Thursday 19th of May 2011 11:04:00 AM

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It was a cold & rainy night, so I decided to stick close to my hotel. I was glad I had a good option.

RB is located in an older corner building. There are two main areas. There is dining to your left and the bar with more dining straight ahead.

I like the very high ceilings with the exposed old wood rafters. They use half walls to add a sense of space. They use lots of copper, wood and plants for decoration. I like the rustic lighting in the bar room.

They had a huge crowd for happy hour. The bar was 4/5ths full at 5 pm. Good food and beer specials from 2 to 6 pm that may help explain the crowd.

I enjoyed the friendly staff and patrons. However, service really dragged. I was sitting at the bar and the single bartender took care of the wait staff before the customers at the bar. Even when they brought in a 2nd bartender, service was slow. I know I waited 5 to 10 minutes on two different occasions for a beer.

They have a large blackboard in the bar area listing the regular offerings. 7 on the board during my visit plus two seasonals (yea Dunkelwiezen!!). 2 beers on cask.

I thought the food and beer were well worth a stop. Service could be improved, but I was not in any big hurry.

Thursday 23rd of April 2009 06:11:23 PM

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Beer Geek Tip: head straight for the bar. At the bar you'll get something like 4.75 service, not the 3.5 I put on this review.

The beers are of a uniformly high quality. Very skilled brewers at the Portland location. Check out whatever seasonal they have; if that doesn't suit you, the Porter and the IPA are reliably excellent. Usually very good on cask also, though I had one today that seemed like it was going downhill.

Food: corporate edible.

If you chance the restaurant side, your server will know nothing about the beer, which is a shame given the care that goes into the beers. If you don't look front-office, the best you can hope for is indifferent treatment, and you might get worse than that.

Tuesday 16th of September 2008 01:52:12 PM

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When I moved to Portland (‘92) this was the first place in Oregon I ever had a beer at. Cheers to you Rock Bottom. The beers where great and I was scared as hell as I was about to move for a new job. The food was very nice and the service that night was awesome. This was also on the same weekend of the Oregon Brewers Festival and the rest is history as I became a Beer Geek and fell in love with great Beers and Beer places.

Sunday 9th of December 2007 02:31:42 PM

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Yet another Rock Bottom.

I was travelling for business with a collegue who is a little fussy about food but wanted a brewpub for dinner as he had heard "stories" about great beer here. Mmm-hmmm. Rock Bottom seemed like a safe choice; it's hard to complain about these guys other than the "corporate" feel of the chains.

The atmosphere here was "Portland" though, and that counted. We wound up having a pretty good time with quality beer and food to boot.

Annoyances: Corporate

Tuesday 31st of July 2007 08:00:30 AM

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RB - Portland was our first stop on a recent Portland visit. Our hotel was two blocks away and pretty much as soon as we got our bags into the room we walked down to try some local beer. The selection is similar to other Rock Bottoms in that there are a couple of lighter offerings, and the rest is varied and usually pretty interesting.

There were a couple of hoppy beers available a good stout and a fairly good porter. The porter and one of the pale ales were available both on co2 tap and cask as well. I felt the Porter seemed quite a bit more enjoyable on cask. The beers were solid and worth a trip if you're in the area.

The food menu was also similar to what I have seen at other RB locations. In fact, there was very little that was different about the menu compared to my local (Chicago) Rock Bottom. I like the menu and I felt that it is easily one of my favorite menus from a chain restaurant.

They have adequate patio seating and a fairly long bar. Smoking is allowed in the bar area, but during our visits it did not get very smoky.

Some people shy away from chains, but I think Rock Bottom is good enough in both the beer and the food department that you're likely going to miss something if you avoid it. Like I said earlier, this one is worth a visit with solid beers and good, interesting food.

Parking here would be street parking or possibly paid deck parking. There is a Max Light Rail stop right outside of Rock Bottom's door and there are busses going very close to this location.