Welcome to Monday, the first of June! I hope everyone had a great weekend (I did, hanging out selling books with Brian Yaeger) and is ready for the start of a new week and month! And here’s the news kicking it off; as usual, I’ll be periodically updating this post throughout the day with the latest news as I find it, so check back often. And if you have news to share, please contact me and I can get that posted as well.

Eugene Beer Week starts today! This year is the 5th edition of Eugene’s week of beer, running through Sunday, June 7. Highlights of the week include Beers Made By Walking on Thursday the 4th, the Sasquatch Brew Fest on Saturday the 6th, a week of great events at The Bier Stein, and much more! I’ll have a list of all the happenings for each day (below the fold).

Bailey’s Taproom (Portland) has a special tasting of Stillwater Artisanal Ales today at the Upper Lip from 4 to 10pm: “Come join us at The Upper Lip as we showcase six of our favorite Stillwater Artisinal beers for your imbibing pleasure. Draft List: Mono, Stereo, Surround, Of Love & Regret, Smoke Signals (w/ Siren Craft Brewery), and When The Light Gose Out (w/ Siren Craft Brewery)”

Coming up later this month, in addition to Eugene Beer Week going on now, are Portland Beer Week (June 11-21) and Medford Beer Week (June 12-20)—this is the month for beer weeks! I’ll be posting about the various events going on for each of those but right now here are a few that should be on your radar: the Rye Beer Fest in Portland on June 12, the Portland Fruit Beer Fest on the weekend of June 12-14, the Medford Beer Week kickoff party on June 12, and the Southern Oregon Craft Brew Festival on June 20.

Here’s a rundown of the events for the day for Eugene Beer Week:

• The Bier Stein is hosting “Beer Family Feud” starting at 7pm: “On the first day of Eugene Beer Week, we will be whooping it up at our fourth Beer Family Feud. Featuring the ever-classy Ty Connor as our own, less gropey Richard Dawkins, and our bartender-for-life Malachi Oliver as the human buzzer, two teams comprised of Eugene-area brewers will try to come up with the most popular answers to our survey questions. Who will win? Survey Says…”
• The Tap and Growler all week long has a blind tasting for the Best Hoppy Brew: “All Lane County breweries will be able to submit a hoppy brew for this week long blind taste off. There were 12 local entries in this open to the public week long blind taste-off last year and at least that many are expected this year.”
• Falling Sky Brewing is serving up a “Cloudy Beer Flight” all day today: “Try a flight of cloudy beers with different adjuncts: Wheat, Rye, Spelt and Oats. All made with the same Bavarian Hefe strain.” Great idea!
• Ninkasi Brewing has the release party for their Wünderbier summer seasonal at their tasting room on Van Buren today, with 25% of all pint sales going to Cascadia Wildlands.
• And Party Downtown is hosting a “Brewer’s Choice” beer dinner with Ninkasi today at 6:30pm, five courses with beer pairings for $60.
• 16 Tons Cafe is hosting the Beer Week kickoff and first anniversary celebration of the Eugene Ale Trail today from 5 to 8pm.
• The Market of Choice store on Willamette will be hosting Redmond’s Wild Ride Brewing for a tasting from 4 to 6pm.
• Hop Valley Brewing has beer releases and live music tonight from 6:3o to 8:30pm: “We will be releasing new beers to celebrate the 2015 beer week – come join us for Monday Madness with discounted pints and live music at the Tasting Room. Americana/folk band Daniel & The Blonde with special guest on banjo!”
• Bigfoot Beverages will be holding a tap takeover at First National Taphouse from 6 to 9pm.

Ecliptic Brewing (Portland): Their new Sagittarius B2N beer they brewed with Dogfish Head is heading to the distributor (Bigfoot) today, so bottles will be showing up on shelves soon. The quick story behind the beer: “A Saison brewed with Hibiscus, Grapefruit, and Lemon Juice and dry hopped with Amarillo hops. The genesis of this collaboration was sparked when friend and Dogfish head founder, Sam Calagione sold our John Harris the brewhouse that Ecliptic uses today. We offer this special beer in celebration.” They brewed this in April during the CBC.

Brannon’s Pub & Brewery (Beaverton): They are prepping their first barrel-aged beer to be released soon: “Kegging off our first barrel aged beer, the Deputation Imperial Red aged in a James Oliver Rye Whiskey barrel! Look for it the New School’s New Brewery Festival at Bailey’s Taproom, the Rye Beer Festival at East Burn, and of course at the brewery! Cheers!”

Today is apparently the 17th anniversary of Baker City’s Barley Brown’s! And that means special beer! “Each year we release a beer to celebrate with and our 17th Anniversary Beer is another batch of Don Vanuchi “The Killer” Imperial Stout! It’s on tap at both the Brewpub, and the brewery taphouse. We’ll be shipping kegs of it out to our distributors this week.” Big congrats!