Beer City Portland

Last week I had the pleasure of visiting one of the great beer cities in the country, Portland. With several great craft breweries in the region, great hop-growing regions in the surrounding area, and a population thirsty for great beer, Portland has very high cred in beer circles. So, needless to say I I was looking forward to this visit for the opportunity to sample some great beers that weren't available in my region.

But this was a family vacation, so though my wife was very accommodating in terms of where we ate and letting me go out to get beer, I couldn't make the entire trip about beer (and books--yay Powell's). Still, I did have an opportunity to get a sampling of what makes Portland a great beer city.

I visited two different breweries in Portland, Bridgeport and Deschutes' Portland mini brewpub. As far as the atmosphere and food, I'd have to give the advantage to Deschutes. It was just a really friendly place to sit down and eat a great burger, followed up with an ice cream sandwich featuring their Black Butte Porter. Bridgeport's dining area seemed like it was just a bunch of chairs & tables crowded into a big empty room. I had a very unusual brat plate at Bridgeport, which combined the beer-flavored brats with cooked cabbage, cheese & spaetzle, and apple chutney. Actually really pretty good, but a bit too rich and subtle for combining with beers.

I had two beers at each place. At Deschutes I had the Bond Street Bachelor's Bitter, because it was labeled a "local favorite" that wasn't generally available at my liquor store. This was an okay ESB, but not anything too special. I then followed it up with the Inverted Pale, a combination of the hop profile of their Inversion IPA with their Mirror Pond Pale Ale. This seems like a noble experiment, and a great idea for a pub exclusive, but not altogether a success to me. To me, the Mirror Pond malts kind of blurred and muddled the clear, fresh hoppiness I like about the Inversion IPA.

At Bridgeport, I had the Highland Ambush because it was a seasonal and a Scottish ale, which can be very tasty (for example Claymore and Naughty Scot). This one was kind of in the middle of the style. More successful was their Kingpin. A very pretty color, pretty good fragrance and fairly tasty. I'd drink it again.

But what really makes Portland a great city for beer drinkers is the easy access to high quality beers. Because their liquor laws are different, grocery stores and convenience stores can stock full-strength beers and they take full advantage of this by representing a surprising diversity of local and regional beers. The corner convenience store had dozens of bombers in addition to a full selection of craft beer six packs. And Safeway puts its beers in an endcap cooler right inside the door. We just walked by it, but at a rough glance, I'd say they had at least 50 different bombers on sale. At Safeway!

So, overall, I've got to say that I'm impressed with Portland's credentials as a leading beer city.