First look at Chuckanut Brewing P Nut Beer Hall taproom in Portland
Chuckanut Brewing P Nut Beer Hall in Portland opens
Chuckanut Brewery P-Nut Beer Hall opens in inner southeast Portland today. The brewery was founded in Bellingham, WA in 2008 by Will and Mari Kemper. The Kemper name may sound familiar, Will was the “Kemper” in the still ongoing Thomas Kemper brand that still makes one of the best classic root beers around, even though it is now owned by Texas’s Big Red, Inc. and the Kemper’s have nothing to do with it.
After many years founding and consulting on breweries in Washington and abroad the Kemper’s moved to Bellingham and opened Chuckanut Brewing. It didn’t take long for them to be named brewery and brewmaster of the year at the 2009 Great American Beer Festival. Chuckanut has now become synonymous with lagers, the brewery makes almost exclusively German-style lagers and has won more medals for them than just about anyone else in the U.S. Their legacy has also been extended towards legendary status thanks to the many acolytes who earned their stripes at Chuckanut and then went on to open their own important and influential breweries such as pFriem Family Brewers and Wayfinder Beer in Oregon.
Chuckanut Brewery opens their Portland taproom goofily named the “P Nut Beer Hall” on Thursday, December 9th 2021. The opening comes on the heels of the closure of their original location in Bellingham and features many of the historical mementos and accolades that once were displayed prominently at the pub and have now made their way to Portland. Luckily for everyone Chuckanut opened a production facility and taproom in Burlington, WA in 2016 and has picked up the burden of brewing and hospitality operations just 35 minutes outside of Bellingham. The Portland beer hall may now become a surrogate flagship for the lager-focused brewery that has so warmly been embraced by Oregonians through small batch distribution from Portland’s Day One Distribution.
Chuckanut’s increasingly close relationship with Day One explains their entrance into the Oregon market with a taproom rather than closer metropolitan areas like Seattle. Portland was earlier than most to embrace lagers and has been clamoring for Chuckanut beers even before they were available here. Day One added the brewery to their lineup early on, quantities were limited but the wholesaler knew the best accounts where the brand would be most appreciated and has helped cultivate an adoring local audience. It wasn’t long before the Oregon following for Chuckanut was as robust and perhaps even more vocal than the fans in Washington. When a former office space next to Day One Distribution’s offices in southeast Portland opened up Chuckanut took the chance and has transitioned the Bellingham taproom experience to Portland.
The PDX beer hall is both centrally located and slightly hidden away on the corner of SE 9th and Carruthers. From the wide southwest facing windows is the train tracks and views of Tilikum Crossing and the Marquam Bridge. A Tri-Met MAX line stop is only 1 blocks away as well as the Powell Blvd. 9 bus and Division 2 bus lines. Still the office park turned craft beer hub is on a quiet corner with warehousing supply companies as neighbors but popular bars like Palomar and The Beermongers just right around the corner. As such, beer nerds will have no problem putting the P-Nut on the map and adding it to their beer crawl that easily string together Chuckanut between Apex and Baerlic Brewing.
One of the most anticipated openings of the year, Chuckanut Brewing PDX is actually a pretty intimate back-to-basics taproom with counter service and casual seating. The bright space offers picnic beer hall tables indoors and out with various nooks and crannies of what was obviously an office space with bright tube lighting still intact to prove it. To warm up the space Chuckanut has dusted off a mini museum’s worth of old beer signs, press clippings and posters from their history as well as craft beer’s legacy in the pacific northwest.
The P-Nut offers 9 Chuckanut beers on tap at openig ranging from classics like their Pilsner and Vienna Lager to seasonal and limited beers like Yellow Card, Schwarzbier, and Alt. In addition to being a home for their draft beer you will be able to purchase kegs, find cans and bottles of Chuckanut beer to-go, and pick-up brewery merch. The taproom has limited outdoor seating, a foosball table, and a small events/meeting conference room. P-Nut is all-ages friendly until 8pm but does not have food except for packaged chips, nuts, snacks etc. but hopes to have food trucks in the future.
Chuckanut Brewery’s P Nut Beer Hall is located at 920 SE Caruthers St, Portland, OR 97214. Open Monday-Thursday and Sunday 12-9 pm and Friday-Saturday 12-10 pm.