Happy Monday and National Cheese Day! Today would be a great day to pair up some new and unusual cheeses with beer (naturally!) so I expect everyone will celebrate accordingly. Here’s the Oregon beer news for this June 4 to accompany those. I’ll be periodically updating this post throughout the day with news, so check back in from time to time.

June is a month of beer weeks in Oregon, with three taking place: Eugene Beer Week, which starts today, Portland Beer Week, and Medford Beer Week, the latter both of which start on Thursday the 7th. As for Eugene, Beer Week runs through Sunday the 10th and there is quite a slate of events lined up! Here’s what’s happening today:

• Eugene Ale Trail / Beer Week Kickoff Party At 16 Tons Cafe 5-8pm
• Beer Family Feud at the Bier Stein! 7pm
• Modern Times Pop Up Pub At Beergarden All Day (M-Th)
• Ninkasi Beer Geek Production Facility Tour (RSVP) 4pm
• Ninkasi Beer Food Pairing 101 (RSVP) 5:30pm
• Hop Valley Hoplinko At The Pour House Tavern 7-9pm
• Ninkasi Drink And Draw At Cornucopia On 5th 9-11pm
• Hazy IPA Fest w/Great Notion At 16 Tons Bottleshop (All Week)
• Farmhouse Taste-Off At Tap & Growler (All Week)
• Manifest Beer Company Tours & Beer (All Week)

Deschutes Brewery (Bend): At the Bend Pub this evening Deschutes is hosting the release party for Humm Zinger, its kombucha radler collaboration with Bend’s Humm Kombucha. “Come help us celebrate this Damn Tasty, 30th anniversary collaboration with Humm Kombucha! This awesome collaboration of Humm Kombucha’s tangy grapefruit combines with iconic Cascade hops and Pilsner malt to create a crisp and invigoratingly fresh twist on a radler. We will be hosting the release party in our upstairs taproom here at the Bend pub with live music from Hutch & Gentry along side beers and Humm Konbucha. Bring the whole family out for a night of drinks and live music. All ages welcome. Cheers to 30 years and our great friends over at Humm Kombucha, as well as sharing the night with our RAVING FANS!” It takes place from 5:30 to 8:30pm.

The North American Beer Awards took place in Idaho Falls over the weekend and of course there are a number of Oregon winners! Congrats go out to all the local breweries that medaled: 10 Barrel, Alameda, Arch Rock, Atlas (now Avid) Cider, Back Pedal, Barley Brown’s, Boneyard, Breakside, Caldera, Crux Fermentation Project, Deschutes, Ecliptic, Falling Sky, Full Sail, Golden Valley, Klamath Basin, Mazama, Migration, Occidental, Old Town, Pelican, pFriem, Rogue, Silver Moon, StormBreaker, Sunriver, Wild Ride, and Worthy. Great job!

Cascade Brewing (Portland) announced a new smaller 500ml bottle size for its barrel aged sour beer series, to debut on June 15. From the press release: “Known for its signature 750ml cork and cage bottle conditioned sour beers, the brewery is shifting production to a more user-friendly and price-conscious 500ml bottle. The brewery’s bottle conditioning process will remain the same, and it will continue to utilize the cork and cage. Cascade Apricot 2017 will be the first bottle launched in the new size. Cascade Brewing is confident that this new size will enable first-time consumers to purchase its barrel aged sour beers in a format that works for them, while allowing long-standing customers to purchase its beers in more locations. For those that still love the 750ml format, Cascade Brewing has inventory on more than a dozen releases over the past year and will continue to sell them until they are gone. Fans looking to purchase beers for their cellar are encouraged to do so while they can, because when the 750ml bottles are gone, they are gone forever.”

This Saturday, June 9, McMenamins Thompson Brewery in Salem is hosting its 21st annual Barley Cup Brewfest! All day long starting at 11am, you can taste beers and ciders from a number of other McMenamins as well as guest breweries, with the winning beer (as selected by the patrons) earning the coveted Barley Cup. (Which like the Stanley Cup, returns to Thompson for the next year.) Interestingly, the media email I’d received about it also said, “This year, it’s a mostly female affair with women brewers participating in the Brewfest,” which is cool but needs follow-up as it did not specify how many and from which breweries.