A Winner, a Beer List, a Wandelpad

The Oregon Garden Brewfest has a taplist and you can find it at Sanjay's. It is, as I hoped it would be, a showcase of middle-Oregon breweries: 10 Barrel, Block 15, Calapooia, Cascade Lakes, Flat Tail, Gilgamesh, GoodLife, Oakshire, Pale Horse, Ram, Rusty Truck, and Seven Brides. It also has two beers from Gigantic and other assorted goodies.

As a side note, Block 15 is bringing Wandelpad, Nick's take on the absolutely sublime Westvleteren Blond. It's named for a cool little path beside the monastery that takes you to a clearing and a very cool shrine inset into an outcropping of rocks. The name of that path? Wandelpad:


Now, to the great Brewers Dinner competition. I didn't get an overwhelming number of entries--perhaps not surprising given the time- and location-specific parameters--but the ones I got were compelling. My mom was lobbying this morning for Leavy23, whose case was indeed strong. But since I'm a communist who was once too poor to attend events like this, my heart was swayed by Kelsey:

Me! I'm volunteering four hours on Saturday and enjoying with friends at night. I like food and beer and am too poor to go otherwise.

Kelsey, if you show up in a top hat and monocle: lightning bolts of fury. Anyway, shoot me an email at the_beerax (at) yahoo (dot) com and I'll get this set up. Congrats! May you have a wonderful time!

Blogger Giveaway: Oregon Garden Brewers Dinner

The Oregon Garden is an 80-acre botanical garden in Silverton, an hour south of Portland. In it you can find a water maze, an oak grove with a 400-year-old specimen, and Oregon's only Frank Lloyd Wright home--among other beguiling features. I was unaware of all of this. Every year for the past seven it has also the home of a beer festival, a fact that also escaped my notice (as so many things outside Portland do). You may have seen it on some of the blogs (see here and here) a sure sign that Chris Crabb is on the case.


That beer fest will enjoy its eighth iteration on April 27 and 28. Let us first detail some of the basic facts before getting to the transactional business. Per Chris's press release:

This year's event will take place April 27 and April 28 from noon to 11 p.m. each day at The Oregon Garden's J. Frank Schmidt Jr. Pavilion, 879 W Main St. The festival will feature more than 90 handcrafted beers and ciders from 45 different breweries spanning from Silverton's backyard to across the Atlantic.

There's live music, something called connoisseur tasting at 2pm on Friday and package deals at the Oregon Garden Resort that includes rooms and fest tickets. All info (except, frustratingly, a beer list) is at the website.

Now, relevant to our purposes, I'm giving away one ticket to the brewer's dinner happening the Thursday night before the fest, April 26th. The back story and notice of disclosure is this: I was offered a Very Special Invitation* to attend the brewers dinner on the house. Sally thought she might like to go--actually, she was the one who lobbied me to go to the event at all, even knowing that I have no time for such things now--so we bought an extra ticket to the brewer's dinner, a $40 value. And then she realized she had a conflict. So now I have a bonus ticket to the shindig, which features, among other things, one course with a saison from Gigantic. It's six courses long, and the Fest dangles this additional lure: "After dinner, head into the Fireside Lounge to mingle with the featured brewers and redeem your dinner ticket for drink and food specials at the bar." Will Van Havig, Ben Love, Dave Logsdon, Rob and/or Kurt Widmer, Tom Bleigh and others be there? Who can say? You'll have to come and find out.

There is exactly one caveat: you must go to the event. Indeed, I have to let Chris know who the person is so she can let them in, since my name's on the ticket. So no blowing me off unless you want to bring down my lightning bolts of fury. (Oh, I suppose there are other things like having to be 21--the usual legal issues.)

In the (I hope very likely) event that more than one person would like to cash in on this giveaway, I'll make a tiny contest of it. In comments, tell me why you want to go. Special but not exclusive preference to those who plan to attend the fest as well--but I'm capricious and willing to be won over by engaging entreaties. I will announce a winner at noon tomorrow.

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*I have no idea if it was special or not, never mind very special. A little dramatic touch.