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craft beer

A Love Letter to the Festival of Dark Arts

The dark clouds close in, bringing a splatter of drizzle. The slate, almost still mirror of the Columbia River belies the turbulent entrance to the Pacific ocean a few miles down. Bland industrial buildings are broken up by brightly colored Victorian homes. It is a sleepy Saturday with only a few people braving the elements to trod along the riverwalk. However, a few blocks from the water something is stirring. There is the clatter of metal kegs being put into place. The smell of woodsmoke fills the air, followed quickly by the scent of bacon. As you approach this spot, a sense of anticipation grows. You see small groups of people bundled up, talking excitedly, many wearing clothing items bearing the name of some brewery or other. Some familiar, some not. They all are moving toward the same destination. That is when you see a line, snaking around a building that takes up an entire block. The small groups have gathered into a horde, all clutching small fluted glasses. Many look at lists, some on their phone, some printed out. You glance over someone’s shoulder to spy the list. It is a list of beers, all dark, all malty, but all different. It is time for the annual ode to the stout. It is time for the Festival of Dark Arts.

For those unfamiliar with what I’m talking about Fort George Brewery (located in Astoria, Oregon) hosts an annual beer festival in February that is devoted to the art of the stout (a “carnival of stouts” if you will). As a craft beer nerd, I am a fan of beer fests in general, but ever since I first attended the Festival of Dark Arts in 2018 it has been far and away my favorite. Why? How different could a particular beer fest possibly be? Let me tell you.

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Ex Novo’s Blue Bucket of Gold and the Mysterious Mine That Inspired It

Note: I wrote this a long time ago and never posted it (I’m not sure why). I think the beer if references was a one-off that you won’t be able to find anymore but the story is still super interesting. Enjoy!

In case it has become entirely obvious, I love craft beer. I also love discovering weird stories, especially about places near where I live. Ex Novo’s Blue Bucket of Gold allowed me to partake in both things.

What is a Blue Bucket of Gold, you may wonder? Well, I am so glad you asked. The western half of the United States’ history is littered with stories of gold and silver rushes (and as someone who grew up in California, I learned about a lot of them in school) but the legend of the Lost Blue Bucket Mine was a new one for me.

The story of this lost gold mine starts in 1845 (several years before the California gold rush started in earnest) somewhere between Vale and The Dalles in what is now Oregon. For those of you unfamiliar with Oregon geography, these two places are not close together. At all (to drive, it’s about 306 miles). Vale is almost in Idaho, while The Dalles is a river away from Washington. In short, we’re talking hundreds of square miles.

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Hop Hellions: Ninkasi

A series about the women who have made craft beer

The First Lady of Beer (Literally)

In the Beginning

As I begin this exploration of women in beer, I figured it made sense to start with the very first woman in beer: Ninkasi, the ancient Sumerian goddess of beer. The Sumerian people lived in southern Mesopotamia in what is now southern Iraq from approximately 4500 BC to 1900 BC. They practiced anthropomorphic polytheism (worshipping many human-like gods) and one of those gods was Ninkasi, who has one of the best origin stories I’ve ever heard.

Enki, the god of wisdom, seduces his great-granddaughter, Uttu (the weaver or spider). Understandably upset about this, Uttu visits her great-grandmother Ninhursag, an Earth goddess, who, also annoyed at these proceedings pulls Enki’s semen from Uttu’s womb and uses it to grow fruit plants in eight different spots. Enki loves fruit so he eats the semen-fruit and finds himself pregnant in eight places because of course. Ninhursag lets her husband suffer for a bit before going to him and pulling his semen out of his body and into hers. She then gives birth to eight gods who each represent the healing of one of Enki’s wounds. The god representing the mouth is Ninkasi whose name translates as “the lady who fills the mouth,” which sounds dirty but isn’t in this case. Crazy story, right?

Statue of Ninkasi
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Hop Trip: Hood River

One of my goals for 2020 was to do one Hop Trip per month. However, COVID-19 seems to have put the kibosh on that idea, at least for awhile. Since I can’t go anywhere, I figured I should finally post about the two I did go on before everything became weird all the time (hooray!). With that in mind, here’s the first one: my short excursion to the beer capital of the Columbia River Gorge: Hood River.

Day 1

After a couple hours drive north from Bend, we arrived in Hood River. After checking in at the Best Western (a really nice hotel btw) we headed over to Ferment Brewing.

Ferment Brewing Company
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