Brewers around Southwest Washington Breweries will team up to provide patrons and beer fans almost 50 events and activities over the course of Northbank Beer Week, but one was arranged specifically to keep brewery staffs from tapping out ahead of the busy week:
Cornhole.
Trap Door Brewing in Uptown played host to the third annual Brewers Cornhole Invitational Tournament, for the third annual iteration of the regional celebration of independent beer.
Sixteen breweries worked through a double-elimination bracket to vie for the trophy, a miniature plank with a hole in it.
“You get to be the Cornholiest,” said Michael Perozzo of Zoom Media, which organized the week’s events, of the winner.
The week’s events range from simple tastings and get-togethers at breweries, to keg bowling or a beer can soapbox car derby, and, yes, tossing bean bags at holes in planks while (maybe) holding a local craft beer in the off-hand.
The week culminates with the Brewing Bridges Collaboration Festival Saturday at Pearson Airfield, where multiple Oregon and Washington brewers team up to share more than 20 beers they collaborated to make, Perozzo said.
But the cornhole is a little something for the brewers, specifically.
“We figured, you know, we have these activities going on, right, and it’s mostly for patrons,” he said. “We thought this is an opportunity for the brewers to have some fun.”
Moreover, it’s a chance to relax and have fun before the bulk of beer week starts. The week’s events kicked off last Thursday.
The cornhole game is also a means for the brewers to hang out with each other, Trap Door General Manager Michael Parsons said.
“I think the brewers in Southwest Washington are unique in that there’s already kind of this close-knit family,” he said. “Everybody knows each other. … Really it’s the whole embodiment of the idea: community over competition.”
Bryan Shull, an owner at Trap Door, said the brewers create gatherings like the cornhole tournament on purpose, as a means to get together.
The results are in the collaboration beers, he said between tourney rounds. All of his peers always seem to be working together on a special run of beer. Whether it’s an issue of equipment or materials, he said he never feels more than two calls away from getting a fellow brewer’s help.
“Everyone’s always working together. Everyone in this parking lot has brewed together in one way or another,” he said, gesturing to his peers.
While there’s been consistent growth in the independent craft brewing business, the good feelings aren’t just a symptom of good times, Shull said.
“At some point there’s going to be too many people in the field, just not yet, and I don’t even see that being a hindrance to our co-opetition,” he said, using his word for cooperating while competing. “It’s not really competition. We’re all trying to keep our doors open.”
