Portland's Great Notion Brewing Is Opening a Ballard Taproom

Great Notion is known around the country for making some tasty hazy IPA. Courtesy Great Notion Brewing

If you think Ballard has a lot of great beer right now, just wait till you go out drinking in the neighborhood next summer.

Great Notion Brewing, one of Portland’s most acclaimed breweries, announced today that they have signed a lease for a taproom in the heart of Ballard’s beer district. The award-winning brewery said they plan to open their new taproom before the summer of 2020.

Ballard has long been thought of as the capitol of Seattle’s craft beer scene, but a new wave of world-class breweries are moving to the former fishing village. In addition to Great Notion’s expansion, downtown’s Cloudburst Brewing is opening a new taproom in the neighborhood, Urban Family is moving back across Salmon Bay to Ballard, Bellingham’s Aslan Brewing just opened a new taproom in nearby Fremont, and new mixed-culture brewery Fair Isle is set to open up their Ballard taproom any day.

Great Notion said they signed a lease for a building at 5101 14th Avenue NW, which is just across the street from Reuben’s Brews main taproom.

Great Notion opened in 2016 and has quickly become one of the country’s most talked about breweries, thanks to a steady stream of great hazy IPA, funky sour beers, and playfully designed 16-oz cans. Great Notion has won Great American Beer Festival awards and was recently named #45 on Past Magazine's list of the 50 Best American Breweries of the 2010s. (Nearby Fremont Brewing was named #3 on that list.)

Great Notion currently has two taprooms in Portland, where people regularly line up for hours to get a chance to buy their newest beers. The brewery said they plan on using the new Seattle taproom as an outpost to spread more of their beer into the Seattle area.

“We can’t wait to join the Seattle market and all the amazing breweries already innovating like crazy! We frequently meet Seattle customers that drive 3+ hours every weekend to our can releases, so hopefully that is a good sign that more Northwesterners are curious about trying our hazy IPAs,” said Paul Reiter, one of the breweries co-founders in a press release.