Most of our time was spent, as usual, in Southern Oregon where our family live. The town of Grants Pass (pop. c. 35,000) has acquired two new beer outlets since we were last there 12 months ago - Vice Brewing Co and Double Taps. The former offered a more interesting selection:
Nothing much else had changed locally. Most of our beers were consumed at our daughter's house as our son-in-law slaved away on the barbeque - and virtually all of them from growlers. I have 3 favourite places to refill the growlers - Frank 'N' Stene's Monster Growlers, Cartwright's Market and JD's Sports Pub and Brewery. The former two supply a huge range from mostly West Coast breweries, while the latter actually brews its own beer. I'm all geared up to cycle there and return with a full growler:
Our definite favourite of all the growler beers we sampled was Hop Valley's Bohemian Dub Hop.
We had booked a week in Maui, Hawaii towards the end of our stay and, conveniently, our flight left from Portland - some 4-5 hours drive north - coincidentally at the same time as the long-established Oregon Brewers' Festival was being held. We'd tried to get to this a few times in previous years but never seemed to manage - but now was our chance.
The festival was first established in 1988 and it's the largest outdoor festival in North America, with 85,000 attendees. The site is the Tom McCall Waterfront Park, located in downtown Portland on the banks of the Willamette River - perfect. 80 breweries are represented, split in to 8 separate "trailers":
Strangely, however, each brewery was only allowed one beer, and many of them were distinctly left field brews with weird descriptions and sometimes even weirder names which didn't necessarily explain what type of beer it was.
First of all, however, we each had to buy a festival (plastic) glass and some tokens:
The tokens were $1 each and the glasses contained 4 oz. when filled, but you could ask for a 1 oz. taster. Pretty pricey - $1 per oz.
People came from all over North America - and the world - as witnessed by the number of pins in the maps below:
We enjoyed the overall experience in the hot sun, with plenty of shade from trees and tents, but there were far too many experimental/exotic brews for our tastes. Been there, done that now.
The following day we flew out to Maui and drove over to our resort on the warmer, drier side of the island. There are a few brewpubs and breweries there, but the only one within touching distance of our resort was:
The only other observation from our trip this year is that the trend towards cans, rather than bottles, continues to accelerate. Soon, canned beer will be more than half the beer market, I feel.
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