Portland Brew Bus

Shoutout to Jim for being the coolest tour guide ever. Great attitude, personality and information. Well worth the $ 45! When he says «eat before tour» take it seriously.

Jim does a great job — you will learn a ton, have some outstanding beers and go to some incredible breweries you wouldn’t find on your own. We did a seven person private tour and it was worth every minute — highly recommend it!

So we did the Brewbus yesterday, it was a great way to spend the day. The bus was pretty full, and after the first stop things livened up. Jim was great, lots of Hoppy Songs. Well worth it. We had a couple of bachelor parties that were a lot of fun.

My significant other and I just went on the Saturday public tour, and it was AMAZING!!! One of the best $ 45 I’ve spent in a while. We visited four breweries, and were given extremely generous tasters at each location. The best brewery by far was Hopworks. We sampled basically all of their beers, and got a wonderful tour with one of the brewers. Jim also knows his stuff and took us to great places.
I see based on some other reviews that not everyone has this experience, which is unfortunate. I can totally see how the group of people on the tour can make or break the experience. There were less than 20 people on our tour, all adults in their 20s and 30s, and mostly couples or pairs of friends who were mature and really wanted to enjoy the beer and learn about the process, which I’m sure made all the difference in where we went, what we sampled, and what we learned! Overall, highly recommended based on my recent experience!

Did this brew-​tour on a rainy weekend in September, visited three breweries (Hopworks, Amnesia and Pyramid/​Portland). Jim is super knowledgeable about the beer and overall, was a fun experience. My only disappointment was stopping at Pyramid for our final brewery, as a lot of their beers you can get all over. But otherwise, good experience.

I planned this tour Feb 2012 for my lover’s birthday weekend and it was a success! I purchased 4 tickets overall, 2 for ourselves and 2 for our friends –so come saturday morning we were all set!
We did a staruday morning a tour and let me be honest, you will need sunday to recover!
For starters–
Eat a breakfast –put down your special K flakes and get a harty breakfast to start. If you’re not one to fill up first thing in the morning, no biggie get some sub sandwiches or pack a small sack lunch, you will be happy you do this! Even though appetizers are promised I wouldn’t bank on it, bring those carbs!
and Next don’t order beers, they will come to you… They are all included in the cost of tour:
‘Bus ride to each brewery and back to start
’Great general facts, info, and tid bits on the beer, the breweries, Portland Beers and such
’Jim the great as your host
’We toured Hopworks brewery, and each got a little taster sample sheet to record our beers
’We also stopped at: Amnesia Brewery, Hopeworks, Pyramid, and someplace else I was too drunk to remember.
Our group of people got a little annoying after a while, we had a few criers (which is what happens when you give females alcohol during a breakup) but I had so much fun, I recommend bringing your own group of friends and setting up plans to eat somewhere nearby following the events.
5 stars for getting everything out of the tour I had expected!

I really think one’s experience on this tour is completely dependent on who crammed on the bus with you on the tour. I will admit that if I hadn’t been traveling with 40 extremely loud and obnoxious people on my tour I would have probably enjoyed it much more. So do keep that in mind when booking this tour. If you are a 20-​something person looking to get drunk and don’t care at all about the types of beer you are drinking it’s totally for you. If you are interested in learning more about beer and doing some different tastings while actually learning a bit about the brewing process, you might want to look elsewhere.
Unfortunately, my experience was tarnished by super loud and drunk people chanting a bus driver’s name while the guide was quietly trying to talk about the beers we had tried at each brewery. We didn’t really hear much about the beers we were trying except for at the first brewery. Some of us actually left while at the third brewery because it was becoming a circus. At one point, after only 2 breweries, 20 very drunk guys plowed into a brewery bathroom at once and I believe one tried to pee in the same urinal as my husband at the same time. Not really what I expected to pay $ 90 for…
Again, I think it all depends on who is also traveling on the tour with you, so it’s a real crap shoot, but for the money, I would try a different experience.

Great tour! We had a lot of fun and they accommodated well for our extremely large group. Guide could be a little bit louder, sometimes hard to hear.
If you want a private tour book in advance, especially for holidays!

best brewery tour ever! Jim was so great and knowledgable and catered our whole tour to exactly what we wanted as a group. expect to have an amazing experience and brag about it to friends! love live the portland brew bus!

We are in our early thirties and went on this tour last weekend. We were on vacation from Los Angeles, so had limited time to see things so this tour was perfect for us!
Jim is extremely knowledgeable about beer so I actually learned a lot. Plus he’s a pretty funny guy also, and I’m not talking your standard lame tour guide jokes (ok they were lame, but we laughed out loud even before we started drinking beer). We went to 4 breweries for different types of beers. There was a ton of beer, but this probably varies because he does it by purchasing pitchers and distributing it evenly, therefore the way the pitcher divides, I’m sure depending on how many in your group it varies a little. Although I have no reason to believe the amount of beer regardless would disappoint. I had to dump a lot of it because I simply couldn’t fit that much in my stomach.
It’s a great idea to take a tour because most of these breweries don’t offer sampler flights like you get when you go wine tasting; you pretty much have to buy it by the glass, which limits you as to how many you can try.
We were on a school bus which was a bit tight on leg room, but after one brewery it didn’t matter. I guess you get what you pay for and I’d rather pay for beer than a fancy shuttle. There was also a tour at the first brewery (I believe they make different stops depending on the day and size of the group that day).
We researched many different tours and this one was by far the best value for what you get, plus Jim makes it really fun. He spends a lot of time with the guests, talking and sharing his knowledge. He’s a fantastic tour guide. Definitely a must while you’re in Portland!

I’d give Jim Long and the brew bus a zero if I could. Essentially, myself and 4 others show up for this tour. All our spaces are pre-​booked, but not pre-​paid thank goodness. Jim shows up in a little japanese import. Somehow he expects that 5 adults are going to cram ourselves in, 1 in the front, 3 in the back and 1 in the very back in THE TRUNK!!! 3 of the 5 of us walk away, an hour or more of our vacations already wasted. A newlywed couple is left standing there in awe. I felt sorry for them. This tour is not as described and honestly I feel insulted by the owner of this company. A total waste ot my time. He should not be operating a tour company. There are a number of other beer tours in Portland. Do yourself a favour and choose one of them.

This tour might be good for people who don’t know much about beer and want to sample some average choices, but if you are a craft beer enthusiast, this is not the tour for you. Beers were bland and mass marketed. I can buy Pyramid and Bridgeport at any liquor store.
I asked Jim what breweries we would be touring and he couldn’t tell me. It seemed that he was on the phone trying to find the next brewery that would take our group each time we stopped. We hit only three breweries in five hours. Appetizers were promised, and all we got was fries at the last brewery… that’s it. But we were encouraged to buy our own food at each stop.
Overall, I wish I saved my $ 45 per person and did my own walking tour of downtown breweries. Didn’t even cop a buzz…

This tour is a Portland MUST-​DO!!! Some friends and I Went on this tour back in 2009. It was extremely fun and very informative. We were all from Louisiana and weren’t too familiar with portland. This tour was great for not only visiting many awesome breweries, but it was also a really fun way to see and experience the city. On the tour you’ll get to try several different types of delicious beer. This is a great tour for a big groups or small ones. After the 3^rd or 4^th brewery you hit, you’ll be laughin it up with everyone on the tour! I’m planning a Seattle trip with a few friends this summer, and we’ve already decided we’ll be driving down to Portland for a couple days to take a ride on the brew bus again.

My fiancé and I visited Portland this week and decided, on a rainy day whim, to look up brewery tours. We googled «Portland brewery tours» and this was the first place that caught our eye. We talked to Jim on the phone and were able to schedule a personalized private tour with just the 3 of us for 4 pm. We met him downtown on the corner of 1^st & Davis streets. First, he took us to a couple of interesting places in the city (World’s smallest park, Portlandia statue) and told us some interesting historical facts about the city, which was wonderful because we were interested in learning about that as well as learning about beer. Then, we ended up touring a total of 5 breweries in the area and sampling a total of 25 beers! We visited upscale breweries on the water, organic down-​home type breweries, the beautiful Pyramid Brewery, and others. The variety of beers was incredible and I learned I really like Extra Special Bitter brews (very valuable information!) My fiancé’s favorite was the LTD lager at Full Sail.
Jim was a very interesting guy and has written two books about Portland, and fancies himself a historian which I certainly can’t argue with. The tour lasted just over 5 hours and it was fabulous. My fiancé is still raving about it. Thank you Jim for a wonderful tour!

Get ready to sip some frosty ones on this brew tour that will take you around town in a little yellow school bus to sample some concoctions from some of the best breweries in town. During our tour our group was taken to Amnesia Brewing, Lucky Lab, Portland Brewing, Widmer Brothers Brewing, and a few others I can’t recall after the hops went to my head…
Not only are you served beer samples on the tour, but each brewery serves up some tasty appetizers for the group to munch on. Depending on what breweries you visit, you may get an entire tour of each facility so you can see the brewing process from start to finish.
You can schedule private tours for your group, or show up for the weekly group tour that meets up at Double Tree Lloyd Center every Saturday at 1:30. Really cool outing for a group of friends looking for an interesting activity on the weekend.