Portland Beer Festivals

[sloshed]

Yes, its that time of year again and there are 2 beer festivals coming in July in Portland.

The International Beer Festival:
http://www.seattlebeerfest.com/Index2%20PIB.htm
July 18th-20th
This is a great festival that features low crowds (in the past anyway), a good setting in the Pearl park blocks and TONS of awesome beer. Many rare ones, Belgians, etc. I think the beertutor crew will be there sometime on Saturday. Will post specifics when we figure it out.

Oregon Brewer's Festival
http://www.oregonbrewfest.com
July 24th-27th
This festival has a lot of good beers, but is way too crowded and they run out of everything too quickly. It is located down at the waterfront and features beers from various U.S. microbrewers. We will be attending this festival on Thursday night as the crowds and lines are more managable and they will still have all of the beers available. Again, specifics to be posted soon...
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I drink to forget my blackouts.

[sloshed]

Damn.. This first festival creeped up on me. We will be there tomorrow starting at 1pm until ???
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I drink to forget my blackouts.

[Judge Rage]

I will be there at 1!
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It's Beer-Thirty somewhere.

http://www.mechamechamedia.blogspot.com/

[The Joker]

Im going to try and make it to the brewfest anyone else?
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Let the obsession begin.

[sloshed]

Damn.. I keep forgetting to post our schedule.

We will be there Thursday night from about 4pm-9 (closing).. We decided that the weekend crowds, running out of beer, nowhere to sit, etc., just weren't worth the effort anymore. Hope to see you down there..
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I drink to forget my blackouts.

[kidvelvet67]

I won't be going because my anniversary is that weekend. Got other plans.

For all the Portland area beertutor people, I was thinking about having a tasting at my house in the next couple of weeks. What weekends work for you guys in August?
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kidvelvet

Life is too short to drink bad beer.

[sloshed]

Just got back a little while ago and it was a very nice fest this year. Lots of seating, better beer, less crowds - of course it was Thursday..

I would love to do a beer tasting. Unfortunately, most of the people in our crew have virtually no weekends left. Try creating a Doodle at:
http://www.doodle.ch

Set up a new poll under "Schedule an Event" and after everyone enters their blackout dates, we can see what's left..
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I drink to forget my blackouts.

[beerlover420]

The beer fests in Maine are a joke, IMO.They just had one called,The Grains & Grapes Fest,which had beer & wine tasting at the same fest.What self-respecting beerlover wants to rub elbows with wine snobs?
Also,the fests here only feature Maine beers,all of which I've already tried.I would have to travel to Boston if I wanted to go to a decent beer fest.

[akira713]

Sloshed, Blitzfan & I hit all three big Brew Fests in Portland this year, and I'd say the one this week (on the waterfront) was the best one. It had lots of new entries, and most of them were really good (as in, I'll seek them out in the store and buy them). The one in the Pearl was WAY too crowded this year...nowhere to sit, and not very many good beers. The Spring Fest was really crowded as well, but we should've gone there earlier. Overall, I guess the key now is to just go opening night, as all these Fests are getting too popular for their own good. At least the one on the Waterfront listened to people's complaints and had more entrances, and added lots more seating. If the one in the Pearl doesn't do the same thing, I probably won't go again. I'm not paying $20 to stand butts-to-nuts and drink beer that tastes like Band-Aids (true story!).

[akira713]

[beerlover420]

I don't think beer & wine mix too well, do they? lol. I don't have anything against winos,BTW,but I'd rather have more beer selections to choose from at a fest.Wine can get ridiculously expensive compared to beer and my past experiences with cheap wine usually led to the worst hangovers.
I avoid hard liquor most of the time because I tend to drink it as fast as beer and end up with more material for,"Drunk Stories".

[kidvelvet67]

Wine and beer festivals are nice because I can take my wife, who loves good wine but hates beer (she doesn't like malt, which is also why she hates the Whoppers candies.) I like wine as well, and so my wife will go wine tasting every couple of months to get some of the reserve wines from the local wineries. Portland is pretty lucky to have not only a smorgasbord of beers, but some of the best Pinot Noir wines in the world (yes, including Burgundy, France.) What's really cool is when you hit a winery where the person serving the flights is laid back and gives you extra tastings when you get the wine (that happened at Yamhill Valley Vinyards). In fact, it is pretty cool when you go to the winery and the person pouring is into either Scotch or Beer, so I get to talk about more than wine, and I usually get a couple of extra tastes while talking.

Most wineries are also really cool about teaching people about wines as well without being too snobbish. This really makes the trips through the Willamette and Yamhill Valley's really fun. Unfortunately, you will get some snobs at some of the wineries that will actually snub you if you are dressed too casual. They are few and far between, but we have run into a couple and we avoid those wineries and those wines at the store like the plague.

As a little side note, Forest Grove, Oregon is the only place in American owned Sake brewer in the United States. All the other breweries (located in California) are Japanese owned.
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kidvelvet

Life is too short to drink bad beer.