Portland Beer Week!

Portland Beer Week 2021!

Good gracious me. It's Portland Beer Week!

And greetings everybody.

Even though it may still be weird times in the world… a small drop of normalcy such as a Beer Week… is MOST welcome. I’ve only been living here in Portland for little over a year and this is the first time I’m experiencing this event. And so far… I love it! With the constraints of this pandemic world we are living in - places are still doing events and they are doing it the right way. The safety measures are in place and work. Which allows an event such as this to keep moving forward.

I was able to go to the kickoff event which happened to be held at Belmont Station. They were holding a silent auction for Firefighters as well as doing a small tap takeover for some of the winners of Best Large, Medium and Small Breweries of the Year. The event was low key but I can say that I did get on the local news. So… cheers to that! And if you haven’t been to the bar that is attached to Belmont Station’s bottle shop… it's well worth it! They had a Chocolate Cherry Yeti from Great Divide on tap that was absolutely divine. Outstanding dark cherry nose with a dark cocoa taste on the back end and then the whole beer changed most exquisitely as it got warmer.

Belmont Station

After that, my friend and I headed over to Loyal Legion where they were in FULL SWING. Portland Burger Week was still rocking and rolling and there was even a North Bank Brewery Showcase that was being offered. So clearly… I got that. There were some hits and some misses. But overall… not too shabby. 

North Bank Brewery Showcase Flight at Loyal Legion

AND I found out that Loyal Legion is host to a Speakeasy! CRAZY fun. You descend through this red portal and that's when things start to turn Ancient. Are you in a tomb? Where will this lead me? What are these strange markings on the walls?! I am most certainly going to be going back to fully explore this ‘Ancient Dwelling That Knows What Drink You Seek’.

Where might this lead? Who knows… muhahaha.

And then we move forward to my next event - Kolsch Fest!! I had never been to the Mayfly Taproom & Bottle Shop but I was IMPRESSED! They were blasting some classic Oktoberfest music and they were ready for this event. Extremely well organized. They had 8 Kolsch beers on tap… but… it was a double blind. And a bracket system that pitted each beer against another. It's March Madness but with Beer… and I’m all about it! The tastings would work with 4 tasters for each side of the bracket and then you would keep going until you were down to your 2 favorites. They would then give you 2 extra tasters so that you could accurately pit those against each other and see who would conquer all. I’m all about Blind Taste Testings and this event was just the best. More of this please :-)

Which thus leads us to my latest event - the Future of Beer Seminar at Migration Brewing on Williams Street. More of an Industry type event but you did get a beer included with your ticket - so it was very much worth it. Especially getting to hear from the Founders of Baerlic Brewing, Migration Brewing and Road Beers/Function. It was all about how these Breweries/companies have been surviving in this Pandemic world and all the pivots that they have had to do to make sure they stay afloat. It was inspiring and impressive in regards to what they had to do to shake things up and kind of reinvent themselves. Whether it be launching a brand new Beer delivery service or opening up new locations. I got to hear it all… right from the horse’s mouth. Jeff Alworth from Beervana was the moderator and was excellent in leading the conversation and asking all the right questions.

Future of Beer Seminar at Migration Brewing on Williams Street

The diversity of events such as these are what really makes Portland Beer Week shine for me. You got some traditional tap takeovers and then you have some blind taste testings. Variety is the spice of life after all, eh? And then you also have some intimate conversations about some heavy subjects. I love it.

I will be following more events as the week progresses... and to you my fair reader.

Cheers.