Portland went to the Spring Beer and Wine Festival - photo slide-show included

Portland Home and Living was so busy last weekend! Way too many events to get to them all. I did several of them, though, and the last one on Saturday was the Spring Beer and Wine Festival at the Oregon Convention Center. I wish I could put up two or three slide-shows so you can see everything, but Examiner is limited to 20 photos. So, that’s what we get, but you’ll have a great idea of what went on.

We rode the Max to OCC (the only way to travel in the city) and was surprised by how many people were doing the same thing we were - parking their cars at Lloyd Center and hopping the Max to OCC. People had their cups from last year in hand and were happily chattering about the fun they had and people they’d met last year. It was entertaining to listen to.

As soon as we got there, we saw the enormous line. Usually we get in free to everything (being media), but we’d forgotten our business cards, so we got in line like everyone else. We stood there listening to some say they’d been in line for over an hour and weren’t even close, yet. We just walked up to what looked like the end of the line to us, and joined in, and got in half an hour later.

Passing through the doors, the wonderfully warm aroma of chocolate slapped me in the face; I had to stand and just enjoy the smell for a second. A few steps further and there it was - and the most popular chocolate turned out to be the one made with habanera chilies in it. Even guys who don’t like candy took a try at the deliciously hot chocolate and it was a bit entertaining to watch their reaction, especially after saying things like, “Nothing’s too hot for me,” or “Here, let me do it.”

There were so many cheeses I can’t remember which one I liked best. I’m not a beer drinker, but I found some hard ciders that I loved and tried several samples of. They had cherry, apple and pear hard ciders. One booth had chicken to try, having been fried without oil in the platinum cookware someone was selling, there were free samples of so many things I got full.

The deal is, you buy tokens, and each sample was one token (or $1), and you could spend the tokens on food and purchases, too. We were told it was so the vendors didn’t have to deal with cash, but they didn’t seem to mind a bit, and actually encouraged us to use our money. Many of them gave out free samples of other things, like sausages, breads, flavored olive oils, just all kinds of things. If you didn’t go, you missed out! However, there was still a line out the door when we left at 5pm.

Here’s a slide-show of photos of the event. Like mentioned earlier, there aren’t enough to do the show justice or show all the fun that was being had, so I tried to choose the most telling ones. Later today, I’ll have that slide-show of everyone I caught downtown and in the vicinity, too.