Fruit Beer Fest Returns to Burnside

The Portland Fruit Beer Festival, now in its seventh year, returns to its original home at Burnside Brewing this weekend, June 9-11. Organizers expect to pour more than thirty beers and ciders made exclusively for the festival, our premier fruit-oriented beer event.

They're returning to Burnside after a one-year stint at the North Park Blocks. Why? Well, there were additional costs involved in holding the event downtown. When the weather was uncooperative, the attendance necessary to justify those costs didn't materialize. Thus, the return to Burnside.

It's a reasonable move. The Burnside campus is centrally located, with easy access from all quadrants of the city. One of the reasons for the Park Blocks experiment is limited space at Burnside. That venue was packed to the gills and overly congested during several past Fruit Beer Fests.

To address crowding concerns, organizers say they'll spread the beer stations out and provide more shade and seating than in past years at Burnside. They'll also have a smaller, satellite venue across the street. It'll be a neat trick if they're able to reduce the crowding issues, and I hope they can.

When I first realized fruit infused beers were gaining favor a few years a back, I was mesmerized. It's not something I was exposed to growing up, a time when macro lagers were king. I wondered if fruit beers weren't maybe some kind of strange fad connected to the growth of craft beer.

Of course, that isn't really the case. Fruit has been used in brewing for centuries. As local author and blogger, Jeff Alworth, told me, "Except for lager-brewers in Bavaria, basically no one in the history of civilization ever thought using just grain was somehow proper."

What's happened in modern American craft beer is that tastes have expanded to embrace practices employed for centuries and abandoned during the macro lager era. Fruit is part of that and the Fruit Beer Festival has helped build interest in fruit-centric beers, a positive thing.

The beer and brewery list for this event is extensive. I arrived late to the media preview and tasted only a few of the beers. That isn't all that big of a deal since they weren't sampling the entire festival portfolio. You can view the list of standard beers and ciders on the event site here.

In addition to the standards, there will be 3-4 rotating taps dedicated to rare beers outside the regular lineup. Those beers will rotate at various times during the weekend and most will cost additional tickets. There will be special tappings from Firestone Walker, Great Notion Brewing, Crux Fermentation Project, Cascade Brewing, pFriem Family Brewers, de Garde and others.

Festival days and hours:
Friday, June 9: 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Sat. June 10: 11:00 a.m to  9:00 p.m.
Sun. June 11: 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Advance tickets are available online here, with a small added service charge. Buying in advance may save you time getting into the event venue, though I can't guarantee that. Oh, you have two ticket options, basically a choice between a fancy and plain Jane glass. Up to you.

As always, you can get updated info via the event's social media channels: @FruitBeerFest on Twitter and Instagram, search Portland Fruit Beer Festival on Facebook. 🍻