My picks for Portland Fruit Beer Festival 2015

I had an opportunity to sample a few of the beers at a Media Preview, though a few of my picks are also based on the description of the beer and reputation of the brewery. If you are attending the Portland Fruit Beer Festival 2015 this year, which runs Friday June 12 to Sunday June 14, here is a quick summary of the logistics and my picks of the most interesting beers for Portland Fruit Beer Festival 2015.

Portland Fruit Beer Festival Main Facts

• Days and Hours of Operation:
  • Friday June 12th 4pm – 9pm
  • Saturday June 13th 11am – 9pm
  • Sunday June 14th 11am – 6pm (special kegs will be tapped Sunday)
• Location: 7th and NE Burnside, which is at Burnside Brewing and also the extra lot (Sat and Sun only) to give more room this year to spread out!
• Cost: $20 for for one 21+ entry  12 tickets and a collectible 16oz glass. Purchase and print your ticket in advance for faster entry at Stranger Tickets (so they say anyway – it does add processing fees but at the door is cash only). Re-entry on all festival days is allowed as long as you get your wristband and the glass.
• Admittance: The festival is all ages, though you must be 21+ to drink alcohol. There will also be non-alcoholic drinks and food available for purchase
• Food Situation: from Burnside Brewery’s brewpub all three days, and/or from food carts on Sat/Sun such as Bunk Sandwiches and Taco Pedaler and the Fifty Licks Ice Cream truck. As extra credit, you can also take a little walk to Bar Vivant/Pix Patisserie and present your receipt, wristband or festival glass from the Portland Fruit Beer Festival and get a token for a FREE beer in their beer garden.

Pech’s Portland Fruit Beer Festival Beer Picks

The reality is that I plan to go more than 1 day, and I will probably taste everything (and re-taste even the ones I previewed as it’s been an additional week so it could have changed). But, I thought by giving a few highlights you can get a little hint at what’s in store this year, and make you want to check out the full beer/cider list here yourself!

• This year, the Portland Fruit Beer Festival is releasing a special collaboration beer bottle that will only be available in limited quantity at the fest in draft and bottle form. I had a chance to taste this beer, named Fruit of the Garden of Good and Evil, at the Media Preview and it is spectacular. The beer is a collaboration between Burnside Brewing Co. Sweet Heat and Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider Ghost Chili Tepache. The way I would describe it is that it has the nose and tastes vaguely similar to when you go to a Brazilian steakhouse and they have those grilled pineapples that are juicy and sweet with a bit of sugar and spice with cinnamon… well this beer is like that but better because of the spicy heat from the Ghost peppers, Scotch Bonnet peppers, and Aji peppers that are contributed by the chilis usually present in Sweet Heat and  Ghost Chili Tepache.
  
  Available in 22 ounce bottles only at Burnside Brewing during the Fruit Beer Fest for $7 (only 60 cases made), with limited draft poured at the festival, Reverend Nat’s taproom, and special events in the future TBD… I would get the bottles right away when entering myself, but be wary because of the heat that this might blow your palate away so maybe save to drink later after you’ve had all the lighter fruit beers.
• I can’t help but go “squeeee” whenever I see female brewers, and the Peaches of Immortality Farmhouse Ale Burnside Brewing is pouring at the fest this year is nicely tart and sour where finally I can taste the peachy flavor (peaches are so delicate and often get lost in beer) along with the French saison yeast. Yay Natalie! She has already put some in a Ransom Gin Barrel with peaches and other goodness that she is setting aside so I look forward to stalking to see what becomes of that batch in a few months.
  
• Ecliptic Brewing‘s is premiering Ultra Violet Blackberry Sour Ale which don’t worry, is not very sour. It has just enough sour to be crisp and balance the Oregon blackberries to make for a very refreshing beer that is dangerous because it tastes much lighter than the 7.5% ABV it punches at. Also, though this is probably no big deal to brewer John Harris ha ha, I thought it was the prettiest beer at the Media Preview.
  
• For an entirely different take on berries (though John used Oregon Fruit Products puree, while Brendan used Columbia Fruit frozen berries), try the ballsy Alameda Brewing‘s Berried By Night Marionberry CDA. Brendan took a big risk by combining Marion blackberries with 7 varieties of hops into this Cascadian Dark Ale – dark and roasty like a porter, some of the hoppiness of the IPA but balanced by those blackberries which you can definitely taste at the tail end after the initial hops and caramel malt. What a surprisingly winning combo.
  
• I love dark beers, so seeing a stout on the list will get my attention. Upright Brewing is presenting their B.B. Stout, which is a stout with over 200 pounds of blueberry.
• I haven’t had a chance to taste it yet, but I generally enjoy the beers of Breakside Brewery so their Tropical Fruit Salad Quasi IPA Six Fruit Blend is making my list for it’s attempt to reverse engineer to match the flavors and aromas of fruits that hops sometimes have with six actual fruits.
• The Widmer Brothers Brewing Fresh Strawberries Farmhouse Saison with Strawberries is a tasty collaboration with Coda Brewing from Colorado, the winner of the startup brewery challenge to travel up to Portland and become Widmer’s “Brother for a Day”. This takes the Sleepyhead Passionfruit Imperial Kolsch that Coda does (and which took home a silver medal at the 2014 Great American Beer Fest) and combines it now with strawberries and French Saison yeast
• Not a beer, but I’m a big fan of 2 Towns Ciderhouse of Corvallis as they are always creating interesting combinations with their ciders. For the fest they will debut the Peach Saison Cider that blends a mix of a blend of several northwest apples (many which don’t admittedly taste good on their own in apple form, but great as a cider) blended with Oregon white peaches and French saison yeast. It’s simply a mix of “good fruit, good cider” Kevin explained.
  
• One of the reserve kegs tapping on Sunday only is the Bogman’s Cranberry Brett Cider by Cider   Riot! with traditional Yamhill county English cider apples, Oregon cranberry and inoculated with Cherry cider. At 3pm Sunday they’ll tap their firkin.
• Other rare beer tapping on Sunday to lure you in included Hopworks One Tun Tomato Michelada made with Totally radler, chili powder, Worchestershire sauce, house made blood mary mix, and tabasco and (questionable qualification as fruit beer,though the beer itself is interesting to me) New Belgium Brewing Bourbon barrel-aged Salted Chocolate Stout Nitro keg poured through a Randall filled with black cherries
• I haven’t had this yet, but the idea of the Hi-Wheel Wine & Mead Co. Kiwi Lime sounds super refreshing. I love lime-ade, so their beverage for the fest of a tart fizzy wine made from fresh lime juice and kiwi that is carbonated seems like a promise to cool off with deliciousness.

Definitely a theme I saw this year is a lot of kettle souring (read more about kettle souring at this great article at the New School website “How Kettle Souring Is Making Sour Beer Cheap and Affordable”), a lot of Nancy’s yogurt (yay choose and support local!), and French saison yeast.

Are you a fruit beer fan? What fruit beers from the Portland Fruit Beer Festival (or cider) sound intriguing to you?

Disclosure: I attended a Media Preview so I was able to taste the beers for free, but I purchased my own ticket to the Portland Fruit Beer Festival with no discount and this post was written because I enjoyed the beer – I was not asked or required to write it. I will always provide my honest opinion and assessment of all products and experiences I may be given. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are entirely my own.