Bar Guide 2013: Listings by Neighborhood

The Alibi Tiki Lounge

4024 N Interstate Ave., 287-5335, alibiportland.com. 11 am-2 am daily.

This Vegas-like landmark on North Interstate Avenue began in the late 1800s as Chat-n-Nibble, a horse-and-buggy stop along the dirt interstate trail. It’s since undergone an islander makeover, now boasting hula girl black-light murals and kitschy tiki décor with a ’70s vibe. The Alibi still retains landmark status and a hodgepodge crowd, serving up massive Macho Nachos and a shoyu chicken and Kahlua pork smasher with macaroni ($10) to college kids, lottery-playing locals and trucker types alike. Nightly karaoke makes it all one big, happy pork-fed family, helped by candy-sweet tropical drinks. The house specialty Kamonawannaleiya ($8) is a glass full of watermelon Jolly Rancher as overzealous as the décor. But the Alibi is the best type of kitschy: entertaining and not too self-important. ENID SPITZ.

Happy hour: $3 wells, $2 PBR, $5 mai tais 3-7 pm daily.

Entertainment: Karaoke, lottery, DJ.

The Foggy Notion

3416 N Lombard St., 240-0249, thefoggynotion.com. 5 pm-2:30 am Tuesday-Sunday.

There is no reason the Foggy Notion should be as awesome as it is. In a ramshackle-looking building on Lombard Street, this poorly marked pub opens up on tables and counters collaged with rock-album covers and strange pop-culture cutouts. It would be easy for it to go full-on dive, but instead owner Mel Brandy—whose shouts can always be heard above whatever’s on the jukebox—has an impressive array of house-infused and top-shelf liquors. A citrus juicer on the counter makes The Lolita, with tequila, fresh grapefruit juice, St. Germain elderflower liqueur on the rocks ($6) a standout. And it pays to get there early in the week. The bar’s best menu item hands-down is its pierogi ($8), made once a week on Monday. When it’s gone, it’s gone. ANDREA DAMEWOOD.

Happy hour: $1 off specialty and wells, drafts and food entrees 5-8 pm daily. There’s also Tatt2for1 Tuesdays: two-for-one drink specials to anyone who flashes their ink.

Entertainment: Live music, pinball, Skee-Ball, live music, DJs, karaoke, trivia, patio.

Bar Bar

3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895, mississippistudios.com. Noon-2 am daily.

Bar Bar is the Siamese sidekick to Mississippi Studios. You might go to Mississippi for up-and-comer shows, but like the best sidekicks, Bar Bar steals your heart while Studios is showing off. It has an unassuming Americana vibe: picnic tables on the huge patio, a housemade barbeque burger ($7) and Harry Truman’s Oregon Mule (New Deal Vodka and ginger beer, $6). Even with mahogany floors and old-timey wall lamps inside, it escapes the total hipsterdom of places like the Ace Hotel by offering killer two-for-$5 sliders and a fire pit. On sunny days, the outside screen plays black-and-white sci-fi flicks for relaxing locals. Cyclist hordes flock to Prost up the street, and Mississippi Pizza gets the underaged, so Bar Bar is happily left with unpretentious showgoers and local bands eating burgers. ENID SPITZ.

Happy hour: Noon–7 pm Monday-Thursday, noon–6 pm Friday-Sunday. $3 drafts, $1 off cocktails.

Entertainment: Mississippi Studios concerts, patio.

Liberty Glass

938 N Cook St., 517-9931. 5 pm-2:30 am Monday-Saturday, 5 pm-midnight Sunday.

Portland’s other Big Pink, Liberty Glass, crams off-kilter rusticity into a building the color of a preteen girl’s diary. An antiquated two-story house standing a block away from where the “new Mississippi” begins, the bar replaced beloved restaurant Lovely Hula Hands in 2008, then became an institution itself by dodging the trendy hand of progress sweeping through the rest of the neighborhood. Disembodied antlers decorate the walls, water is served in tin cups and the craft beers in Mason jars, nobody’s bothered to remove the claw-foot tub from the restroom, and the most rhapsodized item on the menu is the Triscuit nachos. It maintains a vague literary feel—author Patrick deWitt based a three-legged dog in his award-winning novel, The Sisters Brothers, on the house pooch, Otis—while resembling a backwoods dollhouse, which is about as Portlandian as it gets. MATTHEW SINGER.

Happy hour: $1 off beer and appetizers 3-6 pm daily.

Entertainment: Bingo. 

Moloko 

3967 N Mississippi Ave., 288-6272, molokopdx.com. 4 pm-2 am daily.

Moloko ain’t subtle with the symbolism. We get it: The giant fish tanks on either side of the bar are a welcome invitation to drink like an aquatic invertebrate. But after at least the better part of a decade open on Mississippi, Moloko is a relative granddaddy on the block. With a cocktail list so expansive that the ’tender has to look up the more obscure items, we appreciate this joint’s willingness to play with taste-bud-challenging ingredients, including absinthe (its trademark mixer), Campari and house-infused liquors. The bar’s covered back patio with heat lamps—a friend to all smokers and friends of smokers—makes it a necessary stop on any Mississippi crawl. ANDREA DAMEWOOD.

Happy hour: $3.50 wells, $1 off beer and fresh-squeezed juices, $2 off panini 4-7 pm daily.

Entertainment: Big-ass fish tanks, DJs.

Prost!

4237 N Mississippi Ave., 954-2674, prostportland.com. 11:30 am-2:30 am Monday-Friday, 11 am-2:30 am Saturday-Sunday.

What’s better than 2 liters of delicious, imported German beer? Two liters of that beer in a giant boot–yours, for the night, after a deposit of $50. While Prost! can get cramped with burly beer dudes on weekends and soccer fans during Timbers games, this small, German-style pub offers an impressive array of locally sourced snacks and authentic beers served accordingly in traditional glassware. Although it can be tempting to swing by a nearby food cart, the options at hand—like a chewy pretzel sandwich ($9.50) with two types of sausage and fixins—won’t disappoint. Not feeling the beer scene? Opt for an autumnal Herbst Whiskey of Jim Beam infused with raisins, oranges and cinnamon (cold for $6.50, hot for $7.50). Amid the rustic wood walls, old-timey family photos and ceramic novelty mugs, there is one novelty on offer at a point well past grim familiarity: After consuming a mere 1,000 drinks on your punch card, you can own your own barstool here. EMILLY PRADO.

Entertainment: Blazers games, MLS and Timbers games, darts, patio.

The Fixin’ To

8218 N Lombard St., 477-4995, thefixinto.com. 3 pm-2 am Monday-Saturday, 3 pm-1 am Sunday.

Did you know that Pabst Blue Ribbon comes in light form? The obscure B-side of the chart-topping brew gets a little play at St. Johns’ Fixin’ To, where a long shuffleboard table runs parallel to the bar and one of the city’s best pizza carts, Pizza Contadino, bakes pies out on the large front patio. In this place, it can be appreciated both ironically and not. Loud décor is “eclectic” in the same vein as the neighboring McMenamins theater and the patrons and bartenders seem quite familiar. This is the sort of place where a regular insists you take the hot toddy made for him and a basketball game no one cares about gets folks talking about the weekend they spent in Reno. MARTIN CIZMAR.

Happy hour: Food specials, $1 off wells and drafts 2-6 pm Monday-Friday.

Entertainment: Patio, TV, occasional live music.

3508 N Williams Ave., 282-1611. 3 pm-2:30 am Monday-Saturday, noon-2:30 am Sunday.

Maui’s greets you with the olfactory wave of damp air and warm beer that screams dive. There are murals of frolicking dolphins on the cinder-block walls, but this is not a dive into pristine waters. It is a grown-up skater boy’s pool lounge, painted like an aquarium, with skateboards, snowboards and electric guitars suspended from the ceiling. Drinks that are stiff enough to spike the ocean fuel Blazers-clad throngs and alterna-culture posses through epic pingpong games on the patio. On game day, stalwarts can munch mac and cheese, bagged chips and deli sandwiches perfectly paired with the $2 PBRs. Maybe PBR tastes better with a killer whale hanging overhead? ENID SPITZ.

Happy hour: 3-7 pm Monday-Friday. $1 PBRs, $2.25 wells, $3 micros.

Entertainment: Pool, TV, pinball, darts.

Sloan’s Tavern

36 N Russell St., 287-2262, 11 am-10 pm Monday-Thursday, 11 am-midnight Friday.

Throughout a vibrant but never cluttered ’70s interior, the high art of low culture has been lovingly assembled to breathtaking effect utterly shorn of irony or, strange as this may sound, excess. From the animatronic band figures above the jukebox to the cabinetmaking flourishes around the fuse box, form at Sloan’s follows function. Why don’t more cocktail tables blink around the sides? Why aren’t all lounge ceilings mirrored? The blend of fashion-forward cocktails with time-swept food (our visit, the food special was beef stroganoff; the drink special, house-infused cucumber gin) reflects a clientele with both neighborhood holdovers and gay and lesbian transplants. It’s the sort of hard-earned integration of clientele easily spoiled by nightlife tourists, but Sloan’s schedule and locale just far enough from several beaten paths have thus far prevented the wholesale invasion. There’s no better way to avoid weekenders than to avoid weekends. JAY HORTON.

Happy hour: $3 well, $3.50 micros 4-6 pm Monday-Friday.

Entertainment: Pool, trivia nights, DJ nights, video poker.

The Waypost

3120 N Williams Ave., 367-3182, thewaypost.com. 10 am-11 pm Tuesday-Thursday, Sunday; 10 am-midnight Friday-Saturday.

On a recent episode of Portlandia, the Waypost acted as visual shorthand for the kind of establishment that harbors the artistically challenged. That’s unfair, but not wholly inaccurate. At night, the small Boise-Eliot cafe-cum-tavern hosts all manner of events, from poetry readings to fiddle jams to “dinosaur tarot” readings. Draped in thrift-store chic, the place resembles a coffee shop more than a bar and actually acts as such during the day—which, ironically, is the best time to stop in for a cocktail, when there’s no interpretive dance showcase scheduled and you can peacefully enjoy a cucumber-infused vodka cranberry on the patio, naturally situated next to a community garden. MATTHEW SINGER.

Happy hour: $1 off draft, wells, wine, pot pies (!) 4-7 pm daily.

Entertainment: Live music, lectures, karaoke, trivia, pinball.

Bin 21

5011 NE 21st Ave., 284-4445, bin21pdx.com. 4-10 pm Monday-Saturday.

If the first round of Alberta Street gentrification brought families with biodynamic veggie patches and a penchant for naked fire-twirling, the second will bring whoever is intended to live inside the concrete bunker being built at the intersection of 21st Avenue. The corner is already home to Indian joint Bollywood Theater and tourist magnet Salt & Straw. Hidden out back is Bin 21, an airy wine bar full of elegant, long-legged ladies sipping rosé and nibbling bruschetta. Easy-drinking pours hover around $6 to $9. The menu was, on my visit, skewed toward local regions and Spain, with three wines and three beers on tap. Sip your white peach sangria on the patio and marvel at the roller-derby store and punk bar across the street, which will soon hilariously be called “Old Alberta.” RUTH BROWN.

Happy hour: $3 craft beer, $5 wine pours 4-6 pm daily.

Entertainment: From inside to out, the people-watching pageant is a near complete stages-of-Portland microcosm.

Barwares

4605 NE Fremont St., 971-229-0995, smallwarespdx.com. 5 pm-1 am daily.

Barwares exists only because of an architectural fluke. Chef Johanna Ware’s Asian-leaning restaurant, Smallwares, needs a bar the same size as its dining room about as much as drowsy Beaumont Village needs a swanky place to hang at 2 am on a Tuesday. Given a lemon, Ware slices it and serves it as a twist over a cocktail made with rye whiskey and garam masala syrup ($8). The Barwares space is a modern beauty done on a budget—concrete, wood and HVAC handiwork with accents like the incongruous orange sofa on loan from Al Bundy. The service is better and the food is best. There’s always something special coming out of the kitchen—corn fried on the cob and drizzled with fish sauce was a favorite—but I’m happy with a strong cocktail and a bowl of candied peanuts. 
MARTIN CIZMAR.

Happy hour: Daily food specials, $1 off all beer Thursdays.

Entertainment: Watching the food come out?

Breakside Brewery

820 NE Dekum St., 719-6475, breakside.com. Noon-10 pm Sunday, 3-10 pm Monday-Thursday, noon-11 pm Friday-Saturday.

Most breweries trade in kegs, pints or bottles. North Portland’s Breakside does its best work with taster trays. The brewery’s year-round offerings are solid—the choco-chili Aztec is one of our top 10 beers—but given that Breakside made a staggering 83 different brews last year, try as many nips as you can. A 4-ounce pour is often the right portion, too, with options ranging from pleasantly interesting offerings like ultra-hot Szechuan Blonde and super-smoky Toro Red, to over-salty Cucumber Gose and an overly herbal Nordic Porter. But that’s all part of the fun at this brewery, which pours beers made with beets and rooibos tea next to ambitious pub fare, including an opulent $10 hummus plate that’s actually worth $10. MARTIN CIZMAR.

Happy hour: Food specials 3-6 pm Sunday, 9 pm-close daily.

Entertainment: TV, a fine patio and wild-ass beer flavors.

Velo Cult

1969 NE 42nd Ave.,922-2012, velocult.com. 10 am-10 pm daily.

I dunno, man, it’s hard to explain. If you ride, you get it. But if you’ve never shown up to work late and dripping, your teeth tingly from some potholed street, you won’t understand. For us 5.8 percenters—Portland’s bike commuters—a place like Velo Cult makes sense. It’s a cavernous bicycle shop with beer on tap, a stage and a makeshift museum. Sitting at the bar fashioned from scrappy wood, admiring the collection of old mountain bikes and drinking a can of Anderson Valley—shit, it’s cool. If you ride, you get why the owners moved this shop up from San Diego. The plan to serve pour-over coffee and tamales makes sense, too. And you’re stoked they held a screening of Smokey and the Bandit director Hal Needham’s 1986 cult classic, Rad, about a kid who skips the SAT for a BMX race. If not, this ain’t your scene. MARTIN CIZMAR.

Entertainment: Watching bike repair, occasional movies and concerts.

Hale Pele

See Bar of the Guide Runner-Up Feature.

Swift Lounge

1932 NE Broadway, 288-3333, swiftloungepdx.com. 4 pm-2 am daily.

Yeah, they put a bird on it. Yawn. But that doesn’t stop the Swift Lounge from being a downright pleasant place for a liquor-fueled lark. It’s famous for Mason-jar concoctions in super-happy-fun (for now) “Fatty” 32-ounce jars ($8) or “I’m not going to barf later” 16-ounce “Sissy” jars ($6). Some of the drinks skew too sweet, but the Stoned Finch, a combo of cucumber-infused vodka, basil, mint, cucumber and elderflower syrup hits the right note without being saccharine. Throw in a happy-hour special of fondue fries ($4) and a bowl of kimchi and brown rice ($2) and pray for a table outside on the sidewalk. ANDREA DAMEWOOD.

Happy hour: “Jolly hour” food menu and drink discounts 4-8 pm Monday-Saturday, all day Sunday.

Entertainment: DJs, pinball, Jenga, sidewalk tables.

2035 NE Glisan St., 235-5690. 11:30 am-2:30 am daily.

Club 21 is a McDonald’s for legal drinkers, which I say with the kindest possible intentions. First: The building looks like a tiny white castle, and you enter through a door in the base of the tower. Second: The bar is located a mere five-minute walk from two rock-climbing gyms, which are themselves Pee-wee’s playhouses for the out-of-diapers set. Third: Club 21 is known for its cheap, extensive build-a-burger menu, which lets picky eaters avoid all the “ew, yucky!” condiments and put on weird crap like tomato bacon jam. However, none of this makes the bar off-putting. When you’re 6, McDonald’s is the apex of everything entertaining, delicious and desirable, and an appealing mix of youngsters, flannel-clad locals and rocker types seem to agree that Club 21 is a decent latter-day incarnation. But this time, with a better tap list. ADRIENNE SO.

Happy hour: $1 off food and wine, 50 cents off wells and draft 3-7 pm Monday-Friday.

Entertainment: Pinball, live music, patio.

Beech Street Parlor

412 NE Beech St., 946-8184, beechstreetparlor.com. 5 pm-2 am Monday-Saturday.

Home is where Beech Street Parlor is. No, seriously. If you’re not looking for it, you might go right past the restored 107-year-old foursquare home, thinking the patrons cramming the porch are guests at a house party you’re not invited to. Oh, but you are! Just inside the doorway, a DJ spins back-in-vogue ’90s R&B underneath the staircase, while upstairs, a black cat trolling for a stroking winds its way through three adjoining rooms outfitted with vintage furniture. It ain’t exactly a rager—the general clientele is well past college age, and the handsome bar invites orders of Manhattans rather than Jell-O shots—but for the quarterlifers transitioning out of their 20s and into true adulthood, Beech Street makes a sophisticated bridge.  MATTHEW SINGER.

Happy hour: $1 off drafts, $3.50 wells, $1 off house wine, food specials 5-7 pm.

Entertainment: DJs, patio, mystery pickled items, playing with the cat.

Free House

1325 NE Fremont St., 946-8161, freehousepdx.com. 4 pm-midnight daily.

Under the watchful eyes of Abraham Lincoln in two slightly creepy paintings on the walls of Free House, a dozen or so drinkers maintain a vibe of laid-back camaraderie. Reopening a couple of months ago under the joint ownership of Victory Bar chef Eric Moore and Olympic Provisions co-owner Martin Schwartz, the revamped Free House now boasts the best influences of both, with better-than-average bar food (banh mi, anyone?) and a rotating list of house cocktails that fall into the “Portland eclectic” category. I had a Tusken Raider (pisco, lemon, pineapple gomme and Prosecco), which I assume you’re supposed to drink one at a time so as to conceal your numbers. A partially covered patio is one of the bar’s new features and offers plenty of space for summertime drinking. Although it probably never gets too rowdy at Free House—after all, Honest Abe is watching. PENELOPE BASS.

Happy hour: A buck off whatever 4-5:30 pm daily.

Local Lounge

3536 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 282-1833, local-lounge.com. 3:30 pm-2 am daily.

Whether you’re lookin’ to twerk while taking tequila shots or are an amateur hoping to get sexy at strip night, the colorful, queer-friendly Local Lounge—better known as Shantay—is your huckleberry. Located on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, well away from more traditional queer-centered nightlife, the lounge draws in crowds from all walks of life. Bears and blue-collars alike relish in the glory of cheap booze, seasonal cocktails ($8), and tater-tot casserole ($6), though if you come in on the wrong night the bartender may be your only company. Mondays get you a burger and PBR to nosh on for seven bucks while you take in the latest episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race. EMILLY PRADO.

Happy hour: $3 wells and draft beers 4-7:30 pm daily.

Entertainment: TV, Blazers games, pool, video lottery, karaoke, DJs, drag shows, queer strip night, dancing.

Ponderosa Lounge

10350 N Vancouver Way, 345-0300, ponderosalounge.com. 9 am-midnight Monday-Tuesday, 9 am-1 am Wednesday-Thursday, 9 am-2 am Friday, 8 am-2 am Saturday, 8 am-midnight Sunday.

Chrome exhaust pipes flank an entryway lined with country stars’ head shots, an apt welcome for this truck-stop wonderland near the Washington border. Jubitz is possibly the biggest gas station ever, a haven for tired truckers that draws hordes of country-lovin’ folk for weekend shows and dancing. Eating areas, dance floors and Keno machines stretch endlessly from the bar. But the real treat is drunkenly wandering the rest of Jubitz’s center with Keith Urban ringing in your ears. Past a restaurant of the apple pie and fried mozzarella stick variety, a museum of 18-wheelers leads to pinball machines, massage chairs, a hair salon and two-screen theater. Dancing lessons at the Ponderosa Lounge are just the beginning of this fall down a countrified rabbit hole. ENID SPITZ.

Happy hour: 3-7 pm and 10-midnight Monday-Saturday, all day Sunday. Nightly drink specials ($5 margarita Mondays, $10 beer bucket Tuesdays, $4 Jack Daniels Wednesdays, $1 wells and $2 drafts Thursdays, $5 cosmos and lemon drops Fridays, $2 mimosas Sundays).

M Bar

417 NW 21st Ave., 228-6614. 6 pm-2:30 am daily. Cash only.

M Bar is the Mill Ends Park of bars. An itty-bitty, candelit establishment, it’s like a tiny Victorian parlor, rid of all excessive frippery and staffed by a singularly friendly bartender. Since Sterling Coffee moved in last June (it’s a cafe during the day and undergoes a costume change for the evening), M Bar has been updated with tastefully striped wallpaper, but the atmosphere is convivial as ever. It had better be: The spot is so small that, while sipping your glass of viognier or your 10 Barrel ISA (no liquor here), you’ll probably end up swapping stories with your neighbors. On a recent weekend evening, I discussed the Italian mob with the publisher of this very newspaper. It’s cash only, and want a receipt? The bartender—dressed like those at Teardrop but without an ounce of the pretension—will have to handwrite it for you. I’m still charmed. 
REBECCA JACOBSON.

Happy hour: $4 20-ounce beers, $3 off glasses of wine 6-8 pm daily.

Entertainment: Friendly people, attractive wallpaper.

The Matador

1967 W Burnside St., 222-5822, thematadorbar.com. Noon-2:30 am daily.

If the Most Interesting Man in the World held a punk-tinged lounge equivalent, this dimly lit jewel of West Burnside, long the spiritual link between uptown and the rock blocks, wouldn’t be a poor blueprint. The men’s restroom boasts carnation-colored, heart-shaped sink basins opposite a urinal perhaps reclaimed from the Titanic. Friendly bartenders do not tolerate fools, whether slumming debs or aspirational homeless or Timbers faithful spilling forth from nearby Jeld-Wen Field. The Scrabble tournaments on Super Bowl Sunday epitomize a somewhat conflicted relationship with sports yet shown on the flat screens. Rockers hoping to grab a cheap beer and hobnob with their fave DJ may be absorbed into a bachelorette party as quickly as IT wizards enjoying a higher-end tipple find their non-prescription eyeglasses blown clean off by the first chords of garage up-and-comers set up by the pool table. While recent Southeast settlement Conquistador seamlessly serves the rarefied tastes of the condo set at twilight and touring tastemakers ’round last call, the Matador doesn’t quite cater to any one vision of what a bar should be—save, after a fashion, the former owner and provocateur-in-chief whose portrait in black velvet hangs near the entrance---—and effectively demands the patrons to submit to the peculiar momentum of the moment. “Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bullfighters,” but the right sort of bar helps immeasurably. JAY HORTON.

Happy hour: $3 wells and $5 pitchers, $1.50 pints PBR noon-7 pm Monday-Friday and “Recession Sundays.”

Entertainment: Pool, pinball, jukebox, video poker, video games, TV, DJs, photo booth. 

Ground Kontrol

511 NW Couch St., 796-9364, groundkontrol.com. Noon-2:30 am daily.

The blinking lights of arcade games and excited chatter of twentysomethings reliving their teenage glory while sipping beer can be a sensory overload when you first enter Ground Kontrol. Nerds, douchebags and gamers flock to this barcade for that nostalgic arcade experience, most too young to have lived through its golden age. House of the Dead, Joust, Turtles in Time, Asteroids and many other classics are all here. There are also relics like the pinball machine upstairs for the mostly forgotten mid-’90s film adaptation of The Shadow to bring you back to that bygone era. But now alcohol is involved. Grab yourself a stiff $4 whiskey Coke and challenge a complete stranger to Tekken Tag. Next drink’s on the loser. JOHN LOCANTHI.

Happy hour: $1 off beer and wine 5-7 pm daily. 

Entertainment: Arcade, pinball, Rock Band karaoke on Tuesday.

Deschutes Brewery Portland Public House

210 NW 11th Ave., 296-4906, deschutesbrewery.com. 11 am-10 pm Sunday-Tuesday. 11 am-11 pm Wednesday-Thursday. 11 am-midnight Friday-Saturday.

This Portland-outpost brewpub is a tight-tabled Pearl District beer barn, not overtly pleasant, but one settles in immediately upon tasting its rotating array of interesting seasonals and experimentals. Winter favorites included the Cassis Abbey, a wine-stained black currant sour with a dry finish, and the fireplace comforts of the house’s Bomb Squad Smoked Imperial, which clambers back to tickle the entire top of the palate, and maybe even the sinuses, before settling into dark chocolate. So even if you’re rammed too close to some dude who just tricked out his Dodge Ram for no reason at all, the taster tray will soon distract you, and the servers are overworked but quick on delivery. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Happy hour: $3.50 half-liter of the house choice, $4 ribs 4-6 pm Monday-Friday.

Entertainment: As the location would lead you to expect, the sporting events are on the tee-vees.

Jimmy Mak’s

221 NW 10th Ave., 295-6542, jimmymaks.com. 5 pm-midnight Monday-Thursday, 5 pm-1 am Friday-Saturday.

Live music loud enough to enjoy yet quiet enough to allow you to hold a conversation with your dinner date will never go out of style. Jimmy Mak’s has that in spades. The dimly lit jazz lounge and restaurant is famous for the weekly sets by legendary Portland drummer Mel Brown, but it also features a wide variety of acts on weekends. A mix of well-to-do baby boomers, older couples and well-dressed (by Portland standards) tweeners fill out the crowd. The Greek food menu feels overpriced, and the refusal to serve beer in something other than 14-ounce “pints” is disappointing, but the music and ambience more than make up for it. Jimmy Mak’s is not a dance club. It’s a place to sit back, sip a Sazerac ($9.50) and ride that anise finish and melancholy music into the night. JOHN LOCANTHI.

Happy hour: $1 off pints and $3 wells 5-7pm Monday-Saturday.

Entertainment: Live music.

Teardrop Lounge and Low Brow Lounge

See Northwest Portland Bar Crawl.

Aalto Lounge

3356 SE Belmont St., 235-6041, aaltolounge.com. 5 pm-2:30 am Monday-Thursday, 4 pm-2:30 am Friday-Sunday.

The Aalto Lounge, at one time a fashion-forward bar threading that delicate middle path between art-school posh and rock ’n’ roll, found itself on the wrong side of a cultural divide recently. Despite its criminal Monday special featuring Bulleit and a back for $3, the dark-painted bar looked dingy and neglected next to Belmont 3.0 neighbors Circa 33 and Sweet Hereafter. After a remodel, the Aalto’s interior now looks like a Swedish sauna minus the fat naked men, with wooden slats shimmering behind the heat waves from its many, many candles. But the bar still boasts the best DJs on the block, and the whiskey’s still way too cheap on Mondays; the hilariously cheap happy hour is a secret kept only because no one ever remembers what happened there. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Happy hour: $2 select cocktails, $2 grilled cheese sandwich and $10 wine bottles till 7 pm daily.

Entertainment: Smoking on the back patio, literally eavesdropping on the upstairs neighbors.

Beer

1410 SE Stark St., 233-2337, facebook.com/beerportland. 11 am-11 pm daily.

Sure, Beer is a generically named bar with $2.50 Miller High Lifes next to a shop that sells steak sandwiches. But those sandwiches are exceptional—sliced rare beef flank on ciabatta—from the shared ownership at Meat Cheese Bread, and the beer menu also includes a $15 sour ale that was aged in pinot noir barrels. The bar is a homey room lit by vintage beer signs and decorated with wall hangings made from flattened old labels. The close-in location draws a mixed crowd—this is not always a good thing, especially when bartenders used to sandwich-slingin’ take a light hand with obnoxious barflies—but the grub and suds are great. MARTIN CIZMAR.

Entertainment: The slow dawn of a tap takeover.

Cascade Brewing Barrel House

See Southeast Portland Bar Crawl.

The Conquistador

2045 SE Belmont St., 232-3227. 4 pm-2:30 am daily.

Show up for a weekday happy hour at this self-consciously kitschy bar—the walls are lined with velvet portraits of Cortes look-alikes—and you’re likely to encounter women in (mostly) tasteful makeup and men in ironed button-downs. Return a few hours later, and you’ll find pinball-playing creatives and tattooed musicians. It’s a tension that, in some ways, carries through to the menu, where cocktails with names like “Hot Love If You Want It” (coconut rum, pepper vodka, passion fruit purée, cream, $8) exist alongside vegetarian, Latin-tilting dishes (empanadas, $3, are stuffed with caramelized mushrooms or spinach and hazelnuts). Deep black booths are comfortable for groups, and later in the evening DJs spin garage rock. REBECCA JACOBSON.

Happy hour: $2 PBR, $3 micros, $3.25 wells, $4.50 house wine, $5.25 margaritas, $2-$5 food menu 4-7 pm daily.

Entertainment: Free jukebox, DJs, shuffleboard, pinball, pool, patio.

Crush

1400 SE Morrison St., 235-8150, crushbar.com. 4 pm-2 am Tuesday-Saturday, noon-1 am Sunday.

The cocktails at Crush might tend toward sweet and fruity, but the menu descriptions are pure sass. Take note when ordering the Male Order Bride (ginger ale, grated ginger, vodka, $6): “All sales final.” Prefer the Green Monk, loaded with Green Chartreuse and vodka ($8)? Make sure to “picture hot French monks” quietly harvesting herbs. Crush attracts a largely queer crowd into its airy, red-and-black-walled space. The artwork seems vaguely inspired by both construction work and bondage, with hinges, pulleys and latches affixed to giant canvases. At happy hour, take a seat at the S-shaped bar to gab with the amiable bartenders as you nosh on nachos, or show up after dark for burlesque (and boylesque) shows and DJs spinning dance music. Nice and naughty, indeed. REBECCA JACOBSON.

Happy hour: $1.50 PBR, $3.25 micros, $4.50 wine, $3 wells, $4-$4.50 select cocktails, $2.75-$5.75 food menu 4 pm-midnight Tuesday, 4-7 pm Wednesday-Sunday.

Entertainment: DJs, burlesque shows.

Brooklyn Park Pub

3400 SE Milwaukie Ave., 234-7772. 2 pm-2:30 am Monday-Friday, noon-2:30 am Saturday-Sunday.

It’s not an exaggeration to say the Brooklyn Park Pub ran unopposed for top honors in its neglected neighborhood even before it opened seven years ago, and if the crowds took a little while to gather, let’s just agree they had reason to be wary. Save for the sports banner, the drearily utilitarian edifice looks more like a woodworking co-op than sports bar, and not all patrons welcome hyper-cluttered interiors splitting the difference between postgrad man cave and British pub. Nonetheless, a packed crowd on a recent Tuesday reminded me of either an old classmate unseen outside the lecture hall (fleece, starter beard) or a lout facing comical death in a Guy Ritchie feature (silk footie jersey, unblinking gaze). It takes a special thirst to justify the hundred-plus labels of artisan booze strewn under the board games and stuffed groundhogs. Brooklyn, they go hard. JAY HORTON.

Happy hour: $.50 off drafts and wells 4-6 pm Monday-Friday.

Entertainment: TV (Pac-12 Network), darts, Centipede, Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots.

The Beer Mongers

1125 SE Division St., 234-6012, thebeermongers.com. 11 am-11 pm Sunday-Thursday, 11 am-midnight Friday-Saturday.

The Beer Mongers wasn’t kidding about the name: That’s what they do. They monger beer. This no-frilled bunker in the often irritatingly twee mini ’hood surrounding Southeast 12th Avenue and Division Street is home to the brew horde, with more than 500 bottles available in its array of beer coolers. While Apex bartenders across the street disgorge craft brews seemingly reluctantly as they pose for beer magazine spreads, bare-bones Beer Mongers opens its vault with obvious relish, happy to talk geekily about beer and sports: The owners broadcast every single Timbers and Blazers game. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Entertainment: TV, occasional live music.

Reel M’Inn

2430 SE Division St., 231-3880. 10 am-2:30 am Monday-Saturday, 10 am-1 am Sunday.

This fantastically ramshackle tavern has mastered the recipe for a perfect dive bar. The ingredients are simple: cheap beer, fried chicken and no judgment. This is a joint that lets the drunken soul run amuck, with colored chalk handy for scrawling inspired messages on the wallboards and rafters (our favorite reading: “BACON 2013”), a slew of mindless entertainment from shooting games to video lottery, and a wall-mounted condom dispenser, should one need to procure some hasty birth control. The fried-chicken dinner ($7.50 for two pieces) with mammoth jojos is widely considered some of the best battered bird in the city, and comes with six dipping sauces—a sloppy feast fit for a soused king. EMILY JENSEN.

Entertainment: Big Buck Safari, video lottery, Internet jukebox, pool table, TV.

Victory Bar

See Bar of the Year Feature.

Savoy Tavern

500 SE Clinton St., 808-9999, savoypdx.com. 4 pm-late daily.

Savoy Tavern is named after France, self-consciously patterned after the Midwest and more Portland than it wants to give itself credit for, with a décor fashioned from taxidermy and the store-bought class of thrift-store paintings, infused liquors with the bar’s own name on them and beer taps rarely sourced from more than 100 miles out of the town center—not to mention live music in a tiny space and weekly DJ nights spinning indie and soul. And where Chicago disallows any and all happy hours, Savoy has two: one in the afternoon and one in the evening. But if the geography is confused, the mood is warm. And if there’s one thing the Midwest is good for, it’s forgiveness. And if there’s one thing the French are good for, it’s being forgiven. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Happy hour: $1 off wells, $5 cocktail specials, $4 craft beers and food specials 4-6 pm, 10 pm-close daily; nightly drink specials.

Entertainment: DJs, live music.

B-Side Tavern

632 E Burnside St., 233-3113. 4 pm-2:30 am daily.

B-Side is outfitted to resemble the parlor every punk practice space wished lay nearby. Maiden, Motorhead and Melvins roar from the jukebox, shots and Pabst tall boys overshadow the cocktails and craft beers on tap, and the interiors reflect an enlightened hardcore sensibility leavened by touches of whimsy (the medical X-rays attached to light fixtures above the hand-poured, concrete-slab bar top) and professionalism (the ceiling baffles erected to improve conversational acoustics). Like the best punks, it’s sincere and not exactly friendly,  though endlessly protective of its nearest and dearest. Even when the wooden back patio fills beyond capacity on summer evenings, revelers stick to their picnic tables. Plus, there are few bars more comfortable for women who want to sit alone. The bar’s name may derive from its East Burnside Street address, but, in a way, B-Side also defines itself by its opposite: the hit-on single. JAY HORTON.

Crappy hour: $1 tall boys 4-7 pm.

Entertainment: Patio, jukebox, pinball, board games.

Doug Fir Lounge

830 E Burnside St., 231-9663, dougfirlounge.com. 7 am-2:30 am daily.

Like a mountain-cabin coke den, the Doug Fir Lounge is all exposed logs and mirrors. It’s a pleasing mix of rugged and luxe, as though Rick James moved in with Paul Bunyan and they compromised on the décor. A steady stream of quality bands, local and otherwise, keep its basement venue crowded most nights, while the ambrosial bacon and other generally tasty grub have the upstairs dining room consistently hopping as well. The sleek-as-hell back patio feels about as L.A. as Portland ever could, and the adjoining Jupiter Hotel’s mod, IKEA-inspired rooms make this woodsy oasis feel like the sort of Shangri-la you could settle into for a long, long time. EMILY JENSEN.

Happy hour: $3 wells, wine and drafts, $2 PBR, $2-$5 bar food 3-6 pm daily.

Entertainment: Live music of the indie, hip-hop, straight-ahead rock, folk, singer-songwriter and generally listenable variety.

Base Camp Brewing Co.

930 SE Oak St., 477-7479, basecampbrewingco.com. Noon-9 pm Sunday-Wednesday, 11 am Thursday-Saturday.

If you’re going to give your bar a theme, you might as well go extreme. Base Camp Brewing embraces this ethos in both concept and execution. The new inner-Southeast brewpub is basically REI in bar form: a cavernous, urban ski lodge decked out with tables and chairs made with rocks and timber from Klamath Falls, bungee cords, carabiners, camping lanterns and a huge upturned canoe on the ceiling, with a front patio sporting fire pits and log benches that would make Walt Disney proud. Perhaps strategically, Base Camp forms the apex of a neighborhood triangle between an indoor rock-climbing gym and Southeast Grand  Avenue’s outdoor stores. My S’more Stout ($4.50) came served with a toasted marshmallow on the rim—a little over the top for me, but maybe not for the kind of people who think camping in the rain and dabbling in frostbite are enjoyable pastimes. RUTH BROWN.

Happy hour: Beer discounts all day Monday, 3-6pm Tuesday-Friday, 11 am-3 pm Saturday-Sunday.

Entertainment: Slow-dawning inebration as the tasters do their work.

Hair of the Dog

61 SE Water Ave., 232-6585, hairofthedog.com. 11:30 am-8 pm Sunday and Tuesday-Thursday, 11:30 am-10 pm Friday-Saturday.

Like Young Guns II or the video for Michael Jackson’s “Black or White,” a full accounting of Hair of the Dog’s importance requires some historical context. When Alan Sprints opened his brewery in 1993, Americans simply didn’t make barrel-aged or bottle-conditioned beers. Sprints found inspiration on a trip to Belgium. The brewery reserves special releases for its taproom, and Sprints is now a local legend and the type of guy who gets flown down to L.A. to host tastings at fancy pizzerias. Almost everything Hair of the Dog makes is impressive, even if it’s not as unique as it once was. The tasting room is a great place to sample pricey barrel-aged beers from the keg—or spring for a bottle of the 1994 vintage of Adam, 12 ounces of local history priced at $50. MARTIN CIZMAR.

Entertainment: Comparing different vintages of the same beer.

Produce Row

204 SE Oak St., 232-8355, producerowcafe.com. 11 am-midnight Monday-Saturday, 11 am-10 pm Sunday.

I wish I’d seen Produce Row before they fancied it up. This old-time Eastside Industrial bar was refurbished in 2010 and now is polished, with sparse but tasteful furnishings and fine food and drink. In the old days, it was a gritty rocker bar where Pete Krebs hung out and early Oregon craft brews from Widmer and Deschutes found their first taps. These days, handsome wood tables display cauliflower panzanella and grilled polenta just down from the similarly decorated Olympic Provisions charcuterie shop. It’s all very nice—the beer list is just as edgy, with plenty of serious offerings—but it’s hard to compare it to the charm of its legend. MARTIN CIZMAR.

Happy hour: Food specials, $1 off wells and pints 4-7 pm daily.

Entertainment: Board games, TV, live music, massive back patio.

1739 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 238-3693, 442soccerbar.com. 11 am-10 pm Monday, 11 am-11 pm Tuesday-Thursday, 11 am-midnight Friday, 7 am-midnight Saturday, 8 am-10 pm Sunday.

When 4-4-2 opened it was an unassuming, quiet soccer pub as well-known for its Old-World hospitality and Bosnian spiced meats as for its three-flat-screen assault of le foot worldwide. These days, although the $5 happy-hour sis-cevap is still a draw, soccer fandom is front and center: The Venezuelans turn out in force for the Venezuelan games, everyone who speaks Spanish comes around for the Barcelona games, and seemingly half the neighborhood is packed in for the Timbers games—enough so that more than one patron has groused that the bar now needs a television outside. It probably does. It probably also needs a referee inside. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Happy hour: Food specials, $2 Pabst, $2.50 Tecate, $3 wells and $1 off local beers 3-6 pm Monday-Friday.

Entertainment: Soccer, calcio, football, futbol, soccer trivia.

Bar Dobre

3962 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 477-5266, bardobre.com. 5-11 pm Monday-Thursday, 5 pm-midnight Friday-Saturday.

This tucked-away bar along fast-gentrifying upper Hawthorne Boulevard is a cozy place to slowly digest—whether Polish, pizza or roasted-beet salad—and rich in aperitifs, with a drink menu that takes its vodka extraordinarily seriously. With its deep-toned wood panels, framed mirrors and cast-iron chandelier, the bar’s dim space is the front room of your alcoholic grandma’s house. And she’s serving unfiltered Belvedere Vodka, vodka-sparkling wine cocktails ($9) and whiskey with Krupnik honey liqueur that’s like a toddy without the tea ($9). The locale also sports quite simply the best kielbasa plate I’ve had this side of Chicago. The $12 plate will serve as anchoring paperweight for two, and includes spicy house-stuffed sausage, seared kale ensconced in plentiful bacon, an airy potato pancake and warmly brined sauerkraut. 
MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

The High Dive

See Southeast Portland Bar Crawl.

The Tannery Bar

5425 E Burnside St., 236-3610. 5 pm-1 am Monday-Saturday.

The bar’s tiny room consists of a one-plank bar, a pair of communal tables and a chocolate Lab half asleep near the record players as if music were a warm fire. But the seeming simplicity is deceptive; the Tannery’s terrific meat plate is sourced from Portland all the way to Iowa, while a 4-inch-thick ham-Gruyere Monte Cristo ($12) looks like a porn version of French toast. The house drinks are just as decadent, with a $9 Suisse-sour deepening Cherry Heering and citrus juices with bitters and herbal Fernet Vallet. The bar also stocks dry, oaky ciders and keeps a sour beer perennially on tap. Still, the Gasthaus architecture and spare wood framing gives the bar a self-contained, Teutonic distance. You don’t feel at home there so much as you feel like you’ve been treated to unexpected hospitality in an obscure land, somewhere high in the mountains of Tabor. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Happy hour: Rotating specials 5-7 pm nightly.

Entertainment: DJs, playing with the dog.

Devils Point

5305 SE Foster Road, 774-4513, devilspoint.net. 11 am-2:30 am daily.

A triangular den of enlightened iniquities set near the mouth of Foster Road, this favored daughter of Dante’s seems engineered to dispel any lingering illusions about strip bars. Devils Point may be, perhaps, darker than your average FoPo watering hole, but considerably less dingy. When daytime dancers tan themselves on smoking porches and mingle with patrons returning from the neighboring food-cart pod—a far wiser bet than the house cuisine—it’s less sinister than cinematic. The art-directed environs, paired with the sterling goth and rawk tunes chosen by performers and the strong pours of affable bartenders, retains a steady clientele of all genders. Come the carnal vaudeville eruptions of the New York Times-lauded Stripparaoke sessions, overeager women are more the rule. Abandon all pretense ye who enter here. JAY HORTON.

Happy hour: $3 drafts, $2.50 well, 50 cents off call liquor, half off food, 11 am-7 pm.

Entertainment: Video poker, pool, pinball, karaoke.

O’Malley’s Saloon & Grill

6535 SE Foster Road, 777-0495, omalleyspdx.com. 3 pm-2 am daily. 

While newish slogan “Putting Neighbor Back in the ’Hood” doesn’t really speak to any grand design guiding the bar’s continual improvements—a 725-degree wood-fired oven and glassed-in sun room—there’s a warm welcome redolent of the spacious saloon’s ever-more-inviting upper Foster environs. The rotating taps still feature Hamm’s alongside modestly expanding craft-brew selections, while gluten-free bottled brews nestle comfortably beside Rainier tall boys below the sprawling collection of porcelain decanters. Their pizza still compares favorably to Sizzle Pie’s, at considerably less cost. Nobody would have dared predict that a makeshift stage this far from the river could regularly attract top local bands or their devoted throngs, but on lovingly curated bills most Saturday nights, they clear away the pool tables and introduce hoodies to the neighbors. JAY HORTON.

Happy hour: 50 cents off wells and tap pints, $12 one-topping pizza with one pint of craft beer or two 16-ounce Rainier cans. 3-6 pm daily. 

Entertainment: TV, pinball, pool, trivia night, foosball.

Beer Bunker

7918 SE Stark St., 254-8200. 3-11 pm Monday-Thursday, 3 pm-midnight Friday, 1 pm-midnight Saturday, 1-10 pm Sunday. 

Tucked away in a nondescript storefront in Montavilla, Beer Bunker is a neighborhood hangout as much as it’s a bottle shop. Antique beer cans sit on the shelves and hang from the ceiling, serving as lamp shades, above mismatched and durable furnishings. On a Tuesday, the Bunker is filled with several small groups, a couple on a date and a large party celebrating something. Everyone seems relaxed, here to unwind by sipping a beer and sitting on a metal stool atop a concrete floor. With 12 rotating taps and three glass sizes ranging from the 5-ounce “shorty” to a full pint, there are options. Four tasters run $5, and there are more than 100 bottled beers cooling in the glass cases around back—mostly from Oregon, with a smattering of imports and ciders. You could grab those bottles to go, but what’s the hurry? JOHN LOCANTHI.

Happy hour: $1 off pints and wine 3-6 pm.

Entertainment: Occasional tap takeovers, playing 100 Bottles of Beer in the Vault.

Tanuki

8029 SE Stark St., 477-6030, tanukipdx.com. 5-10 pm (or later) Tuesday-Saturday.

Tanuki is a strange little world. Known for its food but appointed as a bar, chef-owner Janis Martin’s Montavilla izakaya is a dim, nearly unmarked space frequented mostly by a small, self-selecting group of adventurous eaters and service-industry pros. This will be doubly so now that Tanuki is starkly limiting food seating to maintain its licensing status as a sake joint. Still, it has maybe the most distinctive (and maybe the most vegetarian-unfriendly) bar food in the city, with Japanese-Korean-inflected small plates and ingredient combinations that often defy easy categorization, alongside similarly singular drinks—in particular the Dejima ($7), a mixture of gin, St. Germain elderflower liqueur, rhubarb bitters and cucumber served ice cold in a cedar masu (square, wooden drinking cup). MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Happy hour: Huge array of cheap-ass food or drink 5-6 pm nightly.

Entertainment: Japanese tentacle porn, horrorsploitation, twisted children’s fare, pinball.

Vintage Cocktail Lounge

7907 SE Stark St., 262-0696, vintagepdx.com. 5 pm-close daily.

Montavilla’s Vintage cocktail lounge is a great place to do the whole absinthe thing. On one hand, this upscale cocktail bar—a deep, narrow nook along Stark Street’s canopied sidewalks—has all the appropriate accoutrements, from the fountain to spoon. On the other hand, this dark neighborhood bar is not so fashionable that anyone will look at you cross-eyed for indulging in the pleasant little ritual a few years past the height of the trend. Cocktails stand up to anything on the city side of the volcano, uniformly well made by friendly bartenders and mostly priced between $8 and $12. MARTIN CIZMAR.

Happy hour: $1 off select cocktails, wine, beer 5-7pm.

Sellwood-Westmoreland

Sellwood Public House

8132 SE 13th Ave., 736-0179, sellwoodpublichouse.com. 3 pm-midnight Monday-Thursday, 3 pm-2:30 am Friday-Saturday, Noon-2 am Sunday.

When you enter Sellwood Public House, you are greeted with a flight of stairs, which doesn’t seem a great start. At the top of those stairs are two locked doors that look like they house yoga studios for septuagenarians. To the right is a short hall, and that hall is painted on both sides like the view from the middle of the Sellwood Bridge. This may sound lame, but I assure you it is not. And then you’re in the Sellwood Public House, a charmingly cozy pub up off the quiet end of 13th Avenue. The service is outstanding (especially at the bar), the food is wide-ranging and well made, and there’s a quality tap and liquor selection. The clientele ranges in age from mid-20s to late 30s and is composed of regular, everyday Portlanders, the sort that don’t see the city as a giant performance art piece (though they’re cool, too). The bar is actually divided in half, with the non-bar side playing host to games (pool, darts and the like) and live music, and the bar half is for talking and watching the game. JORDAN GREEN.

Happy hour: $1 off wells, drafts and food 3-6 pm.

Entertainment: Live music, pool, darts, pingpong, sports TV.

Lutz Tavern

4639 SE Woodstock Blvd., 774-0353, 11-2:30 am daily.

Six-decade-old neighborhood saloons don’t always survive the change of ownership, but this newly sleekened tavern-—bought by Crow Bar vets three years ago—somehow shows its age more than ever before. The Lutz retrovation approximates the effect of a gearhead restoring a 1947 Fleetmaster chassis and seat covers while tearing out the engine to ensure modern performance. Memorabilia advertising defunct breweries decorates the walls, the phone booth has been repurposed as an ATM and a partially enclosed back patio welcomes smokers. Early evening, the well-heeled demographic orders from a menu including the deadlier fringes of diner cuisine. The flat-billed hordes from parts east, who overwhelm the bar afterward, may have noticed only the availability of Jaeger. JAY HORTON.

Happy hour: $2.50 well, $1.50 PBR tall boys 4-7 pm daily.

Entertainment: Pool, pinball, patio, TV.

Bailey’s Taproom

213 SW Broadway, 295-1004, baileystaproom.com. 2 pm-midnight Monday-Friday, 4 pm-midnight Saturday, 2-10 pm Sunday.

The west side’s premier beer hangout, Bailey’s Taproom impresses even eastsiders. Opened in 2007, Bailey’s features an eclectic tap selection guaranteed to please any palate: The woman seated next to me was happy with her Goose Island 312 Urban Wheat, as I struggled to choose between 2008 versions of Terminal Gravity’s Festivale and Alaskan’s Barley Wine Ale. Fortunately, the bar’s DigitalPour menu helps flip-floppers make up their minds by blinking a hurrying red for lighter kegs. Bailey’s best-kept secret is a bottle list of approximately 100 meticulously chosen beers going back a few years. JORDAN GREEN.

Entertainment: Staring at beer tweets on the digital screen.

Cassidy's

See Southwest Portland Bar Crawl.

Jack London Bar

529 SW 4th Ave., 228-7605. Open nightly for events beneath the Rialto poolroom.

After walking through a brightly lit hall of middle-aged men playing pool and watching UFC, it’s vaguely disconcerting to descend a staircase and suddenly find yourself in a dim room full of effete art-school kids selling zines, spinning glam rock on vinyl and doing spoken-word performances before a backdrop of crudely  drawn penises. Somehow, the Jack London Bar, in a resurrected basement lounge below the dingy Rialto, has established itself as the new downtown darling of Portland’s alt-lit crowd, quietly playing host to lectures, readings and art shows while scary dudes with big bellies play video poker upstairs. Dark, grungy and graffitied, the bar suggests an edgier scene, but the Instagramming audience sipping box wine says otherwise. Still, something about the Jack London feels slightly illicit, like the folks upstairs might suddenly appear, brandishing their pool cues, to chase everyone back across Burnside. RUTH BROWN.

Happy hour: Same as Rialto’s, 4-7 pm daily. Entertainment: Readings, storytelling, DJs.

Kask

1215 SW Alder St., 241-7163, grunerpdx.com/kask. 5-11 pm Monday-Saturday.

Each page of Kask’s menu concludes with a quote. From F. Scott Fitzgerald, on the page devoted to grain and grape spirits: “Here’s to alcohol, the rose colored glasses of life.” Such lenses slide on easily at this West End saloon, oiled by the vast selection of smart cocktails and fortified by the fine cheese-and-charcuterie plates. It’s fitting, too, to find a quote from that quintessential American playboy: While Kask might be run by the same folks as Grüner, the Alpine eatery next door, the vibe here is hardly continental. With undersized tables and stools, a mammoth walnut bar and bison sketched on giant chalkboards, Kask is cozy and just a tad quaint. Start sipping one of those thoughtful cocktails—the adaption of the 1947 classic El Diablo ($9) is spicy but not too sharp, though on a budget opt for a $5 glass of punch—and you’ll be wearing those rosy specs in no time. REBECCA JACOBSON.

Entertainment: Menu quotes from Julia Child, Tom Robbins and Errol Flynn.

Kelly’s Olympian

426 SW Washington St., 228-3669, kellysolympian.com. 10 am-2:30 am daily.

Kelly’s Olympian is the aesthetic hodgepodge you’d expect from Portland’s third-oldest continually operating bar/restaurant—it celebrated its 111th birthday this past February. Unused motorcycle parking spots sit out front while vintage motorcycles are suspended from the ceiling. A dark lounge is tucked in the very back of the bar. An eclectic selection of local bands plays in a side room off the main bar throughout the week. Kelly’s Olympian’s namesake, Olympia Beer, is mercifully left off the 20 beers on tap. Regulars, college kids and the occasional whiny person all seem to find themselves at Kelly’s for one reason or another. It’s a solid dive to drop $4.50 on a pint and watch just enough of a Blazers game to want to order another. JOHN LOCANTHI.

Happy hour: $1 off micros and imports, $3 wells, $4 wine 4-7pm daily, 11pm-1am Sunday-Thursday.

Entertainment: Live music, TV.

Luc Lac

835 SW 2nd Ave., 222-0047, luclackitchen.com. 11 am-2:30 pm Monday-Friday, 4 pm-2 am Monday-Thursday,4 pm-4 am Friday-Saturday.

Luc Lac likes to sweeten the pot. The place, indeed, is beautiful. Surrounding a bar island at the room’s center, one wall is covered in metallic Victorian wallpaper, while the other includes a colossal ironized mural of a dragon. The Vietnamese bar cuisine is also a bit sweet, possibly even timid. It’s a place of mild-mannered culinary pleasantry and Asian-inflected cocktail dreams, garbed in colonial chic. The bo tai chanh, with peanut-studded rare steak cooked in lime and pineapple, remains one of the menu’s highlights ($7), and the sweet, tripe-free pho ($6.50-$9) is a popular slurp for the happy-hour and late-night crowds. Word to the wise, though: Go cheap and boozy. Luc Lac has one of the best happy hours in the city, with small-version menu items as cheap as $2. Note: Drinkers take priority if they’re smart. Skip the stupid food line and pony at the bar. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Happy hour: Insanely cheap food specials 4-7 pm Monday-Saturday.

Mary’s Club

129 SW Broadway, 227-3023, marysclub.com. 11 am—2:30 am Monday-Saturday, 11:30 am—2:30 am Sunday.

Setting foot inside Mary’s Club is stepping into a slice of Portland unstuck in time. Antique fliers for the litany of performers who have graced Portland’s oldest strip club line the walls. The colorful mural of historic women painted along the back wall dates back to the ’50s. The cash register looks twice as old. A heavily tattooed dancer slides up and down the pole to the sultry chords of Velvet Underground’s “Venus in Furs” in front of a surprisingly gender-balanced crowd. There are 10 beers on tap, but I always find myself gravitating toward the one with a stripper handle at the end: Mary’s blonde ale ($4.75). It’s a fitting accompaniment as one takes in the wide range of women dancing at Mary’s, which at one point included Portland’s favorite daughter, Courtney Love. Mary’s Club is a strip club in that low-key, dive-y Portland kind of way. JOHN LOCANTHI.

Happy hour: $2.50 PBR 11 am-4:30 pm daily.

Entertainment: Strippers.

Renner’s Grill

7819 SW Capitol Highway, 246-9097, rennersgrill.com. 11-2:30 am daily.

Given its outsized reputation among Oregon saloon lore over seven decades of operation, infrequent visitors to Multnomah Village, Southwest Portland’s lone civilized stretch, always forget a central tenet of Renner’s Grill: The bar is teensy. A decent birthday party could overfill the Suburban Room, Renner’s elevated lounge-within-a-lounge, not to mention disturb the early evening array of well-turned-out couples finishing their dinner, just-off-work locals starting their drunk and the still-imposing pensioners staring down the Blazers game. But the interiors are less cramped than finely proportioned, and there’s an easy bonhomie across age and collar that has all but vanished in Portland proper. The generous pours and cozy environs help, of course, but sometimes it takes a village. JAY HORTON.

Happy hour: $3 wells, $1.50 PBR, $1 off micros 3-7 pm daily.

Entertainment: TV, bingo. 

Sasquatch Brewing Company

6440 SW Capitol Highway, 402-1999, sasquatchbrewery.com. 3-11 pm Monday-Thursday, noon-midnight Friday-Saturday, noon-9 pm Sunday.

As the rest of the city blossomed into a food and brewing mecca, Portland’s most affluent quadrant became depressingly irrelevant during the last decade. For Southwest Portlanders, finding a decent bite means at least a five-mile trip, often across the river. Fortunately, Sasquatch Brewing is one of the first steps in rectifying that malaise. Sunk off Capitol Highway on Hillsdale’s west end, Sasquatch serves up an impressive array of in-house brews, guest taps and ciders. The food is even better, with seasonal burgers among the best I’ve had and a “small plate” of fried chicken and fingerling potatoes that is definitely not small. The space, while decked in warm woods and tasteful Portland nostalgia, is a bit cramped when it’s too cold for the patio, but that’s nitpicking. Here’s hoping Sasquatch is around for a while and helps lead a renaissance of these forgotten hills. JORDAN GREEN.

Happy hour: Beer, wine and food specials 3-5 pm and 9pm-close daily.

Entertainment: Open-mic Mondays.

Highland Stillhouse

201 S 2nd St., Oregon City, 723-6789, highlandstillhouse.com. 11 am-midnight Tuesday-Saturday, 11 am-10 pm Sunday.

Its Oregon City locale keeps the iconic Highland Stillhouse well off the radar of most Portland locals. Too bad. The Stillhouse has, quite simply, the most extensive Scotch selection that you are likely to experience anywhere, including most places in Scotland. We recommend an early day weekend ride on the 33 or 35 bus, as you are not likely to imbibe lightly. Order some Scotch you’ve never heard of, and while some blowhard at the other table explains that Scotch is all about the water, you will be looking out at the fine waters of the Willamette from the patio. The voluminous beer list has plenty of rare imports from the British isles, but seriously: Stick to the Islay. There are 54 bottles of it to try before you even make it the Lowlands or the Speyside. MATTHEW KORFHAGE

Happy hour: Food specials Tuesday-Friday 3-6 pm.

Entertainment: Live music, TV, reading the whisky list over and over to yourself in a thick accent.