Who’s in your top 10?
March 10th, 2010So the other day I was in a conversation with a friend over who I thought was Portland’s best brewery. Later in the day I sat wondering who I thought were Oregon’s top brewers. After all, with a major influx of new breweries opening in the next year I need some bar to see how they stack up, and it’s something to look back on years from now.
Sitting back in deep beer fueled thought a few jumped to mind, then I stopped to consider their whole beer line up and things got more complicated. On one hand there are breweries like Hair of the Dog, they make Adam which could downright be the greatest fricken beer I’ve ever had, but their line-up is smaller and has a ton variability. On the other hand are breweries like Deschutes, they crank out great beers across the board, but might have a few less “wow” beers then the previous. How do you compare? Lastly there are quite a few breweries that I haven’t had a large enough sampling from, i.e. Brewers Union, Barley Browns, Oakshire, so those don’t get a fair shot. So enough with the blathering here is my list:
1. Block 15
2. Deschutes
3. Cascade Brewing
4. Hair of the Dog
5. Big Horse
6. Heater Allen
7. Upright
8. Standing Stone
9. Double Mountain
10. Laurelwood
Heater Allen? A all lager brewery? I’m not typically much of a lager guy, but damn they make great beer.
I’m not sure Cascade/Raccoon Lodge would have even been in this list a few years back, but their recent work with sour beers has ramped them up near the top.
Block 15, from no where these guys have risen to the top of my list in a short time they’ve been open. Every time I’ve been to their pub I’ve ordered up a big sampler tray full of inspiring beers.
The most interesting part of this for me was looking back on my list once finished and thinking about how it will stand in the coming years. I’m sure if I had created this list when I first moved to Oregon, and I wish I had, it would have looked very different. Maybe I’ll continue to hash out this list yearly to compare. So who’s going to climb up the rankings in 2010? Which of the new breweries opening up will leave a real impression?
So who’s in your top 10? Any bets for who will jump out of the gate in 2010?








