The Roving Reporter is at it again, this time at the Oregon Brewers Festival in Portland, Oregon. This is the first of a five day blog entry and I apologize as you will have to read a little more than just pictures of the brewfest (see left).But there will be stories of beer drinking, fighting, romance, chivalry, and comedy, but less the fighting, romance, chivalry, and comedy, unless you enjoy the torture of reading my blogs.
We landed in Portland shortly after 3 and took the Max to our hotel at the Benson. For those of you who have not been to Portland, it's public transit system is a far cry from that of Sacramento. It shows up on times and has regular routes, even on Sundays. After checking in and settling into our luxurious room, we left to find the Brewer's Dinner at Tom McCall Waterfront Park, and managed not to get too many eager hunters of the dinner lost behind us either.
We landed in Portland shortly after 3 and took the Max to our hotel at the Benson. For those of you who have not been to Portland, it's public transit system is a far cry from that of Sacramento. It shows up on times and has regular routes, even on Sundays. After checking in and settling into our luxurious room, we left to find the Brewer's Dinner at Tom McCall Waterfront Park, and managed not to get too many eager hunters of the dinner lost behind us either.The Brewers Dinner consisted of a meal consisting of either pork or salmon. Since both of us are not superstitious and never paid attention to the warnings from the movie Airplane, w
e chose the fish. We expected a little more from the dinner as far as food, but the stout brownie was the highlight of the meal. Tastings consisted of six 8 oz. samples from a selection of 25 different beers. There were some excellent beers on here including Deschutes sour brown Dissident; Ninkasi's Tricerahops Double IPA; and a Bourbon Barrel Aged Stout from Old Market. And there were also a couple we tried for the first and last time too. We enjoyed the opportunity to try some of these harder to get beers, and meeting up with some familiar faces including the beergeeks, Chris (left) and Meredith, and Jay Brooks from Brookston Beer Bulletin.
e chose the fish. We expected a little more from the dinner as far as food, but the stout brownie was the highlight of the meal. Tastings consisted of six 8 oz. samples from a selection of 25 different beers. There were some excellent beers on here including Deschutes sour brown Dissident; Ninkasi's Tricerahops Double IPA; and a Bourbon Barrel Aged Stout from Old Market. And there were also a couple we tried for the first and last time too. We enjoyed the opportunity to try some of these harder to get beers, and meeting up with some familiar faces including the beergeeks, Chris (left) and Meredith, and Jay Brooks from Brookston Beer Bulletin. The beergeeks and several other friends invited us to head out to the Green Dragon and continue our carousel. The Green Dragon was supposed to be the beer bar to be, before it closed down due to ownership changes. Although some people would argue otherwise. Not being teetotalers, they had to twist our arm to agree. As it turned out the Green Dragon was 1 mile from our location, so we decided it would be in our best interest to suck up and hoof it.
So Chadd and I left for a rendevouz at the Green Dragon, until somebody who will go nameless, convinced the Chadd to go into this place on the left. I saw they had only 4 taps, but a crapload of interesting beer in their refrigerator. By my count it was about 150 (not that I took time to count each bottle in the refrigerator, but you know I was right). So we stopped in and had a beer. I ordered a Golden Monkey from Victory and I can't recall what Chadd ordered even though the same question was on Jeopardy earlier tonight. In our opinion, the Golden Monkey was one of the better beers we drank there. It was a Tripel with a nice fruity nose and a hearty, bready, almost chewy finish. Delicious.
We met some nice folks at the Morrison Hotel, but unfortunately had to say goodbye as we were late for another unrelated drinking engagement completely unsimilar to the one we had at the Morrison.
So we continued our way to the Green Dragon. Unfortunately when we arrived, our buds had to say goodbye as they were on their way out the door. Chadd and I quickly learned for once, sometimes you can't show up to a party fashionably late, but this is not nearly as important in magnitude as never get involved with a Sicilian, if death is on the line (unless you built up an immunity to Iocane powder, which is fictional by the way. Now I am just rambling. Heh, heh, you read my rambling, which I typed instead of spoke. Do people really do that? Ramble on in somewhat serious blogs? Oh yeah, the rambling, sorry)!
So after a pint each, we decided to stumble 1.5 miles back to the hotel to get some rest before the Brewer's Brunch and Million Beer Drinkers march the following morning. Scratch that, it was only 200 or 300 Beer Drinkers parading to the Oregon Brewers Festival.Stay tuned for the next posting for OBF Day 2.
The pale ale stood out, with wonderful dry hopped aroma. The excellent beers, the awesome appetizers, and the wonderful pizza (my favorite was the combo) put us in food and beer sensory overload. Hmm...wonder what's next to be on tap?!
At a mere 365 sq ft, the brewery is packed tight. The kettle is heated from a 500kBTU direct fire stove. 
Geez! All beers are served straight from the bright tanks, no middle man. The tubes are replaced with each batch to eliminate worries of cleaning such long lines.
It was defintely one of our top Hop Heads events, thanks completely to Gary and Josh at Mary's Pizza Shack. We'll definitely be back!
Wow, the hops are growing like crazy in the back!
Then we migrated to the Old Tavern for a pitcher of Arrogant Bastard and Lagunitas IPA. 
