As a beer fan, Portland, Ore., is one of those cities that you just have to visit. These people take their beer very seriously, with about 30 breweries and a ton of beer bars and restaurants that put a real focus on beer. I got to visit Portland last weekend for the Oregon Brewers Festival and, while I did get to sample a few beers, the real focus was on prostate cancer awareness.

Pints for Prostates officially just turned a year old, so there is nothing like celebrating with 70,000 fellow beer fans at a well-run festival like the OBF. Thanks to OBF founder Art Larrance and PR star Chris Crabb, Pints for Prostates had a prime booth location. We had the Willamette River to our backs and we faced 8 beer trailers pouring 80 great beers.

With the help of a bunch of volunteers we staffed the booth for four days during the start of a massive heat wave. Without the generous donation of time by Ridge Taylor, Barron Boyd, Michael Miller, Howard Kaczmarek, Larry Knox, Brooks Rademacher, Ross Peterson and Jack Shaff it would not have been possible to be at the OBF.

Pints for Prostates was able to raise funds for the Us TOO International Prostate Cancer Education and Support Network, a great group that helps guys with prostate cancer and their families. We held a kegerator raffle and Tony Calder from Albequerque, N.M., was the winner. More importantly, we did a good job of raising awareness about prostate cancer. Each day we had people come to the booth with questions and they were able to talk to men who have faced the illness.

Working a beer festival for Pints for Prostates is always an interesting experience. The reaction of people walking by ranges from those who step right up and offer a donation because someone in their lives has been diagnosed with the disease to the people who point and laugh. Amazing as it sounds, it’s that group that I think we do the most good.

My initial reaction at the first couple of beer festivals that I worked to the people who acted like prostate cancer was a joking matter was to wonder if they would react the same way if our booth was raising awareness about breast cancer? I was convinced that would be too politically incorrect for most of them even after they had sampled their way through the festival. But then I realized that we were getting exactly the reaction we wanted from this group of people. They tend to be in their late 20s and early 30s, quite often they are female. They have never been challenged before to think about prostate cancer and now here is this booth in the middle of a beer festival that screams: Pints for Prostates. We want to get noticed and for people to remember the issue after they leave the festival. That’s why we hand out literature and Pints for Prostates stickers. The name of the campaign itself is meant to be remembered long after the beer is gone.

The best moments during these events is when we hear a survivor’s story or someone at risk for the disease because of a family history of prostate cancer tells us they get annual health screenings and PSA exams. We also encounter men and the women in their lives that don’t have all the correct information they need to protect themselves. We make sure that people understand that early detection is the key to beating prostate cancer.

Pints for Prostates plans to keep working beer festivals around the country because of the effectiveness of this outreach effort in reaching men that need information. The pink ribbon campaign has raised awareness among women about breast cancer and saved countless lives. Unfortunately, prostate cancer occupies the same social standing as breast cancer did 30 years ago. This is our little effort to change that and get to the point where the only laughing we’ll hear is from guys that have survived the disease because they got tested early.