The 2024 Portland Fermentation Festival Is Almost Here

Kimchi from the 2019 Portland Fermentation Festival in Portland, Oregon. — Kimchi from 2019’s Portland Fermentation Festival.

I was happy to learn that the 2024 Portland Fermentation Fest is back this October, offering all sorts of wonderfully fizzy, funky, and stinky food and drink, all thanks to friendly bacteria and their metabolic partying. Think yogurt, sauerkraut, kombucha, pickles, tempeh, and more, all beautifully featured right here in Portland. It’s pickling and preserving season, too, so this is a great time to learn about this form of food preservation, or grow your appreciation of it further. Note: As of the afternoon of October 10, tickets are sold out.

On Past Portland Fermentation Festivals

The last time I was at the Portland Fermentation Festival, it was 2019—their 10th anniversary (here’s my recap). I was looking forward to the following year’s event, but as you know, the arrival COVID—a nasty virus—cut those dreams short, and the festival went on forced hiatus for three years. The festival organizers—Liz Crain, Claudia Lucero, and Heidi Nestler—brought it back in 2023, and it was a great success.

In short, “Last year’s Stinkfest really felt like a reunion fest, with super special honorary guest speaker Kirsten Shockey traveling up for it all the way from southern Oregon,” proclaimed the organizers.

This Year’s Stinkfest

This year’s Festival, lovingly called “Stinkfest,” is on Thursday, October 10 from 6pm to 9pm. It will be back at NW Portland’s Ecotrust building, in the Irving Studio Suite there on the ground floor. It is an all-ages event, a chance to immerse yourself in Portland’s fermented food and drink skill sharing, recipe sharing, and tasting event of the year.

More specifically, here is what you’ll get to experience at Stinkfest:

Starter Culture Sharing & Adoption Center: Bring a vinegar mother, a kombucha SCOBY, a sourdough starter, etc. and take a starter in exchange. As Liz says over on Instagram, “Grab these mothers/starter cultures/SCOBYS in little baggies and more, to take home with [you,] gratis.”
Bacterial Petting Zoo: Newbies to the world of fermentation can familiarize themselves with SCOBYs, cultures, and mothers of all types.
Taste and share live, fermented foods, and drinks made by professionals and home fermentation enthusiasts. Sample everything from sour pickles, miso, and natto, to cheeses, long-fermented breads, hard cider, and kombucha.
Connect with your people! Talk to fellow fermenters, exchange cultures and recipes, and get advice from local food fermentation enthusiasts.
Attend fermentation demos.

Fun facts: The Portland Fermentation Festival was one of the very first fermentation festivals in the U.S. It also inspired Tokyo to start its own annual Fermentation Future Forum in 2017, and Beaverton to start its own fermentation festival in 2018.

This Is a Non-Commercial Event

From the Festival organizers: “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 the festival has always been firmly rooted in no sales.”

They add, “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.”

So head over to the Ecotrust building on the evening of October 10 to learn about and enjoy the wonderful world of fermented food. See you there!

The poster for the 2024 Portland Fermentation Festival in Portland, Oregon.

2024 Portland Fermentation Festival
Thursday, October 10, 2024
6pm to 9pm
Ecotrust Building, Irving Studio Suite (on the ground floor)
721 NW 9th Avenue, Portland
Tickets: $15 advance, $20 cash at door; children 12 and younger attend for free
Buy tickets here—~~cash-only tickets available at door, but they are limited~~. Again, tickets are sold out as of the afternoon of October 10.
Portland Fermentation Festival website | Instagram

Updated October 10, 2024.