This past Saturday, McMenamins Old St. Francis School hosted its 7th annual High Gravity Brewfest, celebrating strong, high gravity beers of all stripes. This continues to be one of my favorite Bend beer festivals, and this year proved to be another good one. Here are some notes about the fest and the beers, as well as a photo roundup.

First of all, the 12 tokens that come with the entry package are more than enough to drink all you want and still sample a broad range of styles. We’re talking 12 samples at 4 ounces each (at minimum) for 48 overall ounces of strong beer. And if you’re with friends, as we were, you’ll likely be sampling even more than the 12 beers your tokens will get you.

I also really like the tasting glasses used for this event this year and last: 10-ounce nonic style glasses. In previous years, shaker pints and the ever-present beer can shaped glassware was used, which are just overkill. The small nonic glasses are just the right size, easy to hold, and a nice change of pace.

The venue works really well, too. It’s (mostly) indoors, for starters; the theater is cleared with beer pouring stations on two walls, and strategically placed couches and tables on the other two. We got there early enough to get couches for us and friends which is a nice perk for a brewfest. You can stand around the firepits outside, if you like, or listen to live music in the room next door. It does get pretty crowded in the theater after a few hours, but there were hardly any lines for beer.

And the beer! Between the full samples I got and the tastes of others’, I had a pretty good assessment of the day’s lineup. Here are the beers I sampled with my Untappd notes:

• Fervid Ferment IRA: Collaboration between McMenamins Thompson Brewery and Hillsdale Brewery. 8.13% ABV. “Terrific nose with fruit and candy and a touch sweaty. Nice bitterness and solid malt backbone with a hint of roast.”
• Blackest Heart Stout: McMenamins Edgefield, barrel-aged cherry chocolate coffee imperial stout. 8.77% ABV. “Chocolate cherry cordial candy with a touch of dark roast coffee. Tasty.”
• Perihelion 2020, barleywine aged in whiskey and port barrels: McMenamins Cornelius Pass Roadhouse. 8.64% ABV. “Woody fruit aroma note, port wine cork. Winey note with some mellow alcohol heat and a dark fruit tang.”
• All About the Bock, doppelbock: Collaboration between McMenamins OSF and Wild Ride Brewing. 7.74% ABV. “Dark fruit, biscuity, some deep toasty bread crust flavors. A touch ashy?”
• You’re Welcome, triple IPA: Trap Door Brewing. 11.2% ABV. “Tropical fruit and coconut (Sabro) aroma. Fruity and lightly green flavor notes, medium full body but doesn’t drink like 11%.”
• Beskar Barleywine: Collaboration between OSF and Mecca Grade Estate Malts. 9.29% ABV. “Big thick butterscotch and caramel character I get from the Lamonta [malt]… Diacetyl-like. Thick body, a touch boozy. Lots of caramel.”
• Scotch Barrel Aged Imperial Brown: pFriem Family Brewers. 12.3% ABV. “Boozy, toasty chocolate notes, touch of smoky Scotch character. Light oak. Really really good.”
• Silver Haze, hazy IPA. Collaboration between OSF and Silver Moon Brewing. 7.09% ABV. “Fruity and savory, pretty dead-on for the hazy style with a muddy trub appearance. Tropical fruit notes, and there’s a bit of hop burn.”
• Pulpatine’s Imperial Blood Orange Milkshake Sour: McMenamins Concordia Brewery. 9.5% ABV. “Nose is orange peel/oil. Tart orange with a touch of aspirin. Fruit comes thru pretty well like fresh pressed juice.”
• Ain’t It the Life DIPA: McMenamins Wilsonville Brewery. 8.26% ABV. “Deep malt, pine, forest floor aroma. Grapefruit juice, caramel malt sweetness. Classic pine.”

Of all of these beers, my highest rated was the pFriem Imperial Brown, and I would award that my best overall beer of the fest. However, I also sipped on these beers to varying degrees (with a few notes as I remember them):

• Spellbound, 11% ABV barleywine from Block 15 Brewery, matured in bourbon barrels that also aged maple syrup. It was boozy but there was the start of a vinegar note, almost going in a balsamic direction.
• Matryoshka 2019, 12.75% imperial stout from Fort George Brewery. Quite tasty and sweet, very rich.
• Self Portrait, 8%, DIPA from Great Notion Brewing. I don’t remember much about the flavor but I swear the aroma reminded me of a can of beans.
• Plato, 14%, Belgian-style quad from Silver Moon. Big, fusel alcohols, boozy, lots of malt fruitiness.
• Dr. Dexter’s Sour Gummiberry Juice, 7.61%, collab between OSF and Edgefield. Conditioned on Gummi Bears. Only a tiny sip and it tasted like Jolly Ranchers.
• Cookies and Cream Porter, 9.1%, collab between OSF and Kobold Brewing. Smelled exactly like Oreo cookies which were the inspiration, flavor had less cookie and more coffee and roastiness.
• Cherry Moo-Stacio, 8.39%, collab between OSF and Market of Choice. Smelled and tasted exactly like a spumoni dessert, as advertised, and I don’t know how they did it. Really quite good.
• Black Sea Salt Baltic Porter, 7.8%, collab between OSF and Spider City Brewing. Decent Baltic porter but I couldn’t detect any salt.
• Can I Haz Some Pie? 7.09%, collab between OSF and Trap Door. Infused with blackberries and creamy sweetness, even a taste of some pie crust flavors—quite like pie indeed!

There were definitely some interesting concept beers pouring, in particular the Pie, Cherry Moo-Stacio, and the Cookies and Cream (all OSF collabs) and if I had to pick the best “intent” beer—that is, that best captured the intent or inspiration behind the crazy recipe—then I’d award it to the Cherry Moo-Stacio. Can I Haz Some Pie? would be a close runner-up.

And now, photos: