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:

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!

“This is the hour of the Shire-folk, when they arise from their quiet fields, to shake the towers and counsels of the Great.” -Elrond, from Lord of the Rings.

This past weekend Brewpublic made the journey south to Oregon’s second largest city, Eugene. In this “Emerald City” which is home to Oregon’s largest University and the birthplace of Nike, a thriving craft beer community is home to well known hot spots like Ninkasi Brewing, Rogue Track Town Brewery, McMenamin’s High Street Brewpub, and  Oakshire Brewing.

Brewpublic will be heading south this weekend to visit the beer hot spots in Eugene and Corvallis. As expected, the weekend here in Beervana promises a slew of great tasting opportunities that you might regret missing out on. Even if you don’t happen to find a keg much hyped Russian River Pliny the Younger before it blows, you might want to seriously consider making it out for the following pours:

Upright Brewing’s Oyster Stout Release Party

There’s a lot going on at Cascade Brewing these days. Their Raccoon Lodge was recently named as one of the world’s top 50 brewpubs in the world by RateBeer.com (See other breweries’ Northwest’s RateBeer accolades on a post here by Geoff Kaiser of Seattle Beer News). Further, nationally circulated Draft Magazine named Cascade’s Vlad the Impaler as one of the best 25 beers of 2009. Cascade’s Apricot Ale made Draft’s 2008 best of list as well.  On top of all this, the Cascade crew are working vigorously to get a new spacious barrel room and pub open at SE Belmont and 9th. They hope to be open some time this spring. We can’t wait!

Cascade brewmaster Ron Gansberg peruses through Draft Magazine

Hopworks Urban Brewery staff took the plunge to benefit Special Olympics on Saturday.

A team including brewers Ben Love and Speck Speckenbach threw themselves into the icy Columbia River as a part of a fund raiser to raise awareness and funds for the cause.

Following one of the greatest human disasters in the history of our hemisphere, an unbelievable outreach of relief has poured from countless Americans. The efforts are pronounced largely here in Oregon as well. Companies and folks from all walks of life have given to aid the seemingly endless victims afflicted by a devastating 7.0 earthquake that claimed several thousand lives.

Doing their part to help with efforts, Hopworks Urban Brewery announced today that they will donate 20% of all sales between Monday January 25 through Wednesday January 27. According to Hopworks’ Assistant Brewmaster Ben Love, HUB has chosen the following three Northwest non-profit groups to support in their recovery efforts in Haiti:

As always here in Beervana, the weekend was chock full of wonderful brews to enjoy. For us, we were lucky to also enjoy said brews with great folks who live and breathe craft beer here at craft brewing’s epicenter.

The weekend sometimes starts on Thursday (heck, sometimes it never really ends), and this past one was such a doosie.

On Tuesday night Barley Brown’s Brewpub of Baker City, Oregon made a rare appearance in Portland at a meet the brewer event at Belmont Station. Brewer Shawn Kelso and owner Tyler Brown were on hand to share some of their specialty brews from their four-barrel nanobrewery including a two year vertical of the Sled Wreck Winter Ale, an Imperial IPA, and an Imperial uber-hopped Cascadian Dark Ale. Following a successful trip to the Great American Beer Fest that landed Oregon’s Far Eastern pub two medals, the brewery has been making more of a presence in the Rose City. BB’s will also be participating in the forthcoming Holiday Ale Fest during the first weekend in December. Brewpublic was fortunate to sample the five brews available at the Belmont Station event and conduct a brief interview with Shawn Kelso whose passion for his craft and people is far from abstruse.

Two different versions of the Sled Wreck–an ‘08 and an ‘09. The ‘08 has a little bit of American oak character and some bourbon notes. How did this beer change?

Brewpublic has been more on the quaff side of the cup than the pen side recently. Please mind the gap. Too many god damn good beers via friends’ beer swaps or simple good fortune. It really does pay to know a kind person who is completely devout to craft malted bev.

When my brother went to Italy he returned to me a few drinkable brews. A Birrificio Angelo Poretti Bock Chiara Doppio Malto! “Fondato in Italia nel 1877.”