Upcoming Portland Beer Festivals

As the days grow longer and the weekends start filling up with Portland beer festivals, I thought it would be a good time to highlight some changes that are planned for a few upcoming festivals.


Spring Beer Fest

For some years now the spring festival held in the fluorescent glory of the Oregon Convention Center has been called the "Spring Beer and Wine Fest", but in 2014 the organizers have recognized that they have a much more diverse festival than just beer and wine.  This year the festival has been rechristened the "Spring Beer Wine Mead Cider Braggot Vodka Gin Snack Condiment Tattoo Piercing and Home Improvement Festival" (italics theirs) to more accurately represent the range of exhibitors at the festival.  I'm not sure why they left commas out of the name -- "Condiment Tattoo Piercing" all runs together for me -- but I guess saving 10 characters might help out on Twitter (hashtag: #SBWMCBVGSCTPHIF2014).

Beer-loving Portland Catholics have often complained about the festival's perennial Easter weekend scheduling.  In an attempt to reach out to that demographic, this year's fest will add a Thursday night session featuring a screening of Mel Gibson's 2004 movie The Passion of the Christ with live Mystery Science Theater 3000-style commentary by a trio of comics who bill themselves as Cathloholics Anonymous. Not sure how well that will go over.

Spring Beer Wine [etc.] Fest:  April 18-19, 2014, noon to 10 PM.

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Portland Fruit Beer Festival

Photo credit: Draft Magazine

You've heard of a Kissing Booth, but how about a Rimming Booth?  That's an exciting addition this June to the Portland Fruit Beer Festival:  a special area of the festival where attendees can accessorize their pretty, hop-free beers by decorating the rims of their beer glasses with colorful slices of fruit or various sprinkles and additions that you'd be more likely to find in an ice cream shop than a taproom.

Festival founder (and Pub Night friend) Ezra Johnson-Greenough has never hesitated to take beer in unexpected new directions, whether brewing a chocolate and peanut butter stout, crafting beer cocktails, or in this case updating the "lemon your Widmer" idea.  Rimming is a practice I first read about in this Draft Magazine article, and it sounds a little perverse at first, but I've heard it can be a very pleasurable experience.  Apparently it is something young people do a lot of these days, especially as a way to add even more cookie and pie flavors to pumpkin beers.  The Fruit Beer Fest's Rimming Booth will be set up between the dedicated cider taps and the children's face-painting station.

Portland Fruit Beer Festival:  June 7-8, 2014.  11 AM to 9 PM Saturday, 11 to 6 Sunday.

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Hopworks DriveToBeerFest

Although the date for Hopworks Brewery's fall festival hasn't been set in stone yet, some major changes in the theme are in store for the 6th annual event.  Instead of the bicycle-centric BikeToBeerFest of the last several years, this year Hopworks is holding a DriveToBeerFest.  It sounds like an off note to the Portland ear, but it makes sense on at least two levels.  For one thing, in a more competitive craft beer market, suburban beer lovers are a market that Hopworks wants to cater to by demonstrating that driving to a beer festival is just as cool as biking to one.

On a more practical level, you may have noticed how crowded BikeToBeerFest has been the last couple of years.  The more the merrier, up to a point, but lately the crowds have been so large at the festival that Hopworks is ready to dial it down a little.  One very natural way to limit attendance is to encourage less efficient modes of transportation, so that fewer people are able to attend.  With that in mind, instead of setting up hundreds of bike racks for people to park at, attendees will be encouraged to drive their cars to the festival, preferably with each person arriving in their own car (they call it "designated driving").  In a partly symbolic, partly utilitarian measure, the dozen or so bike racks in front of the pub will be removed during the weekend of the festival to make room for a single parking space.  Watch this space for more information on the dates and times for this exciting festival.

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Of course, there are a couple of other minor festivals happening between all these events, but I wanted to keep you abreast of the exciting innovations that are coming up.

Suburban Austin Pub Crawl

I promise to get back to writing about Portland beer very soon, but I've got to get this last Texas story out of the pipeline after our recent two-week stay in the Lone Star state.

For the time we spent in Austin on this trip, we stayed in the northwest suburbs, drawn by the temptation of a free house to ourselves and free use of a car. Most of my hangouts in Austin turned into 15- or 20-mile drives -- even now it makes my head hurt to think about it -- but that led me to pay a couple of visits to the worthy North by Northwest brewpub, and to check out a couple of oases of potable beer in the far lands of Cedar Park.

North by Northwest built their business on a platform of good food in a chic setting, accompanied by solid but unadventurous beers. They're flexing a little more beer muscle these days: for example, on the last Monday of every month they tap a firkin of cask-conditioned ale. It's a regular event for my Austin beer posse, so it was lucky for me that we were in town for June's tapping of Green Menace, a double IPA dry-hopped in the firkin. It was well done, with great floral hops -- there were leaves floating in my first pint -- and plenty of backbone to support them.

Another example of the way NXNW has stepped up their game is that they have one tap dedicated to experimental sour beers, and one to barrel-aged beers. I shied away from the so-called lambic tap, and somehow I never got around to the barrel-aged tap -- I think it had blown on my first visit, and on the second I was pacing myself. Of the other beers I tried, I really liked the Okanagon Black Ale (a malty schwarzbier, not a CDA), and the light, citrusy Summer Ale. The Pyjingo Pale Ale -- one of the original standards -- was not to my liking. There was something gamey about it.

On one of the NXNW outings, I prevailed upon the lads to accompany me 10 miles north to the Dig Pub in Cedar Park, a mere 3.5 miles from where I was staying.  Inside an inauspicious strip-mall location is a 30-tap beer geek's paradise.  The taps are well-chosen:  a variety of Central Texas crafts from Independence, (512), and Real Ale, as well as solid choices from the likes of Dogfish Head, Stone, New Belgium, and even Deschutes.  The menu listed Jubel 2010, and I was excited to get the chance to inflict it on some Texans, but it had already blown.  The waitresses at the Dig were well-informed about the goods being offered -- good evidence that the place takes beer seriously.  There were two dartboards with lots of space to throw, and -- making Lee's night -- free shuffleboard.  If you're trapped out there in the hinterlands of Austin, the Dig is a great place to go.

On another night, Lee and Margaret journeyed out to meet Carla and me at the Dig.  They needed a late dinner, and the Dig kitchen had closed at 11, so after a pint there, we tried our luck at another Cedar Park beer bar: the Tap Room. The Tap Room is also a strip-mall establishment -- come to think of it, there probably isn't any other real estate option in that area -- that boasts 30 taps and a couple of dartboards, but the resemblances to the Dig end there. About a third of the taps are crap -- that's OK, the place is a sports bar -- so that leaves about 20 decent taps, including the enjoyable (512) Pecan Porter. But the craft beer choices are just a veneer. The staff can't tell you anything about them, and even the menu lists them in puzzling ways. For example, Widmer W'10 and Widmer Hef were on the menu, as well as "Halo IPA" (I think you mean "Widmer Broken Halo IPA"). Similarly, New Belgium Fat Tire was on the list, and somewhere else was "Ranger IPA" (not listed as NB).

You might choose the Tap Room over the Dig if there's a sporting event you need to catch, or someone in your party will only drink wimpy downstream beer, or if you want to avoid a Comedy Open Mic night at the Dig. Still, the Tap Room has a pretty good variety for that part of the 'burbs. Maybe it will improve its beer IQ over time. Until then, stick to NXNW and the Dig for your suburban Austin pub crawls.