Fat Head's: The Great Middle West

By MARTIN CIZMAR
 

The Pearl District's newest brewpub, Fat Head's (131 NW 13th Ave., 820-7721, fatheadsportland.com), really channels the spirit of suburban Cleveland. That's not a knock. There's a lot to love about this big, doughy brewery and restaurant. 

First, the beer, which is solid to excellent, including a squeaky-clean Czech Pilsner and the state's best new weizenbock; that weiz is the deceptively smooth 8.7 percent ABV Alpenglow, a glorious pigpile of clove and banana that took gold at the Great American Beer Festival last month. 

Then, there are bun-busting sandwiches and burgers, which come from a billboard-sized menu and include the super-stacked Southside Slopes—a whole kielbasa, halved, topped with fried perogies, onions, American cheese and spicy horseradish sauce ($12.99) served with huge mounds of house-fried potato chips. Other offerings follow the steroidal Applebee's theme: The Bender has pastrami, Italian sausage, a fried egg, grilled onions, Tillamook cheddar and cherry-pepper mayo. 

The space is Cheesecake Factory-scale, decorated with company branding and, so far, slammed, meaning we waited over an hour for our food. (The waitress halved our bill.) The taps haven't yet poured the flagship Head Hunter IPA—a revelation in North Olmsted, Ohio, though hard-pressed to rank among Oregon's top 10 IPAs—but it's already becoming one of the Pearl's more pleasant bars. Hey, if it's good enough for Cleveland's westside 'burbs, it's good enough for Portland's admen and tourists.

WWeek 2015

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