The Portland Craft Beer Festival returns to The Fields Park in northwest Portland’s pearl district this weekend Friday - Sunday, July 1-3rd. This downtown area festival was created in 2015 to showcase only the craft breweries, cideries, wineries of Portland in one grassy and sunny space over 4th of July weekend, but has expanded to include more non-beer drinks like Straightaway draft cocktails and spritz.

After their 3 year COVID-19 break, the Portland Craft Beer Festival has returned mostly intact with just a few minor changes such as a to-go marketplace for packaged beverages for home. The event still spreads out over a large open-air landscape sandwiched between shiny new condominium towers and a view of the Fremont Bridge over the Willamette. On Thursday evening as organizers were setting up for a return to norm the New School Beer crew of contributors Neil Ferguson, Bill “It’s Pub Night” and myself, Ezra Johnson-Greenough, descended for an early preview of many of the beers on this years offerings which feature over 90 different options, 17 of them cider, seltzer, cocktails, or wine, and the rest of them beers.

Over the course of nearly 4 hours we tried roughly half the beers at the fest, here are some of our takeaways:

Just Give Them Your Tickets:

Laurelwood Brewing Hazy Flamingo Fruited Tart IPA - What does Feral Girl Summer taste like? Look no further than Laurelwood’s zesty tart, tangy lime and smooth tropical passionfruit and lactose IPA that guest reviewer Andi Prewitt cannot get enough of.

Little Beast Brewing Electric Sunshine - Little Beast nails it with both of their fest offerings. Electric Sunshine is a very tart and thirst quenching fruit sour reminiscent of pink lemonade. On the more sour end of the spectrum, but just the ticket for someone into those flavors or looking for a change of pace or palate cleanser from the maltier and hoppier beers.

Little Beast Brewing Fera Brett Beer - is one of little beasts quintessential offerings and pouring it alongside the quite different Electric Sunshine really shows their range. This farmhouse-style brett beer is slightly malty, earthy, spicy funk, mild tartness, complex and quaffable for the sophisticated palate.

Wayfinder Beer Hell - what’s not to love about this world-class award winning lager? Trying it up against a few of the other Helles pouring at this festival and the others didn’t even hold a mug up to this Oregon gold standard of the style.

West Coast Grocery Tayberry Sour - tart, dry, slightly earthy berry flavors, goes down like a Jello shot.

Threshold Brewing Good Dog Guava - A fruited kettle sour that captures the sherbert like flavors of guava in a mildly tart beer with just a slight hop on the finish. Now who’s a good boy?

Montavilla Lickety Split Kolsch - Light and quaffable with enough hops to please our NW palates but not beat them into submission either.

Ex Novo Brewing Perle Haggard Pilsner - An Oregon Beer Awards gold medal winning Pils that does everything you want it to do. Sweet bready malts with honey-like body but that finishes quite crisp and dry and just the perception of sweetness early on, plenty of floral, savory, minty noble hops in there to tantalize the palate without becoming overly bitter.

Gigantic Brewing Project Pilsner (Crystal) - Gigantic Brewing’s ongoing single hop Pilsner series is a fun exploration of hops in a usually not so hop forward style. The light delivery mechanism is well crafted, and every beer in this series has been worth trying. But what’s not to love about Crystal hops? This slightly old school variety went out of fashion but is now making a comeback, get with the times and try this beer.

Worth a Ticket:

Sasquatch Brewing Woodboy IPA - a real classic style IPA that is well executed with bitterness and malt working well together in balance. Hop profile reminiscent of earthy, piney, more bitter IPA’s of the early aughts.

Sasquatch Brewing Nova-American Light Lager - a flavorful and very easy drinking light later. Enuff said. if you want something light

Gigantic Brewing Cat Scratch Fever - all around delicious dank IPA

Old Town Brewing Council Crest Cucumber Lager - this is likely to be a divisive beer that yielded mixed results. The beer itself is kind of creamy and yet still crisp. The cucumber is very much there in the flavor, but it kind of comes off as green bell pepper. Worth seeking out just for the curiosity factor.

Level Beer Skyward Strike - If you enjoy a tropical yet funky herbaceous hop character then this one may be up your alley with a savory meets tropical flavor.

Gorges Beer Blood Orange Pale - citrus and hops just go together, and blood orange is actually underutilized in these types of beers because the pithy sharp but bright citrus and bitterness goes so well with hop flavor. This one is mild on the blood orange but it’s definitely there and makes for a nice easy drinker without overwhelming your taste buds in any way.

Brewery 26 Sabado (Pseudo) Lager - it may not be the cleanest lager at the fest but it’s one of the most approachable and probably enjoyable for the novice craft lager drinker. Full but light body, spicy and citrusy hop flavors with a tea like finish.

Rosenstadt Brewery Helles - whole grain cheerios malt flavors, slightly husky, wheat bread, with a surprisingly aggressive bitterness. This is a lager for hopheads who also may appreciate a Hefe here and there.

Not So Much:

Gorges Beer Heron Helles - sweetish, marshmallow flavors and creamy body like woodruff in a cream ale and just not crisp enough to satisfy.

Leikam Brewing RhineStone Eyes Altbier - an Altbier should be malty with a rich caramel and nutty quality but with a moderately dry and hoppy finish to balance it. Unfortunately this one is too sweet, muddled, and worty unfermented quality that tastes a bit like an unfinished homebrew and not the clean focus this style requires.

Labyrinth Forge Hazy Mazey - a bit gamey, homebrew qualities that feel like an unhealthy fermentation and don’t deliver on the fluffy, tropical and aromatic notes you want in a hazy.

FOOD VENDORS:

The Marble Queen

TMQ challenges the idea of what can be achieved with fireside cooking and found a solid following for our eclectic cuisine and unflappable dedication.

Urban German Grill

All of our products are made from generational recipes. Our sausages and roast are made with Carlton farms meat which is free of artificial ingredients, chemicals, preservatives, and hormones.

Grana PDX

Authentic Neapolitan pizza and modern Italian cuisine to your neighborhood.

YooniqueTea

A boba tea shop located in southeast Portland that specializes in milk tea and other unique tea/fruit flavors drinks. We are also food vendors that provide a bite of Asian Fusion.

SCHEDULE:

Friday, July 1st, 2022 - 12pm to 10pm 21+ ONLY
Saturday, July 2nd, 2022 - 12pm to 10pm 21+ ONLY
Sunday, July 3rd, 2022 - 12pm to 6pm FAMILY DAY - all ages welcome!

Location:

The Fields neighborhood park, 1099 NW Overton St. Portland, OR