Going to Portland and Seattle in May. I see another thread on Seattle but as for Portland what are the top 5 breweries/bars to see there? Looking for local recs - and any other must/see and do stuff as well.
Hopworks (HUB) for food and beer. all organic if you care about that
Deschutes for cheap happy hour with AHA (matter of fact, there are tons of discounts available in Portland)
Bridgeport for food and beer - very cool building
Union Station for bottles
Edit - Belmont station
Cascade Brewing for the sours if you are into those.
I live in Portland. There’s a wide variety depending on what you’re looking for. My personal recommendations:
Breakside Brewing - they have a brewpub in NE Portland and a Production Brewery/Tasting Room in the SE suburbs. Both are worth visiting if you have time. They brew a ton of experimental stuff and rarely miss the mark. Their tasting room has over 20 taps of their own beers. Their Brewpub in NE has some of the better food out of all brewpubs in PDX.
Hopworks Urban Brewery - Solid food and a very generous sample tray. One of the better IPAs in the city.
Commons Brewery (Belgian focused) - Tasting room in the city. Cool atmosphere - you can walk up to all of their barrels and fermentation tanks. ~8 taps, everything is good. They won Oregon brewery of the year in 2012.
Upright Brewery (Belgian focused) - Similar to Commons, another tasting room in the city and you can walk around the brewery. It’s in a basement near the Moda Center (where the Trailblazers play). Make sure to check their website for hours. Great saisons.
Ecliptic Brewery - This one is fairly new and I haven’t visited yet, but the brewery was started by an Oregon brewing legend - he came up with a lot of Deschutes’ most famous recipes (Mirror Pond, Jubelale) and brewed at Full Sail for a long time.
Base Camp Brewery - Another newer one. Their beers are all really good but won’t knock your socks off. The tasting room has a really cool vibe. Also, their S’more Stout is served with a roasted marshmallow garnish.
Cascade - lots of sours, as someone else mentioned
Taprooms:
Bailey’s Taproom
Apex
Beermongers
Tin Bucket
Bottleshops:
Belmont Station (they have a great taproom as well)
Older and more well known places like Deschutes, Bridgeport and Rogue (all in the trendy Pearl District) are great but they’re going to be very crowded. If you go to any of those, I’d recommend Deschutes.
Live in Seattle, used to live in PDX for a bit. My favorites are Cascade (sour heaven), Hair of the Dog (Strong ales), Hopworks, Lucky Labrador on Hawthorne has a nice worn, classic brewpub feel to it (it opened in 1994). I haven’t been to these breweries yet but Burnside, Alameda and Gigantic make really good beers.
A road trip through the gorge to Hood River is impressive. Continuing on around Mt Hood is nice too. Oh, there are a few breweries in Hood River too.
If you do make it up the Columbia River, the Walking Man Brewery in Stevenson, on the Washington side of the river is a favorite.
Any information on Portland is also welcome here. We have been a few times, but have only scratched the surface. Going again in late April. The brewery scene is dynamic, so I’m sure we will have more to explore.
A few others from our experience.
Powell’s City of books.
The farmers market.
Widmer Gasthouse for the Altbier and German food. Yeah Widmer, if you like German.
Higgins Restaurant and Bar is a favorite, go to the bar side, unless you want a full fancy dinner.
Near Pioneer Square are a couple of parking lots ringed by food stands/carts. Wonder smells walking by.
Horse brass pub is a classic. We were there when Don Younger was still alive.
The Nob Hill area was full of bars and restaurants, and had a Laurelwood Brewing pub, and New Old Lompoc.
Drive the gorge, see the waterfalls, there is a great viewpoint on the west end of the gorge.
Mt. Hood, go up to the hotel.
Hood River OR is a fun little town. Logsdon Farmhouse ales is near there, I think there is now a rating room, look up the hours.
Do some research on the public transportation system. It is fairly good, and the downtown has the free zone, where you just hop on and off. Pretty nice for a drinking tour.
I will also recommend Laurelwood, Powell’s City of Books, and the drive up the gorge. If you can stay at one of the McMennamins hotels/B&B’s they’re a lot of fun - think hippy, artsy, and beer in restored historic buildings. We have stayed at the Kennedy School several times as well as other venues in parts of Oregon.
This was no longer the case when I was there last march. Day pass was only $5.
Well, that is good to know! We were there for one night before the Seattle NHC, so it changed since then. $5 for a day pass is not bad.
My don’t miss place would be Hair of the Dog. Great, innovative beers.
If you want to stay at a McMennamin’s, I’d recommend the Crystal hotel for a more central downtown location. Kennedy school is more fun from an on-site perspective, with a cigar room, and theater.
I’m also making this trip with my wife in early April. Apparently this is quite a popular route. I think our plan with Seattle is to take a break from drinking and see the city but we are drinking our way through Portland and driving down to Bend to take down the ale trail.
You can’t take a break from drinking in Seattle. It isn’t allowed >:(
See the city, and drink our beer!
If you want to stay at a McBeer’s, I’d recommend finding beer elsewhere. Their beers have always been remarkably mediocre.
Note that I didn’t mention their beers. That said, I give them a lot of credit for the rise of craft brewing in our region. East 19th St. Café was the place that opened my eyes to live beer and sparked my interest in homebrewing way back in 1990. So when I visit one of their establishments I’ll have a beer while planning where else to go or upon returning and prior to a saltwater soak. They do have the occasional diamond in the rough and seem to have upped their game a bit in the last couple years IMHO.
After Portland we are going to Bend. We were there in 2012, and our friends toured the Ale trail with us. 10 breweries then, I think 14 now. Pace yourself.
We stayed at the St. Francis Inn in Bend, another McM. It had a fabulous outdoor bar area and equally cool soaking tub, not to mention a cool theater.
Note that not once did I mention great beer, but you can walk to several places from there since it’s right downtown. They had some nice distilled products, whiskey and gin were very good especially outside by the fire pit.
Now I want to go…