I arrived in Portland on Amtrak at 11 a.m. Thursday morning for my second annual trip to the Oregon Brewers Festival (OBF). An hour and a half later, I was sitting under a tent at McCall Waterfront Park along the Willamette with 30+ beer industry people for the media tasting.
Our guide, Noel Blake of the Oregon Brew Crew, said a few words and suddenly our mugs were filled with a couple of ounces of beer. This continued until we'd tried seventeen beers. That's right, seventeen. There was such a variety of styles and flavors that it got a bit overwhelming. Luckily, I learned from last year's event that it's not a sin to pour out portions of beers that are unappealing or too strong to waste sobriety on.
Despite the sheer quantity of beers that were poured, I thought this year's tasting was better organized than last year's. I've also gotten better at appreciating the beers, but when I'm sampling seventeen in one sitting, it's hard to capture impressions of every one. That said, some did stand out.
Here's a list of the beers (in the order they were presented) with a few words about ones that made an impression:
1) Cascade Razberry Wheat
2) Fifty Fifty Foggy Goggle White
3) Hopworks HUB Lager
4) Collaborator Resurrection Rye (A spicy rye beer with an excellent hoppy, bitter finish)
5) Rogue Glen
6) Golden Valley Cote D' Or
7) Flying Fish Love Fish Abbey Dubbel (A malt-heavy Belgian-style beer that's balanced by the tartness of dried cherries)
8) Rock Bottom Congo Queen Golden Ale (A weird one that I'm not sure if I liked. Supposedly the brewer was trying to make a beer that tasted like a gin and tonic.)
9) Caldera Ginger Ale
10) Roots Calypso Ale (A light ale with apricots and scotch bonnet peppers. Had a subtle burn to it.)
11) Bell's Porter (A solid porter with everything you'd want from the style)
12) Surly Coffee Bender (A brown ale with strong coffee flavor. Liked it, but a little went a long way.)
13) Lagunitas Hop Stoopid
14) BridgePort Hop Czar
15) McMenamin's Madman Jack's Insane Pale Ale
16) Russian River Pliny the Elder
17) Widmer Full Nelson
The final five beers were billed as a California vs. the Pacific Northwest Double IPA battle. My personal bias for California IPAs lets you know where I stand, but they all were worth trying. At that point, I'm not sure how much I was appreciating subtle differences between beers anyway.
Overall, it was a great first day at OBF. I went on to try several more beers the next day and visited other Portland beer spots such as Bailey's Taproom, Belmont Station, Roots Organic Brewing and the new Deschutes Brewpub. Portland is a great beer town. There's so much to do and two to three days is never enough time. I hope to be back soon for more beer adventures.
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