Over the sum­mer I joined the Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion of Culi­nary Pro­fes­sion­als at the sug­ges­tion of cook­book writer Dave Joachim. And with his encour­age­ment and help, I put together a con­fer­ence ses­sion on beer using local ingre­di­ents for the IACP’s annual get together. With the con­fer­ence being in Port­land this spring, writ­ing and talk­ing about the beer comes nat­u­rally, and so in about a month, Jamie Emmer­son of Full Sail Brew­ing and Brett Joyce of Rogue Ales will join me to talk about how they make amaz­ing beer with Oregon’s own water, hops, bar­ley and yeast. It should be fun.

To help pro­mote my ses­sion, I wrote a piece on a cou­ple of the other Port­land brew­eries (Upright Brew­ing and Lau­rel­wood) that also use Ore­gon ingre­di­ents to make awe­some beer. You can check out the arti­cle here.

Never doubt for a sec­ond that Port­land, Ore­gon is beer heaven. Any search for pure beer-vana can ignore Munich’s rau­cous beer halls, Belgium’s brew­ing monks and the U.K.‘s cozy pubs. When it comes to the num­ber of brew­eries, diver­sity of styles, qual­ity of brew and pure enthu­si­asm, there’s no bet­ter place in the world to raise a pint than Port­land…