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For the second year in a row, the state's largest beer festival has been scrapped.
The Oregon Brewers Festival made the announcement on Facebook late last night, and also deleted its event page.
"This has been an incredibly difficult decision, but we are canceling this summer's festival once again," the post read. "We will return July 27-30, 2022. Until then, stay safe and support your local pubs, breweries, and cider houses."
OBF began in 1988 after Art Larrance, founder of Cascade Brewing, attended Oktoberfest in Munich. That inspired him to re-create a tiny slice of drunken Bavaria in Portland.
In its first year, there were only six breweries in Oregon, but OBF grew into one of the nation's longest-running beer festivals, drawing hundreds of participating businesses and tens of thousands of visitors to Waterfront Park during the last full weekend of July on an annual basis.
Even though some have been optimistic that events will proceed this summer thanks to the rollout of three COVID-19 vaccines, organizers that need months—and often a full year—of planning are being forced to decide whether to pull the plug.
The event joins the Fort Vancouver Fireworks Spectacular as among the first summer gatherings to cancel in 2021. That show—often billed as the largest west of the Mississippi—made the decision not to go forward in early February due to vendor deadlines.