Greetings from Portland, Oregon. Below is an update on the area’s newest travel-related developments. We hope you will find this information useful. If you prefer not to receive future media updates on Portland, you may unsubscribe here.

APRIL TOPICS

• Festivals — Oregon Brewers Festival Comes of Age
• Deals — The Art of the Deal: Kids Tour Free at Portland Art Museum
• Family Travel — DinoMite! Portland Goes Prehistoric
• Free 2008-2009 Travel Portland Magazine Now Available

The Oregon Brewers Festival has come of age … legal drinking age, that is. In July 2008, the four-day festival will celebrate the 21st Amendment to the Constitution (that’s the one that ended Prohibition) along with the staging of its own 21st annual festival. Attending the party will be 72 breweries from 18 states, each sending one product to be sampled by the public. A 73rd beer called “Collaborator” will also be available. The annual Collaborator entry, whose recipe changes yearly, is a joint project between the Oregon Brew Crew homebrewing club and Widmer Brothers Brewing Co. Each winter, hopeful homebrewers submit their top recipes for consideration, with the winning recipe being brewed and distributed locally by Widmer under the Collaborator label.

Annually, more than 60,000 connoisseurs travel from around the world to attend the Oregon Brewers Festival and sample a vast number of beer styles. Complementing all that beer tasting are exhibits by hop growers, homebrewers and national beer writers; live music; and great food. The Crater Lake Soda Garden provides – at no charge – handcrafted sodas to minors and designated drivers.

The 2008 Oregon Brewers Festival will be held July 24-27 in Gov. Tom McCall Waterfront Park on Portland’s downtown waterfront. For more information on the festival, visit www.oregonbrewfest.com. And for more information on Oregon craft beer, visit www.oregonbeer.org.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Chris Crabb, Oregon Brewers Festival
503.314.7583, chrisc@oregonbrewfest.com

Beginning this spring, children age 17 or younger will be able to tour the Portland Art Museum for free. Thanks to a $1 million endowment gift from Portlanders Gordon D. Sondland and Katherine J. Durant, the museum will offer free admission to children every day (although admission to the resident galleries will be gratis, some major traveling exhibitions may require a small fee).

This change in admission policy comes at a particularly exciting time. The Portland Art Museum recently received a priceless gift: an original Vincent van Gogh canvas titled The Ox-Cart (1884). After its initial debut, the painting underwent restoration and conservation work. It’s now back on the wall, ready to greet adoring fans.

The Portland Art Museum is one of the top 25 largest art institutions in the United States. Since 2000, the museum has completed a $45 million renovation of its Belluschi Building, a $40 million renovation of its historic Mark Building, and added several new galleries, including the Jubitz Center for Modern and Contemporary Art and the Grande Ronde Center for Native American Art. For more information on the museum and its upcoming calendar of exhibitions, visit www.portlandartmuseum.org.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Beth Heinrich, Portland Art Museum
503.276.4370, beth.heinrich@pam.org

Get ready, because Portland’s going prehistoric. This spring and summer, three of the city’s major family attractions – the Oregon Zoo, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) and the Portland Children’s Museum – will feature dino-centric exhibits. In fact, dinosaurs have already invaded OMSI. Through Labor Day, OMSI is hosting Dinosaurs: China’s Ancient Giants. This exhibition encompasses more than 20 original fossils, a dig pit for the little ones, and robotic dinosaurs displayed in lifelike dioramas. Marvel at a 45-foot-long Tarbosaurus (similar to North America's Tyrannosaurus rex), the Dilophosaurus and Velociraptor (both popularized in the Jurassic Park films), and the egg-stealing Oviraptor. For more information on Dinosaurs: China’s Ancient Giants, visit www.omsi.edu.

May 17 through Sept. 1, the Oregon Zoo will offer an even larger assemblage of life-sized dinos. While walking the “dinosaur trail” through an ancient rainforest, intrepid explorers will come face to face with more than 20 awe-inspiring animatronic dinosaurs, including Stegosaurus, Triceratops and the dreaded Tyrannosaurus rex. Roaring, snarling and moving with lifelike ferocity, the dinosaurs can also be glimpsed from safety of the Oregon Zoo train (a good option for smaller children). This outdoor exhibit, titled Dinosaurs!, also includes some smaller animatronic baby dinos and allows kids to dig for fossils, search for dinosaur egg nests and track a T. rex. For more information on Dinosaurs!, visit www.oregonzoo.org/dinos.

At the Portland Children’s Museum, the Dinosaur Revolution exhibit (May 23-Sept. 1) encourages kids and adults to become dinosaurs as they journey through the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Using their imaginations, junior paleontologists can slip on full-size dinosaur feet to make dino tracks in the ground; create their own dinosaurs by experimenting with different features, including teeth, tails, plates, wings, feet and more; and climb through time by traversing the Soil Stratification Climbing Wall. For more information on Dinosaur Revolution, visit www.portlandcm.org and click on calendar information for May 2008.

During Portland’s “summer of the dinosaur,” other area attractions will be offering additional prehistoric pleasures. For a complete list of offerings, visit www.travelportland.com/dinos.

MEDIA CONTACTS:
Lee Dawson, OMSI
503.797.4586, ldawson@omsi.edu

Linda D’Ae-Smith, Oregon Zoo
503.220.5716, linda.d'ae-smith@oregonzoo.org

Shannon Grosswiler, Portland Children’s Museum
503.471-9909, sgrosswiler@portlandcm.org

The latest edition of Travel Portland magazine is now available. Travel Portland’s content, which is written by professional travel journalists, covers where to stay, what to do and where to eat. In addition to these regular sections, this year’s magazine carries fun features on haunted locales, eco-friendly boutiques, and the city’s many “art walks,” as well as a map showing the Portland locations whose names cartoonist/writer Matt Groening borrowed for The Simpsons.

Travelers may order free copies of the magazine on the Travel Portland website or by calling toll-free 877.678.5263. Electronic copies of the magazine can also be downloaded online. For more information on traveling to Portland, Oregon, visit www.travelportland.com.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Deborah Wakefield, Travel Portland
503.275.9795, deborah@travelportland.com