Culmination Brewing

 

 

I visited Culmination a few weeks back with a couple of friends. On my visit, they had 22 beers on tap plus various ciders, seltzers, and slushies; quite the selection indeed. Beer styles ranged from IPAs (quite a few) to red ale, California common, pastry stout, Kölsch, Dortmunder, brown ale, a couple different sours, Pilsner, Berliner weissbier, and others. A really impressive range! I particularly enjoyed the cold IPA and Czech dark lager that I had.

They've got a spacious industrial taproom with lots of wood accents - almost rustic meets industry, with a nice outdoor area as well. The brewhouse is in back, visible from the taproom, which I always like. Overall I have a very favorable impression of Culmination; it's homey and the service up at the bar was really good.

Warehouse building in industrial area in northwest part of town. Small service bar with 3 seats and a half dozen tables in tasting room, additional room and patio out front. 20 beers on tap... friendly service.

East of downtown. Tall ceiling, more than one room, not very big indoors, with medium dark wood, is the main interior theme here. They have many nice picnic tables and big plants out in front, with a good number of dogs. What led me here was a can of an imperial IPA of theirs called, Obscured By Clouds, which I bought at Bottlewerks in Seattle and was quite yummy. Had a tasting flight of 4 beers and the least of them was a 4.25 for me. Went ahead and got some canned beer of theirs, even without tasting first, and lo and behold they were all at least quite good. Will be going back to Portland for a day, to visit other breweries but will stop in to buy a few kinds of of their canned beer, knowing they will all be good, without trying them first.

 

Flew into Portland for a beer festival on the coast, but that’s not ‘til tomorrow’s tomorrow so we have some play days yet. As we rolled in late last night, and by that, I mean early early this morning; go out late today and stay out late, we will. But you’ve got to start somewhere. About town now with fools, we spun the residential neighborhood (love that) and parked the tiny rental…

Corner space in a shared building. Enter through the outside seating area and in. Rounded part of an arched ceiling, I think we’re in half a hanger. Rafter ceiling and cross beam connectors, and concrete floors. High gray walls, the inner one done red with a logo piece. Framed art and a beeeeeeeautiful colored splotch mural piece on the far wall. Drop filament bulbs on the bar and seating. Panel windows forward and to the side, and roll up garage door action of the same up front and in the next room leading to the out front seating area. Brewery behind the cold box (There was a wafting of hoppiness), and I think the kitchen be back there, too.

‘C’ shaped split tree topped bar with a horizontal plank piece base. Seating for 13 on black leather framed chairs on an ‘L’, the end lost to service. Cold box barback with a wall of vertical plank wood fronting. 4X6 horizontal blackboard listing the 20 tap selections in 2 rows of 10 & 10 (beer, style, light notes, ABV, and cost for anything that isn’t a $5 pint). And a row of 20 non-descript knob handles below from a mounted split tree piece with a barky edge (it’s kinda cool). A smaller board to the right lists wine & cider selections over glassware racked, stacked, & shelved, around a small peek-a-boo to the cold room, and swag displayed on the other side. A pair of upright cylinder towers on the far left end of the bar with 3 taps each (for what I must assume is wine & cider), alongside a crowler crimper, and a cooler for cans & bottles to go just past there.

7 mix & match tables wrapping the bar; barrel roundies & rectangles. Bar counter spurs forward here and in the next room, where sits 3 long shared picnics tables, barrels racked, & pallets of cans stacked. And 8 picnics for the sitting at out front when it isn’t raining, which in Portland, is never.

20 taps, half of which are IPAs in one form or another (Phaedrus IPA, 6.7%; West Coast Story, IPA, 6.2%; Drone Logic, Hazy IPA, 6.2%: 4 & 20, Imperial Black IPA, 9.5%; From Huntington with Love, West Coast DIPA, collab with RIIP, 9%; Obscured by Clouds, Hazy DIPA, 8.4%; Collapsing Stars, Hazy DIPA, 8.1%; Philosophical Confrontation, Vanilla Guava Passionfruit Sorbet IPA, 6.3%; Idle Hands, Belgian IPA, 7.6%; Aquavit BA Phaedrus IPA, 7.3%), and the other half running the range from Lager to Stout to Sour and things in between (Italian Pilsner, 4.4%; Pilsner, Bohemian Pilsner, 5.6%; Tied House, Pre-Prohibition Lager, collab with Modern Times PDX & Fair State, 5%; Shire County ESB, 4.8%; Baltic Porter, 7.1%; Choco Mountain Stout, Nitro Stout, 5.6%; Illusions of Grandeur, Coffee Vanilla Stout, 10.4%; 2019 Kriek Mythology, BA Cherry Sour, 7.5%; Sour Flower, Blueberry & Lavender Sour, 5.5%; Neon Valley II, Nitro Raspberry, Vanilla, & Almond Sour, 5.5%).

It’s a solid selection. I got through a bunch on shorty or sampler (Phaedrus IPA, 4 & 20 Imperial Black IPA, Italian Pilsner, Bohemian Pilsner, Shire County ESB, Tied House Pre-Prohibition Lager, Baltic Porter, & Choco Mountain Nitro Stout). Baltic Muthafuckinporter for the WIN, and Tied House Pre-Prohibition Lager, Italian Pils, & Shore County ESB the close runners up.

First stop snacky snacks. We had candied bacon (bacon is meat candy; meat candy is bacon) and the roasted fingerling potatoes with Oregon ketchup (which we think Washburn made up) and curry mayo. Light crowd this Thursday afternoon. Good eats, good tunes, & some very good beers. I could do some time here. Someone’s getting some cans to a go-go.

we had an absolute blast here, even with things being a bit reduced due to the virus, their inside space was hard to get a sense of, with tables removed for the most part and no bar seating, but they have a cool spot thats kind of cozy for what looks like a warehouse space even still, with some plants and mature trees around their neat patio, we posted up at a picnic table that had plenty of shade, and just ordered beers off a large chalkboard behind they bar, quite a nice selection on. we loved a citra hazy ipa and a bohemian pils, the quality was high enough to suggest all the beer in here is likely very good. took away some cans of italian pils and loved those as well. seems like they are doing hops and lagers very well, would have loved to been able to drink through more of them. comfortable outside, dog friendly, really good service that was super helpful with local recommendations too, and even though things are running a little different with the virus, it was still great to be able to spend some time here and drink some of their beers. they seem to be rightly building quite the name for themselves in the busy scene here. a great stop, cant wait to check them out again when things return to a little bit more normal!

 

Ordered colcannon, something that I had not even known existed until my visit. Hooray for trying new things as the food here was incredible. Root veggies and mushrooms in combination!
$10 fills here on Monday's. Chill vibe. Great beer. Fantastic food.

 

 

 

Culmination has a great vibe. Very laid back. The beer options are always aplenty and service is good despite the low employee count. Great local spot with local ingredients. When I think of a brewery usually 1 or 2 beers stand out as amazing beers ill always go back for. Culmination doesn't do that for me, they offer a seemingly endless array of new brews and a few (3?) Staples. All good to great but falling short for me in one area or another.

 

 

Awesome house IPA and sours. The "Vermont" BBQ was on point. Would defiantly stop in here again for a bite and some great beers.

 

 

 

Cool place. Very laid back atmosphere. The afternoon we went in the garage door was up, giving the place a very open air feeling, which I'm a big fan of.

Friendly staff. The bartender knew what we he was doing (beer served in proper glassware, etc.), and was chatty in a good way.

Every beer I tried was good to very good. They had, if I remember correctly, about 16 beers on tap. Roughly half there's and half guest taps.

They also do food. We had a pretzel and some tacos, both of which were very tasty.

Overall, a very solid new brewery. I will definitely be returning.

I was glad to have the chance to visit Culmination during their opening week.

They have a small parking area in front and their appears to be plenty of street parking. I walked from the Lloyd Center and it is just a short stroll.

They have a few picnic tables out front and they have some nice landscaping.

There is a decent sized bar inside and the tanks are at the back of the room and are pretty much on display (there is a wall behind part of the bar that does obscure the view when sitting).

Service was very friendly and as expected beer savvy. They are free with samples and the entire staff was willing to engage patrons in conversation.

The beers are great. I had a wonderful Sasion and couple killer PNW IPAs. They had some well chosen guest taps added to their house beers.

They had a decent sized crowd that was made up of a mix of ages and almost a 50/50 gender split. I talked to a bunch of people and they were all very talkative and nice.

I hope they have a long and successful run and I know I will be back.