Another weekend, another beer fest!

If I haven't mentioned it before, summertime is definitely the time to come to Portland - sunny skies, not too hot or humid, outdoor activities galore, and indie rock scenes. And if you like beer, plenty of festivals dedicated to the beverage. The festival for this week was the 21st annual Oregon Brewers Festival. How do I describe the Brewers Festival? Well, take the PIB from last week, remove everything except the beer and tokens, and you have the OBF. I was never stressed out at PIB, but the Brewers Festival had its moments.

To start, the venue was much bigger - four blocks of festival in Governor Tom McCall Waterfront Park instead of one block. While there were only 72 beers to choose from, each beer was from a different micro-brewery, and they were ALL on tap. Oh, and a sample (4 oz) was only one token ($1), no matter what you picked. There were many more food stands, beer related "outreach" tents, and even a stage for musical acts. There were two massive tents for people to sit under and wait in line for your pour. There was even a misting "drive through" to cool you down! On the downside, there were A LOT of people. It usually took me five minutes to get a sample, but another five to get in/out of the tent to sample my brew. I got there by 1pm and there were already lines. By the time I left at 4pm, people were packed under the tents. So go early!


On a personal note, it was great to be able to sample many beers, however I really didn't find any I would absolutely go back to have again. A lot of the beers seemed to be over-carbonated (possibly not the case if you visited the breweries directly). But, I wasn't compelled to poor any samples out, so I got my money's worth. I am still looking for the "shangri la" of beers (for me).

Oh I forgot about this! There was a kids tent (no kidding) that had no-beer related activities. I ended up in this tent, not because I like kids or I wanted to color, but because of the free samples of Crater Lake Root beer. That was the best "beer" I had this past weekend.