The Boozehound Report: Bottles

Last night the Portland Timbers played an away match for the first time since I joined the Stumptown Footy team, an occasion that I've been looking forward to for a while and which presented me with the opportunity to try out our new bar review feature: The Boozehound Report (now accepting title suggestions). This feature is for the neck-craning masses, those who can't travel to all the away matches, (or even make it to Jeld-Wen as often as they would like), but that doesn't mean they can't drink and crane their necks towards a flat-sceen with like-minded souls who want to cheer on the Timbers too. 

I'll be reviewing establishments based on a few crucial yet completely arbitrary categories that I've thought up, and which are of course subject to change. The categories are: Food/Drink/Service (I've combined these because this is more about reviewing atmosphere, and we don't want this to be too "yelpy," but you can't separate atmosphere and the consumption part of a bar experience so here you go), Timbers Friendliness, AV Quality, and SHOOOOOOT IT!!! factor. Please feel free to suggest other review parameters or other spots to review in the comments below, and if you see me out there among the barstools say hello!

Last night I watched the game at Bottles, located at NE 51st and Fremont (5015 NE Fremont) in Portland. My review after the jump!

Food/Drink/Service:

This place as a stand-alone beer bar (it is a beer-bar though, so no liquor) is great. Bottles sports a pretty thoughtful tap list, which I favor over other places that may boast a lot of taps but only have three styles (IPA, IIPA, and Hamm's). If you're a bottle-buying type they had a few well-stocked coolers. Also, if you're a 107ist member there's a dollar-off pints discount. The food I ordered was exactly what I had wanted, a pork slider which had actually been smoked in the smoker up front and a refreshing vegetable/bean salad thing they called "Carolina Salad." Friendly bartenders kept the place running well.

Timbers Friendliness:
I chose this place because it is near my apartment, and because I saw X-Man mention it in the comments of another thread as being TA-owned. This place is not a sports bar that shows Timbers matches, it seemed last night as if it existed solely to serve Timbers fans (and more specifically TA members who all have a prior relationship). Everybody was there to watch the match, and Bottles was happy to cater. There are other places that may put "TIMBERS GAMES HERE" on their marquees, but when you walk in expecting to see fans and soccer, they instead have a golf tournament on the TV and a few old regulars pumping twenties into a video poker machine...not Bottles.  

AV Quality: 
Two TVs, one large one over the door and one small over the bar may seem a little meager, but the size and lay-out of the place made viewing pretty easy. My one complaint is that they appear to have invested in HD-capable TVs, but we watched what looked like standard-quality picture feeds (I could be wrong about this, and the TVs are a little old or something instead, I'm not sure).  The game was of course pumped through the audio system (which seems like a given, but it ain't at a lot of places). 

SHOOOOOOT IT!!! Factor: 
The only thing worse than a loud, drunk, know-it-all fan berating you when you're trying to watch a game is a loud, drunk, know-it-all fan who doesn't know what the Hell he's talking about berating you while you're trying to watch a game. This was not an apparent problem at Bottles (full disclosure: I was late getting there so I missed the first half. If you were there, and there was a drunken idiot who there who wasn't there for the second half then please correct me). Oh, there was screaming at the TV, and there were loud comments, but the conversation that I could overhear (read "creepily eavesdrop on") was coherent, intelligent soccer fan-speak. 

Overall, Bottles was a great spot to watch a Timbers match and a good place to grab a beer. I'll be back, Timbers game or not. GO THERE.