Portland Brewery Week-Day 1

During the course of the next five days, we’ll be featuring a different Portland brewery each day. Portland is known for its craft beer scene, and it remains arguably one of the best cities for craft beer in the country. During a recent trip we were able to visit several of Portland’s breweries, so we’ve devoted a whole week to talking about them.

Deschutes Brewery is well-known throughout the craft beer world, as they produce good products consistently, and they distribute over a wide swathe of the country. They have expanded in recent years and, because of this, have several tasting rooms. We visited their pub location in Portland, a beautiful restaurant featuring 26 taps devoted to Deschutes beer. The pub is located in a lovely brick building with large, paned windows along the facade, letting in lots of light and creating a very open and airy atmosphere. Inside, the decor is rustic, but elegant, with lots of wood–some part of the old industrial building and some added for the decor, including some beautifully carved pieces–a stone fireplace, and warm colors.

Deschutes offers both food and drinks. Their food menu features standard pub food, but with a rustic, artisan twist. For example, they have an elk burger and garlic fries. Deschutes also offers several menu items made with their beer, providing a fun, different, and tasty way to experience their beer. We visited rather early, but we still enjoyed a small plate of their garlic fries, which were delicious–so delicious, we wished we had gotten a second order. We also had a tasting flight. The pub offers several of Deschutes’s standard beers, but the majority of the taps are hard-to-find or tasting room exclusive beers. We thought it a real treat to try some of these rare beers and enjoyed each one that we had, finding a limited lager, IPA, and a version of their Flanders oud bruin to be our favorites.

We have always been a fan of Deschutes, and our visit to their Portland pub only reaffirmed those feelings. This is a great brewery and well-worth a visit.