Rosenstadt Taproom Is Open in Northeast Portland

Rosenstadt Taproom is open!

This week I was contacted by Nick Greiner, co-founder of Rosenstadt Brewery, with some good news: “After ten years in business as wholesale only to restaurants and retailers … we’ve opened a taproom in Portland.” It looks like they are occupying the former Culmination Brewing space.

Here’s more about this next step in their work in sharing German-style beer with the Portland public.

Rosenstadt Brewery—the First Ten Years

For the past decade Rosenstadt has sold and delivered their beer in kegs and cans to restaurants, bars, and stores. So opening a taproom—an “Ausschank,” in German—is a big deal. As with the brewery, the taproom will be owned and operated by Nick and Tobias.

How It Started

Nick and his co-founder Tobias Hahn originally met while taking their kids to German language classes at the German American Society in Northeast Portland. The Wikipedia article on Rosenstadt includes this tidbit about their platonic meet-cute: “An hour later, they ran into each other at a brewing supply store, and discovered that they both wanted to make German-style beer.”

Other connections to Germany: Nick’s wife is German and Tobias grew up in Freiburg, Germany (in the Black Forest), where he studied microbiology. Germany has an incredible beer-brewing tradition that hearkens back to 1,000 CE, when drinking beer was safer than drinking water. Fun fact: German brewing techniques have played a role in the work of Sapporo in Japan, Tsingtao in China, and Corona (Grupo Modelo) in Mexico, and probably others.

Nick and Tobias founded Rosenstadt Brewery a couple of years later, in 2015, where their beer follows the traditional Reinheitsgebot German purity law.

Developing the Business

They worked hard to build up a client base, and have built a loyal following over the past decade. The Oregonian wrote about those early days, “Greiner and Hahn made cold calls and pounded the pavement to get their beers into restaurants and bars.” Their beer is now available both on tap and in retail outlets at over 500 locations in the metro area.

Some of those places include Clyde Common, Kachka, St. Jack, Higgins, Pizzeria Otto, Coquine, Nostrana, and many, many more.

Their website describes their approach as this: “With one foot in the Black Forest, and the other in the Cascades, we present traditional German beers made with a modern twist.”

Fun fact: “Rosenstadt” means “Rose City.” Be sure to check out the wall of the taproom where there is an informal photo gallery of the brewery’s timeline.

What To Expect at the Rosenstadt Taproom

Nick and Tobias want to create “an inviting, communal space—an outlet for those who enjoy a well-made, traditional beer, and the unhurried, relaxed company of friends.” You could call the vibe, “Gemütlichkeit,” perhaps a slightly more extroverted cousin to hygge: a feeling of warmth, friendliness, and good cheer with others.

There’s plenty of natural light, seating with vintage beer garden benches, and Bavarian blue stools (40 seats in total). Look for flower boxes for additional color. There is a heated patio, too, which is good news as we start to tumble into the rainy season here in the PNW.

Eating and Drinking

Of course, their beer is the main event, but they’ll have some simple drinking snacks to accompany their range of brews. The limited food menu continues with breads and pretzel sandwiches (including sausages), with a menu expansion in the works that will be, no surprise, German-influenced, though they do not plan for the food to be overly heavy. They have partnered with Montavilla’s Fressen Artisan Bakery for at least some of the food. Nice.

Here’s the menu from September 2025.

Now on to the beer. They highlight the speciality glassware, which makes a difference and amps up the enjoyment of different brews: Kölner Stange (a tall thin glass traditionally for Kölsch), Weissbier glasses, and the dimpled stein of the Bavarian Masskrug (a very traditional stein pictured in the image at the top of this article), to name a few. They tell me that they will have “regular taps as well as Gravity Pour Kegs, with customary brass taps hammered in.” Look for beer-mix cocktails and wine, too.

Here is the beverage menu from September 2025:

Full table service and bar service will be available.

Nick and Tobias said, “The Brewery Taproom is an extension of our values, interests, personalities, and our shared goal to bring the Biergarten culture of Germany to the Pacific Northwest.”

They’ll be open four days a week: Thursday and Friday 4pm to 9pm; Saturday and Sunday 1pm to 9pm.

Nick mentioned to me that he lived in Astoria, Queens for a couple of years and it would not surprise me if he experienced the massive 100+-year old Bohemian Beer Garden while there. Sure, sure, it’s Czech/Slovak, but convivial energy is a common denominator among beer gardens throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Perhaps one day they can open a massive beer garden, too, but for now, I look forward to stopping in to hang in their Ausschank and enjoy some chill times.

Rosenstadt Taproom [opened August 29, 2025]
2117 NE Oregon Street, Suite 703, Portland
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