Travel Karma, Great Beer and the Oregon Brewers festival - August 2001
Staring out my hotel window Saturday morning, I began to suspect that my travel karma had finally run out.
Not that it hadn't been a great run. In the previous month-and-a-half, I had spent seven days in Belgium without rain; travelled to New York City for another week and experienced nothing but wonderful weather and even better beer; been surrounded by children during a Toronto-Vancouver flight without a single one of them screaming or crying; and made it through three idyllically sunny days on the west coast. But now it was the morning of the second day of the Oregon Brewers Festival and the sky was angry. More than angry, in fact, it was outright pissed!
And so the rain came in torrential waves, threatening to drown the Saturday edition of the most widely attended beer festival in the United States. But my streak of luck proved more potent than the hurricane-force gale, and after a mere 30 minutes of intense storm activity, the sun came out. By the time Christine and I set out up the road for lunch at the local outlet of BJ's Restaurant and Brewery, there remained but a few puddles on the streets.
More importantly, when we hit the Tom McCall Waterfront Park a couple of hours later, the grass was dry enough to sit on and the beer tasting was in full swing. So we tucked into Day Two of the fest.
Day One had already revealed some prizes among the seventy-two draught beers at the festival, one per brewery as is the long-standing OBF custom. An early choice of Christine's was the Sockeye Red IPA from Anchorage, Alaska's Midnight Sun Brewing, which delighted with a big dry-hopped aroma and a dryish but fruity body with notes of apple, raisin, dry leaf and light chocolate. While she was enjoying that, I was relishing the Saison Elysée from Elysian Brewing of Seattle Washington, a slightly off-the-wall saison spiced with cumin and dry, dry, dry in the body and finish.
As always, though, the greatest pleasure of the OBF was the setting and attitude, both of which are always kept relaxed and highly conducive to the enjoyment of a beer or three. Sure other fests offer more different beers, but seriously, how many can a person really taste inside of a three day fest? And while rain is always a threat, as it is for any outdoor festival, the OBF is riding a remarkable streak of luck even longer and more impressive than my own.
Not completely sated by my tasting tour at BJ's, which featured a deliciously balanced Piranha Pale Ale and an almost unbelievably aromatic Rejuvinator Maibock, Day Two of the fest led me to several satisfying discoveries. Foremost among these was the Old Monkeyshine English Strong Ale from Nimbus Brewing of Tucson, Arizona, which skilfully drew together the porter, brown ale and barley wine styles into a beer of great structure and complex malt character. On the disappointing side of things were the Ohio Fest from Ohio Brewing of Niles, Ohio, and the Breakfast Lager from Mt. Angel Brewing of Mt. Angel, Oregon, which respectively were full of sweet cereal flavours and pronounced buttery character.
Nevertheless, the winners outnumbered the losers by exponential numbers, and despite some complaints I heard voiced that there were fewer stand-out beers than in previous years, I would have to mark this Oregon Brewers Festival an unqualified success. Make your plans now to be in Portland the 26, 27 and 28 of July, 2002, and cross your fingers that the fest's string of weather luck holds out.
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