The annual celebration of Central Oregon beer returns this Friday, May 19, to run ten days through Memorial Day weekend. Central Oregon Beer Week‘s 2017 edition features beer releases, anniversary parties, tasting specials, beer dinners, and more. A few highlights:

• The signature SMaSH Fest (Single Malt and Single Hop) takes place on Saturday, May 27, and is once again hosted by McMenamins Old St. Francis School. $25 admission gets you the commemorative pint glass plus 12 taster tickets (good for four ounce pours) to sample the various SMaSH beers crafted up by Central Oregon’s brewers. There’s a people’s choice voting opportunity too, and the winner will brew up next year’s official COBW beer. (Buy tickets online here.)
• Last year’s people’s choice SMaSH winner was Bend Brewing Company with their Razz Tafari sour ale. This year they brewed up COBW IPA (Annex), 7% abv with 70 IBUs.
• Broken Top Bottle Shop once again has the marathon events schedule for the entire ten days, featuring multiple brewery beer tastings and live music starting at 5pm every day for their signature Beer Geek Week.
• There are a couple of anniversaries: Wild Ride Brewing in Redmond celebrates their third anniversary on the 20th, and Immersion Brewing celebrates their first on Memorial Day weekend.
• Crux Fermentation Project hosts the Central Oregon Brewers Guild Olympics on Saturday the 20th, which promises “up to 10 local brewery teams competing in games such as yeast balloon toss, spent grain relay, cheap beer toss, jockey box assembly and others.”

The full schedule is on the website and is up to date. Plan accordingly—there’s a lot of beer over those ten days!