There’s a new feature at the 77th Annual Banks BBQ Truck & Tractor Pull this year: A custom lager made by Forest Grove’s Ridgewalker Brewing.
The Head Hitter Lager ($10 for a pint can) may be made by a Forest Grove company (and actually brewed in Tigard) but it’s unmistakably an homage to Banks and the famous BBQ weekend.
The can is emblazoned with two combines—Duyck Dynasty and the football helmeted Banks Braves machine—and a Sunset Park sign reading “Third Weekend in August.”
The text scrawled across it proclaims “Banks BBQ Truck & Tractor Pull.”
“We came together with the Banks community and decided to brew a special Head Hitter Lager for this weekend’s festivities,” said Ridgewalker owner Jeff Farrar.
“This is a light, basic, crisp Mexican lager,” Farrar said. “I would say it has just a little bit more flavor than a traditional Coors Light,” he said, describing it as having more sweetness and body to it. Also being served at their table was Ridgewalker’s flagship Hazewalker IPA.
(To verify the accuracy of his reporting, this journalist is currently sitting in the beer garden at the BBQ while drinking a can, for research purposes only, of course. I’m not much of a beer drinker, nor a great describer of beer, so all I can say is I found it refreshing and would happily drink another.)
If you want to try it, come down to the BBQ – you won’t see it again after this weekend, Farrar said.
But if you do miss it, you might just find a new beer from the brewery at the 78th Annual Banks BBQ celebrating Banks.
Chas Hundley is the editor of the Banks Post and sister news publications the Gales Creek Journal and the Salmonberry Magazine. He grew up in Gales Creek and has a cat.
