Coalition Brewing Opens Its Doors

By: Julie Blakley | July 09 2010
Posted in Portland - Find It - Portland

Portland (aka “Beervana”) just added another great brewpub to its ranks when the doors finally opened at Coalition Brewing on June 23 on SE 28^th and Ankeny. Occupying Noble Rot’s old space in Buckman, the brewery hopes to become a great, comfortable neighborhood pub, where folks can enjoy reasonably priced, casual food and finely crafted microbrews.

Photo:Julie Blakley

I wrote about Coalition back in April, when renovations on the building had just begun and the brewery across the street had yet to be demoed or built. After a few setbacks, Coalition was finally happy to roll up its huge garage-style door and open for business (the door takes up almost the entire North facing wall and makes you feel like you’re sitting outside from almost anywhere inside the building).

The brewpub is very neighborhood and community-centric in feel. Coalition is the first brewery in Portland to work with home brewers at developing recipes, help them brew on a 10-gallon system and rotate their beers on tap* (all for free).

Adding to the community feel and laid-back, friendly vibe, the beers are named after things like the well-known neighborhood cat (King Kitty Red) and the contractor who “saved their lives” during construction (Hans O’ Stout).  There are no TVs, just an open, airy, yet intimate space.

In addition to a list of great beers (brewed across the street) that include a red, an IPA, an ESB, stout and pale ale, the brewery also has a menu that manages to be simultaneously simple, inventive and affordable.

Almost everything on the menu is between $5.50 and $8.00. It featured a lot of delicious-sounding paninis (like the $7.50 Coalition of the Willing Ham by Pickled Carrot, which had black forest ham, coppa, havarti and pickled carrot).

Photo:Julie Blakley

Chef Lucas Daniels focuses on fresh, local foods and incorporates ingredients used in the beers in his menu. The brewpub has a “community garden” full of vegetables, herbs and greens.

Daniels combined his decades of experience in the culinary world and comfort foods from his childhood to create an eclectic mix of menu items—from sandwiches to MMMs (miniature meat muffins) served with a potato pancake and stout gravy.

Daniels explained the meat muffin idea actually came from his mother, who found that dividing her meatloaf up into a muffin pan allowed her to cut down the cooking time by two-thirds. The result is moist, flavorful muffin-shaped meatloaf, covered in savory gravy.

“I’ve been waiting my whole career to use that recipe,” said Daniels.

Coalition Brewing is open Wednesday through Sunday from 12 p.m. to 12 a.m.

*While Widmer does have a program that brews home brewers recipes, as noted by commenter Cynthia on the last article about Coalition, it differs from Coalition in a few major ways. Widmer brews recipes submitted by home brewers, while Coalition works closely with “Collators” to develop a recipe, and brew the actual batch themselves.