Happy Cinco de Mayo—a day celebrating the Mexican victory of the Battle of Puebla which of course has been largely co-opted as a drinking holiday here in the U.S. Watch for various Cinco de Mayo events today, including Salem’s Cinco de Micro Brewfest which continues through Saturday. Here’s the Oregon news roundup for this first weekend in May. As usual, I’ll be periodically updating this post throughout the day with the latest news, so check back often. If you have news to share, please contact me and I can get that posted as well.

Friday, 5/5

Gigantic Brewing is celebrating their fifth anniversary today, on the 5th appropriately enough, with a big party of beer and music at Star Theater in Portland starting at 7pm. The show at Star Theater (13 NW 6th Ave) on Friday May 5th features local favorites Y La Bamba, Wooden Indian Burial Ground, bed. and The Comfy Boyz. Tickets are just $15 advance and are available now. Gigantic was founded in SE Portland in 2012 with one mission: to make delicious beer. Gigantic labels feature original art created by artists from around the world. Recently the brewery also started pairing songs with their beers, including a free download on each seasonal beer label. This 5th anniversary show features bands that have or will appear on Gigantic seasonal beer releases.” Big congratulations to Gigantic on the milestone!

Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider (Portland) is celebrating Cinco de Mayo with a ¡Tepache y Tamales! Bottleshare starting at 4pm: “Celebrate the return of Tepache season and Cinco de Mayo at my ¡Tepache y Tamales! bottleshare! The idea is a beer bottleshare to try lots of different beers mixed with Tepache. To participate you MUST bring a beer to share! A beer and $15 gets you: A pineapple hand stamp; 5oz commemorative glass; All the Tepache you can mix/drink; One tamale, additional tamales $5; and All the chips and salsa you can eat.”

Bend’s Boneyard Beer is also celebrating an anniversary today, their seventh! “Seven years ago today, Boneyard Beer was started with one goal in mind – to make great beer. 7 years later, we’re having the time of our fucking lives! Cheers to all you Boneheads out there for making our 7 years in business so damn rad and for all the support along the way! As a THANK YOU to our loyal customers, we’re doing $7 fills of RPM IPA today in the taproom.” Irreverent and under the radar but huge! Congrats to Boneyard on seven years!

Breakside Brewery collaborated with Washington’s new Grains of Wrath and today they are releasing that beer, Jerry Bears IPA: “Part of Breakside Brewery’s “Seeker” series of regional IPAs, Jerry Bears is our interpretation of the gloriously rich and intense IPAs from the Upper Midwest. Fans of Fat Head’s, Founders, Surly, and Three Floyds will rejoice at this aggressive IPA featuring Simcoe, Citra, Columbus, and Nelson Sauvin. Who better to brew this beer with than Mike Hunsaker and Owen Lamb of Grains of Wrath. Former Fat Head’s brewers, they are two of our closest friends in the industry, great brewers, and generally awesome guys. We’ve collaborated with them before on some of our favorite beers in recent years, such as Pulp Free and Juggling Plums Gose. The beer is draft only and will be served exclusively at our Slabtown brewpub.”

Other Cinco de Mayo happenings:

• Beergarden in Eugene
• Fat Head’s in Portland
• Rock Bottom Brewery in Portland
• Bend Brewing Company
• Three Mugs Brewing in Hillsboro

Great Notion Brewing (Portland): Their latest crowler release is featuring Strawberry Shortcake: “Strawberry Shortcake Crowler Release Day. 2 per person. 250 Crowlers total. Strawberry Shortcake is a tart ale made with Oregon strawberries. This is the strawberry version of our Zest Berliner Weisse series, the twin sister to Blueberry Muffin!”

Plank Town Brewing (Springfield) is doing a beer tasting at Corvallis Brewing Supply from 3 to 6pm: “Plank Town will be visiting from Springfield to bring us some of their tasty brews. Their brews are just as spectaclar as their craftmanship in their resturant and brewery and some of you may know the fellow who brews their beer!”

Saturday, 5/6

Saturday is National Homebrew Day and the American Homebrew Association promotes the day as the Big Brew Day—encouraging homebrewers to register their brew day events and invite friends to check out what brewing your own beer is all about. I like how the AHA suggested some official recipes to get started, too. If you’re interested make sure to find an event near you and check it out!

Portland’s Stammtisch is celebrating their third anniversary and their Maifest on Saturday. “We wil be celebrating our 3rd Anniversary on Saturday, May 6th by hosting Maifest, the traditional German celebration welcoming the spring season with activities like decorating a maypole in vibrant colors, drinking maibock beers and eating copious amounts of German food. Staying true to tradition, we have imported several special Maibock beers from Germany—which are lighter than bock beers and brewed for Maifest—for the occasion, featuring beers from renowned breweries: Hofbräu, Hacker-Pschorr, Andechs, Einbecker and Ayinger.”

Coalition Brewing (Portland) is re-opening their tasting room and celebrating The Beastie Boys on Saturday: “We can’t wait any longer–the change in weather is not taking no for an answer! Coalition Brewing re-opens our brewrey tasting room May 6th! We will be celebrating the 25th Anniversary Beastie Boys Check Your Head albulm release in addition to their 5 year induction to the Hall of Fame! Coalition will be raffling off Beastie Boys Vinyl and be providing you with fresh beats, beers, slices from our friends at HOTLIPS Pizza and lawn games throughout the day! In observance of this we will also have specials on Dropping Science Bottles and Pints.”

It’s the 2017 Hellshire Day and Barrel-Aged Beer Festival at Oakshire Brewing Saturday! “Our annual celebration of the intangible magic that happens inside the barrel is one the highlights of our year at Oakshire. Not only do we get to share Hellshire VII for the first time and other special barrel-aged beers from our own library, but we also offer 40+ rare barrel-aged beers from across the country. Many of our guest breweries are otherwise not available for sale in Oregon, which makes this a festival not be be missed!”

Sunday 5/7

FredFest returns! Hair of the Dog Brewing hosts this annual event which takes place Sunday from 2 to 6pm: “FredFest is a celebration of Fred Eckhardt’s life and his role in Beer culture as we know it today. Tickets are $85 and include a commemorative glass and an endless beer food buffet. This year we will have more types of Beer from each Brewer, participating Brewers already committed this year include Block 15, Boneyard, Holy Mountain, Rubens Brew and Hair of the Dog. 100% of FredFest ticket sales go to our charities; Hair of the Dog covers all expenses for the event, so we encourage you to pay more than the suggested ticket price.” Tickets are only available at the door—any that remain—and you can view the beer list pouring on HotD’s event page.