Oregon Brew Fest By The Willamette River In Downtown Portland

This year’s Oregon Brew Fest took place in July 23-27. Pouring 88 different craft beers from around the country plus another 100 in the Specialty Tent, the Oregon Brewers Festival is the quite the celebration of craft beer.

The fest takes place by the waterfront looking on the Willamette River, it’s the perfect spot to enjoy a beer or ten.

We went on Saturday. It was sunny, hot and crowded but we definitely enjoyed it.

Admission into the Oregon Brewers Festival is free, if you want to walk around, check out the food vendors, or listen to the live music.

In order to consume beer at the OBF, you must purchase a souvenir tasting glass for $7 to use for drinking the beer. This is in lieu of an admission charge.

To drink the beer you must purchase wooden tokens. Tokens cost $1 a piece. It costs four tokens for a full glass of beer, or one token for a 3 oz taste.

We only bought 8 tokens each, but people purchase way more than that.

We started off with a full glass and a taste of a raspberry wheat beer by Portland’s Cascade Brewing.

Soon after, we needed a snack and we opted for a freshly baked and warm pretzel. It was one of the best pretzels I’ve had.

We proceeded to get in line for more beer. The lines were pretty long but they moved fast.

Second time around we decided on a Cider Weisse by 10 Barrel Brewing Co. 10 Barrel invented its own beer style by fermenting crushed Granny Smith and Pink Lady apples and blending it with its GABF award-winning Berliner Weisse. I think this might have been my favorite of the beers I tasted.

Crisp, sour and refreshing.

We chose the perfect shady spot to enjoy our beer and people watch. Not sure what the guy above is riding.

The free rain above was the perfect addition to the fest for a few sunny days.

While in line to taste another beer, I have some reading material: the list of all the available beers at the fest. It was many pages long but my choices were reduced as I opted for low IBU scores which determines the bitterness of the beer caused in compounds in hops during brewing.

I don’t like hoppy or bitter beers, just like I don’t like hot brewed coffee because the bitterness is higher when hot brewed than cold brewed.

Then, hubby and I went separate ways to try different beers and use up our remaining tokens. I lined up for Cigar City Brewing‘s popular beer: Blood Orange/Dragon Fruit Florida Weisse. It was quite good.

And lastly, I finished with a taste of Porter; Caldera Toasted Coconut Chocolate Porter. This was the strongest, least sweet and most bitter beer I tried (out of 4). Not my favorite but a very popular one around the fest.

Hubby and I found each other and before we headed out we pit stopped at the free rain.

I was the only person I saw wearing heels (espadrille wedges to be specific). I guess it’s the Hispanic in me.

The worst part, I was still one of the shortest people not counting children. Can you find the only Mexican with heels and still the shortest in the picture above? Hint: right in the middle with open arms.

…

We left the festival and went for a walk in downtown Portland.

These people above were waiting a long time under the blasting sun just to get a taste of Voodoo Doughnuts which look something like this:

Then, I stopped at the public water fountain and a guy stopped too who was holding a pint of ben and jerry’s ice cream. In this hot weather I pointed at his ice cream and said to him: “nice!” Then he told me that they were giving out free ice cream at Portland’s famous Pioneer Square.

I got mine too and it was quite delicious.

On our way to our car, our day pretty much ended with the sight of Darth Vader on a unicycle wearing a kilt and carrying a bagpipe.

You can’t make this sh** up.