Two breweries from the far reaches of Eastern Oregon to showcase some of the state’s best beer for the BrewPubliCrawl.

Oregon’s easternmost brewery and purveyor of monstrously hoppy brews, Beer Valley Brewing will be on hand for Brewpublic’s March 20th BrewPubliCrawl. Not only will founder-brewer Pete Ricks be on hand for the event at The BeerMongers, he will also be pouring two brand new Beer Valley exclusives: the Rosebud IPA and a special one-of-a-kind never seen before blend. The Rosebud is Ricks’ first anointed India Pale Ale despite his beers’ affinity for muscular hop bittering and titanic malt character (see: Black Flag Imperial Stout, Leafer Madness Imperial Pale Ale, Highway to Ale Barleywine). For a hint as to what the special blend might be we looked to Beer Valley’s website. However, nothing is confirmed except this new blend will be there and will be electric. These beers will be making their way from Ontario, Oregon, nearly 400 miles, and six hours drive to Portland.

Walkabout Brewing located in Central Point, Oregon, just north of Medford and Ashland is a beer that rarely makes its way to Portland. In fact, it was some years back that kegs would occasionally be available in the Northwestern corner of the state at places like the Horse Brass Pub. More recently, we at Brewpublic brought a few kegs north for our 1st Brewniversary/KillerBeerFest last October. The heartily hopped Red Back IPA quickly emptied at Saraveza while the Jabberwocky Strong Ale was a hit at Bailey’s Taproom.

This elusive microbrewery run by Australian native Ross Litton, a friendly man with a big passion for bold beer recipes, recently put its Worker’s Pale Ale in 22 ounce bottles. Assisted by Green Bottling, a Portland-based contract mobile bottling company based in Portland, 240 cases of the Pale are now in bottles. However, it is not likely that Portlanders will have the beer brought north since the small brewery is focusing on their local beer market nearly 300 miles to the south. The good news is, travelers and passersby will have access to smaller quantities of this dialed brewery’s beers without having to commit to a whole keg. We think we’ll have to make another road trip to Southern Oregon soon.

(l to r): Caldera founder Jim Mills, Walkabout founder Ross Litton, and Caldera brewmaster Trevor Kemp.

Reviewing our tasting notes of Walkabout’s Worker’s Pale, we found the amber bodied brew to possess a thick white head and a lot of citrus hops character indicative of the Pacific Northwest and with enough caramel malt presence to balance. If you get a chance, don’t miss out.

After three days of bottling, Cascade Brewing at the Raccoon Lodge have completed filling 675 cases of their Kriek. This sour cherry ale offers a rich, lush, fruity nose and lactic tart mildly creamy refreshing flavor to match. Brewmaster Ron Gansberg says of this oak barrel-aged and carefully blended brew “Much like the Apricot (Ale), the Kriek offers a lot more of the fruit essence than the previous year’s. I think we really did it with this one.” And he’s right. There isn’t anything to critique about this particular brew. Gansberg adds “It will be interesting to see how this beer develops with age.”

From the horse’s mouth. Hood River, Oregon…today!:

Matt has made a tradition of “loading the taps” for our Anniversary Parties. This year’s team is 15 strong:

As you probably know from reading here, Saturday March 20 is the BrewPubliCrawl, a showcase of great beer bars and craft top Pacific Northwest brewers. At the SE Division Street debut, one of the most anticipated breweries will be local favorites, Hopworks Urban Brewery (HUB). HUB assistant brewmaster Ben Love just informed us that his brewery will be debuting a special new lager at BrewPubliCrawl. For those about to bock, we salute you!

More from HUB:

Beginning March 20, 2010, Oregon Beer Odyssey (OBO) will offer classes, tastings, and events designed to promote beer appreciation and education. Classes will be held at sites around Portland, including notable bottle shops such as The Hop and Vine, the Wine and Spirit Archive, Saraveza, Bailey’s Taproom and The Beer Mongers.

In March and April, class topics will include Oregon Beer Odyssey’s signature, introductory class Tasting and Talking About Beer, and one entitled Great Beers of the Northwest.  Future classes will include style-specific workshops and overview courses on the great beers of Belgium, Germany, England, Scandinavia, and Italy. Oregon Beer Odyssey’s full class schedule is available on its website (www.oregonbeerodyssey.com) and on Facebook.

Have you heard the news from Cascade Brewing? They’ve been bottling a deeply complex new Kriek. Plus, we’ve sampled brewmaster Ron Gansberg’s hops shoots that were harvested recently this late winter.

Fill up the car, grease your liver correctly and be prepared for the Extreme Beer Fest (EBF), managed by the Beer Advocate (respect beer). It was my third participation in this event.

Sometimes we can forget how freakin’ cool it is to have a Deschutes Brewpub in downtown Portland. Not long ago, you’d have to make the three hour trek out to Bend to get your paws on some of the exclusives that are now just a hop, skip, and a jump away. Even better, too, is that now that there are more locations, this means more tasty one-off Deschutes’ brews in general.

This week, as usual, we rolled into Deschutes Portland and were gladdened by the presence of some interesting new brews.