Oregon Brewers Festival Recap
And what a weekend it was. As we look back on a great weekend at the Oregon Brewers Festival, it's pretty amazing to think that there's still nearly an entire week left to enjoy Oregon Craft Beer Month. But before gearing up for the home stretch, I wanted to offer up my impressions of the OBF.
Having moved to Portland just after last year's fest, this was my first Oregon Brewers Festival experience. Overall, I thought the festival was great. While beer obviously plays a central role in any beer festival, I appreciated the fact that OBF includes a variety of festivities and experiences that work to create a real festival atmosphere. Unfortunately, I missed the opening day parade and keg-tapping, but in reading reviews from others in attendance, it's obvious that the opening ceremony really helped set the tone for a great weekend.
Before the festival got started on Thursday, I had posted my picks for the Oregon Brewers Festival. These were all beers I had never had before. And after visiting the fest a couple times this weekend, I'm pretty happy that I was able to try all but one on my list (sadly, the beer I wasn't able to try was Flying Fish Exit 4 - which was well received and made several peoples' best of the fest lists).
Photos: Camping & Beer
Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere Harvest at Scott Lake, OR
Deschutes Hop in the Dark at Scott Lake
Silver Moon Hop Knob IPA at Natural Bridge, Rogue River
Zwickelmania 2010 Recap: Our tour of Portland
As breweries across the entire State of Oregon opened their doors for tours and tastings on Saturday for Zwickelmania, we decided to stay close to home and check out some of what Portland's breweries had to offer. With more than twenty breweries to choose from in the Portland area, charting our course proved to be a pretty difficult task. And while we didn't get to see everything we would have liked to, we did check out some great breweries, drink some good beer and talk with some cool people along the way. Our day looked something like this:
Lompoc 5th Quadrant
Doug Ellenberger talks about Everybody’s Brewing
After visiting Everybody's Brewing last month and really enjoying our trip to the pub, I reached out to Doug Ellenberger, Owner and Brewer, to learn more about the brewery and the beers he is brewing. It took me a while to track Doug down as he is a busy guy working to get his beers into the hands of many in the area, but I think it's paying off with more places in town offering it on tap, and more people talking about the brewery. Check out what Doug had to say about Everybody's, the brewers in The Gorge, and the beer geeks who question whether or not his beers are really 'session' beers:
About the brewery
The Brewery is located in White Salmon, Washington, 60 miles east of Portland, directly across the Columbia River, from Hood River, Oregon. The Pub is a comfortable, family friendly spacious room, with a huge deck that looks upon Mt. Hood and the Gorge. The décor is warm colors with tons of Doug Fir wood everywhere. The building was built in 1939 by the Oddfellows; they appropriately named it “The Goodwill Lodge.” Nearly all of the wood that is not original was reclaimed from old buildings in the Gorge, and Portland. Local craftsmen poured their hearts and souls into the project. Most were given basic design ideas, and then allowed to use their creativity and skills to produce the finished product. The result was amazing. Our bar top is a single side of one old growth Doug Fir tree that was a natural wind fall in the Mt. St. Helens national forest. It is a book match lay out measuring 26 feet long, 4 inches thick, and nearly 3 ½ feet wide. Milled 20 miles north in Glenwood, WA, it is a showpiece to the pub.
Cole Hackbarth talks about Full Sail Brewing and Colesch
Earlier this month, we headed out to Hood River and stopped by Full Sail’s Brewpub to sample some of the brewery’s Brewmaster Reserves beers. The most memorable beer from the trip was Full Sail’s Colesh – a recipe developed by, and appropriately named after, brewer Cole Hackbarth. After our visit to the brewery, I reached out to Cole to learn more about Full Sail, his role as a brewer, and about the delicious Colesch. I didn’t expect to hear that the beer was his first professional recipe, and I really didn’t expect to hear the name Chuck Norris brought up…but it was. Here’s what Cole had to say:
About the Brewery
Full Sail opened in 1987, began bottling in 1988, and won its first GABF gold in 1989. In the 23 years since, we have grown from 287 BBL that first year to almost 90,000 in 2009. And we continue to brew award winning beer, the most recent a GABF gold for Session Black in 2009. The original brewhouse was a 20 BBL system that now lives in Portland and churns out the Brewmaster Reserve line concocted by John Harris. The majority of Full Sail beer is now brewed on a manual 200 BBL system in the original Hood River brewery location. We brew about two dozen different beers throughout the year, in addition we also contract brew for Henry Weinhard's. In 1999 the original investors were bought out by the employees to become an employee owned company, and we have put that sense of ownership into everything we do at Full Sail.
