As you are probably aware (seeing as how you’re a beer geek reading this), there’s a lot going on craft beer-wise in Cascadia during the month of March. Really, there’s always a lot going on here. It seems the fun never ends. Here’s three can’t miss events that we recommend you attend for the love of great beer.

March 13 Double Mountain 3rd Anniversary Party

One of Hood River’s top three best breweries, Double Mountain, has been turning heads and captivating palates big time. Now just three years deep in the game, they’re throwing a blow out not to be skipped. Starting at noon on Saturday March 13 and lasting until 11PM, there will be lots of great DM beer, an array of great live music, and delicious food. All this under a heated tent outside of the brewpub. Read more at our earlier post here. We’ll see you there!

Zwickelmania weekend was awesome! Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to visit every spot that we wanted to. Still, we did hit up some favorites. Here’s what went down:

Heater-Allen at Bailey’s Taproom

One of Oregon’s most anticipated brew events kicks off this Saturday. On February 13, 2010, the second year of Zwickelmania, a celebration of craft beer, gives thirsty beer lovers across Beervana an inside glimpse into daily Oregonian brewhouse operations and even better, provides them with tastes of what we love.

Running from 11 am to 4pm, Zwickelmania, in conjunction with the Oregon Brewers Guild, is a free statewide event that offers visitors a chance to tour Oregon breweries, meet the brewers and sample their favorite beers.

Here’s some highlights of this year’s Zwickelmania that we recommend you check out if you get the chance.

Portland has been blessed by great weather lately considering it’s January! Yesterday, hanging out in the back yard with my friend Dave, I noticed our hellebores had flowered and realized it was the first time I have enjoyed my backyard in some time. As we settled on a few tasty beers a package arrived from Craft Brewers Alliance containing two Red Hook Copperhook Ales. Not a beer I would probably reach for on the shelf, but perfectly quenching on a day such as this. The warm sun felt great on our faces. My cat even enjoyed soaking it in atop our fence. Copperhook has a nice balance of robust maltiness considering its sessionability; coupled with 35 IBUs of hop snap, it was a very nice sunny winter day beer.

A great thing about living in the Pacific Northwest is that with all of the winter rain, you can count on days like this betwixt the grayness. 53 degrees Fahrenheit. Another great beer drinking day.

We opened a bottle of Dominus Vobiscum (Latin for “The Lord Be With You”)Blanche from our friend Marc in Quebec. A great spicy golden-tawny 5% ABV wheat ale that paired perfectly with this afternoon.

It’s great to know the days are gradually growing longer and warmer. West of the Cascades, December showers can bring January flowers.

From my beer fridge I pulled out a bottle of Lake Louie’s Imperial Stout that I purchased when in Wisconsin. Deep, dark, coffee complexity with some mild sour off flavors probably due to age, but enjoyable nonetheless.

My friend Gammet hung out with us and enjoying playing in the grass. After being sick a few weeks ago, he was back to his old self and loving the weather as much as we were.

Being a beer collector, I sometimes find that all I have in the fridge are barleywines, imperial stouts, and sours that I only break out on special occasions. The lighter stuff goes quickly. I found a bottle of homebrew given to me by a friend. Unfortunately I can not remember who gave it to me. Perhaps the bottle cap above will be familiar to that person if they are reading. It was a magnificent imperial stout with a big coffee presence. Thank you to that person!

The sun had to set eventually. Dave left and Gammet and I moved inside. Our friends Ty and Laura came by and shared some great brews with us including a few special beers from Brewdog. The Paradox Smokehead was intensely peaty as the label indicates. 10% ABV. It also was heavily whiskeyed. Can I use whiskey as a verb? Well, I just did. The Chaos Theory was not so chaotic (not compared to Barley Brown’s Chaos or Double Mountain’s Imperial Chaos) but it did have a deep ingredient base for a 7% ABV brew. A little too unbalanced for my liking but hey, I like most beer, so I guess I did like it. Make sense? I’m confusing myself.

All things end with sours. I was anxious to give Cascade’s Sang Rouge another go after uncapping a sample bottle the brewers gave me a few weeks back. Very nice beer. I need to get more stat. I could live off this stuff.

Other delicious beers were enjoyed that I didn’t mention, and it’s too bad, but I didn’t get a picture of the Sang Rouge. Anyhow, I am tired of typing so I will leave you with a few more pictures. Enjoy the sunshine!

Keeping with a somewhat randomness of this post, here’s a video by my friend Stuart Valentine.

The past weekend could have been one of the best beer weekends to date. But to be perfectly honest the memory is a tad jogged. Down at the Holiday Ale Fest in Pioneer Square, it was amazing how many friends and brewquaintences you can run into, and even better, it’s great to meet new people and get their perspective on beer and life (which to us is pretty much synonymous). Laymen and brewers clicked their plastic HAF mugs amidst intermittent roars that rumbled through like “the wave” at a baseball game. As always, it is essential for the craft beer enthusiast to get down under the tents early. In fact, our weekend really started on Wednesday, as the organizers of the HAF did a nice job of preparing for the swarms of festivalgoers by adding this extra day.

Whenever there’s a cool festival in town, the fixture beer outfits around the city step up their game as well offering a great line-up of seasons. Between our few sessions at the Ale Fest, we made a few essential stops to the Horse Brass pub to pull back from the mayhem that would inevitable ensue down at Pioneer Courthouse Square. On Friday we also happened over to New Old Lompoc’s 5th Quadrant SideBar to meet with event staff coordinator Amy Casanova. She and the other nice folks at Lompoc helped Brewpublic raise nearly $800 for start-up community radio station KZME during our Cocoa Hop. We are grateful for Amy and Lompoc’s contribution in this noble cause, and also to all the brewers and chocolaters who gave of themselves, their time, and their products.

While at the 5th Quadrant we witnessed the brewers and Green Bottling put the yummy seasonal C-Son’s Greetings into 22-ounce bombers. We were also reminded of Lompoc’s upcoming 8 Malty Nights event coming up on the 11th to kick off Chanukah.

Further north, we found ourselves over the border in Vancouver, Washington to pick up some essentials at By the Bottle and check out the collaboration brewing of Salmon Creek Brewpub’s owner/brewer Larry Pratt with Seattle brewstar Tom Munoz. Munoz, a former brewer with Silver City teamed up with Pratt to put together a one-of-a-kind pale ale that should be ready to drink at Salmon Creek in a few weeks. See you there!

Later on Friday, we had a blast over at Belmont Station for a meet the brewer night with Bear Republic head brewer Peter Kruger. The Healdsburg, California brewer, we found out, has roots in Oregon brewing. Kruger was one of the early brewers at Full Sail in Hood River. Former Full Sail brewer Charlie Devereux of Double Mountain was on hand to say hello to his old friend and greet him with a growler of DM’s delicious Fa La La La La winter ale.Bear Republic’s delicious array of specialty and mainstay brews were the highlight of the night, and at the front and center was a Clobberskull wine barrel aged strong ale brewed with 10% split peas. Apparently the beer has a great history, and is of a recipe revitalized in Randy Mosher’s pioneering book Radical Brewing.

While at Belmont Station, we also meet with Michael Branes of Migration Brewing, one of Portland’s newest breweries. Branes, who worked for some time at Mountain Peoples Distribution, was join by fellow Mountain People’s Oregon sales manager Tim Ensign, who was pouring samples Bear Republic brews as well.

Saturday, as blogged about earlier found us back under the hearkening tents at 11AM stat for twitterworthy special tappings of select Bear Republic beers like the Trebuchet, a Belgian trippel aged in 100-year-old cognac barrels and two special fruited “The Grizz” super brown ale–one with nectarines and another with blackberries–to accompany the might Old Baba Yaga that was kickin’ ass since Wednesday. The boozier than all ungodly sin Trebuchet was the first thing to hit my stomach on this fair day. A brewer friend said it was too much “nail polish” for him, but to me, I rendered it my breakfast of champions. Several other wonderful beer rounded out my HAF weekend. I have to admit this was the best one yet. In fact, despite others’ gripes, I honestly didn’t experience on dud in the lot.

After escaping the mob scene that was Pioneer Courthouse Square, we trudged off some of the liver burn by hoofing a few miles home to Southeast. We were not extinguished yet. There was still Green Bottling’s holiday party at the cozy Horse Brass. Here, several local brewers raised a tall one to the great year and to Jack and Mike’s successful year of bottling up some of Oregon’s finest like Lompoc, Full Sail, and Laurelwood. After just a few more lighter beers to rehydrate (Full Sail and Sierra Nevada’s Pale Ales), this one was in the bag.

Sunday was relatively mellow, save for a few brews shared with fellow blogger D.A. of Beer Around Town. All said and done, I think I may just hybernate until the ‘10 Barley Wine and Big Beer Fest.

Gol-ly! Just when you thought a beer festival could get no bigger and better, the Holiday Ale Fest continues to wow. Starting a day early this year, many of the real “heads” hit the tents early to get first dibs on a variety of high octane adult beverages brewed with utmost care, many of which were aged to perfection.

The lead dogs at the event Preston Weesner and Chris Crabb have been working diligently for months in preparation to give craft beer lovers a one-of-a-kind experience featuring beers that folks will never see the likes of again…well, until next year.

At Wednesday’s kick-off we were lucky enough to attend a special media tasting that included a sampling of some of the most anticipated offerings at the event. Weesner refrained from delving too far into descriptors, but hearing him speak about beer reveals a man with a true passion much like an accomplished art critic speaks of many masterful works.

Hood River, Oregon – Full Sail Brewing Company is proud to announce the newest beer in their Brewer’s Share line up, “Cölesch,” a Kölsch style beer developed and brewed by Full Sail brewer, Cole Hackbarth. Cole was inspired to brew an easy drinking, light, dry beer as an alternative to the big malt and high hop styles that tend to be brewed this time of year. To put a distinct American spin on this traditional German style, Cole used the new and hard to find Citra hop variety. He single hopped with the Citra for bittering and aroma, and then used a Citra dry-hop during fermentation to add even more hop flavor and aroma. The malt bill includes German Vienna malt and wheat in addition to the pale malt. Both an ale and lager yeast strains were used during a cooler than normal fermentation. ABV 5.6% IBU 41

You are invited to swing by and raise a toast with brewer Cole Hackbarth and the Full Sail Crew to “Meet the Brewer and the Beer” at the Full Sail Tasting Room and Pub in Hood River, on Thursday, December 3rd from 5:00 to 6:30PM or at Full Sail at Riverplace in Portland, Monday, December 7th from 5:00 – 6:30PM. www.fullsailbrewing.com

Hood River, Oregon on the Columbia Gorge was a terrific backdrop for the weekend’s Fresh Hop Tastival. The quaint picturesque town is home to three breweries (Full Sail, Double Mountain, and Big Horse), all of which are at the upper echelon of Oregon’s rich brewing community.   This years hop fest in its 6th year, was the biggest Hood River tastival yet. The organizers of Double Mountain Brewing did a really nice job making sure to include a little something for people of all ages.

Lately our heads are spinning with new beers expand our palates and old seasonals to revisit. As we welcome fall and the cooler darker days ahead, we’ve got a whole heap of sexy malted tipples to turn us on. With still some warmth in the air during the day and a nip at night to foreshadow the wintry months to come, a heterogeneity of brew species rear their heads for more pleasurable possibilities. This, like all things beer, is even more prevalent in the Pacific Northwest where the cup runneth over.

Here’s a look at some of the best new beers we’ve tried recently and strongly recommend:

In the picturesque town of Hood River, Oregon lie three breweries; Full Sail, Double Mountain and the sometimes forgotten about Big Horse. Big Horse started as a restaurant dubbed Horsefeathers and after a few years of being open, the brewery was born and named Big Horse. Having started as a four-barrel system 22 years ago, it has remained that size to this date. Big Horse has an annual capacity of about 350 barrels. While this can be a challenge at times, according to brewer Jason Kahler, he says that as demand increases, the amount of seasonal beers decrease because he just can’t keep up. Jason stated “I try to maintain nine taps, although in the busy summer months it can drop off to five or six with guest taps. One thing you can always count on is the house beers being fresh.”

Kahler has been brewing at Big Horse for over four years and has quite the brewing background. He started as a homebrewer, which led to a position brewing for Fitger’s Brewhouse in Duluth, MN. From there he attended the Seibel Institute in Chicago and moved to Hood River in 2000 to brew for Full Sail. Soon after he was hired on at Walking Man in Stevenson, WA before returning to Hood River to take his current position at Big Horse. Other notable brewers of Big Horse include Craig Nichols of Roots, Tom Nimms of Pyramid, Greg Doss of Wyeast Laboratory and Randy Orzeck Big Horse owner.

With fresh hop beers in season Jason indicated that they are one of his favorite. “This time of year is my Christmas.” he said.  “I’ll make 2 or 3 trips to Yakima every harvest for fresh hops. Vernon the Rabbit Slayer DIPA is probably the most popular beer I brew annually.” Jason still being an avid homebrewer, indicated that “at home however, sours are what I really enjoy brewing. I’ve got quite a collection of funked up kegs and carboys scattered around the homestead.”