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As Portland starts to show off its emerald side in the summer, another place to drink a beer outside comes to Foster-Powell. The Chinchilla Beer Porch will be located at 7337 SE Foster Road in FoPo Food Carts, home to carts like dumpling-mobile Pelmeni Pelmeni and ramen cart Hapa. Owner Suzanne Moodhe founded the St. Johns Beer Porch, the Division Street Beer Porch (now Captured Beer Bus), Alberta Street Beer Porch (the Hoppy Camper, before it closed), and the Sauvie Island Beer Porch, but she’s been out of the porch game for about two years to “focus on family.” For an idea of how the beer porches work, the St. Johns Beer Porch pours a variety of rotating taps at a food cart pod on Lombard, complete with growler fills, live music and movie screenings in the summers, and an infinitely cool seating area with colorful couches, tables, and booths. Its Southeastern sister will have 13 taps, 10 dedicated to beer with two rotating ciders and one rotating kombucha.
Moodhe and her ex-husband founded Captured by Porches Brewing, a Gresham brewery that sources its barley and hops from Oregon farmers (barley from Eclipse Farm in Goble and hops from Crosby Hop Farms in Woodburn, to be specific). Trying to figure out how to distribute the beer, the two founded the first beer porch. The new beer porch will have three Captured by Porches beers on tap, though Moodhe is no longer involved with the brewery. “It’s been a couple years since I’ve done this, and I’m going into a different part of Portland. We’re going to see how it goes,” Moodhe says. “I want it to be special, of course, but I’ve kind of changed as a person... I want this to be a cool art piece.” The beer maven has another porch she’d like to place in another Portland neighborhood, but she’s looking for “the magic formula” — aka the right balance of zoning and local interest. Stay tuned for more updates.
• FoPo Food Carts [Facebook]
• Portland’s New Pelmeni Food Cart Is Now Open [Ravenous Traveler]
• A Bunch of Pop-Ups and Carts Are Finding New Homes [EPDX]
