Culmination: Bar Review

LAGERED BREWERY: The story of Culmination Brewing (2117 NE Oregon St., 353-6368, culminationbrewing.com) reads more like slow accumulation than capstone. When the taphouse opened three months ago, the brewers weren’t actually able to brew yet. Their opening party’s Black IPA was made in Lucky Lab’s tanks, and the rest of their 21 taps slowly filled up with other local brews, while the kitchen filled with pulled pork and pork tacos. The young brewery got its licensing sorted out in May, not to mention a subdued paint job for its bare-bones, front-of-brewery bar, which has placed 10 of Culmination’s own beers onto the doorside chalkboard menu, titled by style and lot number: a Saison I that’s an urban farmhouse in the school of the Commons’ simple masterpiece, and a Saison II with a bit more malt and crackle. The sour citrus is strikingly tart and balanced with zest, an all-around eccentric beauty of a beer, while the various inaugural IPAs (IPA I and II, of course, plus a Brett and a double) didn’t quite settle into a distinct character by the end of their taster glasses. But if Culmination is still building its repertoire, it suits the brewery’s location in a rough-edged shared warehouse amid shipping empires, rock gyms and snowboard makers. The many sunny parking-lot patio seats look out, just two blocks north of Sandy Boulevard, on an unplaceable neighborhood somehow half-trucking and half-condo, like a factory housing tract for Burberry. It’s a heartening coexistence, as if neighborhoods were built not by displacement but also slow accumulation.