The Portland outpost of the Denver chain brewpub Rock Bottom closed on Sunday, as first reported by Jeff Alworth on his Beervana blog and subsequently reported by the Oregonian today. There are no further details into the closure at this time, although the brewery was for many years an anomaly in the Portland beer scene—one of the last of the chain brewpubs after places like BJ's closed up their Portland-area locations. The current beer scene in Portland does have some breweries whose home offices are located out of town—such as Mikkeller and Modern Times—but Rock Bottom felt like a relic from an earlier era.
The Portland location opened in 1995 and occupied a prime spot along the downtown MAX tracks, in the Centennial Block, a historic building dating from 1878. As reported elsewhere, this is the most recent in a distressingly long list of Portland breweries that have closed in recent months, including Lompoc, Burnside, BridgePort, Alameda, Columbia River, and more.
