Loyal Legion

Who knew a beer bar could be such a scene? Or, perhaps this is a scene that just happens to offer an extensive cocktail program and the finest of craft beers on tap? Either way, on a busy Saturday night I found myself sipping on a selection of fresh hop IPAs and sharing tater tots with strangers.

 

Nice long double side island bar in the middle of the space, booths and tables line the surrounding walls. Some outdoor tables on the sidewalk. 99 taps of Oregon craft beer, menu organized by style with pricing for full Pours and tasters. Some ciders and seltzer as well. Order at the bar, but service was good. Sausages and taster tots we had with our beers were tasty.

 

 

Large, modern place downtown, long bar has plenty of seating. All Oregon tap list is extensive. Taster options are available. Food was decent and priced right

Have been meaning to stop by LL, and the other day I finally got around to it.

The atmosphere/vibe is pretty interesting, and I'm assuming that in a previous incarnation, this place was some sort of lounge lizard, dive bar. There is a very large wrap around bar in the middle of the large room (with 50 or 60 seats would be my guess), and then darkly cushioned booths all around along the walls. There are 4 or 5 large screen TV's set in various locations over the bar area, as well as on the walls. Even now, this place has sort of dark, somewhat run down look about it.

In terms of beer, it's pretty hard not to impressed by what's on offer. LL has around 90 or so beers on tap, all from Oregon. I think they had a few cans and bottles as well (for some reason), but focus here is on the multiple tap handles, all from Oregon. On this particular day (a Sunday), there was a weekend Ft. George tap takeover going on, and there were some unusual items on tap (the raspberry infused Matryoshka, among other things). They also had the peche n brett on tap, which was one of the primary reasons I stopped by. So yeah, the tap selection is pretty impressive here, to say the least.

In terms of service, I thought it was OK. I think you have to come up to the bar to place your drink order, unless you happen to be sitting at the bar, in which case you can count on fairly quick drink service. One thing I thought a bit odd, was that every beer you buy costs $6. More expensive, higher abv. beers are also $6, but are served in smaller glasses. For some things, prices struck me as fairly reasonable, while for others, I thought the pricing a bit high. For instance, I was OK paying $6 for a 6 ounce glass of Peche n Brett, but $6 for a pint of Ft. George Vortex IPA was a bit hard to figure. At one time, part of the service "schtick" at LL was that the prices included the cost of service (and so no tip was expected). That's changed now, but from what I can see, it looks like the owner has kept the original pricing, but abandoned the no tip policy (which probably explains why the prices seemed a bit high for a lot of items).

Didn't try the food here, but what I saw on the menu looked pretty decent.

Shrug. LL has a great selection for sure, but that's hardly anything unusual in Portland. Frankly, given the pricing here (which is definitely high for this part of Portland), I'm not sure how often I need to return here.

 

Went to Loyal Legion on my birthday visit to Portland as one of many stops. I have to say I really enjoyed this place. They seem to understand the need (and challenge) of keeping their lines clean regularly as evidenced by the flyers they have around showing their process and the fact that the beers I had all tasted clean and fresh. The selection is excellent-not just the number of taps but the variety of beer available. Also they get high marks for growler refill pricing. Maybe I'm used to California pricing (and our stupid rules about filling other people's growler) by 12 or 14$ for refill on most of these beers was outstanding. The only downsides were 1) service was a little slow and 2) samplers are only available in qtys of 4 or more.