Breakside Brewery - SE Taproom

The ‘malt assault & 5 state hop’ loop now complete, we are back in Portland, at last. Wednesday was a lost (recovery) day and now Thursday out and about on post lunch play. In the back of an industrial park space. The place was kind of jamming but we scored a sweet slander spot (one of my 17 super skills) as a guy loading his car with kegs just departed. In and belly up…

Wood plank topped straight bar with a cut for service and the end shortied for accessible, vertical worn & weathered corrugated base. Seating for 10 on wood seat steel framed chairs. Massive barback wall of alt color and width pieced horizontal plank wood with draft selections on slats on a center blackboard (beer and ABV only). The list is carved out into ‘core brands & seasonals’, ‘small batch’, & ‘specialty’, + a single guest cider). Boring ass golf being shown on flatscreens to both sides, and a metric fuck ton of competition medals in rows above, no, I’m serious, like 200 of them from different judgings on different colored lanyards. And then just a single one framed here, and another there. Below, a slab countertop running the length of the wall with a pair of non-descript handled 12 tap orange & yellow striped white boxes. Glassware to one side and in between the boxes countered, and a crowl crimper and sinkage to the other side.

Concrete floors, corrugated ceiling with ductwork, sprawling plants potted hanging on high, alt softball filament bulbs drops naked or on pan lamps tracing the bar, and track spot lighting about the room. Plasticcy pillow panel upper walls over dark gray wall lowers, and large panel windows forward & to one side, shaded. On one end, a GABF award keg (I assume it’s for ‘Brewery of the Year’, some year), and a long row of wood handle awards for barrel aged beers above the overhang to the loo; on the other end, a bunch of framed World Beer Cup awards.

A pair of bottle & can to-go coolers here (beer, N/A, seltzer, kombucha, et al), and merch corner space there (me, pointing). Light art, being a brewery logo piece or three, and a few framed pics of dogs (I don’t know any of them personally). 8 tables mix & match (4 picnics & 4 barrel hightops) across the floor, a small private room around the bend with a handful more, and a dozen tables out front, split umbrella’d picnic & barrel.

23 beers & a guest cider. Between APA, IPA, WC PA, WC IPA, & NE IPA, a little more than a 1/3 of them are hoppys, but the rest of the list runs the range and there are 3 Lager entities (Pilsner, Texas Style Bock aka Dark Lager, & Dunkel) with a LL marker, meaning a ‘Litre List’ beer, which is slow poured into a litre glass stein. Okay, I’m listening….

Started with the Dunkel, 5.4%, delightful, bready, chocolate, yes, please and thank you; then Cheat Codes, Black IPA, 6.3%, pine, resin, & roast, perfect for style; Sampled the Smoked Porter, 6.7%, campfire, chocolate; but went with the Tea Time Pale, Pale Ale with Earl Gray Tea, 5.6%, really really really done well; and closed with the Pilsner, 5%, goddamn crisp, bready, grassy goodness. I’m thinking Cheat Codes Black IPA & Tea Time Pale Ale for the wins, but there were no clunkers here.

All beers are $5 pints unless otherwise indicated, and the big specialty beers are 10oz. Was dealt tasters of things instead of having to go the sampler route, which is always ‘ppreciated. Beers were excellent. I could have done some serious time here.

I visited Breakside's Milwaukie brewery when I was in town last weekend. When I was there, they had 23 beers on tap: 9 seasonal, 11 small batch, and 3 specialty. Nice mix of IPAs, lagers, stouts and sours. Several examples of each style, which is cool. I tried a variety of beers, and they were mostly OK, although nothing jumped out at me as particularly great.

The vibe is a cool and welcoming wood-industrial taproom, with a big wood bar and railroad-tie backbar. Their wall has a shit load of medals hanging, suggesting that at least some of their beers must be pretty good. This is also a brewing facility as well as taproom, although there wasn't equipment out for view that I saw.

Lot of people there on a Friday night, including apparently a lot of regulars. Service decent enough up at the bar. It was busy that night and the server was busy but he never let my glass get empty so...

Am a big fan of many Breakside beers, and so had been planning to hit the Milwaukie facility for some time.

In terms of vibe, there's nothing particularly special about the location (in the back area of an office complex) or the building itself (a warehouse facility, but with a nice bar and small table area to the right as you walk in the door). Regardless, it's a comfortable enough spot to hang out and have a beer or three.

In terms of the selection and quality level, I was pretty surprised by what I encountered. On this day they had some 27 beers on tap (there's a cold box with a variety of breakside bottles as well), broken down into the core beer selection, seasonal and rotating selections, and then the barrel aged reserve line-up. I got a sample tray of the 5 reserve beers, all of which were very good (the BA stout) to outstanding (the coconut infused, barrel aged sour). To say I was impressed by everything I tried would be an understatement.

In terms of service, it was fine. It mostly consists of a bartender finding out what you want to order, bringing you your glass, and leaving you in peace. If you have a question about a particular beer (or anything else about Breakside), they'll of course answer it, but that's about the extent of the interaction you can expect with the staff here (which was fine. It was all I required, and everyone was nice enough).

Let's see... pint prices were $4.50 for the core beers and seasonals (the IGA was $6.50), and $3.50 for a 10 ounce glass. I'm not sure what the cost of the reserve beers was, as I just got the sample tray (cost for a sample tray is $9, and will get you 6 five ounce pours of the core beers and/or seasonals, or 4 five ounce pours of the reserve beers. I asked if I could pay an extra $2.25 to try all five reserve beers, and they were fine with that.) They also sell/fill growlers (I think they're $15 for a 64 ounce growler) and bottles to go (generally a $50 walk out price for a case of the core beers). Also, there's no kitchen here, but they do sell some snacks. The chips and salsa are $8, for example, and filling your order consists of a staff member handing you a bag of chips and a plastic container of salsa (straight from some local grocery store). Hey, don't come here for the food.

Shrug. What can I say, this place is great!

 

Bring a snack and taste everything!

 

 

My wife and I have visited several times since the early 2013 opening of Breakside's production brewery and taproom. The location isn't easy to find if you aren't sure what to look for; there's a directory-type sign at the entrance to a small industrial park full of similarly drab concrete buildings. The entrance is a single unmarked door, although a larger garage door may be rolled up when weather cooperates.

Inside is an industrial-feeling, high-ceiling taproom, a little dark and moody with concrete floors and dangling light fixtures - but a small fraction of a much bigger warehouse full of brewing tanks and kegging lines. The taplines (there are 24 of them, many more than at the smaller/cozier brewpub on NE Dekum St) are set against a wall of reclaimed barnwood and rusty corrugated metal. The straight length of bar seats maybe 15, with more seating/standing room nearby at a scattering of wooden barrel tables. A lone TV mounted in one corner next to a chalkboard showing the current beer list.

Expect the unexpected on the taps, as you'll find barrel-aged sours and one-off variants alongside Old World standards and Pacific Northwest mainstays. Pours are in proper pintware, samples are liberally given to the indecisive, growler fills (and pre-ordered kegs) are sold to go. A regular food menu is absent (exceptions: a locally-made chips & salsa combo or landjaeger (cured meat sticks)) so there's no seating for minors, unfortunately; food trucks do occasionally show up, so there may be a more extensive/filling food option, depending on the day.

Service has always been excellent (the aforementioned samples and chatty interactions with bartenders - who often are the brewers working an "extra shift"). The crowd is usually beer-loving regulars from nearby neighborhoods and adjacent office buildings - apparently this has become a hot "after work"/Saturday stop for those in the area. Nice folks, always fun to talk to...

A ways off the beaten path for a visitor to Portland focusing on the downtown core and inner eastside neighborhoods, but certainly worth the effort to venture out a little further for the quality/selection of beers found here. Limited hours, so plan accordingly.