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Our Favorite 178 Portland Bars | Bar of the Year: Stammtisch | Best Bars No. 2-5
Strip Club Hangouts | Sports Bars | Shot 'n' a Back | English Bars | Dessert Cocktails
Patio Bars | Bars That Look Like Houses | Skee-ball Bars | Cart Pod Bars
Where to Eat After Bar Close | The Most Important Little Bar 'Hood in Portland
Scout Beer Garden
Good Food Here pod, Southeast Belmont Street and 43rd Avenue; Tidbit Food Farm and Garden pod, Southeast 28th Place and Division Street; scoutpdx.com.
Two of Southeast's most iconic and well-appointed pods get their beer from the same damn people—but the most pleasant is Tidbit. Amid a vast expanse of tables you can get the omnipresent Breakside IPA most days, or try for occasional rotators or even rarities like a brambleberry from Bull Run, a brown from Ex Novo or the Saison d'Etre from Mazama. Portland's finest beer garden experience.
St. Johns Porch
Cart pod at Kruger's Farm Stand, 7316 N Lombard St., thebeerporches.com.
With a hammock and several comfy sofas and chairs, St. Johns Porch is like a Southern backyard in Portland's own northern backyard community of St. Johns. The six beers on tap come mostly from its own Captured by Porches brewery, with outjuts into Natian Brewery, North Portland's Germanic Occidental, and winery-run cidery Alter Ego. Clink a glass with chefs working at the nearby food carts, if their work slows down enough to let them stop by.
Pod Bar
Carts on Foster, 5205 SE Foster Road.
Come here on a Thursday, get some barbecue from the kick-ass Road-Runner, and get $2.50 craft pints and $3 ciders among food carts and strippers on their lunch break from Devils Point. Beautiful.
Captured by Porches
Southeast 28th Avenue and Ankeny Street pod, 509-954-2136, capturedbyporches.com.
The best winter beer cart of the bunch, with a fire pit under cover from the rain—except it takes a sort of leisurely view of being open or closed. Take it with an excellent torta from Guero, or some of the city's best falafel from Wolf and Bear's. Expect two or three beers from Captured by Porches, but ties to the brewery are loose, so there's often an interesting assortment.
The Blue Room
Cartlandia, 8145 SE 82nd Ave., 358-7873, cartlandia.com.
Yes, you can also drink in the beer garden—and you might want to in the sun—but for the odd rainy day, take shelter with your Maine Street Lobster roll in this squat building with a low stage for live music, a 1975 Timbers jersey on the wall, friendly staff and a smartly curated, always-rotating tap list of West Coast beers.
3207 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 610-3447.
From the simple tallboy—whether craft or Rainier—to Omission gluten-free beer to mimosas and Spanish-ish wine cocktails, this may very well be Portland's only boozy brunch cart, with a few picnic tables tucked off to the side, and enough kids around to make your outdoor morning buzz seem downright wholesome as an accompaniment to your stacked-up Yolko Ono or occasional Damon Grillard special.
WWeek 2015