The Horse Brass Pub is a Portland institution for the soccer-and-darts crowd, offering staple British pub food in a fairly authentic style, alongside a few dozen taps and several decades’ worth of lingering tobacco smoke. The dark wood and dense accumulation of British signage make this the ideal place to sit and watch English Premier League football matches—at least for those who can appreciate the carefully maintained anti-atmosphere, which is a casualty of Oregon’s adoption of non-smoking laws, even in the darkest and dankest of taverns.

Highlights of the menu include the requisite fish and chips, freshly composed pot pies (turkey, chicken, beef and mushroom, and steak and kidney), scotch eggs, and for vegetarians, a well-composed ploughman’s lunch of bread, cheeses, apple, and pickles. The fare is relentlessly authentic: drop in on weekend mornings for a full (and we mean full) English breakfast of potatoes, tomatoes, eggs, bangers, bacon, and beans.

If the food is conventional Brit comfort, the beer list is what makes the Horse Brass a noteworthy corner of Portland. Publican Don Younger, who celebrated his 33rd anniversary as the bar’s owner in 2009, has been a gruff but enthusiastic leader of Oregon’s craft beer movement since its first days, and it’s not uncommon to find specially brewed beers on the tap list (try Rogue’s Younger Special Bitter). Staff are well versed in the deep tap list and admirably manage to stay on top of the constant rotations.

Younger also co-founded the nearby Belmont Station, formerly located next door to the pub but now situated a few blocks north on Stark Street. Belmont Station offers one of the deepest selections of beer and cider in Portland (which essentially puts it in competition with the rest of the country), along with a selection of British cuisine essentials like Marmite, PG Tips, and Brown Sauce.