Closure

Bridgeport brewing is big enough news that even people outside of Portland may have heard about it’s closure.

I can’t say I’m terribly surprised; murmurs get around the scene and Bridgeport had undergone at least two rebranding efforts to make their product more visually appealing. One rebrand isn’t unusual, more than that and one can’t help but wonder if everyething is OK.

The beers were solid though; stable mass market beers that you could bring to a party and not feel bad about, or that you might be excluding someone. They were always good, even if they were rarely great.

But as the Beervana blog pointed out, there seemed to be a lot of “Now that the dog has caught the car, what does it do with it?” Once they were owned by a company that didn’t seem to understand what it had or where to take it, Bridgeport didn’t branch off well; the only beer people talk about is the IPA, even though it is often spoken of in the past tense. “I used to love it,” I read or heard more than once. Yet, I thought they made other good beers too and went out of my way to try some, however one truth remains: The market is brutal and a lot of beer is out there.

I mean, Rogue still exists, FFS. ROGUE. A brewery that these days is known for making beer from the yeast found in the head brewer’s beard, and a shitty attitude towards its employees, than making a good product.

So it’s a bummer to see Bridgeport go, for certain.