Portland, Oregon beercation

[tikitatt]

My brother in law and I are heading out to Portland, Oregon mid-April and would like any recommendations on which breweries to hit and which to skip. Also, I will need places to find some good grub to eat. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.


John

[bwarbiany]

I'd look through this guy's archives. I seem to remember him offering some walkable Portland brewery tour guides a while back:

http://beervana.blogspot.com/

[StarRaptor]

My buddy just asked for a very similar recommendation. Here's what I told him

Cascade is a must
Hair of the Dog
Deschutes
Belmont Station
Bailey's Tap Room

The first 3 are breweries the other 2 are beer bars

[tikitatt]

Cool, thanks for the heads up.

I'd look through this guy's archives. I seem to remember him offering some walkable Portland brewery tour guides a while back:

http://beervana.blogspot.com/

[tikitatt]

Awesome, they are now on the list.

My buddy just asked for a very similar recommendation. Here's what I told him

Cascade is a must
Hair of the Dog
Deschutes
Belmont Station
Bailey's Tap Room

The first 3 are breweries the other 2 are beer bars

[ocluke]

My buddy just asked for a very similar recommendation. Here's what I told him

Cascade is a must
Hair of the Dog
Deschutes
Belmont Station
Bailey's Tap Room

The first 3 are breweries the other 2 are beer bars

Agreed on all of the places above.

Breweries:
Cascade - definitely go here if you appreciate sour beers and/or fruit beers. If you don't, go here anyway and maybe you'll learn a new appreciation for them? They have non-sour beers as well. Cascade taps an experimental beer every Friday, so look at their calendar or call to see what's going on. Not the best food in the world by Portland standards, but decent. If Preston or Ron are around, talk to them. Maybe you can get a tour of the barrel room.
Upright Brewing - They have very limited hours (4:30-9pm Fri, 1-6pm Sat/Sun) and are a small production brewery, but a top find if you can get in. Fantastic saisons and barrel-aged stuff. Definitely go if your schedule permits.
Breakside Brewery - This is a small up-and-coming brewery in Portland. They have good beers and great food. The brewer is very knowledgeable and does a lot of tweaking with beer styles and ingredients.
Deschutes Brewery - Excellent beer/excellent food. Start with a 6-beer taster flight (well, I guess I do that everywhere). I recommend focusing on the experimental beers because you can get most of their production beers around here. Deschutes in Bend is better than the Portland version, but it would be a good 3 hour drive for you to get there
Hair of the Dog - They do a lot of high ABV stuff, but also have a good IPA or two up their sleeve. The only food I've had at HOTD is the Mac & Cheese. It was good.
Rogue - They have a lot of beers on tap from their 3 or more breweries.

Beer Bars:
I agree with the options above.
Bailey's Tap Room - I like ending my nights in Portland here. Mostly because I like to stay in the Pearl District, and if need be I can walk back to my hotel. They maintain a respectable tap list of local beers from breweries around Oregon, and the server is a good source of info for local beer. They get extra credit for having a cool, state-of-the-art beer board.
The Beer Mongers - This is more of a bottle shop than a beer bar, but they have about 8 beers on tap, and all are generally hard to get, top-rated beers. If you're taking bottles home with you, this is a good place to find all of those beers you won't be able to find back home.

Food:
Just do some Yelp and other searches for restaurants that do "Pacific Northwest cusine," which is the local style. Portland has an excellent food scene, so it's kind of hard to go wrong. Several breweries have great food (see above).

Coffee: (You didn't ask, but I'm still offering)
Coava - my absolute favorite coffee in Portland. I always buy bags of beans from this place to take home.
Stumptown - you can generally find a Stumptown near you in Portland, and they have great coffee.

Hotels:
Either of the two Kimpton hotels are highly recommended. I'm sure there are other great places to stay.

[tikitatt]

Damn, thanks for doing the research for me. We will be there during Easter break and look forward to destroying my liver.

My buddy just asked for a very similar recommendation. Here's what I told him

Cascade is a must
Hair of the Dog
Deschutes
Belmont Station
Bailey's Tap Room

The first 3 are breweries the other 2 are beer bars

Agreed on all of the places above.

Breweries:
Cascade - definitely go here if you appreciate sour beers and/or fruit beers. If you don't, go here anyway and maybe you'll learn a new appreciation for them? They have non-sour beers as well. Cascade taps an experimental beer every Friday, so look at their calendar or call to see what's going on. Not the best food in the world by Portland standards, but decent. If Preston or Ron are around, talk to them. Maybe you can get a tour of the barrel room.
Upright Brewing - They have very limited hours (4:30-9pm Fri, 1-6pm Sat/Sun) and are a small production brewery, but a top find if you can get in. Fantastic saisons and barrel-aged stuff. Definitely go if your schedule permits.
Breakside Brewery - This is a small up-and-coming brewery in Portland. They have good beers and great food. The brewer is very knowledgeable and does a lot of tweaking with beer styles and ingredients.
Deschutes Brewery - Excellent beer/excellent food. Start with a 6-beer taster flight (well, I guess I do that everywhere). I recommend focusing on the experimental beers because you can get most of their production beers around here. Deschutes in Bend is better than the Portland version, but it would be a good 3 hour drive for you to get there
Hair of the Dog - They do a lot of high ABV stuff, but also have a good IPA or two up their sleeve. The only food I've had at HOTD is the Mac & Cheese. It was good.
Rogue - They have a lot of beers on tap from their 3 or more breweries.

Beer Bars:
I agree with the options above.
Bailey's Tap Room - I like ending my nights in Portland here. Mostly because I like to stay in the Pearl District, and if need be I can walk back to my hotel. They maintain a respectable tap list of local beers from breweries around Oregon, and the server is a good source of info for local beer. They get extra credit for having a cool, state-of-the-art beer board.
The Beer Mongers - This is more of a bottle shop than a beer bar, but they have about 8 beers on tap, and all are generally hard to get, top-rated beers. If you're taking bottles home with you, this is a good place to find all of those beers you won't be able to find back home.

Food:
Just do some Yelp and other searches for restaurants that do "Pacific Northwest cusine," which is the local style. Portland has an excellent food scene, so it's kind of hard to go wrong. Several breweries have great food (see above).

Coffee: (You didn't ask, but I'm still offering)
Coava - my absolute favorite coffee in Portland. I always buy bags of beans from this place to take home.
Stumptown - you can generally find a Stumptown near you in Portland, and they have great coffee.

Hotels:
Either of the two Kimpton hotels are highly recommended. I'm sure there are other great places to stay.

[JonW]

A trip to Portland wouldn't be complete without a stop at Voodoo Donuts!

[ocluke]

A trip to Portland wouldn't be complete without a stop at Voodoo Donuts!

What's funny is that I almost put Voodoo in there.

[tikitatt]

We plan to hit Voodoo donuts a few times. Ha, ha!

A trip to Portland wouldn't be complete without a stop at Voodoo Donuts!

What's funny is that I almost put Voodoo in there.

[ocluke]

My buddy just asked for a very similar recommendation. Here's what I told him

Cascade is a must
Hair of the Dog
Deschutes
Belmont Station
Bailey's Tap Room

The first 3 are breweries the other 2 are beer bars

Agreed on all of the places above.

Breweries:
Cascade - definitely go here if you appreciate sour beers and/or fruit beers. If you don't, go here anyway and maybe you'll learn a new appreciation for them? They have non-sour beers as well. Cascade taps an experimental beer every Friday, so look at their calendar or call to see what's going on. Not the best food in the world by Portland standards, but decent. If Preston or Ron are around, talk to them. Maybe you can get a tour of the barrel room.
Upright Brewing - They have very limited hours (4:30-9pm Fri, 1-6pm Sat/Sun) and are a small production brewery, but a top find if you can get in. Fantastic saisons and barrel-aged stuff. Definitely go if your schedule permits.
Breakside Brewery - This is a small up-and-coming brewery in Portland. They have good beers and great food. The brewer is very knowledgeable and does a lot of tweaking with beer styles and ingredients.
Deschutes Brewery - Excellent beer/excellent food. Start with a 6-beer taster flight (well, I guess I do that everywhere). I recommend focusing on the experimental beers because you can get most of their production beers around here. Deschutes in Bend is better than the Portland version, but it would be a good 3 hour drive for you to get there
Hair of the Dog - They do a lot of high ABV stuff, but also have a good IPA or two up their sleeve. The only food I've had at HOTD is the Mac & Cheese. It was good.
Rogue - They have a lot of beers on tap from their 3 or more breweries.

Beer Bars:
I agree with the options above.
Bailey's Tap Room - I like ending my nights in Portland here. Mostly because I like to stay in the Pearl District, and if need be I can walk back to my hotel. They maintain a respectable tap list of local beers from breweries around Oregon, and the server is a good source of info for local beer. They get extra credit for having a cool, state-of-the-art beer board.
The Beer Mongers - This is more of a bottle shop than a beer bar, but they have about 8 beers on tap, and all are generally hard to get, top-rated beers. If you're taking bottles home with you, this is a good place to find all of those beers you won't be able to find back home.

Food:
Just do some Yelp and other searches for restaurants that do "Pacific Northwest cusine," which is the local style. Portland has an excellent food scene, so it's kind of hard to go wrong. Several breweries have great food (see above).

Coffee: (You didn't ask, but I'm still offering)
Coava - my absolute favorite coffee in Portland. I always buy bags of beans from this place to take home.
Stumptown - you can generally find a Stumptown near you in Portland, and they have great coffee.

Hotels:
Either of the two Kimpton hotels are highly recommended. I'm sure there are other great places to stay.

I just got back from another Portland trip and would like to add a couple of new ones to the list:
Commons Brewing is a new small brewery with excellent beers. They have very limited weekend hours, but it's a top find for me.
Burnside Brewing (not to be confused with Breakside) is a nice brew pub with good food and decent beer. Not the most epic beers in the world, but the food is pretty good and the atmosphere is nice.