You don’t need to agree with the Doctor at all… but you’re singing the same tune. Underwhelmed and bored with the averge local breweries.

I asked Jeff (got a scattered response), so I’ll ask you… Please define, “we do have a regional style.” What exactly is that style or styles of beer? It would have to be unique to the brewing world. Remember, many regions around the country can and do make big hoppy beers, so that can’t be it. ;-}

The Wort Crew thinks there is plenty of room for all types of beer festivals. festivals for the easily amused and fests for beer geeks. Fresh Hop fest?? Bleh! It’s a media farce to us.

Holiday Ale fest! Now that’s a festival of innovative beers! You won’t find just your run of the mill IPA’s or Watermelon Wheat showing up fot the 8th year in a row.

We could produce some great examples of new and possible exciting fests, but we’d be talking to deaf ears.

I think I might have missed the point of the article then. Maybe as a home brewer I’m spoiled. I get to experiment with whatever I want whenever I want, and I get to try beers from people who do that also. When I do get to festivals or new breweries though I just don’t get that same sense I get when I try homebrew. I always leave underwhelmed. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had great beers, but I just am bored with beers from some Oregons breweries. Cask aged beers and fresh hop ales just don’t do it for me. Like I said though, we do have a regional style, and I don’t expect breweries to ignore that. I don’t expect Belgium breweries to ignore their regionals and start brewing our IPA’s

Now if I lived in Portland, or within a shorter distance of some of Oregon’s great breweries and festivals I might feel differently about the beer scene since I would be able to try more unique beers. As it is I don’t get to go as often, and when I do I don’t usually find a beer I’m crazy enough about to even get a growler. I just can’t find the time to visit many of these festival since I work weekends, and taking several days off a month for beer festivals would be weird. Couple that with the fact I don’t drive and it helps make it so I just dont get to experience Portlands beer culture as much. My perspective is also skewed by bottle selection since I don’t get out to many of Oregons breweries often. Many times the bottled seasonals from Oregon breweries are just meh. I often hear people rail about Pelican, Ninkasi, and others, but many of their beers just don’t float my boat. The problem is the beers that don’t float my boat seem to be the gold standard at times for Oregon beers.

Also I don’t often find myself agreeing with Dr. Wort, and I don’t agree with him %100 on this issue, but he does raise some interesting points.

The problem is that there’s no real great way to bring a truly unique flair to Oregon’s festivals. It just doesn’t pencil out for breweries to put time, money, and effort into making unique one off festival beers aimed at beer geeks.

Unique flair? How about the fresh-hop fests? Those are wholly unique to the NW (a Yakima version beat us to the punch, but how many beer geeks are driving to Yakima?). There’s the cask fest, Cheers to Belgian Beers (which Doc slags, too), PIB, and the holiday ale fest.

And while some may pre-emptively dismiss the beers of Oregon’s small breweries, I don’t. If it turns out that all the beer comes from familiar breweries or the familiar beers of relatively obscure breweries, have at it. But it’s disingenuous to argue that the bulk of Portlanders are familiar with the offerings of most far-flung wee Oregon breweries. Don’t like it? Don’t come. My guess is that at least half the beers will be new to me.

As to the Doc backlash, I think it’s worth noting that what infuriates people is that he always wants it both ways. He wants “individualism and creativity,” but then he rolls out the same tired arguments. My post wasn’t even about this fest (about which we know nothing), but about the good behavior of Rogue, who promised not to Rogify the Green Dragon when they bought it. But instead of a creative response, Doc recycled the same old talking points. As he has here.

It’s just a bit tiring and I think the schtick may be wearing thin.

So why do we need all these ISLAND Beer Festivals? PIB mixes it up and exposes locals to classic and new beer styles from around the world. This exposes locals to NEW BEERS. Ergo, NW brewers will be more likely or interested in brewing different styles or be adventurous if the public shows interest in something beyond a Blonde, Pale, IPA, Porter and Stout…. or the dreaded American HefeWEINER.

It’s all about the public beer acuity. WE look at it as being a painter! You can paint with a child’s seven water color paint set or you can learn to paint with the endless variety and combinations of oils. Right now locals are drinking beers that are in water colors, some are looking in the OIL isle, but not to sure about blending colors.

B.F. Skinner said, we are all a bland slate at birth and we are conditioned through life. We absorb what is around us and make it our own experiences. If you live on an island all you may ever eat is coconuts and fish. Go to the mother land and you’ll experience a wealth gastronomic pleasures. In other words, NW beer drinkers and brewers need to get a boat and get off this frickin island!

It appears you know where the Doctor is coming from. Individualism and creativity. It’s time to stretch those brewers arms and minds into some new directions. Even if those new directions means looking to the past…. Classic English ales, Classic lagers or Classic Belgians or whatever. Something to call their own. The standard ales have been done, tweeked and re-tweeked. OK…. lets’ move on! Lets’ not look from within (that’s stagnant), lets’ look outside our boundaries… Outside the NW, outside the US and maybe even outside the box. The anchor in the NW brewing, Sitting on their laurels. We need to look beyond and into new directions. There is room for beers for the masses and beers for beer geeks. Although, that could depend on the greed factor.

I think the phrase, “No man is an island. – John Donne (1572-1631),” should be hanging in every NW brewery.