This year’s Rendezvous was held again at the Roseburg Rod and Gun Club on May 15 – 17 along the banks of the beautiful North Umpqua River. This year’s theme was Hop Happy Hippies and era appropriate tie-dye clothing was highly encouraged. We even had a mascot (created by Andrea, the spouse of a UVBG member).
A special thanks to our club members, our sponsors, and our close friends within the Hellgate Home Brewers club.
With our Hop Happy Hippies theme, several members gathered to create their own tie-dye attire a couple weeks before the Rendezvous. Lots of fun doing this and we were fortunate that several members had done tie-dye work in their past (we did not ask any further questions about that past). After the various clothing was rinsed, dried, and ready for wear, the club logo was applied to each item by the Flying HJ a great local business owned and operated by disabled veteran women. If you find yourself in our area, and need some quality printing work just contact Jessica at either the [email protected] email or by phone (843) 476-6581
So here’s most of the working crew for the Umpqua Valley Brewers Guild in their Tie Dye and logo’ed creations for Rendezvous 2026!
A large contingent of Hellgate Homebrewers (Grants Pass) attended this year as well as representatives from the Cascade Brewers Society (Eugene), Rogue Valley, and Bear Creek Homebrewers (Medford club)…some of them even sported colorful attire appropriate for this year’s theme.
Setup Friday afternoon went pretty well and Sexy beer night started a little early. In the past we’d sit around the fire and sample interesting, unusual, or “out-of-the-area” beers. This year, we started a little earlier under the pavilion area (while some folks were still setting up) and continued around the fire into the evening.
So the next morning after Sexy Beer Night, we gathered up most of the unique and very special beers we sampled the previous evening (FYI: the bottles were all empty and we only put up the different ones sampled…not all the bottles present and accounted for.)
Breakfast was slated for 8:30-9:30 and although we didn’t get any pictures, everyone seemed to be pretty happy with the options of scrambled eggs, sausage patties, potato patties, toasted English muffins, and sausage gravy (Hiroshi, Mike & Deanna did the cooking for the morning). Thanks to Kasey & Janice (& Umpqua Watersheds) for bringing the very important coffee pot and getting it going!
After breakfast, registration, getting pledge sheet signatures, competition entries, and raffle ticket sales were handled primarily by our Treasurer (Gayla) and her daughter in law (Julia). They were awesome!!! Every registrant got a Rendezvous bottle opener (donated by Scott & Tina), as well as a voting packet which contained 3 different colored bottle caps, 1 cork, and 1 poker chip.
We had an amazing 34 beers entered for the tasting competition. Five wines and nine specialty beverages (ciders, meads, & even a gin) were also entered two alternate competitions (and wonderful tasting experiences).
Jess & Deanna brought a giant Jenga game which proved to be quite popular. The pieces were made by Jess’s shop class student at Yoncalla High School from equipment crates. Also available throughout the weekend was our UVBG logo’d corn hole game.
In the early afternoon, Robin got a surprise birthday cake and a resounding chorus of Happy Birthday from the whole group. And just like in a fairy tale…she got her long-time birthday gift wish from Ronnie. Yes, of course it was a pair of old trapper’s snowshoes! Who could want anything more?
Through mid-morning and afternoon everyone was busy tasting, comparing, discussing, stacking wood, and voting for their favorite beverages as well as looking at the various silent auction items and large number of raffle prize bags.
At about 3 pm we started the raffle drawing and closed the competition voting. Silent auction item bidding was closed later. Thanks to our generous sponsors (Hops Direct, 5 Start Chemicals, and Northern Brewer) and club members, the raffle gift bags were bursting full and we had lots of fun items for the silent auction. Final raffle prize was our wonderful puppet mascot.
Dinner got started as Robert pulled out briskets and chicken from the BeerBQ. Lots of helpers available to plate and layout all the potluck items. Mike got his yard-wide wok out to do a veggie stir fry for the group. Plenty of delicious side dishes and home made breads to fill our tummies. Of course, tasty desserts were there to test our spandex waistbands.
We had our fabulous local band (Coleen & Company) entertain us from 6 to 8 as we all settled in for a pleasant evening. At the break, the competition winners were announced and presented their medals.
Beer Awards:
1 – Dan (Hellgate) for his Maibock (right)
2 – Josh & Sara (Hellgate)for their Belgium Hoppy Tripple (left)
3 – La’Ken (Hellgate—Laura Lynn, Ken Stiles, & Ken Staton) Hazelnut Brown (sorta center is Laura Lynn)
Wine Awards:
1 – Max (Hellgate) Pear wine (right)
2 – Robin (UVBG) Plum wine (center)
3 – Ronnie (UVBG) Peach wine (left)
Special Category Awards
1 – Josh (Medford) Gin (back row)
2 – Austin & Max (Hellgate) Blueberry Swirl cider (left & center)
3 – Deanna (UVBG) Blueberry Jalapeño cider (right)
In the silent auction, Mandy won a pretty nice poster of classic beer styles.
And Coleen & Company played on to welcome the last evening of the Rendezvous.
Justin & Nick from Beverage Hunters spent all day with us Saturday, filming and tasting our various offerings. They have put together their comments for the day and the event in several parts so we’ll just put the link below for the first in the Rendezvous series.
