Oregon Organic Brewers Fest, A Mouthful to Say The Least

 Beer festivals in my book are usually one the biggest let downs I have all summer. Oh sure it sounds like a great idea: get as many brewers together as possible to make some extraordinary specialty beers and get people interested in the microbrewery movement. In theory that is a great idea unfortunately, what usually happens is a mob of drunken patrons swarming the beer tents like... well like a drunken mob. The beer runs out fast and the lines are so long you are forced into an endless circle of ordering your beer then immediately going back in line. While you are circling about the smell of all those people hits your nose like a mallet hitting a sealed can of rancid dog food. So usually I try to avoid the big water front beer festival in downtown Portland.

          However the Oregon Organic Brewers Festival was exactly what beer festivals should be. There was a small amount of people (around 200 or so) and a lot of them were home brewers and beer connoisseurs. Overlook park couldn't have been a better destination for the festival. The park made it feel less like a sponsored event and more like a neighbor hood bbq. there were plenty of organic beers to choose from ranging from the sweet fruit beers (there was a strawberry ale by Laht Neppur that literally tasted like summer. Seriously it brought me back to my child hood where I would steal the hose during water fights and soak my brother.) to the strange beers that made you wonder if you should even call it a "beer". In particular a beer called Tonic that tasted more like a carbonated hop tea then a beer.
             Along with beer there were a couple of home brewing booths that people flocked to as they brewed ON THE SPOT! One booth was The Home Brew Exchange which brought a solar powered water heater from Imagine Energy  that they used to brew an Imperial IPA. Also there was the PDX Brewers Club, they brought their club system and brewed an Imperial IPA as well. They used a system that circulated water from a rain barrel in order to cool their wart before pitching the yeast. The nice aspect to both these green system is that they eliminate the two largest waste aspects of brewing which is heat and water.
             All in all it was a great time and if you get a chance to head over to Overlook Park and experience the Oregon Brewers Festival for yourself next year I promise you will not be disappointed.