Here’s the Oregon beer news for Thursday, the 31st—hard to believe it’s the last day of January already! As usual, I’ll be periodically updating this post throughout the day with the latest news as I find it, so check back often. If you have news to share, please contact me and I can get that updated as well.

The Platypus Pub (Bend) is holding their first annual Brewfest tonight in partnership with Columbia Distributing: 15 breweries represented pouring beer, spaced out in 5 groups of 3 over the course of a couple of hours starting at 5pm. There will be a raffle for swag as well. Looks like a cool time in Bend tonight—swing on by!

Also in Bend tonight, the Broken Top Bottle Shop is hosting Eugene’s Ninkasi Brewing for a beer tasting, with an interesting bonus rumor: “Ninkasi Brewing will be pouring tastings of Lady of Avalon, Wheat Wine. Allies Win the War, Renewale Porter, and Renewale ESB. Rumor has it there might be a guest appearance by Jamie Floyd, owner and brewer at Ninkasi… and it’s his birthday!” That runs from 5:30 to 8pm tonight.

The Green Dragon (Portland) is hosting a meet the brewer tonight featuring Portland’s Burnside Brewing, kicking off at 5pm with beers being tapped and the meet-the-brewer-portion starting at 6pm.  As for the beers, they’ll be pouring IPA, Stock Ale ESB, Uni Sea Urchin Ale, and White Out Arctic Barleywine—that’s a great lineup.

The Bier Stein (Eugene) is hosting Corvallis meadmaker Nectar Creek Honeywine for a free tasting today from 7 to 9pm: “Nectar Creek Honeywine is crafting lower alcohol ‘Session’ meads from pure Willamette Valley honey! We will have their Ginger Session mead on draft and they will be here pouring free samples of their bottled lineup and spreading the good word. Cheers!” I like the idea of “session mead”—many meads I’ve tried tend to be upwards of 8-9% abv or higher (indeed more like a honey wine than a beer).