Haydn on Tap

n. Son of Papa Haydn owners Evelyn Franz and Michael Gibbons, Brendan has traveled often to Germany, his mother’s birthplace. Two summers ago, along with his step-brother Barnaby Tuttle of Portland’s Teutonic Wines, he travelled to Vienna, Munich and the Mosel spending a fair amount of time in the summer biergartens that pop-up all over Europe, tasting German beers and trying to resurrect his rusty German. Thanks to that experience, Brendan launched Haydn on Tap, where every Thursday through Sunday this summer Portland is invited to enjoy draft bier in Imperial Pints—Bitburger Pils & PFriem Wit, Radlers (two versions—Wit with grapefruit and Bit with lemon), along with a selection of local and German beers in cans and bottles. The garden is set on the back lawn at Papa Haydn East, 5829 SE Milwaukie Ave, 97202. Surrounded on all four sides by Arbor Vitae and three raised beds of Papa Haydn’s vegetable garden, the biergarten is a perfect setting for a cold one on a hot afternoon. The menu features a Portland take on typical biergarten fare, including two house-made burgers: Wurst—our version of bratwurst topped with apple smoked-bacon kraut, and Flügen burger—a house-made chicken sausage with pickled mustard seeds, tarragon and apple. It’s topped with a slaw of apple and horseradish. The menu also includes Fressen Bakery soft pretzels, finished to order with a toasted caraway salt and accompanied by a sweet mustard spiked with a spicy vinegar from our homemade bread and butter pickles. Other sides include a potato salad made using Brendan’s great-grandmother Charlotte’s recipe and chili cheese fries inspired by Berlin street food curry wurst, with a tomato, onion and pepper curry atop the fries. Weekly specials feature smoked and grilled items off the hardwood-fired meadow creek pig roaster—including a whole roasted hog over Labor Day weekend. Of course it wouldn’t be Haydn without a few desserts as well. There’s an apricot and walnut shortbread cookie, a tartlet made with local blueberries, and On Tap’s take on Schwarzwalde torte, a chocolate brownie “buried” in an espresso panna cotta and topped with Montmorency cherry sauce. Stop by to grab a stein, sample the food, relax on the lawn, and swing to the Gypsy Jazz of the Tracy Kim Trio.