Last week’s 2024 Portland Fermentation Festival at Ecotrust was so much fun! We filled the ground level Irving Street Studio space with our ferments, our curiosity, our hugs and laughter. It was so good to come together to celebrate, learn about and sample all things funky and fermented.
If you were a part in any way — thank you so much! Stinkfest has always been for the people by the people. There was a lot that made this year stand out, including the special Dillon T. Pickle (of the Portland Pickles) appearance, all of the incredibly informative demos throughout the night, dozens of wild and super flavorful special samples from the pro and amateur makers themselves, a special Japanese hakko bon odori dance and you. You made it special as an attendee.
I highly recommend checking out this radio spot that we did for OPB’s Think Out Loud with host Dave Miller pre-fest. It really gets to the heart and soul of the fest. And, if you’re feeling nostalgic, at the end of the post I’ve included links to recaps of every stinking one of our Stinkfests. Pretty fun to scroll through photos of those way-back-when ones.
This year we welcomed back the Starter Barter & Adoption Center where fest attendees bring a SCOBY, take a SCOBY, bring water kefir grains, take water kefir grains! I brought a bunch of my personal vinegar and kombucha SCOBYS, plus water kefir grains, all bagged up along with printed up recipes and info. plus Fermenter postcards. I co-authored Fermenter with Aaron Adams in fall 2023.
This year we also welcomed back the Bacterial Petting Zoo, helmed by the lovely Heather Arndt Anderson and conceived and organized by Claudia! Words simply do not do it justice. Scroll down to see the fizzy and fermenty critters.
Thank you to everyone who came out for our 2024 STINKFEST and made it so special and fun! We are incredibly grateful to everyone who makes our festival so fantastic year after year, including our host with the very most, Ecotrust. We couldn't do it without them. We love, love, love Ecotrust and their non-profit mission. Others who make our festival thrive year after year include our wonderful exhibitors, demo'rs, kick-ass volunteers and local media folks who always help us get the word out. And you! Our fest attendees are the very best. Photographic evidence below :)
In terms of social media, we have our fest Instagram + Facebook if you want to see more, and/or post or repost something. On social media please consider adding the hashtag #pdxfermentfest to any of your festival photos or vids. We’d love to see them.
And, once more, here’s a reminder of why we do what we do straight from our press release: The Portland Fermentation Festival is, and always has been, a non-commercial event. Once you purchase your ticket and enter the festival you will not be sold to. The wide array of food and drink ferments are not for sale, they are for sampling. The mission of festival has always been firmly rooted in no sales. Our one-night annual event fosters learning, connecting, communicating and celebrating fermentation with one another. We believe that transactional interactions often get in the way of that.
Ok, without further ado, some 2024 festival photos! Stay stinky! XOXOXO
P.S. I’m not giving photo credits here. Please just know that I took most of them and there are a few additional photos by Claudia Lucero and others.
Year after stinky year, artist Tim Root makes us the most amazing Stinkfest posters. “Keep honk’n I’m ferment’n"!” Thank you, Tim!!
We always get a really big and lovely crowd for our annual fest. This year we sold out in the AM day-of. I snapped this in the Ecotrust lobby at ticketing shortly after we opened the doors. Thank you to all who came out AND of our amazing ticketing table volunteers! Pictured here = Jonathan, Michelle and Loly. Later shifts ticketing table volunteer superstars not pictured here = Phoenix, Nancy and Ryan.
The Starter Barter & Adoption Center getting nice and stocked up with all sorts of cultures — water kefir, vinegar, kombucha, sourdough starter and more — before the doors opened.
I always try to incubate and bag up a bunch of starters for the fest. They naturally reproduce, of course, but I fill jars with the primary intention to feed and grow them for fun fest folks.
Yuri Migaki and Maki at the always incredible Jorinji Miso table. They brought soooo many different delicious samples this year including, of course, Jorinji’s tasty organic and non-GMO misos, their amazakes, and special for this year all sorts of tasty treats made with their onion koji. YUM!
Another fest tried-and-true, Nat West, REVEREND Nat West! Nat is running for City Council District #2 and he has my vote. 100%. I’m excited to see all that he does in our newly revamped City Council once elected this fall. Please vote! AND Nat sampled, as usual, a really gutsy and new-to-him, and most of us, ferment — chicken wing garum. Over the years , in addition to sampling his hard ciders (he owned Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider for many years) he’s also fermented up small batches of everything from kumis (Mongolian milk wine), chicha (a Latin American chewed and spit fermented corn beverage), makgeolli (Korean slightly effervescent rice wine), and his Angel of Death hard cider (cultured and flavored by fermented lamb leg) to share with fest-goers. We don’t give out Stinkfest awards but if we did Nat would certainly get the Longtime Fest Spirit Award. We love Nat.
Earnest Migaki of Jorinji Miso sampling Nat’s chicken wing garum right before we opened the doors. It was really nice that exhibitors got set up a little bit early this year, so that we could all visit with each other a bit, and sample each other’s ferments, before things got wild and busy. We have such a great community of exhibitors who Stinkfest it up year after year. It’s always a festive reunion feel as we all load in and set-up.
Fest co-organizer, Heidi, snapped this photo of Nat at load-in. He had everything for the fest this year — including his table — all folded up and packed onto his bike.
And then the crowd! We never get the best count — since kids 12 and younger get in for free and we also invite a lot of grocery buyers and media in gratis — but we’ll call our sold out 2024 fest about 500 fun ones. We have the best community! There was no talk or panel this year, which was nice for a bit more leisurely conversation. The tasting never felt rushed and everyone got to really connect and settle in to the night. I talked to people who traveled to the fest from near (Hood River, Ashland, Eugene) and as far as Boise, Idaho and Barbados.
Brian Shaw and his son, Jude, came into town from Hood River, as they always do, to sample up their Oregon Brineworks DELICIOUSNESS! Love that it was Jude’s second year in a row helping his Pops out at the tasting table. A true rainbow of incredible fermenty flavors.
Lovely Sash Sunday, of OlyKraut, also always travels to Portland for Stinkfest. She’s based in Olympia but right before the fest she was in Oaxaca, Mexico representing the US at their Oaxacan Fermentation Festival!! Also in attendance at that Oaxacan fest was David Zilber, who spoke at our 2019 Portland Fermentation Fest when he was promoting his The Noma Guide to Fermentation. Everything Sash ferments is so super-duper tasty. Another fest favorite.
Sash tabled right next to the Camellia Grove Kombucha folks and they were busy all night pouring their yummmmmy and award winning kombuchas. They said that they couldn’t pour enough of their Meadow kombucha fermented with chamomile, rose and linden flowers. Everyone was thirsty for it, including these two kiddos.
A little closer :)
Stinkfest Queen and co-organizer, Heidi Nestler, and her son, Ranmu, sampled out all sorts of Wanpaku Natto treats. I got to try the refried pinto bean natto, in the next photo, and LOVED it!!
A really sweet photo of Heidi and Ranmu that fest friend Kyoko Shinohara snapped. Thank you, Kyoko XOXO
In the adjoining fest room — right off of the tasting hall — fest-goers got to stop by the Bacterial Petting Zoo! This station is the brilliant brainchild of fest co-organizer, Claudia Lucero. You can get up close and personal with all the microscopic critters responsible (along with us bigger human critters) for fermentation. It's a place to touch, sniff and ogle all sorts of cool food and drink fermentation cultures.
Some of the petting zoo beasties!
Our fest friend, Heather Arndt Anderson, overseeing the Bacterial Petting Zoo, with all sorts of fermentation wisdom. Here she’s showing a fest-goer how to stir and activate the biofilm of Japanese natto.
In the same room we had demos throughout the night including this 6:30pm one with Ryan Knowles of Vtopian Artisan Cheeses and The Realm Refillery all about how to make your own fermented cashew-base for all sorts of plant-based cheeses and sauces. Demos are a really great way to get armed with all of the info. you need to head home and DIY some ferments. They are all really empowering.
This year we welcomed back Mihoko Okamura (on the left) and her Bon Dance Picnic (they’re on Istagram) dancer friends. They did a really fun and inclusive traditional Japanese hakko bon odori dance…
And a bunch of fest folks joined and danced with them. This dance was toward the end of the night when the crowd had significantly thinned. So fun!
Mihoko also brought bottles of her Paradise Yeast (born in Fukushima before the earthquake, brought to Kanagawa, Japan to Paradise Alley Bread and combined with a 3+ million year-old Russian yeast) to share. I have one of the bottles of it in my garage fridge now that I am excited to use to make some hard cider with. That’s what Mihoko recommends using it for.
AND Mihoko brought some of her home-fermented nukazuke! She also gets the Portland Fermentation Festival Fest Spirit Award 2024. So sweet.
Fest-goers always spend a lot of time at the Jorinji Miso table because they always bring such an array of their Japanese fermented deliciousness. This year was no different. Did you try their onion koji potato soup? It was so yummy. I was starting to lose my voice a little bit from talking to so many folks, when the fest was at its most packed and loud, and Earnest and Yuri’s magical onion koji potato soup saved me. It brought my voice right back! Delicious.
Yes, please!
Jimbo and I poured various Fizzy Lizzie Water Kefirs throughout the night. That’s just a fun name that I came up with for my DIY amateur fruited water kefirs that I make from all sorts of homemade syrups and shrubs. They are so fun and easy to make. It usually takes just a few days start to finish. I gave out recipes of my own and pointed folks to the Fermenter cookbook (and its water kefir recipe) that chef Aaron Adams and I did together that published in 2023. Jimbo and I poured my blackberry pear-ginger water kefir (blackberries from Sauvie Island and Bartletts from my frontyard tree), my raspberry orange-grapefruit water kefir (made from grapefruit and oranges from my Mom and Don’s Mesa, AZ backyard trees), my fruit punch water kefir (fermented with everything from spicy strawberry and blueberry, to pomegranate shrubs and syrups). Claudia snapped this photo of the apple of my eye — Jimbo. I wish I’d also gotten one with the two of us, but this one is great. Also, I chimed in about using leftover fruits on the Thanksgiving table for DIY fruited water kefirs for this Redfin article if you’re interested: Creative Thanksgiving Leftover Recipes | Rent.
Vtopian Artisan Cheeses’ Ryan Knowles and Kaylee before serving up hundreds of samples of their incredibly tasty plant-based cheeses. I had some of their butter as well as the brie and was really happy to table next to them because I got treats. Really special cheeses.
Vtopian’s bloomy rind cashew aged Brie. Mmmmmmmmmm!
Claudia always designs and prints a bunch of great fest signs that she puts up throughout the event space. This one lists everyone on it who tabled at the fest. Unfortunately Choi’s Kimchi and Careen Stoll didn’t make it this year, but all the others here were sampling and festing it up. And, Taelyn Lang is owner and fermenter of Tortuga Gordo fermented hot sauces. Ok, photos of more of our beautiful exbitors…
New to the fest this year were Matt Kedzie (pictured here) and Zena Walas (sadly not pictured here, she wasn’t at the table when I was in their zone snapping photos) of Starter Bread in St. Johns. I hope that they come back every year. Their slow-fermented breads are so, so good. They do weekly sourdough bread subscriptions!
Starter Bread thing of beauty. Sourdough samples.
Also new this year, Chant Choi of Deulpul Kimchi vegan and GF kimchi. His kimchis (and chili oil) were so good I came back for more MORE than once. Really sweet and fun. Come back forevermore, Chant!
On the other side of the tasting hall was sweetest Claudia Lucero, Stinkfest Queen and owner of Urban Cheesecraft. Claudia poured out samples of her lovely spiced whey horchata (check out her Cooking with Whey book!) throughout the night. I might have had more than one of this too…
And, note Claudia’s PICKLE PIN!
My sweet friend + fest friend Loly Leblanc made a bunch of pickle pins for us this year. She and my friend Phoenix Rath have been doing this sort of pickle pin, barrette, necklace, etc., fun for many years. Fest spirit! Thank you, Loly!
Back to demos! At 7:30 Sarah Mooney, pictured here, demoed xinochondros — a Crete/Greek ferment made with soured milk (usually got or sheep milk) and coarsely ground wheat. I really wish I could have attended that one. I stopped by a few times and love all the note-taking and questions folks were asking.
Sarah mid-xinochondros-demo.
Back in the tasting hall I got to catch up for a bit with longtime fest exhibitor Karel Vitek. I hope that you got to try his Stinging Kombucha fermented hot sauces because they are so complex and bright and full of life. Just like Karel!
The Obon crew putting together their koji tofu flavor bombs that they torched before serving to bring out even more umami. UMAMIIII! So goooooood! And so glad that they came out to fest it up the night before Jason and Humi’s early AM flight to Spain. It was really fun doing a KOIN AM Extra segment with Jason and Humi the week before the fest to shout out Stinkfest. Check it out if you didn’t get to see it. We talk all about their amazing ferments.
Stinkfest is all about community and we LOVE how close Obon + Jorinji are. I snapped this early in the night before we opened the doors.
Aaaaaand had to get a shot of the whole Jorinji crew at their table too. The best. XOXO
I’m not sure what year SakeOne joined the Stinkfest fun but it was a while back. They always bring a bunch of special pours for the fest. Which sake was your favorite that they poured this year? Hard to choose…
We love Sascha Archer and her gorgeous + delicious Sauvie Island Shrubs. She always brings such a special array of the shrubs as well as other tasty bevvies made with them. Here’s Sydney pouring…
An array of them for lucky fest-goers. Rainbow of Sauvie Island Shrubs!
New to the fest this year, were Brian and Kristina Wood of Bigfoot Hard Cider. I got to try a few of their yummy ciders including a very special, under the table pre-fest pour of an experimental FRUITY PEBBLES hard cider. Mind blown. So fun. Come back next year!
The last but not least demo of the night was the Fermentista Sarah Pesout and her easy to prep and ferment kraut at 8:30pm. It was packed and I bet more than a few attendees went home post-fest and tried their hand at her recipe. Sarah is really good at breaking all the steps down in a way that’s super DIY-friendly.
We love Taelyn Lang of Tortuga Gordo hot sauces! I got to try all of them, including his brand-spanking new small-batch Sunshine hot sauce. It was full of carrots and chiles and even though the sun had set an hour before or so I tried it, it was like sunrise inside. Bright, beautiful and I love it.
Mmmmm!
I’m so glad that Bert from Earth’s Robert Schmitt came to Stinkfest it up with us for the first time this year. His fermented hot sauces were pouring freely all night and they were delicious. And, HOT! Please come back next year, Bert!
And, to end where it sort of began = my car all packed up on fest-day afternoon and ready to head down to Ecotrust for yet another stinky, community-full, wild, funky and fun Portland Fermentation Festival. We love you! We hope you had as much fun as we did. We all make this Stinkfest what it is collectively, year after year. The best Stinkfest in the Pacific Northwest! We can definitely claim that ;)