Whew, that was a great weekend in Portland for the Oregon Brewers Festival. Look for posts throughout the next week with photos from the weekend, starting with Friday. The last few years at OBF on Friday, there have been so many side events that it’s been hard to even make to the festival and this year was no exception.

I started the day at the Glen Hay Falconer Foundation Brew-Am Golf Tournament. The foundation honors the memory of brewer Glen Hay Falconer and the event raises money to send two brewers each year to the Siebel Institute. For the past three years I’ve sponsored a hole at the tourney and here’s the “foursome” I played with at my hole.

Later that afternoon, Hair of the Dog hosts an open house at the brewery. Alan Sprints, owner of the terrific Hair of the Dog Brewery, with Portland beer writer Fred Eckhardt at the Hair of the Dog event.
 

For more photos from Friday during this year’s OBF, visit the photo gallery.
 

Once the OBF parade reached the festival grounds at Governor Tom McCall Waterfront Park, the “official” wooden festival keg was wheeled into place for the ceremonial tapping by the mayor of Portland, signifying the official opening of the 21st annual Oregon Brewers Festival.

Portland Mayor Tom Potter, on hand to open the festival.

For more photos from this year’s OBF keg tapping, including a short video, visit the photo gallery.
 

The now annual Oregon Brewers Festival parade and brunch took place the morning the festival begins. This year it was held at PGE Park, the home of the Portland Beavers, a minor league baseball team. Widmer Brothers Brewing has a beer garden at the ballpark and they served a hearty breakfast washed down with Widmer beer. From there, the 300 paraded to the Tom McCall Waterfront Park, where the festival was opened, with Tom Potter, Portland’s mayor leading the way.

The Oregon Brewers Festival parade.

For more photos from this year’s OBF Parade, visit the photo gallery.
 

The Brewers Association, of course, has a board of directors made up of brewery owners. The current chairman, Rich Doyle, owns Harpoon Brewing in Massachusetts. In a recent article in the Patriot Ledger, Doyle ruminates on what the InBev takeover of Anheuser-Busch will mean for smaller brewers. (And I’m going to adopt Harry Schuhmacher’s “ABIB” to refer to the new company.)

Like me, Doyle doesn’t think the ABIB merger will do small brewers any favors. “When you read in the paper that 80 percent of the beer sold in the United States is now controlled by two companies, that’s a pretty sobering fact.”

From the Patriot-Ledger article:

Doyle said most independent beer distributors in the U.S. have a contractual arrangement with one of the big brewing companies. He said that as those companies gain clout, small craft brewers worry they could be squeezed out by the big conglomerates if they provide financial incentives to the distributors to focus on their big-name beers.

“The small brewers are concerned that these contracts will be even more constraining on the somewhat independent wholesalers to be able to handle products like ours,” Doyle said. “Ultimately, this is about the consumer having access to the brands they want and the choice they want.”

The article goes on to quote Jim Koch, founder of the Boston Beer Co. (who makes Samuel Adams beers) as not being nearly as concerned. Of course, Boston Beer is the largest craft brewer in the country and is already well-established in virtually every market. But I continue to believe that for smaller, newer and less middle-of-the-road brewers, the challenges in getting their beer to market will only increase.
 

Rich Doyle, leading a toast after giving the keynote address at the Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego earlier this year.

My friend Pete sent me this cartoon by editorial cartoonist Ben Sargent. Thanks, Pete. To most Americans this might seem like a nightmare, and in fact I think that may have been his point. The cartoon plays to the fears of many Americans, but it’s so unlikely that InBev would alter the taste of Bud to such a degree that it’s preposterous. But for many of us who do not revere the taste of Budweiser, it may inadvertently seem more like a dream.
 

The new beer cans from 21st Amendment Brewery will debut in stores next Tuesday, July 22.

This struck me as somewhat humorous. I’ve heard of plenty of towns smaller than Clark, Wyoming (pop. @ 300-350 in the whole valley) but what makes Clark stand out is that, according to a short AP story, is that there is only one business in the whole town. And what is that one business? It’s the Edelweiss bar, owned by Peg Potter, but she’s planning on turning into a brewpub. Her goal is to brew “some of the best beer in the world,” with water from Clark’s Fork River, a local source that is fed from the Yellowstone River, as Clark is east of Yellowstone National Park, and just south of the Montana border. So that will make Clark literally a one brewpub town. That alone would make it a destination worth seeking out. What fun!
 

Teresa da Silva Lopes is the author of Global Brands, The Evolution of Multinationals in Alcoholic Beverages. And although it was published last fall, it seems like a prescient take on what’s been going on more recently with the beer industry, from the sale of Scottish & Newcastle, Miller and Coors’ merged U.S. operations and, of course, the latest InBev takeover of Anheuser-Busch. On her publisher’s U.S. website, the Cambridge University Press, she gives her perspective on the InBev/A-B deal, entitled A Global Case of Beer.

I almost forgot that when I was at Russian River Brewery for the Pliny the Elder bottling on July 10, I shot a couple of short movies with my camera. Here are two of them. Enjoy the brewery porn.
 
Pliny Bottling #1: Slow and Longer.

 
Pliny Bottling #2: Short and Sweet.

My new holiday, International Brewers Day, will have its first observance this Friday, July 18. If you write about beer (or holidays) please consider writing about your favorite brewer on Friday, either as an interview, profile, bio or whatever you think appropriate. You can find out more information about how to participate at the website for International Brewers Day.

If you own or run a brewery, beer bar or restaurant, think about hosting an event to honor your brewer or a local brewer. If not this year, mark your calendars for next year, when hopefully I’ll make a more ardent push to get the holiday going.