For the perfect beer and food pairing, look no farther than your child’s Halloween candy. Hoppy Holidays is the theme of this year’s beer appreciation for women class at Fort George Brewery, an official Barley’s Angels event. Your guide, Lisa Morrison, is known around the globe as, The Beer Goddess. Lisa will share her knowledge, and several specialty beers from a variety of breweries plus elegant holiday appetizer pairings on Saturday October 15th 2-4 p.m. in our Lovell Building production brewery, adjacent to the Tap Room. The cost is $30 and we encourage you to register now as the event fills quickly, either in person at Fort George or at our online store.
By the way, the Tap Room will be open during the event (a great place for the men to hang out) and John Foyston’s art show immediately follows.
Lisa is host and producer of “Beer O’Clock!,” the Pacific Northwest’s only weekly, hour-long on-air radio show devoted to craft beer — heard Saturdays 3-4 p.m. on 101 FM in Portland as well as about 10 other stations throughout Oregon. It is also livestreamed at the same time and available in podcasts 24/7 on KXL.com and in podcast on iTunes.
Lisa recently released her first book, Craft Beers of the Pacific Northwest: A Beer-Lover’s Guide to Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, to high critical acclaim. She also was one of 40 contributing writers for an internationally published book, “1001 Beers to Taste Before You Die,” which was released in the United States in 2010.
Lisa is a regular columnist for the nationally distributed publications Beer Advocate and Celebrator Beer News and is the first and only female contributor to “Beer Talk” in the national magazine, All About Beer. She writes the “Beers to Your Health” column and contributes other articles for the regional publication Northwest Brewing News. She also frequently contributes to other publications, including Beer Northwest, Nightclub and Bar Magazine, The New Brewer, Zymurgy and Brew Your Own.
Lisa was chosen as one of the three original recipients — and the first female recipient — of the national Beer Journalism Awards, presented by the Brewers Association, for a column she wrote about the benefits and traditions of serving beer instead of wine at the Thanksgiving table.
Lisa loves to share her passion for beer with others. She conducts numerous classes about beer in hopes of reaching out to more potential craft beer fans. For example, she presented a seminar on pairing beer with food for the national convention of the Women’s Chefs and Restaurateurs Association, and she held a similar demonstration at the Mondial de la Biere festival in Montreal, Canada. Additionally, she has been teaching Beer 101 classes for women (traditionally not beer drinkers) in and around Portland for more than a decade.
As a way to give back to the beer community and raise awareness about craft beer within the general public, Lisa organizes a number of nonprofit beer-related events, including the annual FredFest, a beer tasting for the octogenarian Portland-based beer writer, Fred Eckhard. In the past six years, the event has raised more than $50,000 for local charities.
When she is not writing or talking about beer, Lisa and her husband, Mark, enjoy traveling with their Samoyed dog, Yeti — if for no other reason than to be reminded that there’s “no better beer than here.”
Portland beer journalist, John Foyston, will have his oil paintings on display in our taproom during Hoppy Holidays and will be having an artist’s reception following the event.
