Portland International Beerfest(PIB) is an event that occurs in Portland, Oregon the weekend prior to the the Oregon Brewers Festival (OBF). Originally, PIB was dedicated almost exclusively to imported beers. These days there is a solid mix of imported beers and special American craft beers, which tends to be more European heritage type styles. It takes place in Portland’s north Park blocks which run throughout Portland’s west side, both south and north. The PIB has always been considered OBF’s little sister/brother and is thusly less packed than OBF.

I had intended to take notes about the beers I had tried , but realized this was going too be a futile gesture before I’d even finished my first beer. So, I decided to just try some stuff I hadn’t tried before (or hadn’t tried in a long time) and do some quality people watching. Fortunately, compared to the OBF, the lines are short and quick so I was able to get the beers I was interested in entirely too quickly. Since I wasn’t able to do proper tasting notes, I decided to compile some statistics about the event.

Beers tried: 9 or so at 4oz each.

List of beers tried: Westmalle Tripel, Rochefort 10, Mort Subite Blanche, Hopworks Urban Brewery IPX (single hop IPA), Hovel Original Alt,

Straffe Hendrik Quad (I suspect I actually got the Tripel), Lindeman’s Cuvée Rene, Stone Brewing Imperial Russian Stout 2010, and Pilsner Urquel (The beer garden special – 3 tickets for a full pint.) For some reason, I feel like I’m missing a beer, but I did have 20 tickets worth of beer in 2 hours.

Dudes wearing utili-kilts: 4, a surprisingly small quantity for a beer festival.

Dudes wearing ironic t-shirts: a boat load.

Dudes wearing ironic t-shirts the were actually humorous/ironic: 0.

Number of “bro’s:” an axe body spray worth (I.e. unavoidably all-pervasive.)

Attractive women: a F-tonne.

Attractive women made more attractive because they were drinking great beer: all of them.

Dogs: many varieties (And maybe 1 wolf…)

People wearing ridiculous hats: quite a few.

People wearing fake mustaches: too many or not enough (can’t decide which.)

Men wearing a dirndl: 1.

Children: thankfully 0.

Puppy snuggle booths: 1 (part of the proceeds from PIB went to Pet Cross.)

Number of times I wanted to snuggle a puppy: uncountable.

Weirdly enough, this was my first time at PIB despite the fact that I’ve lived in the Pacific Northwest for over 11 years of my adult, legally drinking life. My preference is to avoid most festivals as their entirely too crowded with people I’d rather avoid, but I’d scored 2 “supplier” level tickets (being those normally reserved for the breweries who are providing beer for the event). Fortunately/unfortunately, my beer loving friends happened to be booked this weekend so I decided to have some quality “me and beer” time to myself. That’s how I had 20 tickets to spend just for myself. In the future, I’ll probably come back, but would prefer to share the people watching with a friend. It’s just too good to keep entirely to myself.

(If you’re reading this prior to the point where I’ve had a chance to edit and include my photographs, please come back and re-read this with the amusing graphical accompaniment. You won’t be sorry that you did.)

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