Oregon Brewers Festival

As the sun sets on this gorgeous warm summer day, I’m sad to say goodbye to the Oregon Brewers Festival. All year I look forward to this event eagerly visiting their website and watching news sites for the latest information on the next years festival. Andy and I plan our strategy including the logistics of our travel, clothing, snacks, and which beers we want to try.

We wake up early and have a nice protein/carbohydrate breakfast. Based on the weather, Andy and I plan out our water strategy. We always arrive as early as we can and ensure that paper and pens are in our bags. As we line up at the entrance, we always have our bags ready to be inspected and our IDs out.

Now we started all this planning after our first experience which was, well um, poorly executed to say the least. We were both overwhelmed by the sheer amount of beers, lines, and people. As a result, much beer was drunken, a lot of money was spent, and some bickering took place. The next day we quickly realized what amateurs we were.

Since that first Oregon Brewers Festival, Andy and I have been to many beer events including North American Organic Beer Festival (three times), Fresh Hop Festival (once in Troutdale and again in Bend, OR), Montavilla Beer Festival, Holiday Ale Festival (2 or 3 times), International Beer Festival, Oktober Festival (at a few different places), and the a fore mentioned Oregon Brewers Festival (3 or 4 times). We’ve had a lot of experience in navigating these events and are so good now, feel no effects come morning.

The 22nd Oregon Brewers Festival just went so well it was almost uneventful. I found some great beers: Anderson Valley Cerveza Crema and Collaborator’s Saison Christophe. I also found a few that I didn’t like as well. Andy and I went to the festival two days in a row with a list of the beers we wanted to try each day, a clear budget in mind, and only spent about two and a half hours of each day there. We joked that perhaps we should try to do the festival wrong next year: arrive hungry and tired with inappropriate attire and $100 in cash. Yeah right. Cheers!

Festival Style

Camping

Andy and I have been out and about camping. First we went to Willapa Bay and camped in what turned out to be an urban area close to the Bay. The camp ground was called “Bush Park” and was off of Bay Center Dike Road. I do not recommend this site due to its location and suspicious activity that I attribute to drug dealing. (No camper has that much vehicle traffic!)Bush Park has two parts: one is open to the public and has a beautiful picnicking area complete with playground equipment and the other is camping area. The roving gangs of bored kids who lived in the surrounding area (think ghetto Lord of the Flies) made us very nervous as it seemed like they had run of the entire camp site. But this is Willapa Bay and we love oysters:

One look says it all..

The next day, Andy and I explored the area going from one oyster purveyor to another. It was so much! We both ate oyster shooters until we were fat and happy. We found a great store that had some of the best clam chowder I’ve ever eaten. I believe they added smoked clams or oysters to it. Fantastic! We visited one of our favorite bars, Top Notch, and added our dollar to their large collection of bills taped, tacked, and stabled to anything and everything in the bar.

Our Dollar is up there!

After that we decided we wanted to go back out again. This time Andy decided to take me to one of his favorite spots: Three Pools. The area was so much prettier than Willapa Bay (although there were no oysters) and had areas to swim in. Although I have to say that the surrounding water was SO cold. I mean Arctic cold. Here are a few photos:

King of the Icechest!

What? Look!

Here I am?

So pretty!

If only it weren't so cold...

More photos

I think our next step is to take a longer camping trip and/or going on a backpacking trip. We’ll let you know.