Happy President’s Day! Might I suggest reading up on how some of our presidents relate to beer? In the meantime here is the latest news in beer from around Oregon for this week of February 20. As usual, I’ll be periodically updating this post throughout the day with the latest news as I find it, so check back often. And if you have news to share, please contact me and I can get that posted as well.

The new Beer Party PDX officially debuts today with their fundraising launch event that takes place at a number of beer bars across the Portland area! “Coinciding with President’s Day, the event on Monday, February 20, 2017 is intended to increase awareness of civil rights issues and will raise money for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). More than 25 breweries and cideries have generously contributed to this event and 100% of the proceeds will be donated to the ACLU.” There has been an online map created of participating locations, which include:

• Baileys Taproom
• Bazi Bierbrasserie
• Belmont Station
• Imperial Bottle Shop & Taproom
• Lombard House
• Roscoe’s
• Saraveza
• The BeerMongers
• The Thirsty Sasquatch (Vancouver)
• The Upper Lip
• Tin Bucket
• Uptown Market

Check the hours of each location as they will vary. Go drink beer for a great cause today!

This Saturday, February 25, the next installment of Zwickelmania takes place—for the rest of Oregon outside of the Portland Metro area. From 11am to 4pm, breweries in Central Oregon, the Columbia Gorge, the Willamette Valley, Southern Oregon, and the Coast will open their doors for special tours and samples and more. Don’t forget your Zwickel Bingo card either!

StormBreaker Brewing (Portland): Their 3rd annual Brewstillery Festival is taking place this Saturday, February 25, featuring beer and booze collaboration pairings: “Breweries and Distilleries teaming up to create the perfect pairings. Each pairing will consist of a 4oz beer pour and a 1/4 oz spirit taste. Only like beer? Then just drink beer. You can pick and choose, although we strongly recommend going for the pairing. Advanced tickets on sale now! $20 for event branded beer tasting glass and 10 tasting tix. VIP is $40 for event branded whiskey glass, event beer tasting glass, 15 tix, and one hour early entry. $25/$45 at the door. Choose wisely.”

Lompoc Brewing (Portland): Their annual Black Out Beer Fest is also taking place this Saturday the 25th. This year they have put their annual Chowder Challenge on hiatus and are focusing on Black Out: “The 5th annual Black Out Beer Fest will take place on Saturday, Feb. 25 from Noon to 10pm at Sidebar, 3901 N Williams Ave, and in the heated & tented parking lot in front of the 5Q. The Black Out Beer Fest will feature 25 rotating dark beers – including porters, stouts, coffee beers and black IPAs – from Lompoc and more than 20 guest breweries from around the Northwest. Admission into the event is free; tasting packages are required to taste the beers and cost $20, which includes a souvenir 15.5 oz glass mug and eight beer tickets. Additional beer tickets are available for $1 apiece. It costs four tickets for a full mug of beer or one ticket for a taste. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Community Transitional School.”

GoodLife Brewing (Bend) has announced the launch of their latest beer series, the Secret Stash Experimental IPA Series, for 2017. From the press release: “With the success of Descender IPA, GoodLife Brewing’s flagship IPA, we are excited to announce the launch of Secret Stash Experimental IPA Series, which is going to be a platform for our brewers to make their imaginations a reality. A new Secret Stash is going to be revealed roughly every 60 days and will be our take on different variations of IPA’s in addition to different hops in each batch. But here’s the catch, each year it will be a different style of beer, so get your IPA fix in 2017 because you’ll have to wait to see what we have in store for 2018’s Secret Stash.” I’ll run the full release in another post.