Widmer Brothers Brewery in the industrial district of Portland’s east side is almost exactly how you’d imagine an old, semi-large scale brewery to look: housed in an 1890 red brick building and surrounded by train tracks and the waterfront, it’s working-class and old-school-awesome in every way.
The “Gasthaus” is the eatery and tasting room adjacent to the facility itself and serves excellent pub fare and several taproom-only beers. I had a Drifter first — simply because it’s called Drifter beer and it always shows up when I google this very website. Unfortunately, although it is our virtual namessake it isn’t my thing. A bit too bitter for my liking, but I suspect it’s wildly popular with hop-heads. Next up was a honey-ginger-lemon lager that knocked it out of the park. Of the ginger infused beers I’ve had (Crabtree’s Ginger Bee and Left Hand’s Good Juju) this is my favorite. The ginger flavor is strong, but not overbearing, and the beer tastes closer to traditional non-alcoholic ginger ale than you would ever imagine (in a good way). The lemon gives it a wonderful balance to counter the ginger bite, making it an extremely easy-drinking and light summer brew.
Just a few blocks away was the charming and ultra-comfortable Amnesia Brewery in the Mississippi neighborhood, a hipster-friendly historic area of Portland (who’d have thought a Portland neighborhood could be hipster-friendly?). With a taproom sporting huge open bay doors and a fabulous outdoor beer garden (complete with grill), Amnesia is the ideal summer hangout (although I suspect it’s a tad less festive in the long, rainy winters).
We were greeted inside by the radio playing Edith Massey’s rendition of “Big Girls Don’t Cry”. For those unaware, Edith was an elderly, obese woman with about 3 teeth in her head that was a regular in early John Water’s films. Suffice to say, someone at the bar had a quirky taste in music that brought a whole new dimension to the already unique feel of the pub.
Our beer was tasty, but for the life of me I can’t recall what I had. Our 5th brewery in 24 hours was taking it’s toll on my brain. Nonethess, I know it was good and coupled well with the outstanding atmosphere. Hell, the place is called “Amnesia”. Perhaps there’s something going on beneath the surface of its innocent facade…
The last stop of the night (after a late afternoon nap) was at the Raccoon Lodge/Cascade Brewery. We were now way out on the west side suburbs by this point so we chose the Raccoon based simply on account of it being the only open brewery on a Sunday night on that end of town. I did some quick investigating online and discovered an unsettling number of poor reviews on Yelp, but as it was our only available option we took our chances.
Surprise! The internet is full of angry, stupid people who love to bitch about stuff they don’t understand. The service at the Raccoon Lodge was positively spectacular and the beers were the best I’ve had yet in the entire Portland area, and rank highly amongst the best I’ve ever consumed.
I could easily guess why people have a hard time with this place: it serves a lot of sour beers and takes wild chances on intense flavors. Sour beers are a turn-off to most casual beer drinkers (and many seasoned ones). Furthermore, the Raccoon served strange hybrids of saisons/rauchbiers/krieks. Apparently, people loathe adventure in flavor and want just another IPA or something.
The Honey-Ginger-Lime sour beer I tried first was revelatory. Every flavor stood out with none overpowering the other. The tartness of the beer was quite intense, but in the best of ways, like a super-sour gumball or something. To be honest, I’d not been a fan of sours until this one changed me for good. I think I have a new obsession…
I followed up these 12 ounces of heaven with an even better brew — a rauchbier-style smoked saison. Holy shit. As a rauchbier fanatic I was floored. This could have been the smokiest beer yet — but the saison style balanced out the intensity perfectly. None of the expected bitter aftertaste was present. This thing was as smooth and easy-drinking as a lager. Fucking transcendant.
So, at this time I’d like to take a moment to tell the Yelp “critics” to kindly go set themselves on fire. You morons are chasing unsuspecting patrons away from one of the finest brewpubs in all of Oregon. Our service was impeccable and our bartender, Jake chatted us up for a good 10 minutes before we left, filling us in on all manner of beer-related info. I couldn’t have been more satisfied with my experience and will make it a personal mission to spread the word on the awesomeness of this place.
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