The Liver is Evil and Must Be Punished
We saw that on a shirt this weekend at the Oregon Brewer’s Festival. We typically go on Saturday, arriving right at noon so as to get a decent shady spot near the root beer tent with the kids. This year we went to the Estacada Summer Celebration on Saturday, so we dared to attend the OBF on Sunday, despite the fact that all the yummy beer might be gone.
Once inside, we made a beeline for Pliny the Elder, and were not disappointed. Fabulous hop aroma, and so, so tasty. A delicious beginning! I noticed it didn’t take long for them to run out. I also noticed that early on the really long lines were for the fruity wheat beers.
For some reason we were given 2006 mugs, which is kind of a bummer…we tend to keep at least one from each fest for posterity. I don’t know if this is a Sunday thing-use up the old cups on the last day once they’ve run out of the current year. There are signs up at the tasting trailers stating “2008 mug required”. Nobody checked, so what is to stop me from bringing an mug from a more recent year next time?
But then their website says this:
“We are happy to announce that we have found a company that will recycle our plastic mugs from this and previous year’s festivals. Note that in order to drink beer at this summer’s festival, you are required to purchase a 2008 mug. Mugs from previous years will not be filled. But if you wish to bring all of your old mugs to the festival to be recycled, we will gladly take them off your hands and keep them out of landfills. Just look for the recycle boxes at the main entrances.”
Okay, so if we got a *recycled* mug…that is pretty disgusting. Heh.
Other beers tasted:
- Rogue Glen - Smelled faintly of soap. Strong, well rounded and tasty.
- Bridgeport Hop Czar - Smelled like cat pee, more so to D than me. I couldn’t put a finger on what was wrong, but I didn’t care for the taste either. D said he couldn’t get past the smell.
- New Holland Dragon’s Milk - This wasn’t on our short list of things to try, but man, I’m glad I did. This was so good. I thought it smelled like candy - caramel and chocolate. Tasting note simply reads “sooper yummy”. I want to have this again.
- Collaborator Rye - Hoppy smell, and kick you in the teeth hop flavor. Never found the rye.
- Surly Brewing Co. Coffee Bender - “omg coffee smell”. This was so, so delicious. I love coffee, but don’t like typical coffee and alcohol drinks like Irish Coffee and such. This was a perfect marriage of coffee and beer.
- Widmer Full Nelson IPA - Could definately smell the spice, I thought it smelled like Indian food. Unique flavor, thick mouthfeel, and pretty darn tasty.
- I noted here that the first “wooooooh” occured at 1:56 pm. My 3 year old loved to join in.
- Eugene City ‘red?’ - Okay, so here is where the note taking started to go downhill. I couldn’t remember when I got back to my seat what kind of beer this was. I also wrote down “I said “wooh” to the hops…D said “really?”"
- Roots Calypso - Smells sweet. You can totally smell the peppers. Tastes like chips and salsa. So, so, good.
- Green Flash Hop…Something - That is what I wrote. It is Hop Head Red. We were waiting in line for Lagunitas but the line was stoopid long and not moving so we switched. Looks like I also wrote “yum”. By now my taste buds were pretty shot, and apparently my brain as well.
- Lagunitas Hop Stoopid - The lines were really long for this one, but we decided wait since it was our last token. At this point it was cold and delicous and super hoppy, much like all the other beers we tasted. Again, I simply wrote “yum”. Maybe next time I should make a list of descriptions that I can circle, so I don’t have to come up with words on my own.
The kids had fun despite the fact that there was only root beer and not root beer floats this year. We brought lunch (watermelon, pb&j, peanuts) and played Fairy Tale and hung out with our extended family. Can’t wait for next year!
