Hoptrip Day 1

The streets of Portland are teeming with brewers. They aren’t running through the streets in large groups like a bachelor party in Amsterdam. Nor are they dressed as princesses or Smurfs. But they are easily recognizable. For one thing, they’re dressed head to toe in their own brewery merchandise. Second, they walk with the same determination to visit every brewery and taproom in the city (and there are many). Finally, everyone orders the same thing: fresh hop IPAs. 

Uiltje above this game. We, too, are decked out in Uiltje , and we, too, are determined to visit every brewery and try every fresh hop beer we can find. To make the most of our opportunities, we’ve decided never to order the same beer. Every round is a chance to taste four new beers. Every sip is followed by a long discussion about the nuances of the hop variety, intensity, and the yeast. 

Each of us has a role. Mike and Tjebbe have a list of breweries we need to visit. They’re in charge of that list. Paddi has organized all the hop farm visits and collaborations we’ve planned with Breakside and Deschutes. John is in charge of intel, gathering insights, and sneaking away for interviews with the region’s local hop experts. 

We arrived on Day 1 at 11 a.m. By the end of this jet-lagged day, we had tasted several dozen beers at Migration, Wayfinder, Baerlic, Brujos, Function NW, and Ruse. We washed it all down with Thai BBQ, Vietnamese pho, and Detroit-style deep-dish pizza. We are inspired. A couple of times, we were even blown away. And by the time we headed to bed that evening, we all agreed on one thing: Wayfinder doesn’t serve a single bad beer. So clean, so drinkable. We could have stayed there all night long.