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Portland's cider bar scene might be getting its ante pushed up… by Seattle.
One of Washington's finest cideries will be opening a taproom in Portland soon. Seattle's Schilling Cider—inventor of what may be the world's first nitro hard cider—will be opening a taproom on Southeast Belmont Street's Goat Blocks, with what co-founder Mark Kornei says will be more cider taps than any cider house in the United States.
America's largest cider bar expected to open in the spring of next year.
So where there once was a field of urban goats, there will now be a giant hard cider house with taps from four continents, gigantic beer-hall-style drinking tables made with slabs of repurposed wood, big wooden rafter beams, and a back patio featuring a concrete table with a long firepit built into the table.
"There are a lot of features we're pretty excited about," says Kornei, who says he's doing a lot of the buildout himself.
Currently, the country's most-tapped cider bar is a tie between Portland's Cider Bite and Schilling's 32-tap cider house in Seattle, which also has a by-the-bottle selection that spans 300. Kornei says the Portland version will have more taps and fewer bottles, making our planned cider bar the biggest cider draft selection in the U.S.
"We will have quite a bit [of cider] from Oregon, that will be a healthy focus, " Kornei says, as will cideries from Washington. The bar will also stock a lot of international ciders. He also says that tap takeovers and cider events will be a regular occurrence, and they might also start offering cider-making classes, as they do in Seattle.
So think of it as a mash-up of what's going right at both Portland Cider House and Bushwhacker. Oh, and if it makes you feel better about Schilling being from Seattle, both the owners are alums of Willamette University in Salem.