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Ramona DeNies

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The Oregon Brewers Festival draws more than 80,000 attendees every July.
i
The Oregon Brewers Festival draws more than 80,000 attendees every July.
Credit: Sasha, via Flickr
Portland Events

Oregon Brewers Festival

Portland’s biggest beer party takes over the downtown waterfront every July.

Canceled
Updated May 5, 2020 4 min read Downtown

Ramona DeNies

Canceled
Southwest Portland
THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED. We’ll update the page with future event info as soon as we get it. Please check back!
When
July 28–31, 2021
Where
Tom McCall Waterfront Park
98 SW Naito Pkwy
Portland, OR 97204

Know Before You Go

The 2020 Oregon Brewers Festival has been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. For the most up-to-date information, please visit the Oregon Brewers Festival website.

When the Oregon Brewers Festival first started in 1988, the very idea of craft beer was exotic.

Back then, before the Danish brewer collaborations and unpronounceable styles (gueuze, anyone?), craft beer was cool simply because it was new. At the time, Tom McCall Waterfront Park in downtown Portland was only 10 years old, and Oregon’s Brewpub Bill — the landmark legislation that let the state’s handful of craft brewers sell their suds on-site — was just three years old.

When we started, we weren’t talking about citrus hops or specialty malts. We just wanted to highlight the little brewers.

Art Larrance, Oregon Brewers Festival founder

That July, Art Larrance, co-founder of Portland Brewing Company, found himself with a city permit for a to-be-determined two-day event. Larrance thought he’d invite a few friends in the brewing biz to join him at Waterfront Park. He called up the Ponzis at BridgePort Brewing (since closed), the Widmer brothers and the McMenamins. They enlisted some 18 other western brewers, and the first annual Oregon Brewers Festival (OBF) was born.

“When we started, we weren’t talking about citrus hops or specialty malts,” says Larrance. “We just wanted to highlight the little brewers.”

Press coverage of the first Oregon Brewers Festival in 1988
Press coverage of the first Oregon Brewers Festival in 1988.
Credit: Ashley Anderson

The festival was destined for bigger things. That first year, OBF ran out of beer as some 15,000 festival-goers packed the park. Three decades later, the Oregon Brewers Festival still takes over the downtown riverside each July, thrilling beer lovers with all that’s new in craft brew. And the breweries that participate are still little (Budweiser and Coors need not apply).

What has changed, however, is the world outside the festival’s white tents. Today, thriving craft beer scenes drive economies from Bend, Oregon to Baja California, Mexico. Increasingly, the world wants more Upright Brewing and less InBev (a brewing giant that owns more than 2,000 beer brands). To slake that thirst, OBF has grown from 22 participating breweries to more than 80, and from 15,000 attendees to nearly 70,000 from all corners of the world.

The festival never set out to be as big as, say, Munich’s sprawling Oktoberfest, a centuries-old Märzen-and-Bock bonanza that manages to satisfy some 100,000 fans annually. And yet, attend Oktoberfest now and you’ll likely spot OBF shirts in the crowd — a testament to the fest’s own now-international stature.

Can (or should) OBF continue to grow as smaller beer events — many of them inspired by OBF — increasingly take over Beervana? Larrance wonders if the festival hasn’t fallen victim to its own success. In 2017, for the first time ever, OBF’s attendance dipped slightly.

OBF founder Art Larrance
OBF founder Art Larrance also owns Portland’s Cascade Brewing.
Credit: Ashley Anderson

“I look into my crystal beer glass and it won’t tell me what’s next,” Larrance says with a sly grin. “All it tells me is, ‘I’m empty.’”

Annual Beer Events

More festivals
The Portland Craft Beer Festival is held in The Fields Park over the Fourth of July weekend.

Beer Festivals in Portland

Portland isn't shy about its love of beer — the city has nearly as many beer festivals as it does breweries.

A tasting event at Gigantic Brewing\'s taproom and lounge.

Portland Beer Week

Portland Beer Week spotlights Portland’s breweries, high-quality brews and vibrant beer culture.

Give cheers for beers underneath the Holiday Ale Festival\'s clear tent.

Portland’s Holiday Ale Festival

The Holiday Ale Festival, set beneath the region’s largest decorated holiday tree, returns every year with more than 50 big, bold beers designed to keep revelers warm on cold winter nights.

How Oregon Brewers Festival Works 

Each winter, craft breweries (as defined by the Brewers Association) apply to serve one — and only one — beer at the festival. It used to be that makers would submit their flagship ale, but nowadays, Larrance says, attendees are too discerning for that. “They’re looking for what’s new, what’s not in the store.”

The festival committee aims to represent a range of beer styles and regions. At festival time, massive refrigeration trailers roll in, along with a veritable army of staff and volunteers coordinating the sale of beer mugs and $1 tokens (redeemed for tasters inside the festival). Also in the mix are live music performances, food vendors and security. Sure, Larrance says, the beer lines can be pretty long; but that’s part of the game — strategizing your tasting play, and hopefully making new friends along the way. “There are connoisseurs and common-seurs,” he jokes.

The Mission of Oregon Brewers Festival

Sure, OBF slings a lot of kegs. But the festival’s mission, Larrance says, is really to connect the public with the breweries themselves, and the breweries with each other. (“It’s not a beer fest, it’s a brewers fest,” he says.) That means a lot of behind-the-scenes meetings; business is happening all around the beer tents.

Thanks to OBF networking, Larrance says, Portland breweries have secured distribution deals in Europe, while others have collaborated on special releases with far-flung new friends. The event has an estimated annual economic impact of nearly $24 million benefiting some dozen industries across the city.

Y a tu salud, Oregon Brewers Festival!

Upcoming Dates & Times

July 28
Beer, Festivals, Summer

Local Breweries

More craft beer
Tasting at Cascade Brewing Barrel House

Portland Breweries

Portland, home to more breweries than any other city on earth, has pioneered the craft beer movement since the early 1980s.

Exciting breweries like Wolves & People are only a short drive away.

Breweries Near Portland

The City of Roses doesn’t have a monopoly on amazing ales! Several nearby towns are home to their own fabulous brewpubs and breweries.

The Pfriem Family Brewers taproom in Hood River.

Brewing in the Gorge

Take in the outstanding beauty of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area while enjoying five outstanding brewpubs.

Hoppy Happenings

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Editor's Pick
Beer
Festival
Wine
Canceled
Oregon Brewers Festival
July 28–31, 2021

Oregon Brewers Festival

Tom McCall Waterfront Park

Portland hosts dozens of beer festivals every year, but none compares to the Oregon Brewers Festival. With offerings from 80 craft brewers, the event draws nearly 70,000 attendees to the downtown waterfront every July.

Canceled
Beer
Festivals
Summer

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