Vertigo Brewing – Hillsboro, OR
After enjoying Vertigo Brewing's Friar Gone Wild Imperial IPA at the Oregon Brewers Festivallast month, I took the trip fifteen miles west of Portland to check out the small Hillsboro-based brewery late last week. At the brewery, which is tucked deep into an industrial park about a mile and a half south of Route 26 just off of NW Cornelius Pass Road, I hooked up with Mike Haines and Michael Kinion, co-owners and brewers at Vertigo.
Before my visit, I didn't know much about Vertigo. With the exception of the beer I tried at the Oregon Brewers Festival, I hadn't tried any other Vertigo beers. I had seen the brewery's Razz Wheat beer on tap around town occasionally, not to mention the huge lines for the beer at the OBF, but my visit to the brewery revealed that there is much more to Vertigo than this, its best-known beer.
It turns out that Razz Wheat was the source of some concern for Mike Haines early on. With another popular fruit beer, an Apricot Cream Ale, among Vertigo's lineup, Haines didn't want Vertigo to be dubbed a fruit beer brewery. After trying both of these beers at the brewery, it's easy to see why they're so popular. But these two beers were among seven other beers available on draught during my visit. The complete lineup included:
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).
