Everything You Should Absolutely Do in Portland This Spring
While it’s true Portland really only has two seasons -- rainy and not rainy -- our spirit is indomitable when it comes to festivals in the spring months. With summer, which may as well be renamed “bikes and beers season,” just around the corner, it’s a fantastic time to whet your appetite for all the ingestible commodities that make this city wonderful. Here’s what you can’t miss through these last few months of the monsoon!
Savor the first sips of a new IIIPA from Culmination
When one of Portland’s most promising new breweries unveils a Triple IPA at a taproom with IPA embedded in its name, it’s a no-brainer. Take an Uber to this one.
Bring your four-legged friend to a barleywine festival
Don’t let the word “wine” throw you off -- Lucky Lab’s Barleywine Festival is the perfect chance to dive right in to this misunderstood take on strong ale that everyone’s favorite dog-friendly brewing company has been excelling at for decades.
Check out a tasty new breakfast stout
We’re loving Great Notion’s easy-drinking, citrus-forward IPA Juicy, which makes us much more excited to see (and taste) what happens when this brand new Alberta St brewery tries their hand at the dark arts... of coffee- and maple syrup-infused breakfast stouts, that is.
Pad that beer belly of yours for a good cause
If you love Buoy Beer Company but can’t quite justify the trek out to Astoria to get it from the source, you’re in luck! Buoy is teaming up with the fine folks at EastBurn to offer a five-course meal and beer pairings, with proceeds benefiting a charity of the brewers' choice. Factor in the shuffleboard in the basement and you’ve got a solid Thursday night on your hands.
Experience the glory of chocolate and whiskey pairings
We’re not quite sure what it has to do with St. Patrick’s Day, but your crazy single aunt with the funny-smelling hot chocolate at holidays has been hip to the craze for years, and she’s always in good spirits, right?
Have some coffee beer with your donuts
As easy as it is to unfriend whomever in your life disapproves of your beer for breakfast plan, we recommend buying them a ticket for Culmination's event instead. A world in which donuts and beer brewed with coffee doesn’t count as a quality breakfast is one we’d prefer to be as far away from as possible, thank you very much.
Give two of the Portland comedy scene’s rising stars a proper send-off
Celebrate the ascending comedy careers of local favorites Amy Miller and Sean Jordan before the two level up and leave for the big leagues of Los Angeles. Pizza and friendship are mentioned on the show bill; laughs are guaranteed.
Finally feel like you deserve that beer by running for it
As far as we know, the whole point of running is to knock a few back in your spandex immediately afterwards. The annual Shamrock Run seems like exactly where anyone with an interest in running in pursuit of a frothy reward would want to be the Sunday before St. Patrick’s Day.
Cruise down to the OC for authentic Irish ales
Before stocking your fridge with Guinness like you always do, consider a short drive down 205 to Oregon City for a taste of Feckin Irish Brewing Company’s inspired takes on every highlander’s favorite national pastime (we’re not talking about the caber toss).
Spend St. Patrick’s Day at Downtown’s oldest Irish pub
Besides the outdoor tent -- a necessity due to March still being deep winter -- Paddy’s is the closest thing Portland has to an authentic Irish pub from the days of yore. And it isn’t Kell’s, so it’s a win-win by all accounts.
Start beer festival season with wine, beer, cheese, and chocolate
We love how deep and specific Portland gets with its beer fests, but the generalist in all of us is still guaranteed to love Spring Beer and Wine Fest. If one of those four things doesn’t pique your interest, you should probably click out of here and get back to your Matlock marathon.
Wake and bake like a real adult-aged child
Now that the craft cannabis industry is formally shaking hands with Portland’s restaurant scene, getting baked and gorging yourself on deluxe breakfasts is no longer just for stoned college kids. Throw in some classic Saturday morning cartoons for good measure and it’ll be just like your freshman year all over again.
Celebrate the little guys of the beer industry
You know that obscure little brewery that you’re dying to not tell any of your friends about for fear of them tipping off InBev about the craft scene’s newest hotness? Nano Beer Fest is one great big/little celebration of those breweries, making it a fantastic one-stop shop for esoteric enthusiasts and sample fiends.
Have beer and bridges; will run
In keeping with the theme of long-distance runs that use beer as a motivator, Bridge to Brews hands its runners a well-deserved beer at the end. But it's also the only organized exercise that gives participants the staggering panorama of the Fremont Bridge, usually only accessible by a speeding vehicle in white-knuckle traffic.
Celebrate soil-grown Oregonian cannabis
With the growth of the cannabis industry comes a proliferation of growing methods and regions, but Willamette Week likes to keep it local with the Cultivation Classic -- an event devoted to picking the cream of the state’s soil-grown crop and sharing the goods with the rest of us.
Celebrate Mexico’s 1862 victory over the French
Or get all gringo with it and have a few too many Coronas in honor of “cinco de drinko” -- it beats spending the weekend alone drinking Baja Blast at a Taco Bell.
Embrace the malty magnificence of Belgian beer
Belgians don’t mess around when it comes to yeast. Cheers to Belgian Beers brings out the mad scientist in regional brewers by challenging them to experiment with a single strain of yeast determined at random before the event, which is guaranteed to yield tangy, malty masterpieces any and all beer enthusiasts should try.
Make the pilgrimage to WhiskeyTown
It’s unclear whether the contentious alt-country troubadour Ryan Adams signed off on this event namechecking his first band, but more than enough local distilleries and bartenders who are handy with the beloved brown burning stuff will be on hand to make even Adams himself forget what he was complaining about in the first place.
Pour one out for Fred
Industrial Southeast’s Hair of the Dog brewery is in its 11th year of celebrating the life of Fred Eckhardt, the OG of beer journalism, and the event has only gotten better with age. This Blue Dot’s for you, Fred.
Drink some Ecliptic beer, run a mile, then drink some more
Your neon-clad runner freak neighbor’s marathon this is not. Leave it to one of our favorite new-ish breweries in North Portland to host a run so short that even the laziest of beer nerds could accomplish it without changing out of their cargo shorts and Keens.