CAMRA Victoria visits Vancouver WA/Portland OR

By: Sean Clark, Communications Director, CAMRA Victoria

When one thinks of craft beer on the US Pacific Northwest, cities such as Seattle and Portland are generally first on everyone’s mind, and with good reason. Seattle, the closest major US city to us, is a major tourist attraction with a growing collection of top notch craft breweries such as the famous Pike Brewing Company among others.

And Portland, well it speaks for itself. The self-proclaimed craft beer capital of North America, the city has more independent craft breweries than any other with names like Widmer, Bridgeport, Hair of the Dog and Hopworks Urban Brewery to name a few. Well, just across the Columbia River in Washington State is another city that’s seen a boom in craft beer over the last 5-6 years.

That city is Vancouver Washington, the original Vancouver…..

Seeing as one has to drive through this city on their way to Portland from up north, a stop here should be required. Our first taste of this city was in 2012, as part of a 2 week long road trip down to San Francisco to coincide with our wedding anniversary.. I was looking for a beer festival to attend in early August, and having missed the massive Oregon Brewers Festival by a couple weeks we stumbled across the first ever Vancouver Brewfest. 

Looking for a way to tap into the burgeoning craft beer market in the area, and wanting to have a festival that stayed local and allowed patrons the ability to enjoy the proceedings without the massive beer lines, founder Cody Gray started off small with about 2 dozen breweries at Esther Short Park in downtown Vancouver, steps from the Columbia River. The bulk of them were from southern Washington and the Portland region, with the odd one coming from further away.

My collection of shirts, glassware, programs and tokens from the past 6 years of the Vancouver Brewfest

I really enjoyed the festival and decided I wanted to go to it again, so we went down in 2013 and 2014. By 2015 I had inquired about volunteering, and was enthusiastically accepted despite not being a US citizen. Cody loved the fact that we tied coming to the festival with our anniversary, which usually fell within a couple days before or after it. Last year we went down in March to his spring edition as we had already planned on going to Alberta in the summer, but this year it was back in August for the sixth time.

Every year grew and grew, going from a small scale Friday/Saturday with about 2000-3000 patrons in 2012 to a full weekend with triple the attendance in the last couple years. The number of breweries attending also grew, reaching the 50-60 range and covering an even wider region. This year though the festival dropped back to just two days and the breweries scaled back to about 40, primarily because of softer Sunday attendance and conflicts with other festivals going on around Washington/Oregon that made some breweries unable to attend in Vancouver.

It was still a great time, with live music on the park’s stage, great food from local restaurants and an eclectic collection of vendors selling everything from locally made salsas and hot sauces to a local homebrew shop showing off their supplies. There was a bear pong tournament as well as a brewers keg toss, so something for everyone. They also partner with a local brewery to brew a special festival beer that’s exclusive to the weekend, and do a people’s choice award for Top 3 Beers.

Cody and his team take care of the volunteers extremely well, with dedicated meal breaks where you are given 10 tokens to use towards any food item from the attendees. Also when your shift wraps up you get free admission on the day you’re not working, or if you do the first half you can attend the second half, and are also given the glass and usually 10 tokens for beer.

Some photos of the festival grounds from the last couple years of the Vancouver Brewfest

I highly recommend this festival to anyone thinking of heading down to the region, as it’s well run, busy but not crowded feeling, and affordable. The pricing varies per year and depending on if it’s the spring vs the summer one, but they offer a few different ticket packages. Usually available is a basic ticket with admission, glass, program and 5 tokens to the even bigger one that upps the token count to anywhere from 10-15. They also do a designated driver ticket that gets the patron unlimited sodas, bottled water and juices from the local Lions food tent. As I previously mentioned, volunteers get treated very good if you so choose to do so. They’ve also branched out in the last few years to include a Fresh Hop festival usually at the end of September/early October.

Ever since then we’ve become great friends, with him even coming up to GCBF two years ago. He enjoyed it so much that he’s coming again this year. He’s even graciously donating some swag for the CAMRA booth prize wheel at this year’s festival.

If you are interested in checking out this festival, go to www.vancouverbrewfest.com for more info. I guarantee you’ll have a great time!

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I also had the opportunity to check out a few breweries along the way. Not as many as in past years, but still enough. First day we arrived we checked out The Heavy Metal Brewing Company and Heathen Brewing in Vancouver. We had Groupons for both which got us great package deals. Heavy Metal included a flight of beers, a 32oz growler and fill, while Heathen included a flight of 7 beers and a 64oz growler without fill. Both were attendees of the this year’s Vancouver Brewfest.

Tasting flights at Heavy Metal and Heathen Brewing in Vancouver WA

We also popped into Portland and stopped at The Labrewtory, Cascade Brewing Barrel House and the brand new Rouge Eastside Pub and Pilot Brewery. We had another Groupon for The Labrewtory which included a flight, a house-baked pretzel and a filled 32oz crowler of our choosing. We went to Cascade as Cayla wanted to try their sours, while the stop at the Rouge Pilot brewery was a chance to see what used to be Green Dragon Brewery which we visited on a trip a few years ago.

Pics from the three above mentioned breweries

On our way home we made a couple stops in Everett Washington, where I checked out another two breweries. Crucible Brewing Companyand Scuttlebutt Brewpub. Crucible was another brewery that does the crowlers, basically a 32oz can of beer that they fill in house right off the taps. It’s pretty cool, and a nice option to the traditional glass growler that most breweries do. I chose the brewpub over the actual brewery for Scuttlebutt as it was a Monday and most of the city’s breweries weren’t open.

Pics from the two above mentioned breweries

All told, another fun getaway to one of my favorite places to visit. I hope you get the opportunity to check out this festival and the great breweries they have to offer.

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