First look at Duality Brewing / Astral PDX; New NE Portland brewpub with a culinary spirit
Duality Brewing and Astral have opened a brewpub in northeast Portland’s Kerns neighborhood at 715 NE Lawrence Ave.
What is a Duality Brewing? Is a common reply when I mention the 2020 Portland nano brewery that the New School beer was first to write about in the early days of the pandemic. No, it’s not an existential crisis turned brewery, though the name does illicit a certain aura of German philosopher angst about the meaning of life. You likely know a LOT about Duality Brewing and follow their every limited hand drawn labeled can dropped on the market via their instagram stories, or you have never even heard of them in any capacity. Chef/owner/brewer Michael Lockwood and his wife and partner Alyssa LeCompte, seem to enjoy the mysterious nature of Duality, preferring to appear in spurts and drips and drops of beers brewed in a beaten down storage container somewhere on the outskirts of northwest Portland. With nearly every beer release Duality keeps you guessing, even obsessive beer connoisseurs may be just as confused as they are intrigued by offerings such as a pale ale fermented with Norwegian Kviek yeast with grapefruit, lilac, rhubarb & vanilla, or an American Hefeweizen that was oak-fermented with Chardonnay juice from Fossil & Fawn winery. Those challenging, but rewarding beers, and the ellusive nature of Duality, have worked for them so far as they built up a cult-like following that they are hoping to grow with a full on brewpub taproom experience in northeast Portland.
Michael Lockwood was known as a sous chef about town before he took his homebrewing hobby semi-pro while being short of work during the pandemic. A veteran of such well respected foodie destinations as Kachka, Eem, and Toki, Lockwood describes the beer he makes as “Ingredient-driven beer inspired by a blend of curiosity and practical experience.” Lockwood is still brewing a 1/2 barrel of beer (one full size keg) at a time, but his new 5bbl brewpub sized system is now in his new home, waiting to get piped and plumbed and churning out beers. Lockwood told the New School in our 2021 profile, that “The thing you don’t think about is that you’re not going to make a living brewing 15 gallons at a time - it’s just not possible. If I brewed twice a day every day and had twice as many fermenters, maybe, but I would never be home.”
In January 2022, Lockwood and LeCompte revealed their plans to the New School to expand into a project with Guerilla Development in the Kerns neighborhood. In the almost 1.5 years since that project got started, they have found their dual mates in another couple, John Boisse and Lauren Breneman, who founded Mexican catering, events and pop-up series Astral. Boisse and Breneman met cooking together in Chicago, and got to know Lockwood when they were all in the kitchen together making brunch at Toki. The Astral pop-ups often focus on summery, beach appropriate Mexicana like tacos and ceviche. Duality and Astral have been teaming up to host Duality beer release pop-ups with Astral providing the food since 2022. At the new Duality brewpub, they are making that relationship permanent.
At the new home of Duality Brewing a collaboration has formed with Astral sharing a corner of the space with a small fresh open kitchen concept serving smallish plates of light Mexican dishes with plenty of seafood and seasonal veggies. On Sundays, they are trying out brunch from 10am til 2pm, with coffee drinks from Brooklyn, NY’s Parlor Coffee. In the future they plan to be open for lunch and dinner. The taproom is a full-on partnership between Astral and Duality working in cooperation with each other, with Astral serving up brunch dishes like Ono Aguachile Verde, breakfast sandwich and tostadas, and fresh masa stuffed with chorizo spiced potato and quesillo, cabbage, crema and cilantro.
The ambiance is nothing like the typical brewpub, throw out your expectations for a brewery and you will find a space that is more of a minimalist, modern chic wine bar or bistro vibe. This is the type of space you would expect to find natural wine and tapas rather than ales and lagers, and guess what, they have exactly that on the menu for a spritz to lighten your spirits before you sit in contemplation over a ‘Pivokvas’ Kvas inspired ale brewed with cracked fenugreek and baked rye bread from Kachka.
The bleached white mixed use-warehouse gives off Greece meets Southern California vibes. Perhaps it’s just the pristine blue skies and baking temps when we visited, but the large elevated deck and the clean stark white finish next to nearby palm trees planted around a neighboring apartment lift the scene into something unexpected for a brewery.
The warehouse they call home was a large furniture factory, restored by Guerilla Development before they sold the building. It’s now primarily creative work space and studios with Duality/Astral as the only public facing tenants. And even though the location is so central that it’s just 3 blocks from the busy 28th and NE Glisan intersection, and right around the corner from the hip Church Bar, it still feels like you are in a secluded residential neighborhood. With little traffic outside is mostly neighbors walking their dogs or rolling baby strollers. You’d almost think you were in a different town, but Providore Fine Foods marketplace and Guerilla’s popping Ocean micro restaurant pod are just a block away. Culmination Brewing is also just a short walk, now making for some great craft beer pub crawl opportunities if you add Migration Brewing on Glisan, and Level Beer 3 on Sandy into the mix.
The lack of street traffic or a parking lot next to Duality Brewing doesn’t seem like a problem, it may be more of an asset that plays into the feeling that you have stumbled upon a hidden gem likely to take off based on word of mouth just like Duality and Astral’s pop-ups did. The first major hurdle getting off the ground is simply making enough beer, until the new brewhouse gets approved by the fire marshall and all the overly delayed work and permitting gets done, Duality is still stuck brewing beer a keg at a time. That might have worked well when Lockwood was hand labeling 100 cans at a time to sell at The Beermongers over a weekend, but now that they have a taproom the beers are flying out of the draft lines faster than they can make them. Lockwood says they are almost out of the previously mentioned oak grappa and hibiscus farmhouse ale, and the funky peppery and hoppy herbacious table saison probably won’t last long either. Next weekend there will be new batches of the consistently rotating playful experiments, a blood orange cream ale, and a Belgian-style pale ale are on the way.
For now, Duality Brewing is only open on Fridays from 4-8, Saturday 2-8, and Sunday 10-2. But those limited hours should help keeping their own beers in stock and preserving their illusive appeal.
Duality Brewing / Astral
715 NE Lawrence Ave, Portland, OR 97232