Portland · United States
Lowtide Coffee
A converted garage on Division where the nitro pours like a stout and the roaster is twelve feet from the tap.
This is a sample review — replace it with your first real one.
Portland has more good coffee per block than almost anywhere, which raises the bar for what's worth writing about. Lowtide clears it, mostly on the strength of a nitro program the owners treat like a brewery treats its flagship.
The brew
The base is an 18-hour immersion brew on a washed Guatemalan they roast in-house — you can see the roaster from the register. On nitro it pours with a cascading head and drinks like a dry stout: cocoa, toasted hazelnut, a faintly saline finish that keeps it from going flat-sweet. It loses half a point for consistency; on a second visit the pour was noticeably warmer and the texture suffered for it.
The space
A converted garage with the door up on dry days, firs visible over the roofline, rain on the skylight the rest of the year. Long communal table, good stools, no laptops on weekends — a rule the regulars seem to genuinely like.
The story
Two former brewery employees who decided beer science belonged in coffee. The nitro rig is self-built and they'll talk you through it if it's slow. The story is charming but young — this shop is three years old, and the neighborhood roots are still growing in.
Verdict: the best nitro pour on this site so far. Go on a rainy weekday and sit under the skylight.