Baerlic Brewing and Ranch Pizza Have Opened a New Pizza ‘Beer Garden’ Indoors

Baerlic Brewing has joined forces with Sicilian-meets-Detroit-style pizzeria Ranch PDX in their expansive new indoor beer garden they’ve dubbed a “piehall.” The 6,000-square-foot space once home to Ladd Taphouse sits next door to Baerlic’s flagship location in Southeast Portland, serving thick slabs of pizza alongside crisp pilsners.

Baerlic had been closed for indoor consumption since the beginning of the pandemic, but had opened a large outdoor beer garden with picnic tables out back along 10th Avenue. As the season of uncovered patio drinking has now come to an end, their piehall has opened just in time.

New School broke the news of the opening, showing off the newly decorated hall. In general, the interiors of the space are meant to give off the feeling of an outdoor beer garden: Gone are the TVs, pool tables, and other trappings of the former sports bar, in favor of picnic tables and a faux-foliage partition brought inside from the now-closed outdoor beer garden.

The Baerlic team is also trying to mimic the airy quality of an outdoor beer garden, especially when it comes to ventilation and social distancing: picnic tables are generously spaced apart throughout the hall, the roll-up door is kept partially open, the entrance and exit doors are kept open throughout service hours, and 10 ceiling fans spin continuously. Meanwhile, on the roof, two large commercial air handling units do the heavy lifting of circulating and filtering the air with the assistance of four-inch thick, heavy duty MERV 13 air filters.

Ranch Pizza, a top Portland pizzeria, had just opened a new location in a Happy Valley food hall weeks before the new Baerlic “piehall” opened its doors. The pop-up-turned-pizza-giant brings its five staple pies to the table, along with a rotating special pizza and two salads. Diners can order a full pie or opt for a quarter, which equates to two large slices. One of the permanent pies is “The #4,” which comes fully loaded with sausage, pecorino romano, calabrian chilies, ricotta, pecorino romano, basil, and aged mozzarella.

Baerlic is offering 15 draft beers, minimum, as well as cans to take home. Its list ranges from IPAs to experimental bretts, as well as its pizza-friendly Blippo Pils, double dry-hopped with Aramis, an Alsatian hop from France that provides an herbaceous quality before finishing clean and dry with a hint of lemony-sweetness.

The new Baerlic/Ranch Piehall is open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, up until and after the four-week Multnomah County shutdown. The “piehall” is located at 2239 SE 11th Avenue.

• Baerlic [Official]
• Ranch Pizza [Official]
• First look at Baerlic Brewing and Ranch Pizza’s New SE Portland Taproom [NSB]
• Two Portland Favorites Land in a New Happy Valley Food Hall [EPDX]