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.

Our friends at Saraveza wanted you to know about the Killingsworth Street St. Patty’s Day Crawl.

Celebrate the luck of the Irish and hit up Killingsworth’s finest! A token buys you green beer, wine or housemade yummy soup at Saraveza. You can also turn your tokens in at the Red Fox (Irish Stew, St. Patty’s Drink Special), Ducketts Public House (Well Cocktail, Draft Beer, Appetizer), Eddie’s Flat Iron Pizza (Draft Beer, Slice of Pizza, House Salad), Hop & Vine (Paddy’s Girl Shot, Guinness, Irish Sausage Roll), Beaterville Bar (Green Salad, Mashed Potatoes & Gravy, Draft Beer), Sagittarius (Chips & Salsa, Draft Beer, Well Cocktail) or Yorgo’s (Hummus Plate, Draft Beer, Well Cocktail).

Purchase your tokens now (or on St Patty’s!) at Saraveza or the Hop & Vine. 5 tokens/$18 or 10 tokens/$30. Killingsworth Crawl Map w/ redeemable items included.

Get your stunt liver primed for this coming Friday and Saturday, March 5 and 6. You’re gonna need it. Lucky Lab is hosting the thirteenth annual Barleywine and Big Beer Festival at their NW Quimby brewpub. The spacious setting is the perfect venue for such an event. In the leading city for craft beer, this brewpub isone of Portland, Oregon’s finest.

A recent tour of the cooler thanks to brewer Ben Flerchinger revealed nearly 60 beers waiting to be tapped. More are still on there way. According to the Lab technician, the average alcohol by volume of all these brews is 9.89%. Hot damn!

Check out the New School blog’s preview and picks for this year’s festival. There’s a list of the beers there, too.

The Barleywine and Big Beer Fest will occur at 1945 NW Quimby in Portland, Oregon.

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

Brewpublic was storming the gates when the good folks at Migration Brewing made their official opening on Wednesday February 24, 2010. Right beside us was Portland Beer and Music’s Jason Wallace for the inaugural pours of Widmer’s Collaborator brew, the Hallucinator (Check out Wallace’s site for a nice write up on Migration and an update from Concordia’s Beer Brawl III). According to Migration brewer Mike Branes, the first brew will be coming sometime next week. It will be dubbed MPA (Migration Pale Ale), and promises to be a crisp, hoppy, and aromatic India Pale Ale somewhere in the ballpark of 5.7% ABV. Branes apprenticed at Barley Johns Brew Pub in Minneapolis, Minnesota before moving to Portland, Oregon, and says the inspiration for his first release comes from Bell’s Two Hearted Ale.

Another weekend has come and gone. This past one involved Spring-like weather in mid-February, something we are lucky to enjoy here in the Pacific Northwest. The cherry trees blossoming and several others budding made it clear that the coldest and darkest days of winter here are finally behind us. This lends itself to better accessibility to better beer. And, as you might expect, we took full advantage of this golden opportunity.

Friday

Friday kicked off with more of the same fantastic weather that would ensue all weekend long. The perennial crocuses made an appearance to soak up the warm sunshine along with a number of other budding plants that had remained dormant all winter. We enjoyed it the same, opening the glass facing on the screen door to let the warmth of this pseudo-spring in.

Last evening the Brewpublic faithful made our way down to the Green Dragon Pub and Bistro to enjoy a variety of hearty nebulous darks from Fort George Brewery and Public House of Astoria. On this night, Fort George co-founder Chris “Nimz” Nemlowill was on hand with his lovely wife Zeddy and the good folks at Mountain Peoples Distributing to share some sumptuous and sought-after stouts. In a sense, the coastal brewery was bringing a little of their Stout Month with them to a thirsty Portland pack. Zeddy runs a coffee shop on Astoria’s Pier 39 (next to Rogue’s Alehouse) known as Coffee Girl. A special Fort George stout of the same name pressed in a wonderful Ethiopian blend. Also, two versions of Fort George’s Cavatica Stout was pouring on this night: one of which was barrel-aged in bourbon casks. Lastly, an oyster stout dubbed the Murky Pearl gave adventurous beer geeks something to discuss and was a highlight of Fort George’s recent Oyster Dinner Pairing. Lisa Morrison, known also as the Beer Goddess, was on hand to enjoy in the tasting and mentioned a special event for female craft beer lovers known as Hoppy Housewives coming up at Fort George on February 20th. During this event Lisa will educate attendees on brewing, cooking with beer, beer pairing, and provide copies of her highly anticipated new beer cookbook. As far as we know, a few tickets for this event are still available but not for long. A great description of last night’s event can be found at Jason Wallace’s Portland Beer and Music Blog, a great read for folks like us who love pairing the two.

We at Brewpublic are delighted to announce that we’ll be on a great new Internet Radio show called Brew Happy today at 2PM. Brew Happy is on PDX.FM, a network of streaming radio and podcast shows based in Portland, Oregon. The network launched in September 2009 and, as of February 2010, has approximately thirty shows that stream live across two channels. Most of the shows premier live on either a daily or weekly schedule, and all but the music shows are available for download from iTunes as well as from the individual shows’ websites within a day of airing.

Brew Happy “airs” every Wednesday at 2PM Pacific Standard Time and older installments can be downloaded from PDX.fm’s site. Hosts Damian DeBrusier and Susanna Parker are on a quest to expand their audiences love and appreciate for brewing and beer culture. Damian is a bartender and Susanna works at Laurelwood. Both bring an interesting dynamic to the show. Past guests thusfar have included Brett Joyce, President of Rogue Ales, Van Havig, Senior Brewer at Portland, Oregon’s Rock Bottom Brewery, and Chris Spollen and Sean Thommen, both brewers at Amnesia Brewing. Today’s show with Brewpublic highlights the greater Oregon craft beer community and discusses some up coming events not to miss. We also promote our friends and sponsors Upright Brewing Company while tasting their Gose and Flora Rustica brews. There’s also a bottle of Cascade Brewing’s Sang Rouge sour blend in the mix. Tune in today and become a sponsor of those who support craft beer in your area. We are happy to say that Brew Happy is the latest sponsor of Brewpublic and we look forward to working with them more in the future! Cheers!

Cascade Brewing’s latest sour blend known as Noyeau was a huge hit at our My Beery Valentine benefit at Saraveza. During Zwickelmania weekend, we go the lowdown on this awesome brew from brewmaster Ron Gansberg.

Cascade Brewing’s Noyeau Blend from Brewpublic.com

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