Hopworks

[April 9th, 2008]

SKIPWORKS, JUMPWORKS: Looking to socialize? Bring friends or look elsewhere. Hopworks (2944 SE Powell Blvd., 232-4677) is all about the beer, as evidenced by stool after stool, table after table, of silently sipping souls. The brews are tasty enough to pack the house on a Monday night, and the food (vegan pizza, burgers, wings, etc.), isn’t bad either—at peak dining hours, the wait can exceed one hour. So which in-house beer should you pick? Regulars recommend the IPA, but don’t listen to them. Instead, try the fruity Velvet ESB or the Survival Seven-Grain Stout, an addictive brew finished with Stumptown espresso beans. Less delicious but equally enticing are enviro-friendly perks like recycled construction materials and biodiesel-fired brew kettles (which use waste oil from the fryer). What strikes most people is the size—Hopworks has an amazing 3,400 square feet of indoor space, and when the patio’s open it can accommodate 238 beerophiles. Frankly, seeing so many people quietly drinking in one place is…well, it’s unnerving. But the upside of having so much space is that you can do your own thing: On a recent visit, WW spied a middle-aged man, squeezed in between rambunctious couples, pairing his hops with Albert Camus’ The Plague.