Part 5 - Zwickelmania & KLCC Festival in Eugene, OR - Hop Valley
by Bob
Hop Valley Brewing
In neighboring Springfield is the newest brewery, Hop Valley Brewing, which opened about a year ago. This brewery is close to Interstate 5 and is surrounded by business hotels and casual restaurants. Actually, Hop Valley is located in a building that used to be a German restaurant, and before that it housed Ninkasi's first brewery. Most of the space inside is taken up by large main dining area and a smaller bar area. The dining section has some booths and a lot of tables and is in a fairly generic style. Decorating the walls are historic black and white photos of hop cultivation, i.e., growing, picking, and packaging hops, etc. (Hops were once grown commercially in this area, possibly even at this exact location.)
The brewery itself is along one side of the building and separated from the restaurant and bar by a solid interior wall, and is only visible from the several large windows on the exterior wall facing the parking lot.
There were no free samples, but we grabbed a couple of pints in the bar. Shortly an assistant brewer led a group of us on a tour, starting with the brewing tanks which are sandwiched in a fairly narrow corridor between interior and exterior walls. But this part of the brewery does have generous natural lighting provided by several large windows. Walking away from these tanks, we encountered four fermentation tanks and nestled between the legs of two of these we found two sealed oak barrels with beer aging inside.
After a few more samples, we followed a group of fellow zwickelmaniacs outside to wait for the last shuttle run of the day. (By this time, we had tossed the now useless schedule aside, trusting instead in the inherent righteousness of our quest.) Lo and behold, a bus cometh!
