Fat Head's Brewery

By Matthew Korfhage

Fat Head's massive Pearl District brewhouse looks like an outlet-mall version of T.G.I. Friday's, and every surface of this crowded pretzel-and-burger barn is branded with a cartoon of what appears to be a morbidly obese Charlie Chaplin. But damned if brewer Mike Hunsaker hasn't fashioned Ohio-founded Fat Head's into one of our city's truly great breweries, whether for its shotgun blast of experimental seasonals, its beast of an Alpenglow weizenbock that makes 8.7 percent ABV taste like clove and bubblegum, or Hunsaker's absolute mastery of IPAs. Hunsaker's Semper Fi-PA, dedicated to his Marine veteran father, is explosively good—a hop garden that bursts brightly across the palate and into the upper stratosphere of Oregon beers, voted No. 1 in a blind taste test of all Portland IPAs. Plus, the pub food is a surprisingly excellent version of the great suburban-American shitshow: burgers with local kimchi and jalapeños and Tillamook cheese all at once, or Olympia Provisions salami on gluten-free-optional pizza.

Happy hour: 3-6 pm and 9 pm-close Sunday-Thursday. (Damn you, pointlessly expensive Friday!) Cheap, cheap food specials.

Entertainment: TVs, watching babies make friends with babies at other tables.

131 NW 13th Ave., 503-820-7721, fatheadsportland.com. 11:30 am-11 pm Monday-Thursday, 11:30 am-midnight Friday-Saturday, 11:30 am-10 pm Sunday.

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