Portland International Beerfest

This weekend Portland was host to the PIB (Portland International Beerfest). This three day event featured 130 different international* beers to sample.

*There were a few beers from Oregon and California, but maybe they were using foreign brewing techniques.



This year's tag-line was, "There will be beer." I couldn't think of a better reason to go, than knowing the beerfest would have beer. Well, other than the fact that it was only a few blocks away from my apartment, in downtown Portland. I went early to take advantage of the "early bird special." But I'm getting ahead of myself. For $20 you gain entry to the PIB, receive a 4 oz glass for sampling the beer, and 10 tickets to "pay" for the beer. Additional tickets were $1 a piece. The early special granted you 5 additional tickets, so you can see why I went early (noon-thirty).


The entire PIB was on one of the smaller city blocks, that's it! A metro area of over a million people and the festival occurred on a postage stamp! I expected huge lines and wall-to-wall people, but it wasn't too bad. There was hardly any wait for the samples, but most of the tables were taken early, so I had to stand and drink most of the time. I don't know what it would be like later in the day, they may hold people at the gates until others leave. Inside there was a row of tents for bottled beer samples and a row of tents for draft beers. There was also a food tent for typical German food (the American carnival style of German food). Let's see, there was also a tent for cigars, one selling bikes, and one to raise money for animals.


Unfortunately, it is not all 'one ticket one beer'. Some of the "better" beers cost 2 or 3 (some even 6) tickets, in other words $2 or $3. There was an Italian beer that had cocoa in it, but I didn't have enough tickets (sad face). In all I sampled 8 beers for the money. I learned that I am not much of a German beer fan, and my favorite beer from the International Beerfest was based in Oregon. Go figure. Still a good experience for the money, and it was a great afternoon to spend 2 hours outside! Plus I was able to get a hot soft pretzel. Score!