Portland Beer Museum is now Open

Industry News

Apr 28

Written By

The Portland Beer Museum in downtown Portland is now open, but it's not what you expect. Part tasting room and growler fill station, Portland Beer Museum is in large part a bottleshop and merchandise store. A one-stop shop for beers and beer gadgets, trinkets, wearables and snacks. Some of it cool, some of it filler, but either way it's weird to be in a gift shop that revolves around everything beer.

Portland Beer Museum has eight draft lines and pours a tray with the whole lineup. You can also take a 32oz growler fill home for $8 and a 64oz fill for $15. Interestingly, they dont do full 16oz pints but 4oz pours for $2 and 12oz pours for an affordable $4. And the taplist is good, on our visit they had Ruse Brewing Papyrus Iris, pFriem Brut IPA, Chuckanut Pils, Beachwood Citradelic, Aslan Fresh Mosaic, Founder's Porter and Boneyard Red. It's not many draft lines, but the space next door to Portland Beer Museum is open and they have room to expand and the interest to do so if the business is there. The good beer selection extends to the bottle and can selection; it's no surprise it's so well curated because the buyer/manager is Kory Linsenmeyer, former assistant brewer at Burnside Brewing Co. who also purchased beer at McNally's Taproom in Hillsboro and bartended at Pints Brewing.

The merchandised-out space at Portland Beer Museum is fun to look through and of varying degrees of interest. It's nice to see the most recent issues of numerous beer publications from the last issue of Oregon Beer Growler, the 2019 WW Oregon Beer Guide to the latest Beer Advocate. On the walls are souvenir worthy beer shirts and hats and of lesser interest except to maybe tourists: bottle openers, magnets, shower beer holders, koozies, coolers, beer socks, coasters and table top mini beer pong in multiple forms.

As trivial as the former trinkets may sound, it's fun to find some tasty beer themed snacks like Bierhaus Beef Jerky, and useful items like the latest new growlers from Drink Tanks and GrowlerWerks. There is also a small but growing selection of vintage breweriana like now defunct classic bottle labels, coasters and bottle openers, even a few signs.

Portland Beer Museum is a one-stop shop for beer tourists and would probably be a huge hit if it were in the Portland International Airport. A place where you can pick up a bottle or can, and also a stocking stuffer or travel gift, PBM will hopefully be more of an actual museum in the future. In the meantime, it will be interesting to see if it catches on, the neighborhood does need a spot for good beer to-go.