Zupan's Markets - Macadam

Yet another outstanding "specialty" grocery store in Portland. I'd have a difficult time picking a favorite between New Seasons, MofC and this place. As with NS and MofC, this place specializes in high end, gourmet food items, and that includes wine and beer. The wine selection is truly outstanding, but the craft beer and import selection is pretty good as well. Expect to find the usual local and regional stuff (Deschutes, Full Sail Reserve series, HoftheD beers, etc.). Zupans seems to fly under the radar a bit, and sometimes you can find beers here that have long since flown off the shelf at Belmont Station and John's.

As for service, this is a grocery store, so you're pretty much left to your own devices. While the staff here are friendly and polite, their beer knowledge is understandably limited. Nevertheless, this is yet another fine location for good beer in PDX.

 

 

Another one of those 'fancy' groceries that our fair city seems to have a wealth of: organic produce, full deli, fresh seafood and meat, big wine department (relative to its size) and a sizable beer cooler. Oh, and colored concrete floors. Yeah, that's a must...

In the case of Zupan's, there's not as much fanfare over the beer as there is at, say, Whole Foods - no showy displays, glassware or literature - just 5-high rows of bottles and cans. The stock is broad yet well-edited and is grouped mainly by container size, then origin. On my recent visit (I should mention I used to shop here all the time when I worked a couple blocks away, but that was a decade ago when the selection was considerably slimmer), the streamlined and brightly glowing open coolers held about 10' worth of macro/standard beer, about 30' more of 6-packs and cases, then another 10' or so of single 22 oz. bottles. Shelves are neatly arranged, and on a mid-morning Wednesday looked almost TOO neat. No stocker/department help that I could see.

The range of beers here is varied enough, though the focus seems suitably 'Northwest'-skewed. Plenty of bottles from the local likes of Ninkasi, Oakshire, Deschutes, HUB, Laurelwood, Lompoc and Southern Oregon mix with a fair range of Belgian and German 'craft' imports. I didn't really spot anything I'd call 'rare', nor anything far removed from its release date (though I did notice case upon case of discounted ($3.99) Hop Henge 22s with a 'best before' date of 01/19/11... which happened to be the day I was shopping). Just a solid selection, what more can I say, and priced fairly to boot.

Along with the New Seasons-, Market of Choice-, Whole Foods-type options, this is just another good example of how pervasive beer culture is locally. What may seem sorta humdrum (50' feet of cooler space? 250-300 bottles?) to me is an eye-popper to the outsider. Worth a stop for a favorite... or a possible surprise.