Pacific Northwest trip brewery recommendations?

@guajolote put together an excellent overview of the Portland scene here: http://beeradvocate.com/community/threads/visiting-portland-fall-2013-update.120173/

My personal suggestions for Portland would be:
1. Hair of the Dog
2. Cascade
3. Baileys
4. Apex
5. Belmont Station

I'm sure others will chime in with Bend/Hood River/Seattle and more Portland info!

 

Portland:
Breakside
Gigantic
Horse brass
Belmont station

Hood River:
Pfriem
Double mountain
Logsdon

 

I-5 South of I-90 in Seattle has a lot of breweries in close quarters with bottle shops as well...

In that area alone for breweries you have:

Emerald City Beer Company
Epic Ales
Schooner Exact
Georgetown Brewing
Machine House
Elysian
Pyramid

And Odin Brewing along with Big Al's are close.

Full Throttle Bottles and Beer Junction are pretty close for bottle shops

 

In Seattle, go to fremont, Reuben's, and if u can, head over to black raven in Redmond. As for bars, everyone has their own opinion, but brouwers is great, and close to fremont. Also, there is beveridge place in west Seattle, which is awesome.

Between Seattle and Portland, there are some great places as well. Hit up E9, the red hot, and the parkway tavern in Tacoma, 99 bottles bottleshop in federal way, the eastside tavern in Olympia, and hop-n-grape in Longview for some great BBQ and a really good bottleshop that is connected to the restaurant.

 

Oregon = Upright, Pfriem, Block 15, Cascade, HOtD, Baileys.

 

How long of a trip? Portland has enough to keep you busy for several days. But if in town for a week, then side trips to Bend, the coast, Corvallis, and/or Hood River are options.

I highly recommend following the link posted by Anteater, then come back and post some specific itinerary questions.

 

As usual, I'll leave the Seattle coverage to those who live down there (except for mentioning that Naked City and Big Time are must-hits). Come North to Whatcom (Bellingham) and Skagit (Mt. Vernon) counties and you can hit some of these breweries: Boundary Bay, Anacortes, Kulshan, Flyers, Chuckanut, Skagit River, North Fork, and North Sound. Lots of good beer bars (or as we call 'em, bars) around too. Come visit!

 

Fremont has basically become a must-visit in Seattle. I'll second Reuben's, and I'll add Hale's just because they've been around longer than almost every other brewery in the country and they get overlooked a lot. If you're downtown at the Pike Place Market, stop in at Pike. Elysian has several locations around town, including the brewpub in Capitol Hill, Tanglewood to the north, and Elysian Fields down in the stadium district/SoDo.

Of course, listing all the bars around town with a great beer selection is almost impossible. Brouwer's and Pine Box come to mind but there are plenty of others. And plenty of threads in the NW forum already cover all this anyway. Enjoy your visit!

 

Look at the linked thread above, however I'll bite on lending my local knowledge

If I was to spend 3 days in Portland I would do this:

Breweries (In order of personal preference)

Cascade (Sour House)
Occidental (German Ales and Lagers)
The Commons (Belgian, French, German, and Sours)
Upright (Belgian, French, German, and Sours)
Hair of the Dog (Strong Ales, I think of this as more of a brewery than a brewpub even though they have food too)

Brewpubs (In order of preference, food taken into account)

Breakside
Burnside
Deschuttes
Laurelwood

Taphouses (In order of preference)

Belmont Station
Beermongers
Apex (this is a very far away third place)



If I were to spend a bit more time (I would head out to Hood River for a day) This would include:

- Double Mountain (For Lunch)
- Full Sail (just a tour, they give you a free pint glass at the end - can't say no to free souvenirs)
- Logdson Farmhouse Ales for beer-adventure (Best brewery experience of my life - not always open though)
- Pfriem for afternoon beer or Dinner

Bend is a different trip all together

 

Seattle "bars with great selection and [great] food":

• Brouwer's - Fremont
• Quinn's - Capitol Hill
• Collin's Pub - Downtown
• Elysian Fields - Downtown/SoDo
• Naked City - Greenwood
• Latona Pub - Green Lake
• 74th Street Ale House - Phinney
• Bambino's Pizzeria - Downtown
• Brave Horse Tavern - South Lake Union
• Hudson Public House - Maple Leaf
• Eureka! - University Village (new to Seattle - chain burger joint out of California)
• Burgundian - Tangletown

Seattle "bars with great selection and [decent] food":

• Pine Box - Capitol Hill
• Fiddler's Inn - Wedgwood
• Cooper's Alehouse - Maple Leaf
• Wurst Place - South Lake Union
• Elysian Tangletown - Tangletown
• Elysian Capitol Hill - Capitol Hill
• Barking Dog Alehouse - Ballard

Seattle "bars with great selection and [no] food":

• Beveridge Place Pub - West Seattle
• Stumbling Monk - Capitol Hill
• Uber Tavern - Greenwood

Seattle breweries worth visiting:

• Fremont - Fremont (a must-hit)
• Reuben's - Ballard (I'm not a huge fan but I think I'm in the minority)
• Schooner Exact - SoDo
• Georgetown - Georgetown

Bottle shops with great selection of taps and bottles:

• Bottleworks - Wallingford
• Chuck's Hop Shop - Greenwood
• Last Drop Bottle Shop - Maple Leaf
• Beer Junction - West Seattle

 

Some excellent lists and links posted so far... @oregonskibum asks "how long of a trip?", a very good question. Also "I'll ask what time of year?", "do you have car?" and "what types of beer/pubs do you like?"...

I highlighted you comment re: Deschutes and am wondering if you mean Deschutes in Bend (original Bond St. Pub and/or their massive brewery) or Portland's pub and small brewery. Both cities are great destinations for a beer lover.

I asked about types of beer and pubs because, some places do certain beer styles really well (such as Cascade for wild/sour, Upright for farmhouse/saison, Boneyard for IPA, Occidental & Heater Allen for Germans... and so on...); likewise, certain places have vibes that are more chill/"neighborhood" or sparse/"production" or polished/"corporate". Any help you can give re: your interests will help us give better recommendations!

Cheers,
Brian

 

Upright is all about FRESH.

 

Lots of good suggestions. I frequent hotd, cascade, Belmont station, and beer mongers a lot.

 

Of the two options I'd suggest early June. Depending on your timing you'll catch all or most of PDX Beer Week, which includes the Fruit Beer Fest (much better than you might imagine) as the main event and dozens of other mini-festivals, events, brewer's dinners and tastings throughout the week.

August is everyone's chance to recover from the non-stop beer festivals and events in July, so there's almost nothing going on. That said, even without any events there's still 40+ breweries and a bunch of great bars/bottle shops worth visiting.

 

Had some elderberry sour at Cascade last Sept. Thought it divine. Semi dried aged fruit, wood, with a touch of funk. Wonderful stuff.

 

elderberry is really yummy. one of my favorites.

 

Out in Hood River, there's also Solera. Appointment only. I believe Volcanic is the main bottle shop that direction.

Since you mentioned Occidental, I'll add Heater Allen in McMinnville as one of the best lager breweries in the country imho.

A trip out to De Garde in Tillamook and Pelican on the coast would not be wasted time.

 

Great choices. I just did a side by side with Occidental's Kolsch and and Heater Allen's Kolsch. Heater Allen's blew it out of the water - So crazy good. I wish Heater Allen wasn't all the way out in McMinnville.