Oregon Brewer's Festival

Everyone bailed on me for a weekend on the coast so instead Emily, Brendan, Cassie, Kevin and Alexa decided to rent a room at the Comfort Inn by the Portland Airport so we could all head to the Oregon Brewer’s Festival for the afternoon on Saturday. We left Corvallis around 1pm and arrived at the Brewer’s Festival around 3pm in the scorching afternoon sun. Emily and I bought the 50$

package which included two mugs and 49 tickets. Considering that each full mug of beer was 4 tickets this left us with about 6 beers each. The mugs looked a bit small though and I think they only held about 12 oz of beer instead of a full pint. At first I was a bit dismayed at the heat and the hordes of sweating people rubbing by me in long lines for beers but eventually we found a nice picnic table under a tent and relaxed there. I focused my attention all afternoon on dark stouts and browns. Hartz and Dennis showed up in the evening to join us. When Hartz, Dennis and I went to get a beer a bunch of drunk girls in line starting asking us for tokens (made out of wood and cool looking) so they could get beers. Seeing that our tokens cost money and I have no patience for hot young girls

who think they can get anything they want I said, “let’s make the tokens equivalent to beads at Mardi Gras”... with that one of them began to make out with Hartz... who then gave her a token... ha!

Later in the evening Andrea Schuetz caught up with us with her

friends Zack and Jade. Kevin, Alexa and Cassie and her friend T.J. took off for some food from the festival to catch up with us later. We all had a couple more beers and closed down the Brewer’s festival before meeting up again with Brendan who had left to meet some friends earlier for dinner. We were all starving so we wandered the streets for a while searching for a bar or pub that wasn’t packed for some food. We ended up at Paddy’s Irish Pub where I got a Guinness and a pulled pork sandwich for dinner which was fantastic. Paddy’s was a very cool bar with

a wall of booze that was enormous. I went to go to the bathroom and while I was gone Andrea and her friends took off for Karoake. We got a call from Kevin and decided to wait there for them. When they arrived we were treated with a hilarious story about T.J. professing his love for Cassie via text message... ha! I say this because I doubt he’ll ever see this blog. Hartz and Dennis took of for the the drive back to Corvallis while we then went to a billiards club for some quick games of pool and another drink before catching the last train of the evening back to the hotel saving us costly cab fare.

In the morning we woke up and had a great breakfast at the Country Cat restaurant down the street. Brendan had taken off the previous night when we got the train to stay with some friends so we met him down the road from the Country Cat at a cool farmer’s market. It was definitely a fun weekend but I don’t think I’ll be going to back to the Brewer’s festival. It was interesting but there were just too many people and the lines for beer were too long and you really didn’t get your money’s worth. Instead I’d rather plan a pub crawl to the 26 different breweries that reside in Portland on a day when they won’t be packed, perhaps linking happy hours together for cheaper drinks... but that’s a plan for next summer.