Here’s the news in Oregon beer for Tuesday, December 6th. Apropos of nothing, today is Saint Nicholas Day, which is a great reason to enjoy a holiday beer (as if you needed a reason!). I’ll be updating news throughout the day, so contact me if you have something to share that you’d like to see posted.

Amnesia Brewing (Portland) is bringing back their Winter Ale Fest this year (via the New School): This Saturday, December 10th, from noon to 10pm and features 11 or so beers, three from Amnesia and the rest are guest beers. The lineup looks impressive, and the pricing is pretty standard: “$20= Winter Fest glass mug and 10 tickets, $1= ticket, 2 tickets= 1/2 mug, 4 tickets= full mug.”

BridgePort Brewing (Portland) posted a couple of announcements on Facebook: “Starting in January, BridgePort will be selling a variety pack called the “Beervana Brewer’s Box” featuring 3 bottles each of IPA, Hop Czar, Kingpin and a seasonal beer (changing each quarter). In conjunction with the variety pack, BridgePort will launch “Dark Rain” – a black pale ale – as their winter seasonal.” So they’re moving to a four-variety pack similar to what Ninkasi has been doing for a while (though on a different scale); and a “Black Pale Ale” is an interesting choice, as opposed to a full-on CDA (or Black IPA).

Lompoc Brewing (Portland) is holding a Meet the Brewer event at Belmont Station tonight from 6 to 8pm: “Dave “the Flemator” Fleming will be here pouring C’sons Greetings, C-Note, Proleteriat Red, and as a special treat, Bourbon barrel aged Old Tavern Rat. We’ll have a limited amount of Old Tavern Rat bottles for sale. The bottles have a beautiful label featuring John Foyston’s touching portrait of the late Don Younger.”

Hop Valley Brewing (Springfield) just brewed their 420th batch of beer, and the Bier Stein in Eugene will be tapping this rare beer this Friday the 9th, at 4:20pm. It’s befitting that a brewery located in the Eugene area would brew this: “Hop Valley just brewed their 420th batch of beer, to celebrate this milestone they brewed a very small batch of beer with toasted hemp seeds! If that wasn’t cool enough they cask conditioned it in a firkin! We will be tapping this super limited firkin @ 4:20pm this Friday the 9th. This will be your only opportunity to try this delectable treat!”

Hopworks Urban Brewery (Portland): Don’t forget (as mentioned yesterday) that HUB is having the release party for their Noggin Floggin Barleywine today starting at 6pm. Noggin Floggin is 11% abv and in addtional there will be 2009 and 2010 barrel-aged vintages on hand for a vertical sampling.

The Bier Stein (Eugene) has a beer sampling event this Thursday the 8th featuring Redmond’s Cascade Lakes Brewing: “Join us this Thursday from 6-9pm for a Beer trivia and sampling event w/ Cascade Lakes Brewing Company! Scott will be here pouring FREE samples of Cascade Lakes full bottle line-up, we will also have two small batch beers on draft, and Scott will be throwing down some beer trivia for prizes!”

Silver Moon Brewing (Bend): Their “Growler Power Hour” this week ($5 growler fills from 4 to 5pm, Tuesday through Friday) are Hop Knob IPA and Bridge Creek Pilsner.

The Brew Shop (Bend) is hosting a Ninkasi tasting event on Wednesday the 7th, from 4 to 6:30pm. If it’s similar to past tasting events then there will likely be a couple of Ninkasi draft specials on tap in the Platypus Pub to accompany the tasting (though I don’t know for sure).

Bend Brewing (Bend): Tonight is Local’s Night, which means $2.75 pints from 4pm to closing, and half-price appetizers from 4 to 6 and 9 to closing. Current seasonals on tap are Vanilla Porter (nitro), Scarlet Imperial Red, Ching Ching, Sexi Mexi and Axe Head Red.

Cascade Brewing (Portland): Tonight is their Tap It Tuesday, starting at 6pm: “Plum Rye, a red rye that was barrel aged for 11 months, then aged on Italian plums. Rich notes of dark plums, rye and dark caramels greet you in the nose. Dark dried plums and fruit on the palate lead to sweet, dry plum notes in the finish with hints or smoke and peat late.”