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So what does a beer festival 2000 miles away have to do with Garage Brewers, a Missouri based homebrew club? Well… not a damn thing, but I’m a member and I’m the only one that made it there AND we need updated site content so... suffer through it with me. GBS members try to get membership representation out to as many national beer festivals as we can. You’ll see us at National Homebrewers Conference, Great American Beer Festival, Great Taste Of The Midwest and others, but the Oregon Brewers Festival hasn’t been a “must go” on the list. On a personal note, I try to get out to the Pacific Northwest a couple of times a year to visit my immediate family, all of whom live there. I finally wised up and scheduled one of those visits while the Oregon Brewers Festival was on. Founded in 1988 by Dick and Nancy Ponzi of BridgePort Brewing Co. and Kurt and Bob Widmer of Widmer Brothers Brewing Co. , OBF is one of the oldest craft beer festivals in the country. In spite of the very limited number of craft breweries in existence back then, it was an instant success and has remained so, drawing breweries and attendees from across the country. The festival, spread over 4 days, is located on a long narrow stretch of ground in Tom McCall Waterfront Park on the west bank of the Willamette (wi ∙ LAM̕ ∙ ett) River (now you know where the hop name comes from), just off Portland’s downtown. The main entrance off Pine Street is smack in the middle with a very limited number of vendors to the right and a bandstand to the left as you walk in. Past those, on either side, are monstrous long tents situated down the middle of the grounds with Porta-Potty villages at the far ends. Food vendors were scattered outside the tents along the fence on the opposite side next to the river. Outside the tents, and along the fence on the downtown side, were 11 reefer trailers lined up in a row and spaced as necessary providing beer storage. Lined up along the side of the trailers, were the tables where volunteers poured the brews. Each tent was basically divided down the middle, length-ways, with a walking area on the downtown side and tables on the river side, an arrangement that works very well. The lineups for even the most popular beers rarely encroached into the walking area but there were numerous tables inside the tent and out of the way, allowing brew seekers to move about freely without winding through standing, non-moving throngs of people. There were also plenty of tables outside the tents on the river side if you wanted to be out in the open. This is a laid-back, sit-down-and-chat-get-back-up-sit-down-somewhere-else-and-chat kinda fest. The weather couldn’t have been better. The temperature at 8:00AM was typically about 60 F which would rise to high high 70s to mid 80s by the afternoon with no discernable humidity. Oregonians understand the winter wind chill “feels like” concept but with low humidity have no clue about a “heat index”. 82 degrees actually FEELS LIKE 82 degrees. The OBF concept is different than any other fest I’ve been to. Anyone of any age can get onto the fest grounds free of charge (possibly because it’s in a public park?). Those showing ID on the way in, proving they are over 21, got a wrist band which enabled them to go to the beer sales tent and buy a package which included a program, plastic fest mug, and tokens to be used to buy beer. I chose the $20 package which included 14 tokens. You could get a “taste” for 1 token or a mug fill for 4 tokens. I wasn’t sure whether I was going to like this concept at first but it worked extremely for reasons I’ll get to in a minute. I opted to go for a single taste every time, which proved wise since that typically got a 1/3 fill or about 3 ounces and I got maximum beer variety for my money. Each of 80 craft brewers participating brought one feature beer to the fest. In addition, the festival has a “buzz tent” with another 50 brews. These are beers that were favorites from previous fests or special creations from the brewers. They were available in “tastes” only and cost 2 tokens. They also had the longest lines. They also frequently, but not always, EARNED the tag “buzz beers”. Since the days started at noon and ran until 9:30PM. I curtailed my visits to the buzz tent so I would be lucid enough to remember what the hell I’d had to drink later. I was semi-successful. The program booklet was very useful, maybe the best I’ve gotten at a fest. It listed the food and other vendors in the front followed by a brief explanation of the main beer styles. It then listed all the beers by style, then the buzz tent line-up. Following that was a profile of each beer and brewery. I was surprised to see included for each, the OG, FG, ABV, IBU, color (SG) , and “hoppiness” descriptor for those not versed in the IBU concept. Following that was a visual key showing which beers were at what trailers which were conveniently numbered on the side and easy to spot. There was also a “color key” chart at the end of the booklet which listed each beer color from lightest to darkest on a vertical graph together with a horizontal “hoppiness” scale. I found this graph a little puzzling since “light color” doesn’t necessarily equal “light beer” and wasn’t sure exactly what it was supposed to tell attendees, but, whatever. I went on Thursday, the first day of the fest but didn’t get there until two hours later than I had intended. A little miffed at first for arriving late, I soon found that because of OBF’s unusual format, it just didn’t matter. The reason is that there’s NO ENTRY FEE. That meant that when I came back the next day, armed with my already purchased mug from Thursday, I simply bought more tokens at a buck a pop for however many I thought I’d need. If I ran out I simply bought a few more. Freakin’ AWESOME concept. Two days of festival (nine hours on day two) - total cost $45.00. A few memorables (I generally avoided brews I can easily get or were very familiar with):
21st Amendment- Hell or High Watermelon, 10 barrel Brewing - India Summer Ale, Dogfish Head- India Brown Ale, Green Flash Brewing Co. – Le Freak, Ninkasi Brewing Co. – Maiden The Shade (I’m becoming a BIG Ninkasi fan), Victory Brewing Co. – Victory Prima Pils, Hop Valley Brewing – Pinot Barrel Aged Belgian Cascadian Dark Ale, Lompoc Brewing – Oak barrel Aged Dopplebock
Note: there are SO MANY buzz beers I wanted to get to but I would’ve been slobbering drunk on day two so I regrettably passed on most of them. How could I have missed…?: Kona Brewing Co. – Coco Loco
Ninkasi – Eugene Collaboration Beer Most unusual beer I tried: Reggie Junkie Gruit from Upright Brewing Co. – spicy, like you’d expect from this early beer evolution hopless style, but with a light lemony background and finish. It grew on me, everyone else in my group of non-beer afficianados hated it. Kudos to Upright for having the balls to BRING IT. Noticeably absent: Russian River Brewing Co. – unofficial explanation for their absence given by very knowledgeable staff at Belmont Station, arguable Portland’s best beer store; “RR doesn’t feel like they need to come to OBF. They have their loyal customer base and don’t want to expand so there’s no reason to come”.
Wow.
Really?
Watch your back. Pros: Almost everything – it is impossible to have any stress at this festival, especially if you have time to come back on a different day. It encourages slowing yourself down, sample some brews but no feeling of having to rush to get to as many as possible within your 4 hour session. Lots of conversation, even with people you don’t know. NO HURRY. Everything a beer fest should be. Cons: No one from the breweries was there to talk to. The volunteers were, for the most part, clueless about what they were serving, but there were informative brew sheets for every beer on the serving table in front of each volunteer. They were serving from pitchers instead of taps. They also had runners whose job it was to keep the servers pitchers filled but they were woefully inadequate and in some cases I suspect, too freakin’ high to be of much help. Servers had to constantly leave the table, with you standing there, to go fill pitchers. Also, some volunteers, apparently ignorant of the fact that head on a beer is perfectly acceptable- required even, went to great lengths to SLOWWWWLY pour beer out of the pitcher so as to not get any of that nasty white foamy stuff on top. Sigh. This made for much longer lines than were necessary.
This is a minor faux pas though, when compared with the positives. BEER LINEUP FEST PICS Recommendation: GET to this festival next year! |
