The 24th annual Oregon Brewers Festival takes place July 28 through 31 at Tom McCall Waterfront Park.
The 2011 beer list is impressive, and 85s beer strong. It’s nice to see more belgian, farmhouse style, and fruit ales – plus plenty of summery wheat beers. Of course there is a plethora of IPAs for the hop heads, as usual.
This is the Big One. Year after year it gets bigger, more crowded, and the good beers run out too damn early. My advice is to arrive early, try the unique beers not normally available in Portland, and then leave early and make your way to one of the many bars and taverns around town with fantastic beers and 16-20 ounce pints. If you enjoy the heat and crowds, by all means go Saturday afternoon, but don’t say I didn’t warn you!
Taps open at noon each day of the festival and pour until 9pm through Saturday. Sunday you’re cut off at 7pm. Standard beer fest conventions apply: buy the festival mug (you can’t use a previous year’s mug) and $1 tokens for beer samples. $10 gets you a mug, a program, and four tokens. Tasters, mostly, set you back one token; full mugs cost four. Visit the website for more information.
Leave a Reply