Visiting Portland (Spring 2016 update)

Best options for coffee in Portland? Also any must try IPAs or sours this weekend

 

Too many to list, it depends where you are in the city. Here's a map of just roasters: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1DmXQj9oyIeCDKDVHDYJsLu0fuFQ&usp=sharing

Check out the new 3 way IPA in 16 oz cans from Fort George. Any IPAs from Great Notion, Barley Browns, Boneyard, Melvin, or Three Magnets.

Today is also the kick off of Portland Beer Week, so there will be quite a bit going on.

 

Personally I would say go with heart or coava if you are looking for a roaster particularly. Barista does great espresso based drinks and has a variety of options. Water Ave and Courier also do a great job.

 

I personally love Heart, but they are a love it or hate it roaster because of their extremely light "Scandinavian Style" roasts. Water Ave. is great and sometimes has barrel aged beans. I second the recommendation on Coava as well. I really like Upper Left. They are brand new but doing excellent beans and are almost across the street from Lardo SE. I would also recommend Case Study. Red E Cafe is good as well and is right next door to Saraveza.

 

Crowlers of Boneyard, Great Notion, Breakside and Barley Browns would also be good ideas, if you're afraid of glass.

 

Oakshire has a Cucumber Berliner available in cans and it is awesome. Definitely pick up a 6-pack. And any and all crowlers from Great Notion.

 

Might want to consult your financial planner before investing in Great Notion Crowlers.

Coava and Courier (take it into Powells) for coffee.

 

We're at the end of our time in Portland, sadly. Thank you all for putting this together as it has been a fantastic resource when trying to narrow down what to do. There are more options in Portland than I could get to in a month, never mind a week. I've been keeping a short journal of some of the places we've been to here which I will post here, if you all want an outsiders perspective. My big concern coming in was dining out with food allergies. With regards to this, Portland has been somewhat hit or miss. My fiance, who has a soy intolerance, was able to eat several things here (fries and donuts come to mind) that we cannot find for her back home, so that was fantastic. That said, there were definitely places that gave misinformation and places that don't do a good enough job washing/keeping different prep areas separate.

Bastas Trattoria: Certainly not a beer destination, but when you've just gotten off a plane, had to detour around a parade to get to the hotel and your internal clock thinks it is midnight you don't get too picky. Unfortunately this place doesn't really accommodate food allergies, so my fiance could only have a salad. I had the spicy spaghetti with chicken; pretty good, if a bit smaller than I would have liked. Even with no more than half a dozen options I couldn't resist ordering a beer just to see what Oregon has to offer. Ended up getting RPM IPA from Boneyard which was undoubtedly the correct choice. Not quite what I'm used to from home but still delicious with an amazing creaminess for an IPA too.

Dick's Kitchen: I can see why this was recommended to me; these guys are amazing (accolades apply only to the Belmont location). Very allergy friendly, one of the few places my fiance has been able to get fries, or "not fries" as they are in this case. Not a ton of beer options, went with a Boneyard IPA again, but who cares, food was fantastic. I went to the downtown location two days later and the experience was a complete 180; the burger was overcooked and a good portion of the "not fries" were overcooked/straight up burned. I'm not sure if it was just an off night or if the quality is that varied between locations, but the SE Belmont ST location is top notch and I would highly recommend; the NW 21st Ave location served subpar food and, had I not been to the other location first, I would have written them off as a bad restaurant without a second thought. If I lived here I'd check it out again just to see if it was an off night, but if you're just visiting then I'd say make the trip to the Belmont location. Regardless, these guys can handle allergies and we had no issues with cross-contamination.

Rawdacious: In their "our products" section they tout not using a soy base for their products. In their ingredients section they tout their use of soy lecithin in their products. Slightly misleading, but fortunately we caught this before purchasing any. That said, I did try one of their chocolate peanutbutter mini cheesecakes and it was pretty good.

Imperial Bottle Shop: For an east coast guy looking for things I can't get at home this place was great. Going into this trip I was hoping to find Abyss somewhere, but figured at this point it would be too late; nope, these guys had some. They also had a decent selection of Crooked Stave which we don't see in MA either. Even better than the selection though was the service. I chatted with the two people behind the counter for a few minutes and they gave me several recommendations of places to go/beers to keep an eye out for.

Not sure what it was called, but somewhere near the Imperial Bottle Shop there was a place with a bunch of small food shacks all around an outdoor eating area. The dessert place there had several soy free options, including the first donut my fiance has been able to eat in six years. Very allergy friendly, and I suspect some of the other operations in that complex are as well, though we did not investigate.

Growler Brothers: Oregon, I hope you know how lucky you are. In MA there is a state law making it so growler fills are brewery only and must use a growler from that brewery. So I have a Trillium growler, I can fill it to my heart's content at Trillium, but if I want a fill at Night Shift I have to buy a second growler. I would love to have a place like this back home. And for anyone who just wants to grab a crowler or two of some PNW brews to bring back home, this might be the best bet as they have a ton of options available. They also had De Garde Anian available for onsite consumption which was great since De Garde seems to be hard to find around here (based on my admittedly limited searching).

Deschutes: Very good with food allergies. This was the second place we ate at in our first day here and both places served fries that my fiance can eat. This might not seem like a big deal, but I think we've only found one place in Boston where she can eat the fries. I don't think I need to say anything about their beer, but the food that we had might actually have been better (elk burger and garlic rosemary fries). This was probably the best all-around place we stopped, serving good food, good beer, and being very allergy friendly.

World Foods market: Allergy friendly grocery store with a beer selection. Only place I've been to so far that has de Garde available to go.

Fat Head's: Fryer and pirogies both contain soy, we were told everything else should be fine. Fiance ordered a sandwich and a side salad and halfway through found a piece of fried onion in the salad. To their credit, the staff was very responsive and did what they could to salvage the meal, but if the kitchen staff is getting stuff from the fryer into the salad of an order with specific allergen instructions then something is very wrong. The cross contamination was so bad that she is still suffering the effects days later. Very strongly would not recommend.

Teote: Very allergy friendly. Great Latin American food, would recommend.

Firkin Tavern: When we arrived the Stanley Cup playoff game was on. This was soon after switched over to Bob Ross painting on Netflix. I have to tell you, turning the Bob Ross show into a drinking game in a bar full of people enthralled by the show was one of the more entertaining bar experiences I've had. Bartenders seemed really friendly too.

Hair of the Dog: They do use soy oil for cooking, but they can substitute canola oil or butter for most dishes. That said, cross contamination from cookware is a possibility and the food didn't sit too well with my fiance. If you are super sensitive this may be a dealbreaker but for most I don't think it will be too big of a deal. Food is good, but left us hungry (disclaimer: meal came at 5 PM with no real food since breakfast, so we may have been overly hungry). The Adam cheesecake on the dessert menu is worth trying once. Beer wise they ranged from average to pretty damn good, but their specialty seems to be in higher ABV beers, so this may not be the place to hit if you have a lot on the agenda later. The lower ABV beers, I had Ruth and Blue Dot, weren't bad but they don't stack up to some of the other sub 10% offerings in the area (think Deschutes Fresh Squeezed or Boneyard's RPM IPA which seems to be on tap everywhere). I do like that they offer vintage bottles for on site consumption and they weren't that crowded even at dinner time. I suspect that if I move here this will be one of my primary drinking spots, though again, with all the high ABV beers I'm not sure how well this fits in to many short stay itineraries.

Boise Fry Company: We informed the guy at the register of the soy allergy and he said eating there shouldn't be a problem. We had him ask the kitchen who informed him that most of their menu items have soy. Wouldn't recommend this place for people with allergies. I did grab something here without my fiance though. Food-wise, the burgers are somewhat disappointing, but the fries are good, which makes sense since they are the star of the show. I'm a sucker for duck fat fries and truffle, so I couldn't resist the duck fat fries with truffle sea salt. Slightly unbalanced as truffle can overpower other components if not careful, but overall executed well and delicious.

Eat Pizza: We called to see if we could eat there; they seemed exceedingly annoyed to have to answer a question over the phone. Would not recommend.

On a related note, pizza and delivery options seem slim to non-existent. We called three or four pizza places and several other non-pizza delivery options and all use soy in most of their dishes.

Great Notion Brewing: Absolutely fantastic way to cap off the week. Living by Trillium in Boston I've developed a taste for a certain style of IPA that is quite a bit different than the standard northwest style IPA. These guys seem to be trying to bring that style to Portland, and from what I've had they're doing a good job of it. Juice Box in particular was very reminiscent of some of Trillium's mosaic heavy offerings. I really wish I had more time to spend here as I wanted to try all of their current offerings. From reading their website, it looks like these guys have been open for about six months and they're already knocking it out of the park. Stop here, you won't regret it; these guys could be one of the next big things.

All in all, great place to visit. I'm looking forward to making another trip out here, but in the meantime I'm happy to go home with a bunch of beers I can't get back east, especially Abyss which I can't wait to try.

 

That would be Tid Bit.
Scout operates a beer cart by the tables. They brew some interesting beers and usually have an array of good beers on tap as well. I constantly see semi-hard to find beers on tap here.

I know three carts are making foods from scratch with fresh ingredients, so are generally allergen friendly: Tortoise and Hare, Earth Burger, and Eat Well (not garlic/onion/pepper allergen friendly).

All of the carts generally serve good food and usually you can find an owner or two working so they would be able to give you an honest answer about allergens.

 

Any recommendations for a good brunch (either Saturday or Sunday)? I'll be visiting in July and thinking about Beast or Olympic Provisions but I could be totally off. No dietary restrictions, thanks in advance!

 

I mean there's all kinds of brunchs: do you mind waiting in 30-1hr? Do you want something classical or something creative? Do you want to have a beer with it or a bloody mary/mimosa? Do you just want to get in and out? Food carts ok? Want it to be close in or near where you're staying?

 

What a wonderful post. Thank you!

 

I mean there's all kinds of brunchs: do you mind waiting in 30-1hr? Ok with waiting, trying to make reservations.

Do you want something classical or something creative? Good food, that's all that matters.

Do you want to have a beer with it or a bloody mary/mimosa? Don't care about drinking. The food is the priority.

Want it to be close in or near where you're staying? Staying downtown but will have a car, so just something I shouldn't miss if I'm there for the weekend.

Thanks!

 

Starting to call around a bit, but any ideas on a brewery that would be a great fit for a live fantasy football draft? 12 guys, private area?

 

Green Dragon / Buckman Botanical Brewing has a back room that you can reserve. You can also reserve a classroom at The Kennedy School...

 

Thanks man! I'll check them out

 

In VT the Monteplier Co-op (where one goes for cases of heady) stocks crooked stave

 

Anyone know if Ecliptic has bottles to go? I think they have growlers. If no, can someone recommend a nearby bottle shop? I am going in on Sunday afternoon then headed to the coast and need to make sure I'm stocked for watching the Cavs game! Thanks!

 

I've purchased bottles from Ecliptic in the past, but it's always been during special releases, so I don't know how many of their regular bottled beers are generally available.

I _do_ know that Tin Bucket is about a half mile away (go east on Fremont to Williams), and they have some of the best growler and bottle options in the city.

Edit: You might also find bottles at StormBreaker Brewing, about 2 blocks north up Mississippi.

 

Cheers! I'll try Tin Bucket.