Much beloved breweries that have passed on!

I'm not usually one to wish I was older than I am, but I do wish I was around and into craft beer when Grant's, Heavyweight and the like were around.

 

I went to Grant’s near the end back when I was in graduate school over at Central. Likely not like it was in its heyday as Bert had passed away and the pub was under corporate ownership, but still glad I got to go once.

 

ah... bridgeport before they pearl'ed themselves. it used to be a regular go-to for me around that time.

 

Roots Brewing and The Mash Tun come to mind.

Roots had some good if not great selections. The pub was a good place to grab a beer. I heard it was a bitter closing. Brian at the Lombard House told me some stories. Still one of the better local breweries in the late 00’s.

Mash Tun, on the other hand, had mostly forgettable beers, but I stopped by their semi-regularly when I lived on Alberta from ‘08-‘10. Nice quiet place to grab a beer. Of course I’d much rather have their replacement although I rarely get over that way anymore. Always a bit jarring to see how much that street has changed.

 

The neighborhood in Portland where Bridgeport, Widmer, and Portland Brewing started up is important to three phases of my life. In the late 40's and early 50's I lived with my parents in an apartment on NW 20 Av. In college, in the sixties I lived for a while on NW 14 Av in a $65 rental house (split 4 ways!). The breweries were founded after I had moved out of town, but I visited family once a year, and enjoyed the new beers. Since then Portland's image has been transformed (partly in fact and partly by media hype). Old grungy Northwest Portland, with rail spurs and industry throughout, became the Pearl for better or worse. A large part of the inducement for Gambrinus to give up on Bridgeport was the value of the real estate.

 

when i lived in the neighborhood, the tuesday cheap pint night at mash tun was a regular stop. the beers weren't amazing, but they weren't bad either. it was also my regular sunday morning football watching spot during the season. the food was good, and was a great place to have a beer.

 

A transformed brewery, Blue Point (BP) spent it's first 20 years or so in ramshackle buildings sandwiched among a tee shirt manufacturer, a boat yard and other light industry. The brewery installation was mostly second hand from failed breweries. They brewed a range of fairly traditional beers, of which I had a few favorites, and their taproom always offered three 4 ounce tastes and a cask ale on tap. ABInbev purchased BP, built a new brewery, and introduced new beers. I believe the old operation couldn't be easily sustained in its original location, and needed substantial new investments that the Big Beer deep pockets could afford. My favorite beers are gone, but the original BP brewery wasn't selling enough of those ales to continue brewing them anyway.

 

Since @John_M and @G_Z_a mentioned Roots Brewing, here are a couple photos I took of the place when I came to the Oregon Brewers Festival in 2007:

 

Since I'm dragging out old photos, here are a couple shots of Bailey's Taproom (pre-Digital Pour!) and a pic of the Pelican Brewing kiosk at Washington Square mall. These are from my trip to the Winter Ale Fest in 2008:





The taplist for Bailey's shows a few names that aren't around anymore: Alameda, Roots, Amnesia, Off The Rail.

Also: The shelf at the Pelican kiosk displays a bottle of the first edition of Mother of All Storms, back when it was still called The Perfect Storm. That's what I was there to buy, and that's why I took a picture of the kiosk. (Apart from the fact that it was pretty much the best mall kiosk I'd ever seen at the time.)

 

Back when I lived on the east coast, I used go get excited to find Blue Point's cask offering, which was their bitter?mild? English pale? It was delicious.

 

My favorite was ESB. They also had a good "American style" Pale Ale, Rasta Rye ale, Oatmeal Stout, a smooth Christmas Ale, an "Old howling bastard" Old Ale and Hoptical IPA. They rotated the casks at the single brewery cask tap among these and others.

 

Are you familiar with the Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives? I imagine they'd love those Roots and Pelican photos, maybe the Bailey's pics too.

 

That's a great idea. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

Wow, great photos. That logo and tap handles always stood out. I drank a lot of Woody IPA, Hub IPA, Lagunitas and Terminal Gravity IPAs my first few years in Portland. It’s been a while since I’ve had any of those. For a brief time I thought HUB IPA was the best in Portland. I still drink some of their beers from time to time, but can’t remember the last time I had that one. Wonder how it holds up?

 

I want to go back in time and buy 5 of every one of those Pelican bottles.

 

still so bummed Baileys is gone...... ugh

 

I know the feeling, man.

Heh. I also made my first trip to Tugboat on that trip, after chatting with a dude at the OBF who said, "You gotta go have the Chernobyl Stout at Tugboat! It's 14 percent!"

I'd post those pics but I'm not sure that Tugboat qualifies as "much beloved."