Visiting Portland 2020.

1. A few years back, it became clear that this forum could use an "I'm visiting Portland, where should I go?" thread. In this thread, I'll attempt to cull the "must-hit" spots generally agreed upon by Portland BAs. Of course, recommendations & suggestions are encouraged.
   
   (Almost) Universally Recommended "Must-Visit" Breweries & Brew Pubs
   Breakside Brewery
   Cascade Brewing Barrel House
   Great Notion Brewing
   Hair of the Dog Brewing
   Upright Brewing
   
   Other Highly Recommended Breweries & Brew Pubs
   Baerlic Brewing
   Culmination Brewing
   Deschutes Portland Pub
   Ex Novo Brewing
   Gigantic Brewing
   Hopworks Urban Brewery
   Laurelwood Brewing
   Little Beast Brewing
   Modern Times Belmont Fermentorium
   Occidental Brewing
   Wayfinder Beer
   
   Highly Recommended Beer Bars / Bottle Shops
   APEX (Taproom, Bottles-to-go; Cash Only w/onsite ATM)
   Bailey's Taproom/The Upper Lip (Taproom, Crowler/Growler Fills, Bottle List)
   The Beermongers (Taproom, Bottle Shop, Growler Fills)
   Beer O'Clock (Taproom, Crowler/Growler Fills, Bottles-to-go)
   Belmont Station (Taproom, Bottle Shop, Growler Fills, Food)
   Bridgetown Beerhouse (Taproom, Bottle Shop, Growler Fills)
   Horse Brass Pub (Taproom, Food)
   Imperial Bottle Shop (Two locations - SE Division & NE Alberta) (Taproom, Bottle Shop, Growler Fills)
   John's Marketplace (Bottle Shop)
   Loyal Legion (Taproom, Growler Fills, Food)
   N.W.I.P.A. (Taproom, Bottle Shop)
   Hawthorne Hophouse (Taproom, Growler Fills, Food)
   Roscoe's (Taproom, Growler Fills, Food)
   Saraveza (Taproom, Bottle Shop, Growler Fills, Food)
   
   ---------------------------------------------------
   (A Few) Beer-centric Restaurants*
   Bantam Tavern
   Cheese Bar
   Grain & Gristle
   Higgins Restaurant
   Interurban
   Lardo
   Raven & Rose / The Rookery
   Stammtisch
   Victory Bar
   White Owl Social Club
   
   * Just about any decent restaurant in PDX has a good/very good beer list. This might be the most debatable section of this thread. Eater PDX is a great food resource.
   ----------------------------------------------------
   Other Resources (places, events, releases, news/information, etc.)
   Portland BeerFly listing
   Willamette Week's 2018 Beer Guide
   Brewpublic
   The Brew Site
   New School Beer
   Oregon Beer Growler
   Portland Craft Beer Events Calendar
   
   Want to know if XYZ bar/brewery allows kids?
   "PDX with kids" BA thread
   Bars that Allow Children in Portland
   Best Kid-Friendly Portland Brewpubs
   Kid-Friendly Portland Breweries
   
   Need shippers for all the beer you bought?
   Portland Wine Storage
   Rose City Wine Vaults & Storage
   
   Transit
   Biketown
   PDX Bus
   Trimet
   Uber and Lyft are currently operating in Portland
   There are also three shared scooter companies operating in Portland (for now)
   
   Portland Airport
   PDX is a great bar that just happens to be an airport. If you have time to kill, there is a Deschutes Brewpub (concourse D), a Laurelwood brewpub (concourse A), Hopworks brewpub (concourse E), a Henry's Tavern outpost, and several other restaurants with good tap lists. Deschutes, Laurelwood, Hopworks, Henry's, and Country Cat are all past security and all fill growlers, so you can get a fill and carry it on. There are also Made in Oregon stores and a Timberline Lodge gift store past security with good bottle selections.
   
   Disclaimer: This post is not intended to be a catch-all for Portland beer establishments. There are literally hundreds of well-regarded beer institutions throughout the greater Portland area -- many of which are not listed in this post. This thread is an attempt to present the most frequently recommended and highest-regarded spots cited in the Northwest BA forum. Exploration and experimentation are certainly encouraged!
2. 
   
3. #1 guajolote, Jan 4, 2019
4. Last edited by a moderator: May 7, 2019
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8. ha-sheem, BeerTable, Kraz and 6 others like this.
9. 
   guajoloteAspirant (293)Sep 12, 2008Oregon
   Updates to version 19 (now the only version for the year, sadly):
   
   * Moved Modern Times to the Other Recommended section. Could probably go into the Highly Recommended section, but I didn't want to risk being beheaded.
   
   * Made the executive decision to remove Lompoc Brewing from the Other Recommended section. I wanted to keep that part to 10 spots, and frankly, there hasn't been much chatter about them for a long time.
   
   * Added Beer O'Clock to the Beer Bars/Bottle Shops section.
   
   * Added Bantam Tavern to the Restaurants section.
   
   * Completely removed the Newcomers section. It made sense when we could do quarterly updates, but now with the yearly restriction, some places could be open 18+ months by the next update & some that open during the year (especially early on) won't be included until they're almost a year old. New places will just have to be posted in the thread as they open. Refer to previous threads if you'd like to see past Newcomers sections. RIP Newcomers section.
   
   * Removed the Maps section since two were outdated and two no longer exist.
   
   Past versions:
   Original thread
   Update 1 (winter 2013)
   Update 2 (spring 2013)
   Update 3 (summer 2013)
   Update 4 (fall/winter 2013-14)
   Update 5 (spring 2014)
   Update 6 (fall/winter 2014)
   Update 7 (winter 2015)
   Update 8 (spring 2015)
   Update 9 (summer 2015)
   Update 10 (fall 2015)
   Update 11 (winter 2016)
   Update 12 (spring 2016)
   Update 13 (summer 2016)
   Update 14 (fall/winter 2016-17)
   Update 15 (summer 2017)
   Update 16 (fall/winter 2017-18)
   Update 17 (spring/summer 2018)
   Update 18 (fall/winter 2018-19)

 

Just posting this here for now until @guajolote is ready to take back over the reins.

 

As one of those locals who's a fan of Upright beers but doesn't visit the brewery all that often, I'll try to explain.


As you're probably aware, good beer bars abound in PDX, and so convenience becomes more and more of a factor for me (as a discerning local beer consumer). At least in my mind, I think of Upright as something of a hassle to get over to (it's just in an inconvenient spot to drive to I think), and then parking can often be a pain in the ass as well. Hours of operation are better than they used to be, but even so, I tend to start drinking fairly early in the day on weekends, before Upright is typically open (noonish thru 1:00 for me). Also, increasingly Upright stuff can be found on tap throughout the city without too much trouble, and so I don't need to actually visit the brewery to get my fantasia or special herbs fix. Lastly, for whatever reason, I don't find the tasting room to be a particularly comfortable place to hang out and enjoy a few beers. It's a shame, because they almost always have an interesting line-up and their pricing is quite fair. But there it is... I find myself hanging out for more than a half an hour and I start to think about going someplace else.

Don't get me wrong, I do still visit on occasion, but the tasting room just isn't part of my regular rotation.

 

Thanks for the reminder.

As for Alefire Hot sauce and public house, it's really not such a bad place. I think they have around 18 different beers on tap (with sundry ciders and seltzers), and that often includes things like sticky hands, speedway stout and the like. Currently, they also have hop venom and a beer from Ale Apothecary on tap. It's a solid list, but it pales in comparison to what I could typically find over at Tin Bucket. Also, they've really scaled back on their can and bottle selections, and needless to say gone are the days when you could find bottles of broken truck and KDS/Bbomb variants there.

I used to run over to Tin Bucket approximately once a week. Since the it morphed into Alefire Hot sauce, I think I've gone over there twice. It just doesn't seem to fit into my plans any more.

 

Not that I'm aware of Ryan. Wednesdays tend to be a pretty quiet day of the week, and January tends to be a fairly quiet month.

That being said, this being Portland and all, I would recommend taking a look at the current taplists at Belmont Station, the Upper Lip and the two Imperial bottle shops.

Especially if you enjoy BA stouts from Fremont, the current taplist over at the Imperial Alberta location is really pretty hard to beat.


Have fun!