I did a quick jaunt down to the Winter Ale Festival on Sunday. Twenty-degree temperatures kept everything chilled even with the heated tents. Lots of dark ales being served and lot of folks dumping them out, including me. They had stouts, porter, bocks, dopplebocks and original disasters. These festivals use to be a good place to sample different styles of beer and learn about them. Now it is about what strangle stuff can brewery put in a beer so they can write up something interesting in the program about them. These beers need to go on Santa’s naughty list.
Winter Ale Festival 2013
Held in Pioneer Square in downtown Portland.
The whole event is inside connected heated tents.
There is an upper and lower (main floor) area. On Sunday only the lower level was open
Entry signs gives some of the rules.
Package price to get in went up this year.
This is the main serving area. Not to much of a crowd on a Sunday morning
When there is a crowd the fence helps keep the lines in order.
You hand a server your mug, hand them a ticket and show you wrist band. No wrist band no beer
This time of day, lots of servers and no waiting.
This is the smaller side serving area. This side had more of the dark beers I wanted to try.
No lines but at time I had to wake someone up to get a beer. But as bad as the beer was I should have let them sleep.
Signs above show what beers they were pouring.
Seating by the entrance.
Main floor area for standing and drinking.
This is a little tucked away area. This is where we normally hang out. It is close the the small serving area.
If you need more tasting tickets here is the spot. I did not need any more.
One of the well used trash containers I saw folks dumping beer into.
Hidden behind the curtains a well used area.
Rows of porta Potties.
They heat the tents with propane heaters.
Folks were standing by the heat hoses this year. With the outside temp at 20 degrees it just did not warm up inside this year.
