Portland's Best Breweries (2022)
In Portland, there’s an old axiom that summer doesn’t start until after the 4th of July. So just in time for the sunny season, here is my most popular (and controversial) feature of the year: the city’s best breweries. My guiding light each year is to find the breweries doing the best work right now—no legacy breweries grandfathered in based on reputation. This feature was originally inspired by the myriad inquiries I received each year from visitors, and that’s still its main function. But with so many breweries and so few days in the year, I hope even locals will find it useful.
For 2022 I’ve switched things up a bit. In past years I’ve tried to curate a list of ten breweries but looked for diversity among them, recognizing that not everyone likes the same kind of beer. This year I’ve made the recommendations explicit by dividing them into different categories by beer type. If you like a particular kind of beer, I’ve got 2-4 breweries you should check out. Of course, most breweries make a lot of beer across styles, but most lean in a particular direction or are known for certain things. I thought dividing them by category would not only help you home in on the beers you like, but give you a sense of how the breweries position themselves.
How I Select the Breweries
This is a list of best breweries, not best food or brewery experiences—I’m solely evaluating the quality of the beer. Trying to assess quality is challenging, and I rely on a few metrics. I consider a brewery’s best beer(s), and if they make a city, state, or nationally-recognized classic, that’s a big deal. But I also look at the whole lineup. How many of the beers are really good? How many are below-average? I do consider awards, and I particularly look at the Oregon Beer Awards and GABF. If a brewery doesn’t win them, that’s not necessarily a demerit (some breweries just don’t enter competitions), but it’s hard to overlook a brewery that continues to win buckets of medals in blind tasting competitions with their peers. I look for breweries with strong identities, who make beers that are easily identifiable. Finally, I look for breweries who demonstrate subtlety and mastery, who have an element of “cræft” in their beer. I base this judgment on regular visits to breweries, a process that picks up in frequency the closer I get to releasing the list. Any such list is going to be impressionistic and none will look the same, but I don’t take this lightly and do apply some standards as I go along.
A Note on the Listings
Most of the breweries listed below have multiple locations—and some even have mini-chains. I have listed each brewery’s main location or, in one case, its most central. I also include a link to each brewery’s website, which contains open hours, menu info, and alternate locations. Each category is listed in alphabetical order. Photos come from the breweries’ social media or were taken by me.
All right, on to the breweries!
Hops
Breweries have been making IPAs since the 1980s in Portland, and it’s embedded even more deeply in our culture than most places. A few breweries stand out as specialists, however. If you want to see the full range of what Portlanders are making, these breweries will give you a great sense. They’re not the only ones, either: Culmination, Ecliptic, and Old Town could be (and have been in past years) on this list for their IPA game. Many of the breweries in other categories also make fantastic IPAs—but these breweries focus on hoppy ales and do them especially well.
Breakside
Over the decades, different breweries have enjoyed the title of “favorite brewery” by locals, and the reigning champion is Breakside. If you want to understand what makes a classic Pacific Northwest IPA, it’s the first place to stop. The brewery has eight beers in their core line, and six are IPAs. Only one is hazy. The co-flagships, Wanderlust and IPA (no brand name), are quintessential Oregon IPAs. They are both densely aromatic, heady-smelling beers, but find a balance point between citrusy-juicy flavors and a firm dose of hop bitterness. The brewery makes dozens of hoppy beers a year, and they explore every corner of hops’ potential—but eventually, it seems like the lessons are driven back into perfecting that Oregon thing exemplified by the flagships. The brewery does a lot of other stuff, as well, including an overlooked barrel program and quite a few wonderful lagers. The brewery has six locations, but try Slabtown at 1570 NW 22nd. Website.
Great Notion
On the other end of the spectrum is Great Notion, which is the one brewery in town that really focuses on hazy IPAs. The brewery’s approach harnesses a familiar formula popular among the Untappd crowd; in addition to hazies, they do pastry stouts and smoothie sours. The IPAs are worth seeking out, though, because while the brewery might look a bit like Other Half and Trillium, the IPAs have a Northwest stamp. Beers like Juice Jr. and Ripe are classic hazies, with tons of aroma and fruitiness, but also a characteristic citrus note and decent bitterness. The milkshake IPAs are sweet, but they’re balanced for the style. And if you find yourself in the mood for muffin or pancake-flavored beer, this is the place to go—they really do these styles well. Two Portland locations, with a third on the way. Main brewery & taproom: 2444 NW 28th Ave. Website
Ruse
The definition of “ruse” is a deception, and in one subtle way, it’s an apt title for Ruse Brewing. The brewery, in a fairly central but industrial pocket of Southeast Portland, is known for IPAs, and most of the buzz centers around their hazies. Yet they shine most with their standard IPAs, which seem to get a lot less attention. Take Translator, which I think is as close to a flagship as Ruse gets. It’s a straightforward Citra-and-Mosaic IPA, but wonderfully balanced and smooth. There’s a low rumble of bitterness under the hood, but you don’t notice it until halfway through the glass, and then only to appreciate it. I’d put it in my top five favorite Portland IPAs. The last few visits, I’ve always been more struck by the unadorned IPAs and pales, which have a similar elegance and approachability. Two locations. Main brewery and taproom at 4784 SE 17th. Website
Threshold
Many of the breweries on this list have been around awhile, and have impressive brewing teams. Threshold is the tiny Mom and Pop operation of Sara and Jarek Szymanski founded just before Covid hit in 2019. Jarek does the brewing, and he has wide-ranging interests. He’s a Polish immigrant, and his Central European lagers are fun (look for Radegast), but he really shines with his IPAs. There’s no regular line-up, but his hazies are wonderfully expressive and fun. He experiments with hops, so one may be sticky with tropical fruits, while another might have some piney underbrush. A recent beer called Green Prophesies had a fruit-cocktail and melon quality and was one of the best hazies I’ve had in recent memory. Ask the server what’s good and prepare for an adventure. Brewery and taproom is located at 403 SE 79th in Montavilla. Website
Lagers
More than seven thousand acres of hops grow an hour south of Portland, so it’s no surprise hoppy ales have been the region’s fave for thirty years. One thing people don’t realize is that Portland may also be the best place in the country to find a lager. Most breweries have one in their core line-up, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a taproom that doesn’t offer at least one. Most will have several. Portland has a few breweries that focus on lagers, and one, Rosenstadt, that would be on this list if it had its own taproom or pub. If you want a good lager, you have a lot of choices. Below are your three best bets.
Von Ebert
Last year, Von Ebert managed to win the GABF and Oregon Beer Award gold medals for American IPA for Volatile Substance—so naturally I’m putting them in the lager category. There’s a method to my insanity. When Von Ebert opened a few years back, lagers and wild ales were a special focus. They wanted to distance themselves thematically from the brewery’s previous incarnation as a satellite Fat Head’s, an IPA brewery. Despite the fact that their IPAs keep winning awards, Von Ebert’s devotion to lagers makes them stand out. At any given time they’ll have a few on tap (as I write this, they’re pouring five (a 3.8% light lager, a rauchbier, a grodziskie, a Japanese lager, and their regular pils). Start with the pilsner, which is a perfect little gem, all soft, grainy malts, delicately spiced hopping, and crispness. They’re doing a regular project of “modern” pilsners as well, exploring the way different hops work on a pilsner base. (You might consider an IPA while you’re there, as well.) Two locations; main brewery and taproom is downtown at 131 NW 13th. Website
Wayfinder
By now you have seen the phrase “cold IPA” on a taplist somewhere. Thank (or blame) Wayfinder’s head brewer Kevin Davey for that—this is the brewery where it was born. While cold IPAs are technically a lager, go to Wayfinder for Davey’s more classic versions. Cold IPA came in part from Davey’s devotion to tradition and what he learned making Czech and German-style lagers. Some he decocts, for others he creates a cereal mash (hence cold IPA), and in all you will find very clean, crisp, and usually hoppy interpretations. Of special note are CZAF, the Czech pilsner, Party Time, the German pils, Hell, the helles, and Hidden Hand, a Czech dark lager. Kevin obviously loves hops and his IPAs (warm and cold) are great. But I’d encourage you to drink all the standard lagers first. Pub (with fantastic patio) and brewery are at 304 SE 2nd. Website
Zoiglhaus
Of all Portland’s best breweries, remote Zoiglhaus, in the deep Southeast of Lents, is most often overlooked. Berlin-trained brewer Alan Taylor has a wall full of medals (he’s especially adept at fresh-hopped German beer styles), and has one of the best pilsners in the country. It’s a rare, rustic North German style—that means stiff bitterness that on the first sip seems overbalanced, but ultimately becomes the thing that draws you to order multiple pints. It’s snappy but surprisingly drinkable. Taylor also releases an annual pre-2000 Berliner weisse, aged in the old way on Brettanomyces Taylor harvested from old bottles. Only a few breweries in the world even attempt beers like this anymore. There’s always something new and unusual amid a slate of classic offerings and a few IPAs (Taylor’s a native Oregonian and loves hops as much as anyone). Brewery and expansive pub located at 5716 SE 92nd. Website
Wild and Oak-Aged
No breweries in Portland only make barrel-aged wild ales, though a couple have had a focus on them from the start. Oregon has a surprisingly strong stable of wild-ale breweries, and in recent years have dominated awards ceremonies with them. There’s a reason. Breweries like the two below have sophisticated approaches of using mixed fermentation (regular ale ferments followed by additions of bacteria and wild yeast), deft use of fruit and spices, and skillful hands blending different barrels and beers. Note that I didn’t create a special category for simple sours made solely with lactobacillus, though if you’re looking for those, put Ex Novo and Ecliptic on your list.
Little Beast
Veteran brewer Charles Porter started Little Beast after a stint as co-founding head brewer of Logsdon Farmhouse Ales, a pioneer in wild brewing. When Porter and his wife Brenda Crow founded the brewery, he was laser-focused on barrel-aged wild ales, especially fruited ones. Beers like Black Cap (raspberries), Dream State (strawberries), and Tree Spirit (cherries) have become classics in the five years since Little Beast debuted. With the arrival of the pub on Division Street a couple years later, Charles started to broaden the range, which now includes excellent lagers and IPAs. Yet as good as those beers are (and Little Beast has even won awards for IPA, amazingly), the real reason to visit is tasting these excellent wild ales, fruited, hopped, or unadorned. Two sites; the Portland pub is at 3412 SE Division. Website
Upright
It’s hard to pigeonhole Upright. Named for bassist Charles Mingus, the great jazz improvisational genius, Upright is itself eclectic. The flagship is a stiffly-hopped German pils, but when the brewery launched 13 years ago, founder Alex Ganum explored Belgian styles and saisons. Lately he’s gotten into cask ale—and does them very well. He even makes wonderful and slightly offbeat IPAs. If there has been a consistent through-line, though, it’s been his elegant, approachable mixed-fermentation beers. One of the best ways to get a sense of these, which come and go over the years, is Pathways, a mixed-fermentation blended saison. It possesses the accomplishment of a gueuze, yet is as easy to drink as any IPA (and just as juicy—though in a different manner). Of course, any visit should include sampling of the brewery’s other offerings as well. I’d even recommend the IPAs! The brewery and sunwashed taproom is at 240 NE Broadway. Website
Generalists
Modern breweries all make a range of beers, but most lean in one direction or another. A few, by chance or design, prefer not to commit. They like many styles of beer from many traditions, and they do them well. These breweries are great for mixed crowds who have diverse tastes—every person in a party should find something interesting when they visit one of these places.
Baerlic
If you were seeking a poster child for what a generalist brewery is, look no further than Baerlic. It was one of the rare breweries that launched with just a taproom and no restaurant in 2014 (since changed), and had a scrappy feel in its early days. Things came into focus maybe five years ago, and the brewery is now widely regarded as one of the best. But the best at what? I know people who love the IPAs so much they’re not really aware Baerlic makes anything else—and Punk Rock Time is a classic NW example. But I find myself ordering their lagers more often—and they have these in abundance. (For example, as I write this they’re pouring a rare polotmavy—a Czech amber lager.) Chill, a helles, is an absolute banger and one of my favorite beers full stop. But it doesn’t stop there. Baerlic also dabbles in British styles, and has a regular Scottish ale, and in the winter they can be relied upon to offer a nice stout or two. They even do wild ales and barrel-aged stouts. Anyone with a remote interest in beer is sure to find something tasty. Three locations; the original pub and pizza parlor is at 2239 SE 11th. Website
Ex Novo
This little North Portland brewpub launched in 2014 with both modest and ambitious goals. On the modest end was creating a cozy community watering hole. Their bigger ambition was creating a better world, and founder Joel Gregory set things up as a nonprofit—one of the first in the US. Along the way, they achieved a third goal—quietly making some of the city’s best and most consistent beers. Ex Novo has always been focused on pub-strength offerings, and hasn’t spent a huge amount of energy on IPAs. They still do unfashionable styles like English and Belgian ales. Several years back, they got into lagers and they are now a major focus. Yet they also do some of the city’s best sours—not smoothie sours or screamingly tart beers, but lovely little ales that perfectly quench a thirst on a hot day. They just seem to go about doing everything well, even if they stand outside some of the brighter spotlights. Two locations; the brewery and pub are at 2326 N. Flint. Website
Gigantic
Most people would probably peg Gigantic as a hop house, and that’s not entirely wrong. When veteran brewers Ben Love and Van Havig founded the brewery a decade ago, they had one full-time beer: an IPA. Go to one of their two (soon to be three) taprooms, and you’ll find a lot of IPAs. Yet it’s impossible to overlook their commitment to classics like kölsch and stout, two beers in their regular line. Indeed, their DNA had less to do with that IPA when they hatched the Gigantic business model and more with variety. For years they never made the same beer twice—back before that was a thing. That DNA is still evident. Their Project Pilsner has been one of the most interesting series in town; they hop a typical pilsner with an interesting, unusual hop. And their long interest in cask ale will get a boost when the new pub opens with two engines. And if none of that satisfies, you can always fall back on the IPAs, which run the gamut from classic Portland to hazy. Two locations; the original brewery and Champagne Lounge is at 5224 SE 26th. Website
Traditionalists
Most of the attention in the beer industry is focused on “innovation” and new styles. Yet a large number of people just want a classic beer-flavored beer. We used to call these drinkers “old people,” but in reality, many young people who weren’t around thirty years ago enjoy a nice amber ale or a cask mild without recognizing how uncool some people think these beers are. A surprising number of breweries ply these waters with verve: Assembly, Hammer and Stitch, Montavilla, and Steeplejack are great breweries. If you’re near any of them, definitely pop in.
Away Days
When this tiny outfit came online as a way of servicing their adjacent Toffee Club pub, the results were promising but uneven. It was founded by two British ex-pats who envisioned proper English-style pub ale, some of it on cask. These styles of beers are, against all odds, very hard for Americans, who typically send them into an uncanny valley of just-not-quite-right. Fortunately, American brewer Marshall Kunz used instinct (he’s never been to the UK) to figure things out. Now his beers, especially the cask stuff, are spot on. He makes classics, including bitters and a mild, but also edged into American-hopped versions that are very similar to the direction those in the UK have themselves been heading. You’ll see some old duffers when you visit (I might be one of them), but the crowd is mostly young, drawn to a white-walled, color-splashed taproom that looks more like an ice cream parlor than brewery. The taproom is around the corner from Toffee Club at 1516 SE 10th. Website
Level
When a trio of industry veterans founded their brewery way out past the airport, they had a vision evident in the name. They sought balance and drinkability and their first lineup, with a a saison and pilsner they still brew, reflected that. Over time they built up their hoppy cred, but never at the expense of characterful little lagers, Belgian ales, and British ales of modest strength, which continue to light up their taplists. Their newest location on Sandy Blvd (puckishly named Level 3) is the best place to sample these. That site has twenty taps and a cask engine and as I write this has a (quite typical) lineup including three lagers, an ESB, English golden ale and mild, a saison, and American amber ale, a Scottish ale, an American stout, and a mixed-fermentation wild ale. They not only offer a large menu of traditional ales, but a diverse one as well. Even their hoppy beers tend toward the modestly-strengthened and balanced, relatively speaking. Three locations, but the most central is the Level 3 taproom at 1447 NE Sandy. Website
Transplants
Since the first years of craft brewing, Portland has been the state’s focal point (with apologies to every outraged Bend resident reading this). Strangely, it took decades before breweries elsewhere started planting their flag in the city. After Deschutes broke the ice in 2008 with their gorgeous, vast Pearl District beer hall, others followed. Below are three of the best, and could easily be included in the list above, were they native Portland breweries.
10 Barrel (hops). Outside Oregon, people may think of 10 Barrel as an AB InBev brand as bland as its name. Locals have a different view. The Bend/Portland hydra win more medals than just about anyone, and Portland’s brewmaster, Whitney Burnside, is regarded as one of the best in the biz. In Portland, you’ll find more hoppy beers than the sours 10B sells nationally. She also does wonderful lagers and delicate, unexpected culinary-inspired beers. Plus, the rooftop bar at the Pearl brewery is possibly the best place to drink a pint in the city. Brewery and restaurant is at 1411 NW Flanders. Website
Chuckanut (lagers). For more than a decade, we couldn’t get the award-winning lagers from Bellingham-born Chuckanut south of the Columbia River, and when they did it was a trickle. Last year we received a special gift in the form of a utilitarian taproom in Southeast Portland, known affectionately as “P. Nut.” Now we get a dozen taps pouring classics (Pilsner, Kolsch, Dunkel) and fun one-offs like smoked Marzen and Grodziskie. In the Northwest, Chuckanut is a revered brewery that helped train folks like Kevin Davey (Wayfinder) and Josh Pfriem. We’re delighted to have them. The taproom is just off Division on 920 SE Caruthers. Website
Deschutes (generalists). After an unblemished 30-year run, Oregon’s biggest brewery finally ran on hard times a few years back. Despite some marketing and branding missteps, however, Bend-born Deschutes continued to plug along making some of the state’s best beers. Honestly, the best place to get a pint isn’t in Bend, though, it’s on NW 11th in the Pearl District. The brewers who cycle through the 10-barrel system there have consistently made more interesting, characterful, and often daring beer than the main brewery back home. You’ll find the classics plus a great line of lagers, specialty beers, barrel-aged stuff, and always something unexpected. Brewery and restaurant are at 210 NW 11th. Website
Happy drinking, everyone!