Welcome to the new week—the final week of February! Here’s the Oregon beer news for this Monday, February 26 and the week. 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 too.

Kobold Brewing (Bend) has a new release going on tap at The Vault Taphouse in Redmond today, according to the email newsletter: “This Mug Club Monday will be a new beer release day! Come enjoy Kobold Bohemian Pilsner; a nice easy drinking pilsner with complex bread and spice notes. At 4.8 ABV have a couple.” Kobold is largely known for big bold beers, as well as barrel aged specialties, so a Pilsner is notable and worth checking out.

Lucky Labrador Brewing (Portland) is hosting their 21st annual Barleywine Festival this weekend, Friday and Saturday, March 2 and 3. It’s taking place at the Beer Hall in northwest Portland. From the press release: “This is one of the longest running barleywine festivals in the world. The impressive festival line-up includes over 70 barleywines. Twenty taps will rotate new and vintage barleywines throughout the weekend. Barleywine is a beer with a significant malt character and an alcohol level from about 8-10% ABV (alcohol by volume.) Colors range from amber to dark brown. The word wine is used to describe the higher alcohol characteristic even though barleywine is strictly a beer. A festival glass and four tokens run only $15 with additional 4 oz. pours for $2 each. Lucky Lab’s full menu of hand-tossed pizza, deli sandwiches, salads, and snacks will be available. The Lab’s tap list of ales and ciders will be on hand as well.”

Portland Cider Company is celebrating their 5th anniversary with a party at their pub and cidery in Clackamas on Saturday. They will have a limited fifth anniversary cider, Cider Scrumpy, along with limited and specialty ciders on tap, tours of the cider, live music, and a special food menu. Be sure to help them celebrate five years and check out their impressive facilty!

Speaking of anniversaries, Block 15 Brewery in Corvallis has a big one this weekend—its tenth! The brewery will be celebrating all day on Saturday the 3rd: “As we approach Block 15’s ten year anniversary, we want to sincerely thank the Corvallis community for all of the love and support that you have shown us these past many years! We truly love and appreciate you all, and we are excited to celebrate this milestone with you on Saturday, March 3rd at our downtown Pub. To celebrate, we’ll be releasing a special lineup of anniversary beers—including bottled/canned versions of each, which will be for sale in our game room—as well as serving up a killer food special in the restaurant. Plus, as an extra thanks to our amazing community, we’ll be hosting a special DINE OUT event all day long. 100% of the day’s food sales will be donated to three outstanding local non-profits.”

Lompoc Brewing (Portland): The brewery’s 6th annual Black Out Beer Fest takes place this Friday: “The 6th annual Black Out Beer Fest will take place Friday, March 2, from 4pm to 10pm at Lompoc Sidebar, located at 3901 N Williams Ave., and inside the Lompoc Brewery. The event will feature two dozen rotating dark beers – including dark lagers, porters, stouts, coffee beers and black IPAs – from Lompoc and more than 20 guest breweries from around the Northwest. Admission into the event is free; tasting packages are required to taste the beers and cost $20, which includes a souvenir glass mug and eight beer tickets. Additional beer tickets are available for $1 apiece.” Kicking off the month with black beers!

I mentioned a bit over a week ago how Agrarian Ales in Eugene had a blurb on their website about permit issues with Lane County that had them closed to the public. Now the problem has escalated, and they have a full page explanation of the issues which look problematic. “…after five years of operation the county had revised its interpretation of our business, and we were no longer permitted to allow the public under the overhang of our building. When advised of the impact that this action would have on our business the county officials offered no leniency or clear course of corrective action. Because of the timing of their visit, we had no recourse; all offices were closed, all officials who could work with us on solving this problem were off for their weekend. They were effectively shutting us down.” In essence, their patio has been deemed “unsafe” and they cannot operate their tasting room until the issue is resolved somehow. We’ll keep watching this story.