For our money, Portland remains among the top 5 culinary cities in the country.

A Sure Thing: Portland's Food and Beer Scene

Ron Gansberg is a man preoccupied with beer. We’re in a keg-lined room at the new Cascade Brewing Barrel House (cascadebrewingbarrel house.com). It’s chilly in here, and Gansberg, the grinning brewmaster, uses it as the excuse of the moment to taste some of his 350 sour beers with names such as Blond Quad, which features coriander and orange, and other brews laced with elderberry and dates.

For an East Coast lager lover, it’s more than an acquired taste. Sour brew is so foreign to my tongue, I can’t fathom its liquid DNA. “Three chugs to acclimate the palate, and you’re hooked,” Gansberg insists.

All right. I’m not exactly Hunter S. Thompson, but I have been known to hug, in the sloppiest possible way, a stray keg or two. So, Gansberg and I visit his darlings—the kegs aging brews 24 months and longer—and tap into their beloved bellies. The tastes are at once exotic (“Is that cinnamon?” I ask Gansberg. “Oh, yeah!” he says proudly. “We get it from Grenada and Thailand”) and familiar, as if the sour brews were concocted by moonshiners with Ph.D.s in organic chemistry. “It’s fun to see how everything turns out,” says Gansberg of his recipes. “We are merely boys with our toys.”  

Which can be said for most of Portland these days.

When I visited the city six years ago, it was just getting its culinary mojo in gear. The McMenamins brewpub craze was also well established, and the Portland aesthetic (unabashedly green, crunchier than a box of flaxseed, a Phish concert demographic) grounded a perfectly pleasant one- or two-day visit before a trek off to Mt. Hood or Seattle.

But short stays would now be a mistake. Portland, a town where brilliant obsessives lord over food, beverage and fringe pursuits, has become a place where passions metastasize into culture, and culture becomes a rallying cry for a good way to live. And the brilliant obsessives are getting noticed beyond the fertile Willamette Valley.

I learn this lesson on Distillery Row in the Southeast section of the city, where I walk into Christian Krogstad’s playroom, House Spirits Distillery (housespirits.com). Krogstad, a former brewer with the perpetual grin of a kid tinkering with the science teacher’s gear in the school basement, has received international praise for Aviation gin. While he mixes me a cocktail (Aviation, ice, fresh-squeezed lime and nearly an ounce of simple syrup), Krogstad talks about the craft. “We are minimalists when it comes to what we produce. Keep it pure; keep it simple. We’ve changed the philosophy of how not to mess with the distillate. It has helped redefine gin.” He’s right. The gin, so simple and smooth, allows me to taste the underlying
flavors.

Over in the Alberta Arts District in Northeast Portland, a one-woman revolution is taking shape. “We have an amazing food scene,” says Naomi Pomeroy, owner of Beast (beastpdx.com) and a recent contestant on Bravo’s “Top Chef Masters.” The slight, blue-eyed Pomeroy tells me she taps into farmers markets for her 24-seat restaurant. On the night I visit, her six-course fixed menu flaunts a parade of local cheese, roasted red beets and pork belly with marble-size English peas and heirloom cucumbers. The steak tartare and quail-egg toast is a combo you won’t find on most culinary dance cards. But Pomeroy knows better.

I also meet a man who says he wants to be the Ted Turner of oceans. He’s only 28, but Kristofor Lofgren owns one of the hottest dining spots in Portland: Bamboo Sushi (bamboosushipdx.com), the country’s first certified sustainable sushi restaurant. Lofgren believes big business should be better stewards of the planet. I mention that he’s not exactly big business. “Not yet,” he says with a shrug. Then he riffs about what he calls “consumer regeneration”—his plan to replenish protected marine areas through a portion of Bamboo Sushi’s profits—and how he’s managed to source product from like-minded fishermen the world over. “For every fish you eat, we put two back in the ocean,” he says.

Lofgren, who will open another Bamboo Sushi in Portland this fall, speaks with passion. His food backs up the bravado, especially the Eskimo box with Alaskan salmon layered with cucumber carpaccio, green onion and house-smoked soy. Yes, another obsessive.

Portland on Water and Wheels

I also meet the river whisperer, Peter Giordano, who runs Blue Sky Rafting (bluesky rafting.com) on the Clackamas. Three companions and I plow through class III and IV rapids with names like Toilet Bowl while Giordano deftly guides our raft with the unassuming smoothness of a Manhattan cabbie. Schedule a river run and hear orders barked at you for two hours. Without them, you’ll be in danger, which makes Giordano the best river friend you’ll ever meet. In the smooth stretches of clear water, ask to hear his classic stories about Oregon skinny dippers.

Portland’s bike lanes are so prominent, motorists probably feel slighted. Todd Roll runs Pedal Bike Tours (pedalbiketours.com), offering trips that cater to interests in the city and surrounding area. Think food, brew and the Columbia River Gorge. I opt for the 7-mile historic city tour. My amiable guide, Jason, chats about everything from the eco-designs of repurposed buildings to Voodoo Doughnut (voodoodoughnut.com), which sells apple fritters the size of a child’s head and whose owners can legally marry couples in the shop if the mood strikes on a sugar high.