Happy 10/11/12 day! Here’s the Oregon beer news for Thursday, the 11th of October. As usual, I’ll be periodically updating this post throughout the day, so check back often for the latest news. And if you have news to share, please contact me and I can get it posted as well.

Today is the first day of the Great American Beer Festival, where pretty much everybody has descended on Denver for the next few days, including many of our fine Oregon breweries. I posted a list of the Oregon attendees here, and I’ll be keeping on eye on Saturday’s awards ceremonies to see who brings home medals.

The Bier Stein (Eugene) is hosting Carlton’s Fire Mountain Brew House today for a tasting and meet the brewer, from 6 to 9pm. “Fire Mountain Brew House may be located in Oregon Wine Country, but they are hand-crafting some deliciously admirable ales! Brewmaster Henry Gorgas uses only the finest ingredients and brews with care and pride. Be the 1st to try this years version of Hangman Winter ale and enjoy 2 brews on draft. Marcus will be here from the brewery pouring Free Samples of their full lineup!”

The Green Dragon (Portland) is featuring California’s Moylan’s Brewery tonight for a meet the brewer and tasting starting at 5pm. Beers featured will be Nor-Cal IPA, Moylander Double IPA, Hopsickle Triple IPA, and Hop Craic XXXX IPA—see a theme?

Boneyard Beer (Bend) had a very cool Facebook update the other day: “We were asked to brew a special brew for the Horse Brass 36th Anniversary on Nov 1st. Today we did just that. Its a strong Pale Ale. Still need a name! Brass knuckles or Horse-Bone? Ideas welcome.” There are of course a ton of comments on that post suggesting possible names.

Natian Brewery (Portland) is expanding! Their new 10bbl brewing system arrived today; they’ve been documenting arrival of components of the system over on their Facebook page recently which is going to be quite a step up for them. Here’s a pic of their old system to put it in perspective; I think that’s a one barrel system, but it’s hard to judge without a person in the picture to scale, though it also looks like it could be a fancy homebrew setup!

McMenamins is getting all set to release their October/Halloween seasonal, Black Widow Porter: “October 15th is the official release day and it will pour at least until Halloween but if you just can’t wait until monday we have a few pre-release events that will be right up your alley!”  Those pre-releases (for Oregon) are at the Edgefield in Troutdale today in a meet the brewer and tasting starting at 5pm, and tomorrow (and the rest of the weekend) at the Thompson Brewery & Public House in Salem—where the recipe originated!—with both the pre-release tasting and five other special beers on tap as well: “To celebrate the release of the 2012 Black Widow, brewer Jennifer Kent will present guests with a special taster tray of Black Widow Porter and 5 other seasonal beers for $7.50.”