Happy Memorial Day weekend! I have Monday off so I very well may skip that day for beer news—but in the meantime, here’s the news in Oregon beer for this final weekend in May. As usual, I’ll be periodically updating this post throughout the day with the latest news, so check back often. If you have news to share, please contact me and I can get that posted as well.

Central Oregon Beer Week concludes this weekend, with the signature event, the SMaSH Fest, taking place at McMenamins Old St. Francis School on Saturday. “SMaSH” stands for Single Malt and Single Hop, and the fest naturally features only such beers, most specially-brewed for this event. 21 breweries will be participating, including several from outside of Central Oregon, and the fest costs $25, which gets you the commemorative glass plus 12 tasters (four ounces each). It runs from 11 to 9; be there!

Deschutes Brewery (Bend) is releasing the latest beers in their pub-exclusive Pub Reserve Series today at the Bend pub: Pilsner Pie and Old ‘Schutes Stock Ale. “Join us Friday, May 27th, as we celebrate not one but two pub reserve series beers! Whether you have an affinity of love for pilsners or deep cravings for old school brewing nuances, these beers are sure to get your weekend started right! We will have a tasting bar with samples of these unique beers available and bottle sales!” I’ve heard the Pilsner Pie tastes like key lime pie… might have to check that out!

McMenamins Old St. Francis School (Bend) is holding their quarterly O’Kane’s Garage Series beer tasting tonight, a good pre-game for the SMaSH Fest tomorrow, featuring Free Will Double IPA: “For the next edition of Old St. Francis’ Garage Series, we have chosen the Free Will Double IPA brewed by Tim Proctor from McMenamins John Barleycorns Brewery. This impressive brew was the winner of the Hillsdale Brewfest in 2012! When tasting Free Will, the first thing you’ll notice is a RUSH of hop aroma created by multiple dry hop additions. Five hop varieties blend together to offer a full spectrum of flavor from citrusy grapefruit to resinous pine. A touch of Caramel Vienna Malt was used to balance the hop bitterness and add a slightly sweet malt flavor and an orange hue.” It starts at 5pm and take’s place at O’Kane’s at the back of the property.

Here’s the weekend lineup for COBW:

• Broken Top Bottle Shop: Today they are hosting Bend Brewing and 10 Barrel Brewing for tastings from 5 to 7pm, and live music (to be determined) from 7 to 9. On Saturday, it will be GoodLife Brewing and music with Squirrel Soup Duo. And on Sunday, they’ll host Craft Kitchen & Brewery and music with Victory Swig.
• The Growlers Guys West is offering $1 off your growler fill all week long if you can answer beer trivia correctly.
• Bend Brewing: All Week long they are offering up a special “Hops vs. Sours” tap takoever with their award-winning specialty beers.
• Cascade Lakes Brewing: From the 20th through the 26th at both their Lodge in Bend and the 7th Street Brewhouse in Redmond, it’s happy hour all day long.
• Silver Moon Brewing: All Week long, they have a special lineup of rare and barrel aged specialty brews on tap, as well as offering a special mug club signup.
• Worthy Brewing: Every day of COBW they are offering food and beer pairing specials, and growler and glass swag specials when paired up with beer purchase.
• Sunriver Brewing: They brewed the official Beer Week beer, COBW IWA (India Wheat Ale), which you can find on tap at Broken Top Bottle Shop, Platypus Pub, Crow’s Feet Commons, White Water Taphouse, Pour House Grill, Jersey Boys Pizza, Gorilla Growlers, Growler Guys West, Growler Guys East, Mountain Jug, and the two Sunriver pubs.
• Wild Ride Brewing is sampling beers at Newport Avenue Market from 3:30 to 5:30 on Friday.
• Kobold Brewing and Monkless Belgian Ales will be at White Water Taphouse downtown on Friday for tastings from 5 to 8pm.
• Mt. Bachelor is hosting their 6th annual Brewski Fest this weekend (also their closing weekend), featuring a slew of Central Oregon breweries pouring beer on the snow.

Roscoe’s (Portland): This weekend they are holding their 7th Annual Belgian Beer Summit, starting at 2pm on Friday and going all weekend long: “We will be celebrating Belgian and Belgian-style beers brewed by our favorite breweries from all over the world. Some of the breweries will include: pFriem Family Brewers (Flanders Blonde), Upright Brewing (Barrel Aged 6), Deschutes Brewery(Pinot Suave), @Brouwerij de Musketiers (Troubador Magma), Logsdon Farmhouse Ales, LLC. (Vintage Tripel) Culmination Brewing Company (Foed for thought, their first beer from their new foeder), De Dolle, Oakshire, Double mountain, and many more.”

The Commons Brewery (Portland): This Sunday from 5 to 7:30pm they are having a beer tasting event at La Moule restaurant: “Come hang out at La Moule with Josh Grgas of The Commons Brewery to taste through a line-up of his favorite current releases while chatting all things beer! In addition to the tasting, the featured beers will be available by the glass as well as to take away – bottles and growler fills. Oh, and did we mention Chefs Aaron and Cameron are crafting the perfect poutine for the occasion? Yep. That’s happening.”