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By The PubClub.com Nightlife Blogger From The Barstool
It was with much sadness that I learned the Oregon Brewer’s Festival would not be taking place this July in Portland.
This was the first beer festival I ever attended. At the time, I had never even heard of a beer festival. I and a few other people were in town for work at an unrelated annual event – the sports car races at Portland International Raceway; I was the PR representative for one of the manufacturers – when we came upon the event while strolling around after dinner.
“Whoa!,” we said and all thought the same thing at the same time: we had better behave ourselves because we have to get up and work in the morning! This was sometime in the mid-90s, before terms “craft beer” and “craft breweries” became part of the lexicon of beer drinkers.
The event in a large park next to the Willamette River, a perfect setting. It was free to we went up to a booth to purchase tickets to get the beer and to obtain a small glass in which to drink the beer. Needless to say we had a great time and went back the next night. We knew from prior trips that Portland had its own beer and the Oregon Brewer’s Festival had brews from small breweries all over Oregon. It was beer drinker’s heaven!
Oregon Brewer’s Festival was Portland, a part of its identity. And now it’s gone. At least for 2023.
“Higher costs, lower attendance, and extreme weather are just a few of the challenges that we’ve been discussing—but that’s far from an exhaustive list,” organizers posted on the event’s official website. The Oregon Brewers Festival started back in 1988.
Lower attendance? Have even Portlanders grown stale of a beer festival – their signature beer festival?
In a related article, I brought up the possibility that the Oregon Brewer’s Festival might be the canary in the coal mine for other beer festivals. Oversaturation and high admission prices have caused other beer festivals across the country to be canceled.
But the Oregon Brewer’s Festival? It just goes to show you, enjoy something good while it’s there because it may not be there forever. Even if it’s a local institution like the Oregon Brewers Festival.
“OBF will return when the time is right,” is also posted on the festival’s website. Here’s hoping the time is right sooner rather than later.
From The Barstool is a blog from PubClub.com’s nightlife blogger, who has seen a lot from the perspective of sitting on a barstool in bars around the world, as well as roaming around at beer festivals.
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