Local Event
2024 Portland Fermentation Festival
Thursday, October 10th 6-9pm
Ecotrust’s Irving Studio Suite on the ground floor
721 NW 9th Ave. Portland, OR
All ages, open to the public, $15 advance, $20 cash at door
Children 12 and younger attend for free
Tickets on sale online, limited cash-only tickets available at door
Festival hashtag #pdxfermentfest
Please join us October 10 for Portland's annual, open-to-the-public, all-ages celebration of fermented food and drink!
Bring kimchi, try kimchi. Bring miso, try miso. Come out for Portland's fermented food and drink skill sharing, recipe sharing and tasting event of the year.
This year, we welcome back the Starter Culture Sharing & Adoption Center. Bring a vinegar, kombucha, sourdough etc. starter, take a starter! We also welcome back our Bacterial Petting Zoo, where newbies to the world of fermentation can familiarize themselves with SCOBYs, cultures and mothers of all types.
We hope that you will come celebrate pickling season with us at the 2024 Portland Fermentation Festival at Ecotrust. Taste and share live, fermented food and drinks made by professionals and home fermentation enthusiasts at the annual fest that was one of our nation's first fermentation festivals. Portland Fermentation Festival inspired Tokyo to start its own annual Fermentation Future Forum in 2017, and Beaverton to start its own in 2018.
Talk to fellow fermenters, exchange cultures and recipes, get advice from local food fermentation enthusiasts, attend fermentation demos, and sample everything from sour pickles, miso and natto, to cheeses, long-fermented breads, hard cider and kombucha.
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 there to sample. 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.
Festival Coverage:
2023 fest -- Portland Mercury story
2023 fest -- photos up on Food Lover's Guide to Portland with keynote speaker Kirsten Shockey, author of several fermentation cookbooks that we adore, including her bestselling Fermented Vegetables
2023 fest -- KBOO interview with Ken Jones
2023 fest -- Willamette Week coverage
2023 fest -- Oregonian coverage
2023 fest -- Eater coverage
2019 fest -- short vid by James Beard Award-winning Mike Truong2019 fest -- photos up on Food Lover's Guide to Portland with keynote speaker David Zilber, formerly from Noma, co-author of The Noma Guide to Fermentation2019 fest -- KBOO interview with Ken Jones
2019 pre-fest June -- Portland Monthly
2019 pre-fest September -- Portland Monthly
2019 fest -- KGW Tonight with Cassidy
2019 fest -- KGW Tonight with Cassidy extended
2019 fest -- Bridgetown Bites fest recap with photos
Cooking Up a Story
About the Portland Fermentation Festival Team:
The Portland Fermentation Festival is organized and run by a team of fermentation enthusiasts also known as the Stinkfest Queens.
Liz Crain is an accomplished author (her latest cookbook -- Fermenter -- co-authored with chef Aaron Adams came out in 2023) and one of the fest's founders. She regularly makes plum wine, miso and kimchi, as well as a rainbow of low- to no-alcohol fizzy ferments and longer duration ferments like Chinese doubanjiang and Japanese shoyu.
Heidi Nestler, CEO of Wanpaku Foods and nutrition instructor at Quest Center for Integrative Health, is one of the nation's handful of artisanal natto-makers. She also enjoys making umeboshi and other traditional Japanese ferments.
Claudia Lucero, cheesemaking book author and CEO of Urban Cheesecraft, is the group's cheese guru. Her DIY Kits, books and classes empower beginners to make their own cheese at home, both dairy and dairy-free. She also tends to an overproducing plum tree that forces her to make umeboshi, wine, vinegar, jam, saladitos, chamoy and more every year. She still hopes to nixtamalize corn someday.
Instagram, Facebook & Twitter @pdxfermentfest #pdxfermentfest