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8735 N Lombard St., 971-279-5587, royalebeer.com. 2-11 pm daily.
Royale's taproom—scheduled to open about the time this guide drops—has been a long time coming. After a series of hiccups, including a Dekum Triangle lease that fell through last year, the brewery is finally unveiling its 780-square-foot space in a new building in St. Johns. Royale will brew elsewhere, at its headquarters in Northeast Portland, after formerly contracting its beers to Alameda Brewhouse. At the public tap house, two of the walls are covered in exploding blue and red rays, and the six taps will rotate through Royale's brews, which co-owner Mike Weksler calls "quaffable and food-centric." That means the brewery shirks hop bombs and aggressively weird beers in favor of more balanced recipes, like the easy-drinking Pils or the Fat Unicorn Pale Ale, which uses oats for creaminess and rye for a crisp finish. The Visitor Red came about after Weksler, while eating a steak, didn't want red wine but rather "a red beer for red meat." The result is a little malty, a little sweet and reasonably clean.
Drink This: There's good reason brewer Paul Bastian—a Stanford biology grad who left behind a law career—calls the Visitor Red his favorite.
Willamette Week
