Weekend in Review


For a moment we considered doing a month in review. We still might, but there’s just so much to reflect upon for the past Oregon Craft Beer Month (OCBM), we aren’t sure where we would. With several awesome festivals and unique events, OCBM 2010 was undoubtedly a huge hit filled with wonderful beers, memories, and the great people who make craft beer in Oregon the best month of beer appreciation anywhere in the world.

As previously mentioned here in the paper-free pages of Brewpublic, almost every day during the month of July featured multiple events and made for tough decisions about which event(s) to attend. Of course, there are worse problems in the world to deal with than an overabundance of spectacular beer.

This past weekend marked the final hurrah of OCBM, and as you might expect, there were at least a handful of noteworthy craft beer events worth involving oneself in. Bailey’s Taproom’s AnniBrew3 Barrel-aged Beer Fest was a go-to goings-on for the uber geeks that didn’t want to pass on once in a lifetime vintages of brews organized by proprietor Geoff Phillips and his faithful. Rogue’s Bones and Brew was a hot ticket item for those around Portland’s Pearl District looking to soak in some perfect summer weather, live music, and partake of the luring scents emitting from the grill. Concordia Ale House’s now well-known Concordia Cup was another chance for hop heads and S.N.O.B.s (Supporters of Native Oregon Beer) to blind taste a dozen different imperial IPAs (all brewed here in the fine state of Oregon) and help to decide which brewer will represent us in February’s Beer Brawl versus California and Washington.

For us, we were locked on our six hour meet the brewers pub crawl, aka BrewPubliCrawl. Featuring twenty breweries and some of their representing brewers. The crawl kicked off at Red Fox, a pub we haven’t spent much time at in the past. Not necessarily a beer geek pub, Red Fox serves up some of the best bloody Marys in town. However, they regularly carry Double Mountain and Laurelwood beers on tap. A third tap is devoted to Trumer Pils. Double Mountain and Laurelwood brewmasters Matt Swihart and Chad Kennedy, respectively, arrived at the noon kickoff time to meet and greet a healthy early crowd ready to get a day of craft beer under its belt. Laurelwood’s Deranger Red and Double Mountain’s Hop Lava seemed like a perfect beginning to this big day.


After a while enjoying the relaxed vibe at Red Fox, the crowd pushed on to nearby Saraveza pub, one of Portland’s finest destinations for beer geeks. Always replete with great service and excellent beer selections, Sarveza revealed Hopworks Velvet Underground Imperial Black ESB, Seven Brides Emily’s Ember Amber Ale, Fort George Vortex IPA, Heater Allen Bobtoberfest, Ninkasi Radiant Summer Ale, and more.


The next stop on the crawl was at Lucky Lab’s Overlook location where Deschutes Sage Brush Pils, Migration Pale Ale, Lompoc’s C-Note, Alameda’s Yellow Wolf IIPA, and a special Lucky Lab Pilsner, brewed for Pacific Rivers Council, were pouring in the eastern room at the venue. A great day made outdoor seating optimal in front of the establishment on N. Killingsworth. This fabulous weather would make the next stop perhaps the best of the day.


The pub crawl commenced at The Hop & Vine just a block away from the Overlook Lucky Lab. Here, jockeyboxes where set up in the spacious backyard where folks could relax and gather. On tap: a new Boneyard Beer RPM IPA, a new MacTarnahan’s Ink Blot Baltic Porter, Cascade Nightfall Blackberry Sour Ale, Widmer Gose, Natian Organic Golden Ale, Upright Auld Reekie Smoked Brown Ale, Vertigo Apricot Cream Ale, and Oakshire La Ferme Belgian-style Farmhouse Ale. All of these beers were excellent and it was great to have the brewers all on hand. At 6:00PM, Ninkasi founding brewer Jamie Floyd addressed the crowd and got everyone pumped up about the bounty of Oregon beer that makes our state so badass.


Thanks a lot to everyone involved in making the OCBM closing ceremonies so much fun. Thanks to Mother Nature for a tremendous day, all of the brewers for their time and top notch brews, and to staff at Red Fox, Saraveza, Lucky Lab, and The Hop & Vine for making this event a success!

Time for a liver cleanse now…

Check out more photos from BrewPubliCrawl and OCBM and more at http://brewpublic.com/photos

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