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1. Abigail Hall
813 SW Alder St., abigailhallpdx.com. 5-11 pm Sunday-Wednesday, 5 pm-midnight Thursday-Saturday.
There are few downtown bars—particularly hotel bars—as romantic as Abigail Hall, thanks to its cozy fireplace, pink and maroon leather banquettes, and dim lighting. If you haven’t even started thinking about where to take your date on Valentine’s Day (or the weekend leading up to it), you really can’t go wrong with the watering hole in the Woodlark’s lobby. Beverage director Derek Jacobi has created a holiday menu of mood-setting cocktails, including a strawberry Negroni topped with dehydrated slices of the fruit, and Color Me Intrigued, a sparkling wine-Belgian lambic concoction served in a Pop Rocks-rimmed Champagne flute.
2. Ecliptic Brewing Moon Room
930 SE Oak St., 971-383-1613, eclipticbrewing.com. 4-10 pm Sunday and Wednesday-Thursday, 4-11 pm Friday-Saturday.
Ecliptic Brewing’s first Cosmic Collaboration release of the year is a combination of two style trends: one from a decade ago, the other emerging during the pandemic. Black Cold IPA, made in partnership with Astoria’s Fort George, features the dark roasted malt flavor of a Cascadian dark ale (all the rage in 2012-13) and is fermented with lager yeast, leading to an assertive crispness found in the newly invented cold IPA. Order a pint or two and then debate whether a cold IPA is just an IPL with a different name.
3. Portland Cider Company
3638 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 971-888-5054, portlandcider.com. 3-9 pm Wednesday-Thursday, 1-10 pm Friday-Saturday, 1-9 pm Sunday. 4005 SW Orbit St., Beaverton, 503-626-6246. 3-10 pm Wednesday-Friday, noon-10 pm Saturday-Sunday.
Portland Cider Company ushers in 2023 with a sunny new seasonal cider: Mango Mimosa. Like its name suggests, the medium-sweet beverage with a bubbly finish pairs best with brunch foods, like huevos rancheros and banana pancakes, but its tropical fruit notes also make it a good match for spicy dinner entrees—think Thai curry or carne asada tacos. Or just drink it solo anytime the gloom of our Pacific Northwest winter gets to be a little too heavy.
4. Pacific Standard
100 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 971-346-2992, kexhotels.com/eat-drink/pacificstandard. 3 pm-midnight daily.
At Pacific Standard, the bar by bartender Jeffrey Morgenthaler and longtime colleague Benjamin “Banjo” Amberg anchoring the Kex hotel, you won’t find any of the drinks the two men became known for at their former posts, Clyde Common and Pépé le Moko. But there are nods to those past hits in the all-new cocktail menu, like the summery rosé Negroni, the zesty All-Day Bloody Mary, and the Palm Desert Date Shake that’s decadent but not too boozy. “I just have no shortage of drink ideas,” Morgenthaler says. A gift and a curse we’re all thankful for.
5. Fracture Brewing
1015 SE Stark St., fracturebrewingpdx.com. 4-10 pm Wednesday-Thursday, 4-11 pm Friday-Saturday, 2-8 pm Sunday.
After months of brewing without a taproom, Fracture finally has a place for the public to enjoy a pint that it can call its own. Husband-and-wife team Darren Provenzano and Ny Lee, who met and worked together in a brewery in Vietnam, officially began welcoming customers to their Stark Street space in December. Year-round offerings, made in the former Burnside Brewing space, include two Pilsners, a West Coast IPA and a hazy. But don’t sleep on the seasonal Dark Lager with notes of toffee, raisin and chocolate that will warm you from the inside out this winter.