekum
Breakside Slabtown
Slabtown Taplist
Slabtown Main Level Bar
Milwaukie Location
Breakside Award Medals
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BridgePort Brewing Company
Update: As of Feb 12, 2019, BridgePort is Closed This brewery is located in Downtown Portland walking distance from lots of other breweries. The thing that impressed me the most here was the customer service. I ordered a barleywine, one of my favorite styles of beer, which had a horrible aroma. I'm not sure of the cause, but it was not good. I mentioned to the bartender I was struggling with the beer and he asked if I wanted I different beer so I traded in for something else. When I went to pay the bill for the second beer, I was told no charge because of the bad beer. Cheers to BridgePort for standing behind their beer! Location: 1318 NW Northrup Street, Portland Updated Apr '16
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BridgePort Brewing
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Laurelwood Public House and Brewery
Laurelwood is a restaurant and brewery chain with several locations in the Portland metro area. This location in SE Portland is a little dated and needs a fresh renovation. I did not find the decor very appealing. However, the beer was still good. They don't brew any exotic beers, just typical styles of ale. But what they produce is usually very good. One of the beers I had was the Gose and it was very true to form - something you don't find very often in the U.S. Location: 6716 SE Milwaukie Avenue, Portland Updated Jul '16
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Laurelwood Public House
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Gigantic Brewing Co
This place doesn't much look like a brewery from the outside - it's in a shed-like structure. And it isn't large on the inside, but the beer is extremely good. They have a significant barrel-aging program and they do some collaborations with some good breweries. I got a chance to briefly talk with the brewer and had a interesting conversation about a collaboration they did with a brewery where I live. They serve 20oz glasses, which is unique and the price is quite reasonable. The bartender was very friendly and engaging in conversation. There was a steady flow of customers, many buying beer to go. Location: 5224 SE 26th Avenue, Portland Updated Apr '17
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Bar Area
Gigantic Brewing
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Stung Fermented
I found this place by accident. It just happened to be next door to Culmination Brewery, so as I was leaving, I decided to give it a try. Stung makes sparkling mead, which essentially is just regular mead that has carbonated. While I like regular mead, I did not find the carbonated mead very appealing. It seems they have 2 categories - a regular (sparkling) mead and a higher-end mead which basically uses a better grade honey. I tried a couple of their meads from both categories and found the higher end (Queen) to have much better flavor. The Queen Oregon High Desert Honey had an exceptional aroma. One which you could close your eyes an imagine your were standing in a massive clover field full of bees gathering nectar. It made the carbonation a little more bearable, but was still a little hard for me to accept. Location: 2117 NE Oregon St #202, Portland Updated Jul '16
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Stung
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