Everything nice.: Oregon Brewer's Festival

I originally wrote this post literally the Friday of Brew Fest weekend. I published it... or so I thought. Whoops. Just now seeing this.... Oh well! It was still fun, and still worth posting abou!

This year's festival marked the 26th annual Oregon Brewer's Festival. I hadn't always been home at the right time, and I realized that last year we were home for it, but there was no time at all to make it. For future reference, it always lands on the last full weekend in July and runs about 4 days.

My first experience was great, and I highly recommend it for beer enthusiasts or if you have someone visiting Oregon. It's set down by the Riverfront of Portland, giving you beautiful views of your surroundings. It was a little hot (in the low 90s), but there are numerous tents, trees that block the sun gradually more and more, and a mister you can stand under to cool off. Not to mention all of the cold beer you can drink and water stations for drinking and cleaning out your glass. If you're needing some sustenance during your drinking fun, there are a good amount of food booths selling perfect drunk munchies food, like pizza, gyros, or German pretzels and sausage. Admission is free but if you want to taste you have to pay $7 for a souvenir glass to get your tastings in. In order to taste, you buy $1 wooden tokens - a tasting costs 1 token, a glass costs 4. I only had one glass the whole time because I had so much fun tasting different kinds, but it's a pretty good deal! Not to mention it's fun feeling like you're at an adult Chuck E. Cheese when you pay with your tokens. Nick and I started out together with 20 tokens and that was enough for me, but Nick went and bought 10 more. There were countless kinds of beers from different breweries around the country, and to make it easier there was a booklet you could carry with the descriptions so you aren't surprised by the taste. It also helps narrow it down so you don't end up trying to taste every single one. I wouldn't advise that ;)

This year there were a lot of fruity ones which I enjoyed tasting because they were lighter and tasted great in the hot weather. I'm not a huge beer drinker but I enjoy good beer, and I tried a lot of them. My least favorite was the marionberry beer. I know, disappointing. It was on the sour side and did not taste very good. Yuck. I also tried Boulder Beer Co's "Pump up the Jam", a blueberry wheat that was tasty, Laht Neppur Brewing Co.'s peach Hefeweizen, and my favorite fruity beer - 21st Amendment Brewery's "Hell or High Watermelon." A-maz-ing. That was the full glass of beer I had. Seriously delicious, refreshing, and not too sweet. Other beers I tasted and liked were Dogfish Head Craft Brewery's "Namaste" with orange, lemongrass, and coriander; Ninkasi's "Bohemian Pils"; Rogue Brewery's "Beard Beer" made with a natural yeast from the brewer's beard (I know, gross, but the beer was delicious); and a pecan brown ale. Honestly, I could probably find something I liked about each beer with the exception of a few that just didn't taste good, but there weren't many like that. Plus, the fun is in trying, and if you don't like it, your tasting pour is only about 4 oz so you don't have to endure it long! It was a super fun day and I will definitely go again!