Here is the news in Oregon beer for Tuesday, the 24th of February. As usual, I’ll be periodically updating this post throughout the day, so check back often for the latest news. And if you have news to share, please contact me and I can get that posted as well.

Brannon’s Pub & Brewery (Beaverton): One of the state’s newest brewpubs has a new release tapping party tonight from 7 to 9pm, featuring Reynard Belgian IPA. “This beer is our first collaboration! We brewed this beer with Culmination Brewery Company. Stop by Tuesday night Feb 24th from 7-9 PM, you will be able to enjoy our newest beer, and visit with the brewers who made it. Our Brewmaster Devin Benware and Culmination’s Founder Tomas Sluiter will both be here for the tapping party. In celebration of our newest beer we will be offering $1.00 off a pint of Reynard during this tapping party.”

Last night the Willamette Week‘s inaugural Oregon Beer Awards was held in Portland, an industry event supporting the launch of the alt-weekly’s 2015 Portland Beer Guide hitting the stands tomorrow, issuing a number of awards in a variety of categories including Best New Brewery, Best Beer Bar, Best Beer Festival, and more. The New School has a writeup with a bit of the background and listing the top 3 winners in each category, and Brewpublic has one as well with more commentary as well as a list of all the nominees in each category not just the winners. Congrats to all who won!

Deschutes Brewery (Bend) garnered a number of awards themselves at this year’s International Brewing Awards that took place in England: 4 gold, 2 silver, 3 bronze. You can see the overall results here (MS Word doc); though I should point out that Deschutes is apparently the only Oregon brewery to win any awards, so I don’t know if that means they were the only ones to sent any beer, or what exactly. (In other words, your mileage may vary.) But congrats to Deschutes on the wins!

Full Sail Brewing (Hood River): John Foyston reports today on some huge news coming out of Hood River: Full Sail employee/owners will vote on merger with investment group. “Full Sail CEO Irene Firmat and Executive Brewmaster Jamie Emmerson announced today that the 80 or so current and former employee owners of Full Sail Brewing will vote by early March on a possible merger with an investment group called Oregon Craft Brewers Co. Financial details of the deal remain confidential, but if approved, the merger would happen in mid-March and would mean a substantial chunk of money for employees who’ve been with the company for a long time, plus the brewery would retain the Full Sail name. Oregon Craft Brewers Co. includes local investors and the San Francisco-based Encore Consumer Capital.” (Contrast with other recent brewing industry financial choices.) Go read the full article, it’s good.

Oakshire Brewing (Eugene) is teaming up with Portland-based Lardo for some barrel-aged goodness this Friday: “Starting this Friday {2/27}, Oakshire Brewing and Lardo restaurants are offering a Barrel-Aged Beer Passport opportunity. Each Lardo location will offer one of three extremely limited Oakshire barrel-aged beer: Barrel-Aged Barley Wine, Barrel-Aged Perfect storm, and Barrel-Aged Ill Tempered Gnome. Collect a passport stamp of all three beers from the Lardo locations, and they’ll throw you a free order of Dirty Frys. Boom. The event ends when the first keg blows, which will likely be pretty darned soon. You should probably consider stopping by early!” Sounds like a mini Ale Trail adventure!

Worthy Brewing (Bend) has a new beer on: “Bellissima IPA is the newest on tap in the Heart and Soul Series! This single hop IPA was brewed with Belma, a new, wild hop from Washington. Get some while you can!” That “wild hop” designation intrigues me.

Stickmen Brewing (Lake Oswego) has new beer out as well: “Last week Madame Molly our Irish Red came back on for the spring. This traditional example of the style comes in at 5.9% ABV and 23 IBU’s. This week we have just released a new dry-hopped pale ale called Tessellation. It is a pungent pale ale brewed with Cascade, Centennial, and Mosaic hops. It has big aromas of citrus and tropical fruit with a piney finish. This one is 6.0% ABV and 47 IBU’s.”