The food and beer are reliable, nothing exceptional, but solid. (Except, of course, when it's not.) Fish and chips are one of the better options.

More pictures of Amnesia Brewing

Looking out upon Mississippi Street, there's some good people watching. It's an unpretentious place to sit and have a beer. They have seven taps plus cider, with their Desolation IPA, Dusty Trail Pale, Slow Train Porter, and the ESB usually on. When we visited, they also had two seasonals (Copacetic IPA and Belgian Dubbel Whammy), and Caldera Pils filling out the beer menu. Pints are generally $3.50, with 50 cents off during happy hour (4-6 Monday-Friday).

They also have some food, which is pricey and underwhelming. But they do all their cooking on the grill under the tent; in fact, the smoke and charcoal-starter fumes was so thick that I couldn't even drink my beer—which is pretty darn thick. Obviously, the tent is wheelchair accessible, but I'm not sure about the pub itself. And, there is table service, but it's a bit 420 affected.

Other press
• BarFly

"is now open. It is a non-smoking environment for adults to enjoy a nice Craft Brew and even some English style food. "

Haven't made it there yet—I'm interested to see what you all think.

more photos

Breakfast is served from 10-3 on the weekends. The menu is pretty straightforward: a handful of omelettes like the Super Protein (stuffed with bacon, ham, sausage and cheese), the Ham and Cheese (which is big chunks of ham in a cheese omelette) and the Green Eggs and Ham (a pesto version of the Ham and Cheese); a handful of scrambles; a breakfast burrito; egg, meat and carb combos; and a couple kid's options (leggo my Eggo!).

We've been there several times now, and it's a good honest, tasty breakfast. Two omelettes and a coffee rang in at $16. While the roasted potatoes aren't quite as good as Genie's, they're still pretty darn good, topped with raw garlic, parsley and parmesan. If you're familiar with Laurelwood's garlic fries, it's not quite that garlicky, but if you don't like (raw) garlicky potatoes, you probably won't like these.

Toast products come with little commercial jam tubs, but it's actually good.

It's a good, satisfying breakfast with the option of letting your children run free, or having a bit of the hair of the dog. Of course, if you're allergic to children, sit in the bar—or go somewhere else.

If you don't like kids, don't bother with this. Beer, some organic, a bar, and plenty of space and toys and other kids to distract your little ones while you suck down a cold one.

Dude, I just got the best festivus present ever! The New Old Lompoc project on N Failing, aka Failing Williams, aka 5Q, is open! They have all the Old Lompoc Brewery beers on tap, natch, including an insane five (5!) winter seasonals, as well as hard liquor. Two nitro thingees. They have this sophisticated space, not as self-consciously cool as Pix next door, but lovely in an astere, calm sort of way. They have—wait for it!—a garage door (thankfully not open this time of year). They have these crazy huge long booths which practically demand interaction, and appear to be built for beer lovers. And real adult food. The macaroni & cheese of the day yesterday was a rib-eye in a red wine-cream sauce over penne—a lovely stroganoff of sorts. The steak was delicious and a steal at $14, presented over the rich, creamy and thoroughly homemade mashed potatoes, and perfectly done veggies. Meatloaf, well damn, I loved that, too. They have a healthy list of appetizers, salads and sandwiches too, and the fries look great. No wi-fi yet. They'll start brewing in the spring, and distilling in the summer. Damn!

Regular house pints are $3.50. There's a happy hour, too.

Other Press:

• Like a breath of fresh air, the Fifth Quadrant beckons
  Liz Colie Gadberry, the Portland Tribune

Fancy this: it's Saturday afternoon. You go into MacTarnahan's Taproom, and while there are only a couple tables occupied, there is a Wait to be Seated sign. The beautiful porch overlooking industrial NW Portland appears closed in spite of it being a nice spring day. We are seated and given menus, listing all sorts of pretentious sounding food. We order some beer (an imperial pint is $3.50) and some fries ($4). They do have all their beers on tap, and the room is both airy and Germanic with wood and beer signs, and the taps at the bar are beautiful. The fries are very good.

• about the brewery and beer
• happy hour

Mash Tun is just a little brewpub, just a little off Alberta, behind Office. It has a nice little bar, a small room, and a nice covered patio which easily doubles the space. In addition to brewing a few house beers, they have a nice, concise selection of craft beers and imports, and they offer food: not the best food, but the sort of stuff that can prolong your drinking.

Now, brewpubs or taverns that offer undistinguished, inconsistent food isn't that unusual, of course—it sadly seems to be the law (with exceptions like Widmer). But how many of them offer vegan options next to their more meaty third-cousins? I can think of only a handful of places, but Mash Tun is one.

On tap, they have 2 house beers, 3 imports, and 7 craft beers. They also have a handful of things in bottles and cans (brother, clap your hands). None of this is terribly cheap: for imperial pints, the house ales are $4, craft beers are $4.25, and imports are $4.50, with non-tap options ranging from $2.25-$4.50.

I haven't been so crazy about their house beers, but they are very drinkable. The tap selections rotate, so there is always something good on. Last night, for example, there were 4 or 5 different craft beers that I would be very happy to drink. Nice!

In recent times, the place has changed up a little bit. You can still smoke at the bar, or outside, but you have to vacate outside by 10. The jukebox is still there. But the pool table has been replaced by table-tables. I don't know about the wi-fi, but I hope it's still there. We got there shortly before 6, and the place was pretty full.

The new food menu is about a month old, and made up of appetizers, a small collections of soups and salads, and pub grub (which means sandwiches). No more of their wildly erratic fish and chips. Appetizers range from $2.75-$7, with all of the usual deep fried subjects. Tots and fries can come cheesy if you like. There's also vegan red lentil puree & tempeh things, and nachos.

They offer house, caesar, spinach, and a roasted beet salad, a soup de jour, and a chili con carne, $2.95-$7. And for sandwiches ($7.50-$10), they have a burger, and a variety of other things that are served on rolls. Vegan options include a vegan burger & a BLATO (fakin-lettuce-avocado-tomato-onion with veganaise), and there's falafel and roasted eggplant for veggies.

We tried to order cheesy tots, but alas, no tots this evening. So we ordered a cheesesteak and a meatball sandwich, both with their hand-cut skinny fries. And both sandwiches were very edible. The cheesesteak had a nice balance of cheese to meat to cooked yellow onion, and came with a side of good, but not great marinara. The meatball sandwich was dosed in both marinara and melted cheese, but the meatballs were plentiful, tender and tasty. Unfortunately, neither of the rolls the sandwiches came on had been toasted, and the fries are soggy and greasy. Why do some taverns insist on hand-cut fries?

So. Nice patio, nice ever-changing selection of beers, and deep-fried appetizers rock... unless they're fries.

This mellow, unassuming brewpub has great beer, reasonable food, a rooved, heated back porch, and well, what else do you need? The pub interior is studiously geeky, including a pool table with the right number of balls -- just not the right combination. Did I mention great beer? Giant baskets of small fries for cheap?

Small and smokey, but with a devoted following. The outdoor patio in back is friendly to dogs.

A friend refers to the food here as unedible. Go for the beer, and remember that they have to serve food to serve alcohol.

We heard really good things about a Kobe beef burger served at both the Newport and Portland brewpubs, and so we went. Everything went wrong. The dining room was closed for a private party, which is usually the non-smoking space (so, there was no non-smoking space). The beer wasn't as good as other times. And, we went to order our Kobe beef burger ($10 without cheese, $12 with blue) and learned that you can only get blue cheese on the burger. Mind you, their normal burgers offer cheddar, swiss or blue, but order Kobe and you have any cheese as long as it's blue. (that has changed, btw)

So, we got the burgers. They came, perfectly round and flat, as if they had been frozen. They were cooked to order, and on an okay bun. Me, as a fan of blue cheese burgers, loved mine. My sweetheart, who had been denied his cheese of choice, was less happy.

Fries were good. Serving was hearty. But we both like Cafe Castagna's burger better, with its choice of cheese and incredible fries.

All of the brews here are brewed kosher and vegetarian—one of only six American all-kosher breweries.

In spite of being located in Industrial North Portland, Widmer is a popular joint. It's not unusual to have a half hour wait for a table at 4:20 on a Sunday, or 5:15 on a Thursday.

It's also a little tight. Claustrophobes beware. There are several steps to the entrance, a small area without any steps, and then steps to get anywhere else in the restaurant. Restrooms and the entrance are wheelchair accessible—if you don't mind going through the kitchen.

Mark and Lyn wrote this in 1997 and it still rings true:

Beneath the Fremont Bridge, along side Interstate Avenue, hunkers Widmer's Gasthouse. Featuring a variety of German themed entrees, sandwiches and appetizers, the place offers far better than average pub fare, and superb fresh beer, in a beautifully restored brick industrial building. Our party of four got out bloated and smiling, for a-bit-on-the-shy-side of $50.00, but we splurged. First, the negatives. Service was just so-so, which seemed odd on a pretty quiet night. The main courses, like sandwiches and german schnitzels, and even the vegetarian dishes are satisfying, arriving with tasty sides, like cabbage salad, and garlic mashed potatoes, which were raved about, and a quarter of a really good dill pickle.

Widmer's sensational Double Bock was a sterling compliment to the food. Beer fans will find much to love here, including an ever-changing roster of fresh seasonals and the stand-up roster of Widmer's usuals. The dining room is cozy and dim, and literally surrounds some of the brewing apparatus, reinforcing the industrial feel of the building and neighborhood. The food was very good, decent prices, just O.K. service, but best of all, you get all this while sitting in the heart of one of Portland's trademark brewery success stories.

Beerwise, there are a dozen taps. Beers that are always on include Hefeweizen, Drop Top Amber, Broken Halo IPA, their excellent Alt, and their Root Beer. Seasonals, the Collaborator tap, and one-offs make up the rest, and those are the beers you should try. If something looks interesting, ask for a taster; the staff are happy to show off the range and styles of the beers. When we were there, they had a Doppelbock, Double Alt (yum), Dortmunder Lager, Summit Hop Pale, Stout, Sterling Pilsner (fresh-hopped), and Collaborator's Sled Crasher.

They have a full lunch and dinner menu presentable for relatives and coworkers. The menu is heavily, but not exclusively Germanic—expect large portions whether schnitzel or vegetarian. Happy hours have food specials as well. Menus, nicely enough, are online for your pre-meal obsessing.

Yes, you can get a burger, a number of different salads or sandwiches, even pasta, but things really get interesting in the groaning entrees of schnitzel, sauerbraten, goulash, and sausages with mashed potatoes, potato pancakes, potato salad or spaetzle.

Appetizers include a german pretzel ($2), sausage sampler, and wings (most between $6-$8.50). These are fine, though if they have fondue on, get it. Dinner salads range from $6.95-$10.50, and they are dull, with too much or too little dressing; easily the worst thing on the menu. Sandwiches ($7-$9) and burgers ($8-$9) are big, served with potato salad or green salad, though the Bourbon Bock Cheese Burger is so slathered in BBQ sauce that I couldn't wait to run to the bathroom and wash my face, hands, and upperbody.

I have never tried the pasta ($10-$12.50); I never seen anyone try the pasta.

But the entrees ($12-$21). Now that's the thing. There is nothing like schnitzel and mashed potatoes to sooth the seeker of comfort food.

Sunday afternoons are an especially nice time to visit, as they have a 1-2-3-5 deal: $1 for a pretzel, a pint of Hefeweizen for $2, a pint of beer for $3 (a pint is usually $3.75), and a Bourbon Bock Cheese Burger for $5. Just ask for extra napkins... or wet naps.

CLOSED AS OF 10/11/2006

portland.craigslist.org/mlt/off/219395565.html

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October 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2)

photo by Warren Gamley

photo by Annie & John Schmidt
some more photos

It is in the Pearl, kinda, and suddenly, it looks like it's in the Pearl. And I know there were reasons that they had to change, but I miss the old place. And I'm not crazy about the food. It's okay, but not worth the pretension you see here.

I took an out of town friend on a tiny beer crawl a few days ago, and it was really helpful to hear what she had to say. First of all, we walk in the entrance, which has a step. I think the step was added.

I remembered meeting friends at Bridgeport recently, and seeing a woman in a wheelchair outside seething because the main entrance wasn't accessible, and the wheelchair entrance was locked. It was drizzling, and she had had to send someone in from her party to get them to unlock the door.

We walk in and walk up to the iced cobras to get a beer. They aren't quite iced yet (too early in the day), but they are gorgeous—all stainless steel shinyness, and the multiple taps on each. I was looking forward to showing her the glass rinsing mechanism which chills the glass, and makes the carbonation less likely to stick to the glass, thus improving the beer's nose. She's a beer geek, she'll love this.

It's 2 in the afternoon and about 3/4 of the tables in the bakery/pub area are full. A waiter barks at us to find a seat, and someone will wait on us. Sigh. My friend would like tastes, as she's never had Bridgeport's beer, but now we'll have to ask the waiter—another obstacle.

The waiter brings a large bottle of water and glasses—nice touch! He's there immediately after we've sat, so my friend is furiously searching the menu for the beers. I try to draw this out by making some small talk so she can read the menu, but in the end, she ends up with a beer that she finds too sweet.

We look around the room. It's full of ordinary people with a little cash to throw around. They're all nicer dressed than us, and I'm in my dress clothes.

Later, we're in Henry's and I mention that it's very see-and-be-seen, and she says that Henry's is a lot more comfortable and less audacious and conspicious. She mentions too that there didn't seem to be any bike parking (there isn't) and that there wasn't any outdoor seating (there isn't) at Bridgeport. But it is right there on the Streetcar line, though there's no door on the Streetcar side (why?).

They do have pub/bar/bakery and restaurant menus, and for the neighborhood, the prices are quite reasonable.

Beerwise, they have their beers, and as far as I'm aware, no guests. They also appear to no longer be doing seasonals other than Ebenezer. Here's what they have on:

• India Pale Ale
• ESB
• Black Strap Stout
• Ropewalk Amber
• Blue Heron
• Suerpris!
• Porter
• Old Knucklehead barleywine