A Great Review of 20th Annual Oregon Brewers Festival from Japan!
Glenn Scoggins review of OBF
Tokyo's Good Beer Information Newsletter BREWS NEWS for August-September 2007 By Bryan Harrell "brewsnews at yahoo dot com"
Bar Beat:
Glenn Scoggins, the Bar Hunter and Brews News National Treasure, files this report from The Oregon Brewers Festival, July 26-29 in Portland, Oregon
The largest beer festival in North America celebrated its 20th anniversary this summer, having grown in two decades from 13 breweries to 73 and from 15,000 participants to 55,000. It is the high point of the brilliant summer season in Beervana (known to the post office as Portland, Oregon) and deserves attention in your travel plans for 2008. I was privileged to attend this year, and was overwhelmed by the friendly welcome everyone extended to me, including casual generosity that went well beyond the well-known camaraderie of our fraternity of beerophiles. It may have helped that I wore a Popeye T-shirt (never losing a promotional
opportunity) and rarely missed a chance to point out that I had come 9000 kilometers for the event.
However, the proud hometown hosts seemed to show the same happy spirit of hospitality to everyone from across the continent who had come to Portland, which was for four days the Center of the (beer) World. The weather cooperated as well (for the 20th straight year, I was told), as the unseasonable summer rains, prompted by our mid-July typhoon in Japan, vanished on the eve of the festival. Blue skies, dominated by soaring Mount Hood, and warm sunshine were relieved by a cool breeze off the Willamette River flowing next to spacious Tom McCall Waterfront Park, the festival venue.
Portland and Oregon are the epicenter of the North American brewing renaissance. The state hosts eighty separate brewing facilities (none of them macro) employing 4200 workers, while Portland itself has 29 breweries and brewpubs, narrowly pipping Munich for the world title. Oregon craft brewers produced the equivalent of 263 million bottles in 2006 (an annual increase of 17%), and 38% of all draft beer consumed in the state is made by Oregon craft brewers, compared to a nationwide average of less than 2%. The craft beer business pumps more than $2.5 billion into the statefs economy, which explains why Governor Kulongoski proclaimed July as Oregon Craft Beer Month and enjoined everyone to observe the occasion in an appropriate manner. I, for one, needed no further encouragement!
The Oregon Brewers Festival is organized differently from many others, in that each participating brewery is limited to one beer. This deprives larger breweries of any advantage over smaller ones and forces them all to bring their very best; it also provides room for many out-of-state operations, so that local drinkers can enjoy less familiar brews from Idaho or Michigan.
Well-known names like Deschutes, Pyramid, and Red Hook shared the same trailer with BJfs Restaurant, Oregon Trail, and Montanafs Spanish Peaks\a democratic approach with the thirsty drinker the ultimate arbiter. Like all festivals, a mishmash of styles risked confusion in the throat unless one planned out an itinerary in advance (often side-tracked by intriguing discoveries). The Pacific Northwest infatuation with dynamic hops was fully in evidence, with lighter fruit beers and hefeweizens outnumbered by hoppy IPAs (21 of the total). Seventeen beers had IBUs over 60, with Bear Republicfs Racer X taking the
crown: gGotta love a brewer who packs 110 IBUs into an IPA and calls it balanced,h claimed the program.
Stone Brewingfs Arrogant Bastard has an IBU rating of 115, but Stone was represented at the festival instead by its phenomenal Vertical Epic 07/07/07, a Belgian saison gfarmhouse aleh with an aroma of citrus and ginger, finishing with cloves and cardamom. Pliny the Elder from Russian River (named after the Roman naturalist who first identified hops, it gpairs well with burgers or brieh) at IBU 92, was another throat-scraper. Diamond Knot Industrial IPA (IBU 80) claimed with justification to be gan IPA on steroids.h Rogue Imperial Porter was a meal in a glass. Once my voice was reduced to a hoarse whisper by the steel-wool effect of all those stiff Pacific Northwest hops, I sought out gentler alternatives.
Hennepin from upstate New Yorkfs Brewery Ommegang (watch for it in Japan from Andrew Balmuthfs Nagano
Trading) was another farmhouse saison, a rich golden ale with a hint of ginger snaps. Other non-hoppy favorites included Eugene City Breweryfs Honey Orange Wheat (a good substitute for breakfast), SummerAid from Portlandfs New Old Lompoc, which resembled a golden Helles, and Ballast Pointfs Yellowtail Pale Ale, a misnamed Kolsch.
The festivalfs hosts had put the lessons of the past
19 years to good effect with their seamless organization. Only $1 for a poker chip entitled one to a four-ounce sample (four chips for a full glass), encouraging adventurous drinking. (I ambitiously bought fifty but received at least another twenty as gifts, many of which I similarly passed on.) The festival was open from noon to 9:00 pm, which on weekdays meant a relaxed and uncrowded venue until early evening, when the poor schmucks with real jobs arrived. By last call at 8:30 pm, scrums had developed in front of the most popular taps, but civility and good spirits were maintained throughout. Everyone complained about the rent-a-cops from the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, but I found them much less intrusive than Seattlefs Orwellian Beverage Enforcement Officers.
What to do in Portland after the festival ended (or even before it opened)? Silly question! Some of Americafs finest brewpubs are within stumbling distance of the riverside park or easily reached by the MAX light rail network and streetcars (all of which are free in the downtown area). East of the Willamette River is Alan Sprintsf Hair of the Dog brewery, responsible for some of the most distinctive high-alcohol beers in the world, including Blue Dot IPA and Adam. Nearby is the pioneering Horse Brass Pub, which introduced British pub culture to Portland many decades ago. Holding court at Horse Brass is its founder, Don Younger, who claims that hefs gan overnight success that took forty years.h While Don may give a first impression of a Hellfs Angels dropout or a roadie for the Grateful Deadfs last stadium tour, he is a fiercely intellectual thinker beneath a crusty demeanor, who can deliver an impassioned defense of Reaganite supply-side economics between drinks. He is a compulsively quotable
curmudgeon: gMake up your mind: are you a public house or just a restaurant with booze? I donft want to run a restaurant. People come to drink, and then they get hungry. Give the customers what they want.
But how to educate them to know what they want? Itfs not about the beer, you idiots\itfs ALL about the beer. If you have to ask what that means, youfll never understand the answer. When business gets bad, donft water the ketchup\get better ketchup. 95% of pubs go out of business; I just stay in the other 5%.
I give people stuff they want, and they give me money.h (However, like so many others I met in Portland, Don refused to let me pay for my drinks.)
West of the river, in the historic Pearl District, are BridgePort Brewing, the cityfs oldest brewpub and one of the festival founders, located in a former rope factory with a rich brick interior and an in-house bakery. Originally established in 1984 by Dick and Nancy Ponzi of winemaking fame, BridgePort has a strong line-up of ten beers on draft, of which I found Ropewalk impressive. New Old Lompoc runs a brewpub and restaurant, with Proletariat Red (gwork is the curse of the drinking classh), Lompoc Strong Draft (LSD), Sockeye Cream Stout, and the epitome of the Oregon hop addiction, C-Note (100 IBUs, combining Crystal, Cluster, Cascade, Chinook, Centennial, Columbus, and Challenger hops). Rock Bottom Brewery transcends its corporate affiliation with well-made beers (Multnomah Porter is a stand-out), served at an endless counter in a busy two-story bar complete with pool table. By the riverside marina is laid-back Full Sail Brewing, owned and operated by its employees. Henryfs is an amazingly well-stocked bar with a long history. Greg Higgins wins awards perennially for his namesake restaurantfs pairing of elegant cuisine with the best beers, following the culinary tradition of emphasizing local ingredients established by the legendary Alice Waters. Make your reservations at Higgins now for your next trip, as it is perennially booked solid.
The nerve center of the Northwest craft beer movement must surely be at Rogue Ales Public House and Distillery, also known as the Flanders Street Embassy of Rogue Nation. Jovial Al Jorgensen presides over an attractive interior with a lively and knowledgeable clientele. (As President of Rogue Nation, Al leads his citizens in the Oath of Allegiance, which all beer drinkers should memorize.) In addition to a wide selection of beers from its own brewery in Newport, Oregon, there are plenty of guest beers, and Rogue also operates a micro-distillery on premises and serves its award-winning cheeses.
Rogue also sponsored the festivalfs opening event:
brunch and a parade to the festival grounds.
Well-filled with eggs and sausage (and a few breakfast beers), several hundred participants donned complimentary T-shirts and tuned their kazoos to accompany the local firemenfs bagpipe and drum corps on the one-mile walk to the riverfront park. Winding throughout downtown, this motley rabble was led by none other than Portlandfs mayor, Grand Marshal Tom Potter (a retired police chief and all-around good sport, who is the drinking buddy of Phred Kaufman during his visits to Portlandfs sister city of Sapporo). Upon arrival at the festival, the inaugural keg (carried by a coven of gmonksh led by Roguefs brewgenius John Maier) was tapped by His Honor, and the festival was on. Just like Munichfs Oktoberfest, except that the ceremonial cry from the crowd was gWorldfs Coolest Mayor!h rather than gO'zapft is!h Votes for re-election guaranteed, at least from the beer-drinking demographic. As befits a political and cultural event, the festival was well-covered by the print and electronic media, including John Foysten of the Oregonian, Lisa Morrison of Northwest Brewing News, and Mary Izetelny from Brooklyn, drinking buddy of former T?ky? resident Wayne Gabel.
The entire festival experience was enhanced (especially for a visitor from overseas on his first trip to Portland) by the warm welcome from the iconic personalities of the Northwest beer world, as well as ordinary beer-lovers. Many of them, paradoxically, are SNOBs (Supporters of Native Oregon Beer) without a trace of snobbery. Chief amongst them is Fred Eckhardt (whom you already know as the eponymous inspiration of Hair of the Dog Fred), 81 years young this year and possessed of enormous erudition without affectation.
Generous with his time and conversation, he was constantly surrounded by a coterie of admirers, dispensing wisdom with self-deprecating humor. gMost of the people in the world are nice most of the time, mostly in most situations, most often.h Fred pioneered the field of beer journalism with his columns in the Oregonian and still writes on a wide variety of topics, including sake, on which he is an authority. His introduction to sake came during his first visit to Japan\in 1945 as an 18-year-old Marine invading Okinawa (gwhere I was too smart for the jobs they wanted me to do and too dumb for the jobs they really needed me to doh). I had the pleasure of attending his enlightening and amusing presentation, held at the Rogue alehouse just before the festival, which paired cheese with beer (his 16th annual tasting). Some of the innovative pairings were Rogue's Chipotle Ale with Chipotle Cheddar, Brutal Bitter with Tumalo Farms Pondhopper, and Deschutes Inversion IPA with Yellow Buck Camembert. He can also match beer and chocolate in ways that will either extend your lifespan or just help you enjoy life more!
Fred plans to come to Toky0? this autumn for the annual ginjo-shu sake event, and I advise everyone (regardless of your knowledge of or interest in sake) to make the time to make the acquaintance of this national treasure.
All in all, the 20th Oregon Brewers Festival was an unforgettable experience. Next year, at 21, it will be of legal age! Join the fun on July 24-27, 2008.
Tokyo's Good Beer Information Newsletter BREWS NEWS for August-September 2007 By Bryan Harrell "brewsnews at yahoo dot com"
Bar Beat:
Glenn Scoggins, the Bar Hunter and Brews News National Treasure, files this report from The Oregon Brewers Festival, July 26-29 in Portland, Oregon
The largest beer festival in North America celebrated its 20th anniversary this summer, having grown in two decades from 13 breweries to 73 and from 15,000 participants to 55,000. It is the high point of the brilliant summer season in Beervana (known to the post office as Portland, Oregon) and deserves attention in your travel plans for 2008. I was privileged to attend this year, and was overwhelmed by the friendly welcome everyone extended to me, including casual generosity that went well beyond the well-known camaraderie of our fraternity of beerophiles. It may have helped that I wore a Popeye T-shirt (never losing a promotional
opportunity) and rarely missed a chance to point out that I had come 9000 kilometers for the event.
However, the proud hometown hosts seemed to show the same happy spirit of hospitality to everyone from across the continent who had come to Portland, which was for four days the Center of the (beer) World. The weather cooperated as well (for the 20th straight year, I was told), as the unseasonable summer rains, prompted by our mid-July typhoon in Japan, vanished on the eve of the festival. Blue skies, dominated by soaring Mount Hood, and warm sunshine were relieved by a cool breeze off the Willamette River flowing next to spacious Tom McCall Waterfront Park, the festival venue.
Portland and Oregon are the epicenter of the North American brewing renaissance. The state hosts eighty separate brewing facilities (none of them macro) employing 4200 workers, while Portland itself has 29 breweries and brewpubs, narrowly pipping Munich for the world title. Oregon craft brewers produced the equivalent of 263 million bottles in 2006 (an annual increase of 17%), and 38% of all draft beer consumed in the state is made by Oregon craft brewers, compared to a nationwide average of less than 2%. The craft beer business pumps more than $2.5 billion into the statefs economy, which explains why Governor Kulongoski proclaimed July as Oregon Craft Beer Month and enjoined everyone to observe the occasion in an appropriate manner. I, for one, needed no further encouragement!
The Oregon Brewers Festival is organized differently from many others, in that each participating brewery is limited to one beer. This deprives larger breweries of any advantage over smaller ones and forces them all to bring their very best; it also provides room for many out-of-state operations, so that local drinkers can enjoy less familiar brews from Idaho or Michigan.
Well-known names like Deschutes, Pyramid, and Red Hook shared the same trailer with BJfs Restaurant, Oregon Trail, and Montanafs Spanish Peaks\a democratic approach with the thirsty drinker the ultimate arbiter. Like all festivals, a mishmash of styles risked confusion in the throat unless one planned out an itinerary in advance (often side-tracked by intriguing discoveries). The Pacific Northwest infatuation with dynamic hops was fully in evidence, with lighter fruit beers and hefeweizens outnumbered by hoppy IPAs (21 of the total). Seventeen beers had IBUs over 60, with Bear Republicfs Racer X taking the
crown: gGotta love a brewer who packs 110 IBUs into an IPA and calls it balanced,h claimed the program.
Stone Brewingfs Arrogant Bastard has an IBU rating of 115, but Stone was represented at the festival instead by its phenomenal Vertical Epic 07/07/07, a Belgian saison gfarmhouse aleh with an aroma of citrus and ginger, finishing with cloves and cardamom. Pliny the Elder from Russian River (named after the Roman naturalist who first identified hops, it gpairs well with burgers or brieh) at IBU 92, was another throat-scraper. Diamond Knot Industrial IPA (IBU 80) claimed with justification to be gan IPA on steroids.h Rogue Imperial Porter was a meal in a glass. Once my voice was reduced to a hoarse whisper by the steel-wool effect of all those stiff Pacific Northwest hops, I sought out gentler alternatives.
Hennepin from upstate New Yorkfs Brewery Ommegang (watch for it in Japan from Andrew Balmuthfs Nagano
Trading) was another farmhouse saison, a rich golden ale with a hint of ginger snaps. Other non-hoppy favorites included Eugene City Breweryfs Honey Orange Wheat (a good substitute for breakfast), SummerAid from Portlandfs New Old Lompoc, which resembled a golden Helles, and Ballast Pointfs Yellowtail Pale Ale, a misnamed Kolsch.
The festivalfs hosts had put the lessons of the past
19 years to good effect with their seamless organization. Only $1 for a poker chip entitled one to a four-ounce sample (four chips for a full glass), encouraging adventurous drinking. (I ambitiously bought fifty but received at least another twenty as gifts, many of which I similarly passed on.) The festival was open from noon to 9:00 pm, which on weekdays meant a relaxed and uncrowded venue until early evening, when the poor schmucks with real jobs arrived. By last call at 8:30 pm, scrums had developed in front of the most popular taps, but civility and good spirits were maintained throughout. Everyone complained about the rent-a-cops from the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, but I found them much less intrusive than Seattlefs Orwellian Beverage Enforcement Officers.
What to do in Portland after the festival ended (or even before it opened)? Silly question! Some of Americafs finest brewpubs are within stumbling distance of the riverside park or easily reached by the MAX light rail network and streetcars (all of which are free in the downtown area). East of the Willamette River is Alan Sprintsf Hair of the Dog brewery, responsible for some of the most distinctive high-alcohol beers in the world, including Blue Dot IPA and Adam. Nearby is the pioneering Horse Brass Pub, which introduced British pub culture to Portland many decades ago. Holding court at Horse Brass is its founder, Don Younger, who claims that hefs gan overnight success that took forty years.h While Don may give a first impression of a Hellfs Angels dropout or a roadie for the Grateful Deadfs last stadium tour, he is a fiercely intellectual thinker beneath a crusty demeanor, who can deliver an impassioned defense of Reaganite supply-side economics between drinks. He is a compulsively quotable
curmudgeon: gMake up your mind: are you a public house or just a restaurant with booze? I donft want to run a restaurant. People come to drink, and then they get hungry. Give the customers what they want.
But how to educate them to know what they want? Itfs not about the beer, you idiots\itfs ALL about the beer. If you have to ask what that means, youfll never understand the answer. When business gets bad, donft water the ketchup\get better ketchup. 95% of pubs go out of business; I just stay in the other 5%.
I give people stuff they want, and they give me money.h (However, like so many others I met in Portland, Don refused to let me pay for my drinks.)
West of the river, in the historic Pearl District, are BridgePort Brewing, the cityfs oldest brewpub and one of the festival founders, located in a former rope factory with a rich brick interior and an in-house bakery. Originally established in 1984 by Dick and Nancy Ponzi of winemaking fame, BridgePort has a strong line-up of ten beers on draft, of which I found Ropewalk impressive. New Old Lompoc runs a brewpub and restaurant, with Proletariat Red (gwork is the curse of the drinking classh), Lompoc Strong Draft (LSD), Sockeye Cream Stout, and the epitome of the Oregon hop addiction, C-Note (100 IBUs, combining Crystal, Cluster, Cascade, Chinook, Centennial, Columbus, and Challenger hops). Rock Bottom Brewery transcends its corporate affiliation with well-made beers (Multnomah Porter is a stand-out), served at an endless counter in a busy two-story bar complete with pool table. By the riverside marina is laid-back Full Sail Brewing, owned and operated by its employees. Henryfs is an amazingly well-stocked bar with a long history. Greg Higgins wins awards perennially for his namesake restaurantfs pairing of elegant cuisine with the best beers, following the culinary tradition of emphasizing local ingredients established by the legendary Alice Waters. Make your reservations at Higgins now for your next trip, as it is perennially booked solid.
The nerve center of the Northwest craft beer movement must surely be at Rogue Ales Public House and Distillery, also known as the Flanders Street Embassy of Rogue Nation. Jovial Al Jorgensen presides over an attractive interior with a lively and knowledgeable clientele. (As President of Rogue Nation, Al leads his citizens in the Oath of Allegiance, which all beer drinkers should memorize.) In addition to a wide selection of beers from its own brewery in Newport, Oregon, there are plenty of guest beers, and Rogue also operates a micro-distillery on premises and serves its award-winning cheeses.
Rogue also sponsored the festivalfs opening event:
brunch and a parade to the festival grounds.
Well-filled with eggs and sausage (and a few breakfast beers), several hundred participants donned complimentary T-shirts and tuned their kazoos to accompany the local firemenfs bagpipe and drum corps on the one-mile walk to the riverfront park. Winding throughout downtown, this motley rabble was led by none other than Portlandfs mayor, Grand Marshal Tom Potter (a retired police chief and all-around good sport, who is the drinking buddy of Phred Kaufman during his visits to Portlandfs sister city of Sapporo). Upon arrival at the festival, the inaugural keg (carried by a coven of gmonksh led by Roguefs brewgenius John Maier) was tapped by His Honor, and the festival was on. Just like Munichfs Oktoberfest, except that the ceremonial cry from the crowd was gWorldfs Coolest Mayor!h rather than gO'zapft is!h Votes for re-election guaranteed, at least from the beer-drinking demographic. As befits a political and cultural event, the festival was well-covered by the print and electronic media, including John Foysten of the Oregonian, Lisa Morrison of Northwest Brewing News, and Mary Izetelny from Brooklyn, drinking buddy of former T?ky? resident Wayne Gabel.
The entire festival experience was enhanced (especially for a visitor from overseas on his first trip to Portland) by the warm welcome from the iconic personalities of the Northwest beer world, as well as ordinary beer-lovers. Many of them, paradoxically, are SNOBs (Supporters of Native Oregon Beer) without a trace of snobbery. Chief amongst them is Fred Eckhardt (whom you already know as the eponymous inspiration of Hair of the Dog Fred), 81 years young this year and possessed of enormous erudition without affectation.
Generous with his time and conversation, he was constantly surrounded by a coterie of admirers, dispensing wisdom with self-deprecating humor. gMost of the people in the world are nice most of the time, mostly in most situations, most often.h Fred pioneered the field of beer journalism with his columns in the Oregonian and still writes on a wide variety of topics, including sake, on which he is an authority. His introduction to sake came during his first visit to Japan\in 1945 as an 18-year-old Marine invading Okinawa (gwhere I was too smart for the jobs they wanted me to do and too dumb for the jobs they really needed me to doh). I had the pleasure of attending his enlightening and amusing presentation, held at the Rogue alehouse just before the festival, which paired cheese with beer (his 16th annual tasting). Some of the innovative pairings were Rogue's Chipotle Ale with Chipotle Cheddar, Brutal Bitter with Tumalo Farms Pondhopper, and Deschutes Inversion IPA with Yellow Buck Camembert. He can also match beer and chocolate in ways that will either extend your lifespan or just help you enjoy life more!
Fred plans to come to Toky0? this autumn for the annual ginjo-shu sake event, and I advise everyone (regardless of your knowledge of or interest in sake) to make the time to make the acquaintance of this national treasure.
All in all, the 20th Oregon Brewers Festival was an unforgettable experience. Next year, at 21, it will be of legal age! Join the fun on July 24-27, 2008.
posted by PDXBeer at 8:34 AM
2 Comments:
Here is my own review, which I'm embarrassed to admit it took me nearly two months to get around to writing: http://i-love-beer.blogspot.com/2007/07/portland-part-1-oregon-brewers-festival.html
Or if you can't copy and paste that into your browser, try this: http://tinyurl.com/2opomt
Portland is a great city!
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