OBF

Discussion in 'Pacific' started by Sarlacc83, Jul 26, 2012.

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  1. Sarlacc83

    Sarlacc83 Initiate (0) Mar 2, 2008 Oregon

    A thread for people who are there, and for people who will be. (And people who want to gawk, I suppose.)

    Anyone who's at the fest right now want to chime in about the Buzz Tent and the Sour Beer Tent? There's a real paucity of information on Twitter/the official website.
     
    #1 Sarlacc83, Jul 26, 2012
  2. John_M

    John_M Grand High Pooh-Bah (6,849) Oct 25, 2003 Washington
    Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    I assume both are at the same location (sour and buzz). I tried the SN knock on wood and the HUB Kentucky X-mas. Both were quite good, with the knock on wood my favorite of the two. They also had Rogue double dead guy (don't ask me why), the NB XOXO (good, but hardly anything extraordinary), and Stone's Old Guardian 2012 (see my comment about the DDG). I didn't try the Cascade elderberry or the deschutes sour beers.

    Crowds were bigger then ever this year. This was easily the most crowded Thursday I've ever seen. It looked like a 15 minute to 20 minute wait to get in the main entrance (use the side entrance over by the bridge - no wait at all there). Just my subjective call on this, but I thought the selection and quality superb this year. My favorites were the RR Hill 2, the Laurelwood portlandia pilsner (liked it better than the SN imperial pilser, which was also pretty good), the Terminal gravity X IPA (DIPA), and the dynomite DIPA from Gigantic (maybe the best beer I tried today). Probably the most hilarious/puzzling thing I saw was the line for DFH postive contact. At 12:45, the line had to be 50 strong. The Ballast Point sculpin line was also pretty long, but I thought that was understandable.

    Left around 1:45... at that point the crowd was still very friendly and pretty well behaved, with few instancses of drunkeness.
     
    #2 John_M, Jul 26, 2012
  3. hopsbreath

    hopsbreath Savant (1,157) Aug 28, 2009 Florida

    Agree on quality. That's a pretty impressive taplist this year. I'll be gawking this thread since I chose to skip OBF this year in favor of spending my money on the Wildwood HotD dinner. Probably just as well since I was planning on going Saturday if I'd bought a ticket. A busy Thursday means a downright silly weekend. Of course, this is the city 20 year olds move to for retirement so nobody really has a job anyway.
     
    #3 hopsbreath, Jul 26, 2012
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  4. Shmeal

    Shmeal Initiate (0) Nov 9, 2009 Oregon

    +1 on the wildwood dinner
     
    #4 Shmeal, Jul 27, 2012
  5. ramnuts

    ramnuts Initiate (0) Feb 16, 2009 Oregon

    Yeah, I skipped it this year, also. Would prefer to enjoy that big hopmonster Gigantic in the comfy confines of their brewpub and not under a tent, in a folding chair, in a plastic stein, periodically bombarded by the drunken warhoop Call of the Inebriated. Go ahead, call me elitist. I prefer "old".
     
    #5 ramnuts, Jul 27, 2012
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  6. John_M

    John_M Grand High Pooh-Bah (6,849) Oct 25, 2003 Washington
    Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    :-) Only one war whoop as of 1:45. However, I took it as a sign that it was a good time to leave.
     
    #6 John_M, Jul 27, 2012
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  7. Sarlacc83

    Sarlacc83 Initiate (0) Mar 2, 2008 Oregon

    The frat atmosphere was awful by 6:30. Seemed as bad as a Friday 3 years ago. Great list, though, and Odell Friek showed up at the sour tent.
     
    #7 Sarlacc83, Jul 27, 2012
  8. 1whiskey

    1whiskey Initiate (0) May 23, 2005 Oregon

    I left about 6 as it was really crowded by then and was promptly vomited on while riding the MAX (which was then evacuated). Fun times.

    It was mostly enjoyable up to that point and there are a lot of beers I haven't had the pleasure of trying. It was nice to not just see flagship-type beers. I have to agree this was easily the busiest Thursday afternoon I can ever remember. RR Row 2/Hill 56 was a highlight among the hoppy beers for me, as was Exit 16, which I preferred to Sculpin (next line over).

    About the "Buzz Tent" and "Sour Tent". First off...no info regarding the beers and the hand written signs were not legible until you actually stood in line to get close enough to read them. WTF? The "Buzz" beers were...not "buzz-worthy", IMO, and there were exactly 2 sour beers in the "Sour Tent" when I checked in around 2:30. I came back later and actually had to have another server from another line pour me a Logsdon BA Bretta because the server was too busy playing with her phone. All in all it was pretty damn annoying. Either do it right or don't do it at all.
     
    #8 1whiskey, Jul 27, 2012
  9. brystmar

    brystmar Initiate (0) Sep 2, 2009 Texas

    Being an out-of-towner, it seemed like a normal beer fest to me: lots of people, tons of beer I don't particularly care about (elitism++!), and a few gems amongst the masses. I went back for seconds and thirds of Pavlov's RIS at the Buzz Tent -- damn that was delicious! Yet I don't think I saw a single other person receive a pour of it while I was there, and that surprised me. Also tried Chocolate Raspberry from Cascade which was nice, though 2oz of it was plenty.

    I enjoyed myself but probably wouldn't return for anything besides Pavlov. Man, that stuff was tasty.
     
    #9 brystmar, Jul 27, 2012
  10. csano

    csano Initiate (0) Sep 21, 2010 Washington
    Trader

    Is this a twist on their Seizoen Bretta? Or the same thing?
     
    #10 csano, Jul 27, 2012
  11. CaptainTripps

    CaptainTripps Initiate (0) Aug 8, 2010 Arizona

    Soooo....I would probably stay away from the OBF tomorrow....going down there with my....fraternity brothers....
     
    #11 CaptainTripps, Jul 27, 2012
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  12. NWer

    NWer Pooh-Bah (2,145) Mar 10, 2009 Washington
    Pooh-Bah

    Day One:
    HUB Kentucky Christmas
    GF Hop Head Red
    Gigantic Dynomite!
    Ft. George Quick Wit
    Summit Unchained #10
    Lagunitas OBF Fusion
    Upright Alt
    RR R2H56
    and finally something from Epic in the buzz tent
    We entered from the South end and walked right in. Nice walk up the Riverwalk from our hotel. Started getting noticeably crowded by the time we we left around 2
    I agree with John the line for the DFH was crazy
    Seeing Summit was a nice surprise Great Minnesota brewery.
     
    #12 NWer, Jul 27, 2012
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  13. Sarlacc83

    Sarlacc83 Initiate (0) Mar 2, 2008 Oregon

    I believe it's the Seizon Bretta aged in French Oak.
     
    #13 Sarlacc83, Jul 27, 2012
  14. oregonskibum

    oregonskibum Initiate (0) Mar 14, 2009 Oregon

    I was there from 1:40 to 7:10 yesterday. It was easily the busiest Thursday I've seen since I started taking the afternoon off five years ago. Oddly enough, as the evening got later, I thought the lines started to drop. My wife couldn't get there until almost 5:00 and wanted to try a bunch of stuff. We worked our way south. By the time we were done, the Sculpin line was only two people deep, compared to 20+ all afternoon. I think there was a huge number of serious drinkers show up at open with a fair number of people pouring out of downtown offices around 3:00. But then people started clearing out around dinner time. I kind of wonder if Thur 6:00 to close is a better option.

    Beer selection in the buzz tents was very disappointing. In general, I would say the entire taplist showed the most promise of any year in recent memory, but the quality turned out to be about average. Some beers were quite underwhelming, IMHO. Prodigal Sun and Boundary Bay come to mind. On the plus, Gigantic, RR, Odell, BR were all solid. In the buzz tent, SN hellraiser and Elysian Krokus Saffron sour wheat were my favorites.
     
    #14 oregonskibum, Jul 27, 2012
  15. John_M

    John_M Grand High Pooh-Bah (6,849) Oct 25, 2003 Washington
    Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    While wandering around on Thursday afternoon, I was reminded that good beer, and this event in particular, has now become mainstream in terms of the media and entertainment world. 1080 the fan had a booth there and they were doing a simalcast, and I also saw at least 3 TV crews there. I don't watch a lot of entertainment shows on TV anymore, but there was one gentleman there with his film crew and bodyguards who looked for all the world like Ryan Seacrest (he was girded with 4 or 5 OBF mugs on his belt, each filled to the top with tokens. He told me he was there there to get the "lowdown" about the beer scene in Oregon, having just flown up from LA that day).

    No complaints, but the media crews and the crowd seemed to add to the circus-like atmosphere at the fest yesterday.... and this was on a Thursday, early in the day. Not for all the tea in China would I want to be anywhere near OBF today, and I plan to give the area a wide berth when driving over to Wildwood later today.
     
    #15 John_M, Jul 27, 2012
  16. Shmeal

    Shmeal Initiate (0) Nov 9, 2009 Oregon

    There's a lot of tea in China John. I can testify to that.
     
    #16 Shmeal, Jul 27, 2012
  17. MADhombrewer

    MADhombrewer Initiate (0) Jun 4, 2008 Oregon

    That is a huge complaint of mine. Seems all the good things take place in the middle of the week so people with regular 9-5s (or 6-5s) miss it all. Nothing I can do about it though. I sure hope some good stuff is left for sat morn.
     
    #17 MADhombrewer, Jul 27, 2012
  18. kscaldef

    kscaldef Initiate (0) Jun 11, 2010 Oregon

    Pavlov's isn't a "Buzz" beer for any of the locals. We can get all we want every winter. Thus the complaints from others about beers that weren't "buzz-worthy".
     
    #18 kscaldef, Jul 27, 2012
  19. MADhombrewer

    MADhombrewer Initiate (0) Jun 4, 2008 Oregon

    Old elitist.
     
    #19 MADhombrewer, Jul 27, 2012
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  20. LoPo87

    LoPo87 Initiate (0) Mar 9, 2012 Oregon

    Doesn't Lucky Lab have it on tap often? Don't they switch it with the Barleywine of theirs? I have been to Lucky Lab on Overton a few times after work in the past couple months and had Pavlov each time. Quite a good beer indeed though.

    Edit: Or were you referring to bottles of Pavlov being available all winter?
     
    #20 LoPo87, Jul 27, 2012
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