Spring Break Essentials – Drinks

With over 30 microbreweries in the Portland metro area like Rogue, Bridgeport, and Cascade Brewing – many refer to this quirky city as beervana. Not a beer lover? Not to worry. There are a number of other options from swanky martini bars to local wineries and increasingly popular micro-distilleries.

To start out the weekend, we enjoyed a few German beers alongside a delicious diner at Gustav’s – a German restaurant in northeast Portland. We tried a nice, light Spaten Munich Helles and Radeberger Pilsner (one of Germany’s 9 best-selling brews) from the eastern city of Radeberg, Germany.  I would consider the Helles a good “beginner” German beer if you like to keep it light. It is one of the more well-known beers at Munich’s popular Oktoberfest which draws an average of 6 million visitors per year.

Aside from the beer, we enjoyed some really great martini’s during happy hour at Portland City Grill. This upscale restaurant, located on the 30th floor of the Bancorp building, offers gorgeous views of downtown Portland and Mount Hood (on a clear day). It is a bit on the spendy side for dinner but they offer a great happy hour menu which is no secret to the rest of the city.

Happy hour is popular here…it starts at 4:30 p.m. and by the time we arrived at 4:45 p.m. there were no window seats left. We opted for a high top table off the bar which still offered us a pretty good view of the city. We sampled a few different martinis like a tangy sunberry martini and a sweet tiramisu martini with Vanilla Stoli, Bailey’s Irish Cream, Kahlua, and Godiva Original that could have easily passed for a dessert. PCG definitely tops my list for happy hours in Portland – great drinks, great food, amazing views, and a pianist that plays Billy Joel’s “piano man” as you walk out. Classic!