Portland’s Fresh Hop Pop-Up Beer Fest returns, runs for 17 days

Portland Fresh Hop Pop-Up Beer Fest at Prost

Portland’s Fresh Hop Pop-Up Beer Fest is back! It’s a 17 day extravaganza of fresh hops taking place at Prost! Marketplace from September 16 through October 2. Many of the days feature special brewery or themes and the fresh hop beers will be in constant rotation, so if (when) you revisit after a few days, you’ll find different beers on tap.

It’s an embarrassment of fresh hop riches, really, and not to be missed!

Details:

Portland Beer Week presents 17 day beer garden the “Fresh Hop Pop-Up Beer Fest” celebrating the annual hop harvest from September 16 – October 2nd, 2022.

The Fresh Hop Pop-Up Beer Fest returns for its 7th year at Portland’s “top food cart pod” Prost! Marketplace and the Bloodbuzz outdoor bar, as a covered beer garden, with ten of the best food trucks in Oregon complementing an incredible ever changing selection of the freshest fresh hop beers of the season. The annual event created by Portland Beer Week in 2015 is the longest, and one of the largest selections of fresh hop beers in the country, running for 17 straight days from 8am til 10pm daily.

Fresh Hop beers are only made once a year when the annual late summer and fall hop harvest takes place in the northern hemisphere. Instead of using the normal kiln dried and processed hop pellets that are produced for year-round beers, this is a special opportunity for breweries to use whole cone fresh picked hops straight off the bine in a matter of hours. Because most of the country is nowhere near hop farms like the ones in Oregon and Washington, fresh hop beers are almost exclusively available in the pacific northwest and come and go faster than our summer weather.

The Fresh Hop Pop-Up Beer Festival was first held in the parking lot of Burnside Brewing Co. (RIP) in 2015 to showcase the finest harvest beers of the season in one place, in 2019 it relocated to Prost!. Instead of searching the city and local breweries, bars, and bottle shops the pop-up fest curates a selection of 10 draft beers and continues to change them out to the latest offerings as they come out of the brewery tanks. Perhaps best of all, the event is free, outdoors, all-ages, and runs all-day.

Fun Fact: the Fresh Hop Pop-Up Beer Festival has never missed a year even during COVID-19 shutdowns; since this is a completely outdoors beer garden the fest was able to pivot to socially distanced draft beer and growlers to-go in 2020, and cautiously returned to the normal format in 2021 with masking.

To keep things interesting the Fresh Hop Pop-Up Beer Fest has collaborated or curated special featured brewery and region nights spread out across the 17 day run. Many of these themed tapping days will have larger selections of the seasonal offerings then the breweries themselves at any one given time, or even beers from out of state breweries that otherwise will not be seen in Portland.

FRESH HOP POP-UP BEER FEST SCHEDULE:
(fresh hop beers available every day 8am – 10pm, special tappings subject to limited availability)

FRIDAY 9/16 FRESH KICKOFF

Von Ebert Brewing, Gigantic Brewing, Threshold Brewing, Double Mountain Brewing, Sunriver Brewing, Baerlic Brewing, Level Beer, Little Beast Brewing, Foreland Beer, Zoiglhaus Brewing.

SATURDAY 9/17 SINGLE HILL BREWING & FRIENDS FRESH HOP RODEO

Yakima, Washington’s Single Hill Brewing was the Great American Beer Festival gold medal winner for Fresh Hop Beer in 2021. This wasn’t a secret to their fans in Washington who have been following their annual fresh hop collaboration series the Fresh Hop Rodeo at their taproom for years. For the first time ever Single Hill is bringing that experience outside of the taproom to the Fresh Hop Pop-Up Beer Fest with exclusive new collaborations with Oregon breweries Wayfinder Beer, Breakside Brewing, Von Ebert Brewing, and Gigantic Brewing, and others from Pinthouse Pizza, Roy Farms, and Desmarias family farm.

MONDAY 9/19 BREAKSIDE FRESH HOP NIGHT

Acclaimed IPA brewers at Breakside Brewing will bring 6 of this year’s best fresh hop beers to the taps. Expect to find Fresh Hop Wanderjack IPA, Fresh Hop Trade Secrets IPA, Fresh Hop Sterling Pilsner, Fresh Hop IGA (India Golden Ale), Fresh Hop Wanderlust IPA, and Fresh Hop flagship IPA.

WEDNESDAY 9/21 SW WASHINGTON FRESH HOP NIGHT

Fresh hop releases from Vancouver, Washington’s finest in honor of North Bank Beer Week, including drafts from Trap Door Brewing, Fortside Brewing and Vice Beer.

THURSDAY 9/22 NEW BREWERY FRESH HOP NIGHT

There are a lot of new breweries and many of them haven’t ever released a fresh hop beer before. This is your chance to check the freshies and try beers from the newest school breweries like Kings & Daughters Brewing, Living Haus Beer, Via Beer, SteepleJack Brewing, and Vice Beer.

FRIDAY 9/23 GREAT NOTION FRESH HOP NIGHT

Masters of the hazy NE-style juicy IPA’s at Great Notion Brewing will tap some of the few kegs of Fresh Hop Ripe IPA and Fresh Hop Magnetic West IPA.

SATURDAY 9/24 RUSE BREWING FRESH HOP NIGHT

Innovative hop stars Ruse Brewing’s fresh hop beers come and go as quickly as shooting stars. This is your chance to try many of them all on draft in one place. Expect 6 or so Ruse Brewing fresh hop beers on tap for this special night.

TUESDAY 9/27 FORT GEORGE FRESH HOP NIGHT

At this point we shouldn’t have to tell you about the legendary Astoria, Oregon brewery Fort George. They will back up the barge to the beer garden and unload all 4 of their 2022 fresh hop beers for this event.

THURSDAY 9/29 SEATTLE FRESH HOP NIGHT

The only place in PDX to find fresh hop beers from Seattle’s best including Cloudburst Brewing, Stoup Brewing, Reuben’s Brews, Fremont Brewing, and more.

FRI – SAT 9/30-10/1 FRESHTOBERFEST

As the Oktoberfest celebration kicks off at Prost! We will be tapping German-style fresh hop beers including pilsners, kolsch, oktoberfests and more from Baerlic, Zoiglhaus, Level Beer, Von Ebert, and others.

SUNDAY 10/2 CLOSE OUT BEER SPECIALS

Find a mix of the best beers of the fest before they are gone. Bring a growler to fill with draft beer for discounted prices to-go.

Interestingly enough, the dates mostly correspond to the official dates of Munich Oktoberfest as well (September 17 — October 3). But then, fresh hop season is the Pacific Northwest’s Oktoberfest/harvest festival…

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