Here’s the Oregon beer news for Thursday, the 29th of August. As usual, I’ll be periodically updating this post throughout the day, so check back often for the latest news. If you have news to share, please contact me and I can get that posted as well.

This Saturday the Portland U-Brew & Pub is having a Fresh Hop Harvest & Brewing Party all day from 11:30 to 8pm, taking a page (sort of) from the Lucky Lab’s hop harvest: “We will be harvesting 6 hop plants that we grew out back (donated from Papa Paul). Also we will be harvesting John Foyston’s hops from his back yard. Come smell the freshness!” That could be a fun event and I’ll bet Foyston (the Oregonian’s freelance beer writer) will be on hand as well!

The Bier Stein (Eugene) is tapping a special firkin of Sierra Nevada Brewing’s Southern Hemisphere Harvest Ale today starting at 5pm: “It’s brewed with all New Zealand hops, freshly picked and dried– bittered with Southern Cross, finished with Pacifica, Motueka, and Southern Cross.  We’ll also be tapping their early fall seasonal, Tumbler Brown Ale, and Beer Camp’s Imperial Red Ale.”

The Growler Guys (Bend) is hosting Widmer Brothers Brewing for a special meet the brewer event at their east Bend location today from 4 to 7pm. The brewers will be on hand pouring Widmer’s Alchemy, Pitch Black IPA, Pomegranate Hefeweizen, Hopside Down and Okto, and you’ll be able to fill up your growlers with them too.

Boneyard Beer (Bend) was the subject of a long writeup by the New School earlier this week, chock full of good information about their impending expansion finally underway, the change in their original plans regarding canning beer (the canning line was in fact sold to GoodLife Brewing), and more. It’s a great read so don’t miss it if you haven’t read it already.

Mazama Brewing (Corvallis): Today they are releasing their new Pyroclastic Porter, starting at 5:30 in their taproom and offering up specials on glasses and growler fills of the new beer. They also have some food specials on hand, Mazama Chili made with the Porter and Pyroclastic Porter ice cream floats.

Smith Rock Brewing (Redmond): One of the area’s newest breweries will be brewing up a fresh hop beer: “Brewing for Sisters Fresh Hop Festival this week. Using hops from Tumalo Hops Company and some of our own. Straight off the vine and into the kettle…it doesn’t get fresher than that.” Tumalo Hops is the only commercial hop company in Central Oregon (I think) so it doesn’t get much more local than that!

Gigantic Brewing (Portland) has fresh hops on the plate, as well: “We headed out to Sodbuster Farms in the Willamette valley to get freshly picked, wet Simcoe hops for this years beer.” Nice pictures for sure; that’s a lot of hops!

Hop Valley Brewing (Springfield) has a new beer release tomorrow (Friday the 30th), Golden Gun Pale Ale: “This English Style pale ale is more malt forward than its American counterpart. It features imported Malt from Scotland and hops from the Whitbred region work together to create a malt profile reminiscent of graham crackers with a classic English hop bite that can come across as spicy or currant-like.” It’s the first in their Orbiter Pale Ale series, but I can’t help think this is James Bond reference (The Man with the Golden Gun) being English style and all.