Portland, OR–Hop heads not arriving in the first few hours and willing to tolerate long lines in a cramped venue experienced little bounty. Hopefully in the future, better planning will accommodate beer enthusiasts unable to arrive at at the very beginning of a nine hour festival. We arrived midway through the festival, not expecting every beer to still be available, but certainly hoping for a semblance of selection. A better option for those wanting a more comfortable, affordable, and bountiful experience would be to visit places like Belmont Station, Bailey’s Taproom, or the HorseBrass Pub. Many local brewpubs still have their fresh hop offerings available.
2008 Fresh Hop Tastival Guide
Midway through the cramped festival, not much left aside from Hopworks, Lompoc, and Laurelwood beers
Maddening crowds depleted the Portland Fresh Hops quickly
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Posted under beer events
This post was written by admin on October 19, 2008
Agreed. Lucky Lab 2006 was the best. You were able to get beer, the servers were friendly and not just pushing beer, atmosphere, etc. I went to last years and was dismayed at the lines as they were rivaling that of OBF. I skipped this year and have no plans to attend again. Looks like I made the right choice.
I tried to avoid the crowds by getting there early, but at 12:20 the line was almost a block long. After the crowds last year I was surprised to hear it would be some place smaller, more so to find it in just the parking lot. I got to try all the beers I was interested in, but this event is definitely a victim of its success.
What bothered me the most is that they weren’t telling people there were virtually no fresh-hop beers left as they entered and there were no signs either. I think there was one fresh hop beer left when I got there — they had replaced the rest of the taps with normal Hopworks beers. I feel like this takes advantage of those who don’t spend their lives thinking about beer; “normal” people who just wanted to go to a beer festival now think they had fresh-hop beers when in a lot of cases, they haven’t.