OBF Becomes a Chameleon at 32

The 2019 Oregon Brewers Festival is three months away. Once upon a time, that reality would have generated considerable interest. Once upon a time, there weren't a gazillion beer festivals crammed onto the annual calendar.

This will be the OBF's 32nd year and they've gone chameleon in an effort to reverse the declining attendance of recent years. There was a time when this event could do whatever it pleased. A lot of harebrained ideas were tried over the years. But things are different now. They've got to sharpen their game.

One of the big changes this year is that all the beers will be from Oregon. Yup. They'll be serving 101 products from 93 breweries and eight cideries. I'm guessing you'd have to go back to the very early days to find a year in which all the beers came from Oregon. This to me is a smart move. It is, after all, the Oregon Brewers Festival.

These will mostly be one-off and experimental beers made for the event, according to a press release. That's in keeping with the current rage for small batch stuff, a strategy that's in place at most successful festivals and similar events. Of course, the quality of experimental beers can be all over the place. But it hardly matters. Festival goers demand unique beers. The list is here.

Event organizers, responding to declining attendance, cut the event to four days last year...dropping Wednesday. That seemed a little odd because stats showed Sunday was the dead day. They've adjusted appropriately for 2019. Wednesday is back; Sunday is gone, gone, gone.

The popular Brewers Brunch that kicks off the festival moves to Ecliptic Brewing this year. Brunch tickets go on sale on the OBF website Wednesday morning (May 1) and cost $49. That includes brunch, two beers, a souvenir T-shirt and an OBF tasting mug.

Brunches have historically been held reasonably close to Waterfront Park. Not this year, as Ecliptic is located a good distance from the Park. That becomes an issue for the Oregon Brewers Parade, which departs Ecliptic following the brunch at 11 a.m. and hoofs it to the Waterfront. Anyone can walk in the parade, by the way. That will be interesting. It's a long walk.

Another change related to making the event more user-friendly involves comfort. One of the best spots in the Park on hot days is under the shade trees at the south end, an area typically occupied by beer trailers. Not this year. The trailers will move to the river side, leaving the shade for mingling and drinking. (The map on the website hadn't been updated when this post went live.)

You may remember that the printed program was dropped last year. They were evidently not being picked up by patrons (who don't read, anyway) and thousands wound up being recycled. Organizers launched what seemed to me to be a pretty decent smartphone app in 2018. Surprise...the printed program is back this year. No word on the app. Bizarre.

New and old features for this year include a Meet the Brewer Tent, a Brewer Dunk Tank, games, food vendors, homebrewing demonstrations, plus the Crater Lake Soda Garden offering complimentary craft soda to designated drivers and minors. Sadly, surprisingly, live music is gone, to be replaced by DJs in different parts of the park. That sounds like a hoot.

I've always argued that the Oregon Brewers Festival is a pretty good value. You enter the venue for free. To drink beer, you buy a mug and tokens. It's four tokens for a full mug of beer or cider, one token for a taste. No big, upfront charge to enjoy a few beers. The changed beer lineup might actually make this year's event more appealing to some.

But the strategies don't all mesh. The press release says attendees must purchase a $20 tasting package this year. The package includes a mug and 10 tokens, which means you're paying $10 for a throwaway plastic mug. That's not the worst deal in a city saturated with overpriced festivals and beer dinners, but it seems vaguely at odds with the goal of boosting attendance.

Some of my older friends who haven't attended OBF recently say declining attendance might get them interested again. But the biggest changes outlined for this year suggest organizers are targeting younger patrons, which makes good sense, actually. We'll see how that works out for them.

Visit the OBF website here for a rundown of festival dates, times, etc.