Beervana

Drink it in

There is definitely a reason Portland is nicknamed Beervana. On a rare Saturday off for me, Paul and I took advantage of a couple local beer festivals to sample the bountiful hops Oregon has to offer. First up was the annual Oregon Bounty Fresh Hop Beer Tastival at Oaks Amusement Park, a riverside amusement park that has been in operation for over 100 years. And only a quick 5 mile bike ride from home!

Fresh hop beers (sometimes called wet hop) are brewed with fresh, just-picked hops, in this case grown locally (sometimes by the brewers themselves). Most often, after hops are harvested they are dried in a kiln and then packaged tight for shipping to brewers. The beers at this festival were all made with the full wet hops, which creates an intense earthy flavor rarely found in other beers. And it's a just plain really cool way to celebrate and reconnect the beer to the land.

Waiting for the doors to open at noon

38 beers on tap, all ready to go

The crazy kegcycle that Hopworks Urban Brewing brought. A pedaling party!

Aaahhh... fresh hops

The guide listed all the varieties of hops used... never really knew there were so many!

There were 38 brews on tap, but at $1 a pop for a 4 oz. taste, we had to pick and choose. :) For anyone interested, we landed on:

Astoria Brewing Company Hoptimus Prime 2.0 Pale Ale
Barley Browns Brewpub Roadside IPA
Beer Valley Brewing Co. Leafer Madness Imperial IPA
Double Mountain Brewery Killer Green IPA
Lompoc Brewing Crystal Wheat
Lompoc Brewing Millennium Imperial IPA (my fav of the day... ohmygodsodelicious)
Pelican Pub & Brewery Elemental Ale

I sincerely wish we would have had more dollars...

Who loves beer? I do.

It was a gorgeous, sunny mid-60s brisk autumn day, so we took the party outside to the park grounds.

Climbimg trees after a few beers is a good idea

Enoying the sunny lawn spot where I parked myself

The best part... free train rides all day! The slower-than-walking-pace (literally) train goes in a big circle around the festival. I realize this is mainly for small children... but it was free.

CHOO CHOO!

The fest from the train

Since we couldn't imagine Hop Fest getting any better than that sweet train ride, we decided to head out on that note and make our way back downtown to the Brewpublic Killer Beer Fest at Bailey's Tap Room.


Just for the day, Bailey's replaced their 20 taps with all local one-of-a-kind beers. Most of these were just one-off brews, so it was a special treat to be able to try so many of them at once.


They had a HUGE turnout for this event. I have never seen a bar so swamped with people and bartenders sweatin' quite like this, so we decided to each do a 5-taste flight and then get outta there. Between the two of us, we had:

Barley Brown's Baker City Wild Wet-Hopped American Strong Pale Ale
Brewed with fresh hand-picked unknown hops that grow wild on the side of the road in Baker city. Bad ass!
Vertigo Midnight Harvest Fresh-Hop Ale
Start-up brewers Mike Haines and Mike Kinion hand-picked fresh Willamette and Cascade hops through the night for this one.
BJ's Enfant Terrible
Started as a base beer from their 2007 OBF entry, then racked into clean whiskey barrels and fermented with a Lambic yeast/bacteria blend.
Walkabout Jabberwocky Strong Ale
Dark and hoppy American strong ale with a smooth creeping palatability that has been known to "knock a dick in the dirt."
New Old Lompoc Barrel Fermented Centennial IPA
100% fermented in a vintage white English oak barrel, brewed with crystal malts to give it a rich golden color.
Double Mountain Abbey Hoffman Belgian Brown Ale
Spicy and robust, 7.5 % ABV but well masked with yeastiness and delectable almond notes.
Block15 Bourbon Barrel-aged Fat Monk Dubbel
Aged in one Pappy Van Winkle 20-year-old bourbon cask, this batch only produced 3.5 kegs. *Holy crap, this one took the cake! One of the most delicious, rich, caramely beers I have ever had the good fortune of tasting.

Line 'em up, knock 'em back

After sufficiently drinking myself silly, accusing the bartender of losing my credit card, finding my credit card in my bag and apologizing profusely, popping over to the Benson Hotel happy hour for a glass of wine that I clearly needed, and hitting Taco Bell hard... it was time to call it a night. What a glorious, glorious Saturday off.

In closing, a lovely sunset from a few nights ago:


To Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Hoppiness!
Jenny