Portland, Or trip

Holy Lurker! My wife and I are preparing for a trip to WA state. We will do a day trip to Portland, Or and i am wondering if anyone has had experience with touring any of the Microbreweries, tap houses, pubs, ect or other must see attractions? I know there are a lot, just wondering if any are must see.

Thanks

The northwest is a great place for microbreweries, as I am sure you know. While Portland and Seattle are both meccas for microbrew, the awesome new trend these days in both cities (though Portland is way ahead) is micro distilleries. If you are interested in such things, definitely check out Distillery Row

As for breweries and beer houses, here are a few of my favorites:

Portland:

• Rouge Pub (everyone loves or at least respects Rougue brewing)
• Bridgeport Brewing
• Any of the McMenamins establishments around Oregon are worth visting. "Kennedy School" is in Portland, very cool spot to stay of just visit.

Seattle:

• Naked City Taphouse (best beer house in the city - which is saying something, owned by a HBT.com regular)
• Elysian Brewing
• Georgetown Brewing
• so many others..

I'd remove Mcminemin's from the lot. The beers are sad.

My favorites in no particular order:

Coalition Brewing
Lucky Labrador
New Old Lompoc


Pubs:
Horse Brass

Yeah good call actually, their beers are fair at best. The atmosphere of the Kennedy school is super cool though for people visiting Portland.

I just got back from a Portland trip. I would recommend DeSchutes in Portland. If you are flying into the Portland airport, I thought Laurelwood in the airport had some nice beers. If you can swing over to Vancouver, Salmon Creek Brewpub is good. A very nice sampler, good food, and while we were there, a old guy sat in the corner and play folk and blues on an acoustic guitar. I was only there three days and didn't get to near enough places. I didn't care for McMenamins (pretty routine) or the Tugboat in Portland. I will go back and hit Rogue next time.

You'll get lots of good recommendations. I recommend hitting Walking Man in Stevenson, WA on the way in or out (serve food, call or check the website, they are closed Sunday and I think Monday as of 4 years ago when I moved away from Portland).

For Portland. I'll focus on stuff that is harder to get outside of Portland, hence no Rogue or Deschutes.

Brewery/Brewpubs
Hopworks
Cascade Barrel House
Laurelwood
Hair of the Dog

Bars
Horse Brass (This is the old school Portland beer bar, I couldn't stand it when I lived there most of the time because the smoking was heavy, now post smoking ban it gets the top spot for me)
Green Dragon (does have a small brewery but mostly guest taps, they have 20ish separate Rogue taps since Rogue bought this place, so skip Rogue Public House and go here)
Saravesa
Higgins (sit in the bar unless you want a very nice Northwest Cuisine meal, but that usually requires a reservation - this place was a beer bar before anyone ever heard of a beer bar. They have employed a full time beer person for around 20 years I think. The best bar food perhaps ever. Get the house charcuterie plate and the nuts).

Bottle Shops
Belmont Station (lots of good options but this is the oldest and best. Has an attached cafe with about 10 well chosen taps)
Fred Meyer on Hawthorne (worth it just to see that a place like this exists. A seemingly endless wall of refrigerated beer in a Kroger owned store. nearly as good of a selection as the dedicated bottle shops).

@ misplaced canuck:

Going to portland in may and rented the loft directly above Coalition Brewing looks like a decent spot. Glad to see you like it!

If you like sour beer, cascade barrel house is a must. Green dragon is another good place.

fall-line said:

Seattle:

• Naked City Taphouse (best beer house in the city - which is saying something, owned by a HBT.com regular)
• Elysian Brewing
• Georgetown Brewing
  [*]so many others..

Click to expand...

I agree with the rest (except never been to georgetown brewing) and I especially agree with the last line... Whereabouts in Washington will you be heading?