Central Oregon Beer Week

May 23-31, 2014 is Central Oregon Beer Week this year, opening with a SMaSH beer event at McMenamins, a Brewfest at Sunriver to close it out, and 9 days of beer events in between. Full disclosure: I'm one of the volunteer organizers of COBW.

I've read some references to out-of-town BAs visiting, so I wanted to see who all is planning on checking it out. I'm planning to be at as many events as I can, so if you're in Bend/Prineville/Redmond/Sisters/Sunriver at the end of this month, watch out!

 

- On the 23rd is our SMaSH Fest, 17* SMaSH beers from Central Oregon breweries at McMenamins. Individual beer details are at centraloregonbeerweek.com, but we've got beers with experimental hops, a couple of breweries are using Mosaics, so it's no "Oh, this is what Fuggles or taste like by themselves" type thing; breweries are bringing their A-game.

*Boneyard's beer has a little bit of a second malt, so it's technically a "DMaSH" and not eligible for the People's Choice award, but we thought people would prefer to have their beer at the event rather than exclude it.

- Sunday at Lava Lanes bowling alley will have the Beer Angels collab beer (Orange Belgian) along with karaoke.

- Monday's event at Silver Moon will have a special coffee stout and beer ice cream from Addy Mac's.

Broken Top Bottle Shop has bands and tastings every night of COBW.

 

http://centraloregonbeerweek.com/

 

We're trying to promote everything equally, but I can see how that makes it hard to predict which event have the highest beer geek appeal vs. more general/casual fan appeal. For Memorial Day weekend, the SMaSH fest is definitely my recommendation: the McMenamins grounds are a great setting, and those guys have proven they know how to run an event. It's also where you're likely to find the most "not found anywhere else" beers of the week in one place. Stuff is still getting lined up too, so I may have some more recommendations and unoffical bottle shares, etc. when we see each other.

 

A couple questions for you guys:

1. What events from other beer weeks were your favorites? I think we've got a good roster of different events, but I'm not above looting others' good ideas, either for this year if we can swing it or to make next year better.

2. Is anyone bothered by non-local breweries as part of a beer weeks' events, or is more breweries/beers always better?

 

Just got some beer info for the Silver Moon event on Monday:

› IPA
› ISR
› Chocolate Orange Bourbon Stout
› Pils
› Get Sum
› Porter
› Get Sum Lemon Haze(lemon & dry hopped Get Sum)
› Aaron's Hawaiian Universe(Galaxy Dry Hopped Maui)
› Nelson Spacefish Rye IPA
› Bourbon Demo Man (2013 barrel aged strong ale)
› 2013 Rum barrel aged Conquistador (A Mexican inspired imperial brown aged in a rum Cask with chocolate and chilies)

If you're unfamiliar with Silver Moon, this would be a great introduction. Bourbon Demolition Man is miserable though, don't bother ordering it, just leave it for me...

 

They've spiffed up the place, now it's only a partial hole tavern.