OBF! Joe Asks…

[octothorpe]

joebehrsandiego asks: "So what is this shindig like, in terms of the "on the ground" routine for an attendee?
I can't really picture it except as a very mini-version of Oktoberfest, and I doubt that's anywhere near accurate.
Thanks."

Thank *you* for the question, Joe!


The Oregon Brewer's Festival is the largest of its kind in the USA. It's four days of 10 trailers full of 81 varieties of beer.

ID is checked upon entry to the Fest, and you receive a bracelet, applied to the appropriate wrist for that day. There is no charge to enter, nor to get a bracelet. If this is your first time, you are prompted to go over to the mug tent to buy a mug and tokens for beer. Servers will only serve those with this year's mug, and a bracelet. They sell packages of tokens. A programme, mug, and 14 tokens set you back $20.

You can get beer in two sizes, a "taste" which is approximately 2oz, based on the server doing the pouring. You can get a full mug (about 8oz) for four tokens. The exception to this is the "buzz tent", which has the *very* high alcohol content beer. Tastes of those are 2 tokens. I'm not sure how much an entire mug of "buzz tent beer" is, as I didn't get there in time.

The trailers have about 8 beers each. People queue up, hand their mug to the server, along with the appropriate tokens. The server pours the beer, and answers any questions about the beer you may have. They're all quite knowledgeable. There is also a sheet in front of every server station with all the stats of the beer (gravity, IBU, %ABV, a brief description, etc).

The social networking (of the electronic kind) kinda sucked. They didn't have an iPhone app (they decided to piggyback on an existing app, which just wasn't that interesting nor capable), nor did they have an official hashtag for Twitter. I used #OBF, as did some others, but it'd be nice to have official backing so everyone's on the same page.

The non-electronic social networking was pretty amazing! I got to meet all sorts of nice folk. I wore my Free State Brewing (in honour of John/rockey1) shirt which got a lot of attention, and folks enjoyed having their pic taken. Everyone was well behaved, and seemed to enjoy every minute of it. Every now and again, a "Woooooooooooooooo!" wave would start. Having it travel from the first big tent to the second big tent was pretty epic. I even successfully started one! The attendance this year broke records yet again, by 5,000 people. This year's tally was 78,000.

You can get more (and possibly more accurate) information here: http://www.oregonbrewfest.com/ I probably won't make it next year, but I will make it for the 25th in 2012.

Comments

[jacked01.livejournal.com]

you know you really should send a copy of this post to #OBF I think you have some very good suggestions

[icejohn2.livejournal.com]

Definitely sound like you have a great time there!

[musicbearmn.livejournal.com]

This really sounds wonderful. When I was in Portland on business, I went out to dinner one night with a group of friends and we discussed the wine and beer industry there in Oregon. As a native Washingtonian, I'm very in-tuned to Washington wines and brewing (we buy predominantly Washington whites), but was really surprised to learn about the breath and depth of the brewing industry in Oregon. This is something we will want to explore going to.

[theoctothorpe.livejournal.com]

Oregon has more craft beer makers per capita than any other state.

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

81 varieties of beer.

...on the wall...

[joebehrsandiego.livejournal.com]

Chris - Many thanks for this post; quite helpful!