City’s Oldest Craft Beer Brewery Closes Its Taps
Before the craft beer craze with breweries popping up like flowers in springtime, there was Portland.
This Oregon city is, as far as I’m concerned, the original craft beer location.
And the original of the originals is BridgePort Brewing Company. Or was, shall I report, for Portland’s oldest beer maker has closed.
This is sad for those of us who went to BridgePort throughout the years. It was an awesome place, in the old warehouse district with heavy wooden picnic tables, great pizzas and awesome beers poured out of giant taps.
Apparently it overstayed its welcome. Here is a statement from its owners.
“Dear Friends of BridgePort,
Today we unfortunately announce that the BridgePort Brewery will cease brewing operations effective immediately, while the BridgePort Brew Pub will close effective March 10th, 2019. The decision to close was extremely difficult for all involved. Back in April 2017, declining sales caused the brewery to restructure its operations. However, sales and distribution continued declining in the extremely competitive craft beer market of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, which resulted in this final decision.
We extend our most sincere thanks and gratitude to our hardworking brewers, pub staff, our suppliers, and sales and marketing team for their dedication to BridgePort over the years. Because of their contributions, BridgePort’s enduring legacy as Portland’s craft beer pioneer will always be remembered.
We communicated this news earlier today to our employees and all are being provided with comprehensive severance packages.
We would also like to thank you—our BridgePort drinkers, pub customers, and fans—for your loyal support over the past 35 years. We invite you to stop by the pub for one last pint before we close next month. We would love to host you and reminisce one last time.
With our heartfelt appreciation,
The BridgePort Team”
I want to BridgePort several times when I was working in motorsports Public Relations. Our local pal, Scott, loved to show us visiting flacks around his town and it quickly became a tradition to start off a racing weekend by going to BridgePort on Thursdays.
There were about 20 of us and we feasted, drank pitchers and shared many laughs and stories. Mostly, those stories were about the drivers and what things they were up to that we could not tell the media.
And now BridgePort is closed.
This, apparently, is becoming a trend in Portland. Five breweries have closed their restaurants or tap rooms or gone out of business in nine months.
Maybe, Portlanders think, you can have too much of a good thing.
Cheers to all the years of BridgePort Brewing!
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