Beer Fests

(Above: Crowd at Oregon Brewers Fest on Saturday,
Below: Brent and Marianne enjoying tasty microbrew)

(Above: Marianne at Bones and Brew)

If you like beer, you'd like Portland. Even if you're a non-beer fan, you'd still like Portland, but this post is dedicated to the wonderful world of beer. Portland is the microbrewery capital of the world. THE WORLD. Cool, huh? I can't even begin to name all the different big and small breweries out there. What I do know is that every weekend we've been here we've been able to find some sort of festival dedicated (or partially dedicated) to tasting beer.

Oregon Brewers Festival 2009 - July 23 - 26 - http://www.oregonbrewfest.com/
Depending on when you go to this festival (it's a four day affair), the event is either really enjoyable or you feel like you're trapped in sauna with drunk frat boys surrounding you while the smell of porta potty drifts down in your direction. We decided to go two nights. Thursday night was more the the former. Brent and I decided to bike to the festival instead of drive. Since it was the opening day and a Thursday, it was a little slower, easy to get a beer, and no one falling over drunk. I can't tell you how many people we met from Wisconsin!!! Oregonians and Wisconsinites share a love of beer. A few of Brent's fellow residents came out (they are a great bunch). After a few beers, we biked home (don't worry Moms we weren't in danger of getting a Bike DUI).

Saturday, on the other hand was... interesting. We went late afternoon while the sun was blazing and the temperatures were in the 90s. The place was packed (see picture), we had to wait in line for 5 minutes to get a sample, and half naked drunk-off-their-ass frat boys had taken over the place. So... next year, we'll try to avoid Saturday late-afternoon/night.


Bones and Brew - August 1+2 - http://www.rogue.com/events/bones-and-brew.php

Bring together really delicious Rogue Beer and BBQ and you've got this small, but fun festival. Having just finished the Cascade Lakes Relay the day before (I will post about this later, but I ran 18 miles in 24 hours), I thought I deserved food and beer - and a lot of it.

We became Rogue Nation members and were sworn in before the rib contest. I have a Rogue Nation tattoo that, given my luck, will never come off. There was a kobe beef stuffed with blue cheese eating contest that I totally wanted to enter, but Brent wanted to leave because it was too hot. Booo, I am such a good eater, I bet I would've won! One of these days, I'll enter an eating contest and win. I seriously think I could part of the IFOCE - International Federation of Competitive Eating - http://www.ifoce.com/.

We left earlier than we probably would've because it was so darn hot out. There is a new record in Portland as we've had 10 consecutive days of 90+ degrees. Ugh. It's supposed to cool later this week though.

Just a side note, there was totally a Stuart look-a-like and the picture we took at the festival was REALLY trying to get him in it. It was kind of awkward and starting to get really obvious so we gave up. But, Stu, you have a look-a-like in Portland!