Three powdery inches of snow rested on Stark Street on a not-quite-winter's night, covering the road from one end of Portland to another and making Google Maps routes across town go red. And yet, there was the busy doorstep of Belmont Station. Braving the weather, the pFriem Family Brewers team burst in to the half-full bar to the relief of co-owner Lisa Morrison.
"Let's get you guys beers!" she said. "Then get down to business."
The business was the arrival of the Fermentis Trophy from the Brussels Beer Challenge, honoring pFriem's Super Saison, this year's lone American victor. Not bad for a little Belgian-style brewery from Hood River. Ceremony founder Luc De Raedemaeker himself hand-carried the trophy all the way from Belgium. He wasn't about to let a little snow stop him now.
—David Greenwald