Hey guys, thinking about taking my wife out to Portland for our 9 year anniversary at the beginning of August. Looking at an Airbnb house that's 2 streets south of Alberta St. is this a good location? Any recommendations on good resteraunts and bars? how long of a drive to downtown Portland from here? My wife would like to visit a winery as well. Neither of us have ever been out there so any help would be greatly appreciated! PS: I realize this is pretty close to Great Notion. That's the main reason for choosing this location
http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/visiting-portland-spring-2016-update.405287/ That'll answer a lot of questions. The Willamette Valley is noted for wine, so finding something shouldn't be too hard. There's a little bit of wine talked mixed in on pages 11 & 12 of this thread: http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/wolves-people.221050/page-12
I'll leave the beer to the "what to do" thread, but quick question on the winery visit. Are you trying to get the whole "winery with vineyard" experience or just to sample small batch wines, or...? There are probably 1,000 wineries in the area, some with tasting rooms in town and others on back roads an hour out of town with vastly different experiences all around. If you are heading out to Hood River though you could very easily add winery stops in to that trip. No recommendations, but I've only ever been to one "bad" winery in all my visits and for you to find that exact one on the Washington side of the river would mean you've gone well off the beaten track.
She's going to want to do the whole experience, not just tasting. Do they have busses that pick you up and take you out for the day to do that ?
If you google Portland Wine Tours you'll find several options, most of which are private with "door to door" service, and will run $150-200 per person for an all day tour with 3-4 stops. If you don't mind being the DD for the day it would be considerably cheaper to just rent a car and drive your wife around the valley. Most tasting rooms also typically have at least one or two beers on tap, so you can still have a pint while your wife samples the grape juice. As for your other question, getting from Alberta to downtown or the eastside hotspots is roughly 20 minutes by car, or 30-40 minutes using busses and/or MAX trains. The city is fairly compact, and between mass transit and Uber there's almost no real reason to drive because most of the good beer bars and breweries are within a 5 mile radius of the city center. We also have Car2Go, which costs about $15/hour, and can be a great alternative to renting a car if you want to hit something that's off the beaten path and only need a car for an hour or two. The Visiting Portland thread should have you covered on "good restaurants and bars", but if you're looking for particular types of cuisine let us know and we can provide specific recommendations.
Perhaps you're referring to tasting rooms in PDX? Most tasting rooms in the Valley typically do not have one or two beers on tap (the Ponzi tasting room is the only place that comes readily to mind that also has a few beers on tap, though there may be one or two others). Also, unless the OP just wants to wander around the valley stopping at various wineries that happen to be open, it would probably be a good idea to do some online research in advance. Many tasting rooms have fairly limited hours, even in the summer time, and almost every place charges some sort of tasting fee (if that matters at all). Just my two cents, but rather than dropping by a couple different winery tasting rooms (either in town or out in the valley), maybe visit a place like Oregon Wines on Broadway instead? OWOB is a downtown wine bar, and they typically have around 30 or 40 different pinot noirs available to sample (by the sample glass, flight or full size glass). They also usually have around a half dozen Washington reds (cabs, merlot blends, Syrah, temperanillo, etc.), and then 5 or 6 whites in the cold box (couple of chards, sauvignon blanc, pinot gris, Riesling and the like). Price point varies, as they carry pinots ranging from $20 to $100 a bottle. They don't have anything on tap, but they typically have a few different bottles of beer available (chimay and the like). It's also just a couple of blocks from Bailey's, so conceivably, you could drop the wife at OWOB and then walk 5 minutes down the street to drink beer at one of the better beer bars in PDX. Not that I've ever done that sort of thing to the GF/fiancé, but it's a possibility.
I'm not much of a wine guy (sulphite sensitivty prevents it), so I've only been to a handful along and just off of 99 when Michele's family has been in town, but it seemed like every one we stopped at had at least one beer, usually a Heater Allen Pils or something. Ponzi's tasting room was definitely one of them, but we've also stopped at Sokol Blosser, Argyle, Rex Hill, and a few others over the years, and I could have sworn most of them had a beer or two.
Well of course Patton Valley was pouring Upright's Native Son this past weekend (a collaborative beer between them and Upright), but that's unusual for them. We went to 8 or 9 tasting rooms otherwise, and none of them had a beer on tap. Frankly, I wish more winery tasting rooms did have a beer or two on tap. Much as I like a good pinot gris, syrah, pinot noir or chard, sometimes it would be nice to have a glass of Heater Allen Pils to clean the palate after a long day of wine tasting.
As a former resident of that neighborhood, I can say it's a great location to stay. Not the closest location to a concentration of beer spots, but as @maltmaster420 mentioned, getting around is super easy in PDX.
