One of the fixtures of the Oregon beer scene is the annual Oregon Brewers Festival in Portland during the last full weekend in July. This year’s OBF kicks off in two weeks, and there are some (big) changes taking place.

First, the OBF has been scaled back to four days, running from Thursday to Sunday. The last few years, the festival started on Wednesday and ran for five days. However, according to the organizers: “Attendance has peaked the last few years, so it made sense, both in terms of economics and manpower, to cut back to a four-day festival.” This makes sense and it will be interesting to see if this will have any impact on the crowded it gets early in the first couple of days.

Next, the biggest change of the brewfest: there will be no printed program this year! Here’s the quote from the source:

Our program annually uses more than 140,000 pieces of paper. This year, we’ve gone green and created a digital app that has full beer descriptions (search by style, take notes, find on the map). You can also chat with friends, post to the wall, check out the music lineup, and more. Download it at https://download.socio.events/event/MjAwMQ. We know this will not be popular with everyone, so those who want to make a list in advance can visit https://tinyurl.com/y7obn53a to access a Google sheet with all the beer descriptions and stats, which can be downloaded for sorting and printing. We will also be handing out a one-page printed list of beers by trailer and by brewery, with a map of the venue, free for everyone at the event; this is another first!

I approve of this, as most people have smartphones and let’s face it, the program was a good reference but I rarely pulled it out to fumble with it while wandering the tent in search of beer. Being able to search on an app and have one less thing to carry makes sense.

However I haven’t yet downloaded the app to look at it myself, so I’m merely speculating until I do. Your mileage may vary.

The third change is the addition of cider and wine to the OBF for the first time. There will be two ciders from Portland’s own Cider Riot and Reverend Nat’s, and wine from Eola Hills (a red and a white) and Serra Vineyards (a white and a rosé). The cider will get the same token treatment as the beer, one token for a taster and four tokens for a full pour, while wine will cost five tokens for a full pour with no tasters.

The rest of the festival details will be familiar to folks: gates and taps open at noon each day, and there is no cost to enter. The mugs cost $7 (required to drink) and tokens are $1 apiece (sold in bundles, usually). Mugs and tokens are cash only and credit cards and checks will not be accepted.

There will be 80 brewers pouring beer, spread out over Tom McCall Waterfront Park in downtown Portland. Five of these breweries are from Baja, California Mexico: Agua Mala, Border Psycho, Insurgente, Transpeninsular, and Wendlandt.

Start planning your OBF weekend now; I’ll be posting soon with a closer look at the breweries attending this year, and what they’ll be pouring—and of course my own picks of what to seek out.