“Portland just has so many neighborhood breweries,” says Sean Burke, the head brewer at Commons Brewery in the southeast section of the city. “As a tourist here, you can pick a quadrant or five spots and walk between them, take a bus, or do a tour. Sheer numbers help, but the concentration and density of breweries really pays off.”
It’s no surprise that a city of now fifty-three registered breweries attracts some thirsty travelers. With beer tourism at a peak, Portland is getting the spotlight not only for its classic brewpubs that got the microbrew ball rolling in the 1980s, but also for its growing number of smaller niche breweries that focus on specific styles of beer and brewing methods.
The Classics
“The craft-brewing pioneers in Portland are McMenamins, Bridgeport, and Widmer,” says Lila Martin, the national communications and PR manager for Travel Portland.
Brothers Mike and Brian McMenamin opened their first Oregon pub in 1974 and have since opened more than fifty restaurants and brewpubs in historic buildings throughout the Northwest. Among their Portland venues are the Crystal Ballroom concert hall in downtown Portland, the Baghdad Theater and Pub with the attached Backstage Bar on Hawthorne Street, and the Kennedy School, a renovated elementary school in northeast Portland that’s a lot like a craft-beer maze, with different bars, a restaurant, and a brewery throughout the school halls and classrooms. The Kennedy School is also a hotel with fifty-seven rooms, some of which still have the original chalkboards intact.
Bridgeport Brewing, originally called Columbia River Brewery and renamed after one of Portland’s first microbrews, Bridgeport Ale, is one of, if not the, iconic Portland brewpub. Guests can now enjoy the company’s big hops-forward flagships such as the classic IPA and the Hop Czar imperial IPA or the double fresh-hopped pilsner High Hop at the brewery and ale house in the Pearl District.
Another duo of brothers known as godfathers of Portland’s brewpub scene are Kurt and Rob Widmer, who opened Widmer Bros. Brewery in 1984. They opened with traditional German-style beers, a weizenbier and an altbier, and would go on to create some of Portland’s first seasonal beers. Widmer also helped found the Oregon Brewer’s Festival, now the largest outdoor craft beer festival in the country. The Widmer brewery still produces its classic beers, seasonals, experimental batches, and a line of gluten-free beer called Omission at its location on North Russell Street. “Some people who don’t get a lot of credit but have paved the way, making exceptional beers, are at Widmer,” says Commons’s Burke. “At the end of the day, they make some of the best beer in the city.”
Niche Players
Sean Burke pays homage to Widmer and Portland’s original breweries because they set up his business for success. Commons Brewery (pictured at top), which originally opened as Beetje Brewery in owner Mike Wright’s garage, began one barrel at a time. Wright was a passionate homebrewer who wanted to make easy-drinking French and Belgian-inspired beers. “The main focus was on mid-range sessionable beers, not quite the traditional 4 percent ABV or under, but more like 5.5 percent down,” says Burke.
When Commons debuted, Burke was in Germany completing his Master Brewers program for the Siebel Institute at the Doemens Academy. He emailed Wright while there and paid Wright a visit the day after he returned to the United States. He began brewing for Beetje and adding his own German twist to the lineup of beers.
“Beetje is Dutch for ‘a little bit,’ but we were growing, and it wasn’t a little bit,” Burke says. “It was more.” Together, he and Wright moved into a commercial space and launched Commons Brewery. “Our tagline is Gather Around Beer,” he says. “Beer drinking culture is about hanging out with friends and conversations. It’s about the common meeting place.”
Portlanders and visitors have been gathering around the eight rotating taps at Commons, where they can enjoy the beers just steps away from where they are brewed. The Belgian, French, and now German theme still unites the lineup, to which Burke has been adding some inventive ingredients. “A big focus for me is our barrel-aging program and unique experimentation with micro-flora,” he says. For example, the Flemish Kiss Belgian pale ale uses Alt yeast in primary fermentation, and the sour Beer Royale’s yeast comes from the live Lactobacillus that Burke cultivated from Nancy’s yogurt (a local Portland company).
“That’s the advantage to being small and niche,” Burke says. “I can play around and come up with crazy stuff. It’s important to our local audience who knows us for variety. It’s not IPA, pale ale, stout, or red ale. It’s different.”
Some of Portland’s newer breweries are capitalizing on that difference. Occidental Brewing in north Portland specializes in German-style lagers and puts on an annual German food and beer festival, the Humbug Lager Fest; Harvester Brewing in the southeast focuses exclusively on gluten-free beers that they brew with powdered chestnuts and oats. Their gastropub’s food fare is also gluten-free. They source the ingredients for their beers and their food as locally as possible.
Also in the southeast, the Cascade Barrel House (pictured above) is leading Portland’s sour beer movement with barrel-aged, fruit-infused beers. Cascade has a tap system that draws beer directly from the barrel into guests’ glasses (pictured below). Expect funky beers such as Sang Noir, a red ale-double red ale blend aged in bourbon and pinot noir barrels for twelve to twenty-four months and then blended again with barrel-aged Bing and sour pie cherries. The brewery also makes seasonal blueberry, strawberry, and apricot sours. The sour program at Cascade, says Head Blender Preston Weesner, is potentially more exciting to visitors than to locals. He’s noticed that the guests seeking out Cascade’s sour program tend to be out-of-state beer connoisseurs, as opposed to Portlanders who tend to choose the appropriately named Cascade IPA and the Portland Ale. “The out-of-town people want one of everything and typically come see us numerous times, if not daily, during their trip,” he adds.
Another niche brewery in Portland is Upright Brewing, in the basement of the Left Bank building on North Broadway. The small brewery’s taps sit on the wall next to a record player, and visitors post up among brewing equipment and barrels to try their farmhouse-style ales, notably the core saisons—the Four, Five, Six, and Seven. “It definitely should be noted that we are well aware that Upright Brewing paved the way for us,” Sean Burke of Commons Brewery says. “Often overlooked by people in this town, they quietly kick ass.”
Packing List
Portland’s breweries will leave you wanting more, so stock up on bottles at one of these specialty shops.
Beermongers (pictured above)
1125 SE Division St.
503.234.6012
thebeermongers.com
This small shop has a carefully curated selection of bottles from across the globe and eight rotating taps.
Belmont Station
4500 SE Stark St.
503.232.8538
belmont-station.com
This infamous bottle shop and tavern has more than 1,200 bottles, an adjacent bar called Biercafé with twenty taps, and a beer engine.
Hop & Vine
1914 N Killingsworth St.
503.954.3322
thehopandvine.com
Brunch at a bottle shop? Say no more. This north Portland hub has a full bar, an impressive bottle selection, and the best bottle-shop food in town.
Saraveza (pictured above)
1004 N. Killingsworth St
503.206.4252
saraveza.com
One-stop shopping for beer and food lovers, this cozy bottle shop and pasty tavern in the northeast has quite the collection of rare bottles, specialty beer on tap, a Midwest-inspired comfort food menu, and free bacon night once a month.
Tin Bucket
3520 N. Williams Ave.
503.477.7689
growler-station.com/tinbucket
This growler-fill station also has a small selection of hard-to-find beers in bottles.