This past weekend I took a trip to Beergarden, located on West 6th Avenue, with my roommates. I was immediately in awe of how unique it was and knew I would be back again.
Beergarden’s atmosphere is warm and welcoming and is the perfect setting for grabbing drinks with friends, family or coworkers. The interior lighting is dim and provides a moody and warm vibe, which could be perfect for a date.
Their on-tap list is unlike any other and is filled with endless types of beers. They have 42 taps filled with ales, ciders and wines. If none of those quench your thirst, a fully stocked bar should do the trick.
Some of their popular drinks include Vanilla Bean Pear Cider, which is what I ordered, Pineapple Mai Tai IPA and Oatmeal Cookie Ale.
Once you’ve found the beer or wine that’s calling your name, head on out the doors and onto Beergarden’s patio. This tented outdoor patio is without a doubt one of Beergarden’s best features. With the walls lined with food trucks, overhead heat lamps, countless benches for seating and a stage for events, the environment is always fun and lively.
Five amazing food trucks provide quite the variety of different meals. Coco Loco, a Mexican food truck and popular favorite, offers so many different options ranging from quesabirria, a delicious taco filled with slow cooked beef and a side of spiced broth for dipping, crispy tacos and coco loco bowls, which are made up of rice, beans, lettuce, avocado, pico de gallo and your choice of protein. There’s also Moi Poki, where you can order foods like orange chicken and General Tsao’s chicken.
Lani Moku, a Hawaiian cuisine food truck, offers delicious options like a teriyaki chicken bowl, Kalua pig sliders and — what I ordered — garlic shrimp tacos. These tacos were ridiculously flavorful, and there’s a 100% chance of me ordering them again next time I visit Beergarden.
Another food truck, named Bounty, has amazing options of charcuterie boards and mac and cheese, such as their pesto mac, garlic and shallot mac and the bacon mac. This food truck makes me want to order a nice red wine, split a charcuterie board between friends and have an amazing girls night.
There’s also Coffeegarden, a gourmet coffee cart that proudly serves organic and fair trade coffees. Their menu ranges from Dragonfly Chai, Sweet Life pastries and Everyone’s Cuppa Teas.
Last but certainly not least, the food truck Once Famous serves deliciously breaded catfish, shrimp, seasoned fries and philly cheesesteaks. Nick Sloss, a Beergarden regular, confidently told me that Once Famous has the best catfish in town.
“The selection of beer is cool because you can really mix it up between ales, hazies, ciders and wines,” Sloss said when asked what he likes about Beergarden. Sloss sat with his friend and coworker Louie Vidmar while the two enjoyed their beers, food and the live music performance.
“The beer and food selection is great, and they’re dog friendly which is really important,” Vidmar said, with a large dog sitting at his feet. “It’s pretty laid back, and the music is really good.”
Sloss and Vidmar weren’t the only customers in attendance on Saturday night. In fact, almost all of the outdoor tables were filled with large groups of people of all ages and walks of life, which brought a real sense of togetherness.
“What I love about this place is that it brings a lot of community together, especially with everything that’s happened with the pandemic,” Marrisa Nicholson, the general manager of Beergarden, said. Nicholson has worked at Beergarden for three and a half years and shared what she enjoys most about her job.
“We have local food carts and local breweries and wineries. I just love the community aspect of it and being able to carry all the local products,” Nicholson said. “Also working in this environment we get to support a lot of local artists.”
On top of all the amazing drinks and food trucks, Beergarden also has events such as live music Thursdays and Saturdays, trivia nights on Tuesdays from 7-9 p.m. and their 6th annual Bacon, Bluegrass & Beer event that goes on from March 7-13.
Bacon, Bluegrass & Beer is one of Beergarden’s biggest events and is filled with seven nights of bacon inspired dishes from all the food trucks, a free bluegrass concert every night and Boneyard beer! Boneyard beer will take over the taps and release a new IPA during the event, in collaboration with the Beergarden crew.
For any bacon and beer lovers — and everyone in-between — I encourage you to stop by Beergarden during this event. Grab a bite of delicious food, sip a nice cold beer and enjoy live music with the rest of the Eugene community!
