We’re halfway through the week and approaching the Labor Day weekend—do you have weekend plans nailed down yet? Perhaps the Oregon beer news will help you find something. 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.

It’s definitely a McMenamins type of day today, as today is their 4th Annual “Running of The Brewers” day to brew up their Thundercone Ale: “Today is Thundercone Day which means all McMenamins Breweries and brewery personnel are involved in one thing: Making sure those fresh Cascade Hop Cones that just came off the field get into batches of Thundercone Fresh Hop Ale ASAP.”

And the fresh hop updates are rolling in from the various McMenamins locations: at the Thompson Brewery in Salem, today’s Thundercone is their 3000th batch of beer, quite a milestone! And Thundercone brewing is underway at the Old St. Francis School the Lighthouse Brewpub (Old St. Francis has their hops on the way!), John Barleycorn’s, the Crystal Hotel brewery, and I’m sure many more as the day goes on. It’s definitely going to be lupulin-y at the McMenamins breweries today!

Yes, I said it was a “McMenamins day” today, because there are (at least) two other tasting events going on today: At Old St. Francis School in Bend there is a special dry hopped cask of Copper Moon being released at 5pm: “Make sure to come and get one more Copper Moon before the Summer has officially ended. This year’s Pale has a bit more malt quality and hop character than most other summer seasonals, giving rise to a refreshing, flavorful beer style that we like to identify as a Summer Pale Ale. Pouring on the Firkin keg for just one night, this is a once-in-a-summer type of experience. The flavorsome yet summery smooth sweetness is highlighted by the style of this pour. Plus a heaping amount of Centennial hops added as a dry hop in the keg gives a hop flavor and aroma that is undeniably dazzling with citrus, floral and slightly spicy olfactory experience. There’s a Copper Moon risin’ again this summer across McMenamins, make sure that you check it out. Especially in the Firkin.”

Over at the Cornelius Pass Roadhouse in Hillsboro, today is their Hopfest Roadhouse Beer Invitational from 6 to 9pm tonight featuring samples of “small-batch beer from McMenamins Cornelius Pass, Thompson, Vancouver on the Columbia, and Old St. Francis breweries.” The four beers for sampling are Stingerhead, Hop Lobster Red, Vulcan Black IPA, and Hop Island ISA and they all sound like a nice hoppy end-of-summer kick.

Worthy Brewing (Bend) now has cans of their beer on sale! You can pick up their Worthy Pale and Easy Day Kolsch at their pub in six-packs (for $9), and I saw singles of the Pale (I think it was) at Bend’s Brew Shop the other day. Keep an eye out for them!

1188 Brewing (John Day) is getting ready to open! Tonight they are having a soft opening for vendors, and they indicate that they will be opening this Friday at 4pm. In only a week they’ll have knocked Bend’s new Oblivion Brewing off the top of the list for newest Oregon brewery!

Coalition Brewing (Portland) has their fresh hop beer in the kettle today, with a fun plan: “Today we are brewing our first batch of this year’s Green Pig fresh hop! We are going to have two batches this year, each one with hops exclusively from two different farms… should make for a delicious comparison!” I like the idea of being able to try the same beer differentiated by different fresh hops side by side—one to look for.