Tugboat Brewery

Not only does your visit of the Tugboat feel like family, it is. Terry Nelson (husband), Megan McEnroe-Nelson (wife), and John McEnroe (father-in-law/father) captain the only fully owner-operated brewery/pub in the western world. This unique throwback to the cottage style brewery of early Germany and England is a refreshing change from corporate beer-style experience. We like to think that we've taken a calculated step backwards. We at the Tugboat Brewing Company have developed a unique niche in the 3 years that we've been operating. Upon a visit, you will see that the concept of community is important to us. If it is to you, come contribute.

The brew operation begins upstairs in the second level where we crack our grain in the barley mill. The grain fills the mash tun, and is steeped in hot water for one hour. We recirculate the sweet barley water for 30 additional minutes to add clarity to our product and establish a good filter bed. The clean and clear sweet barley water is then gravity fed down to the kettle and boiled for 90 minutes, adding hops as per recipe. Our product is then pumped to our fermentation vessels, being cooled on the way, and our special English-style yeast added. The yeast goes to work, producing alcohol and C02, and within a couple weeks, it's on the tap wall for patrons to enjoy!

The Tugboat Brewery is considered one of the smallest in the state, brewing 8 kegs per batch. These comparatively small batches enable us to treat our product less like a mass-produced ale, and more like the craft product that spawned the micro brewery industry.

Craft American brewing companies have done, in a short amount of time, what Henry Ford did with the automobile. There are two sides to this. Most ales produced by these industrial breweries use good quality ingredients. You can clearly taste these quality ingredients in the final product. Yet, to market this better tasting product to the masses, it must be scrupulously filtered, for safe transport, and in this process, much of the taste is stripped away. These compromises are often necessary to bring "good" ale to the people. The alternative is the American pilsner style beer, which is the budweiser or hamms tasting stuff. Our ale uses generous amounts of the best ingredients in the world, is not mechanically filtered, and thus is considered "live," or real ale.

Many large-scale ale manufacturers here in the NW region provide their quality product for consumption to thousands of unknown faces. We will continue to craft our ales exclusively for the benefit of the great people who visit our brewery and pub in downtown Portland Oregon. We treat our customers like we treat our ales, with individual respect. The story and philosophy of the Tugboat is simple: good people making great beer and serving it to fun customers.