This Saturday, February 15th (President’s Day weekend), the 6th annual Zwickelmania returns to provide a statewide “backstage pass” to Oregon’s breweries— offering “visitors a chance to tour Oregon breweries, meet the brewers and sample your favorite beers”—and of course in Central Oregon we have a large number that are participating.

The event runs from 11am until 4pm and you’ll want to pace yourself and, if you can, get someone to be a designated driver for you: basically you’ll be tasting beer all day. It’s a great event, and one of my favorite beer events of the year.

Here’s who we have participating:

• 10 Barrel Brewing: “For Zwickelmania we’re releasing award losing beers, serving cheap food and leading long winded brewery tours. Please show up early because our brewers like to hit the bottle hard and lose focus quickly.“
• Bend Brewing Company: “For Zwickelmania we will do a Meet the Brewer at the Brewery Open House with Rare Beer Tastings, experience a tour as well in our upstairs brewing facility“
• Boneyard Beer: “Does Zwickle tickle your pickle? Join us for our parking lot party, “Pickles and Zwickles”, as we pour full pints, zwickle samples, and grub on burgers from The Patty Wagon. We will be making beer in the brewery so the brewery won’t be open for tours, in case you were wondering.“
• Crux Fermentation Project: “For Zwickelmania we will be doing tours of the brewery every 20 minutes along with a full BBQ extravaganza and if we’re lucky…samplings from our Banished Series barrels.“
• Deschutes Brewery: “For Zwickelmania, enjoy a self-guided tour of the original Central Oregon brewery with complimentary samples. Taste beer fresh-off-the-tank, see the brew houses, smell the whole-cone hop cooler, talk with the brewers, and check out the fermentation cellar and bottling line“
• GoodLife Brewing: “For Zwickelmania GoodLife Brewing will be open for tours from 11am to 4pm Saturday, February 15th. Enjoy samples of our award winning beers including a selection of rare brews, tour our recent brewery expansion, and Play-to-Win in our Corn Hole Toss Challenge. Come tour one of Oregon’s fastest growing breweries!“
• McMenamins Old St. Francis School: “For Zwickelmania, we will have a special Zwicklemania Passport stamp at each of the participating McMenamins breweries, a GROWLER SPECIAL at all McMenamins OREGON LOCATIONS-$7 Growler fill of the beer of their choice, $9 fill for high gravity ales.  We will also have the Dry-hopped All Day ISA & Dry-hopped Red Riser IRA in the downstairs brewery plus a pub Special: (Special Firkin release) of Black Zombie Porter (Whiskey-soaked Medium American Oak)“
• Old Mill Brew Werks: “For Zwickelmania we are doing tastings with the brewer.“
• Rat Hole Brewpub: (No description)
• RiverBend Brewing: “For Zwickelmania we are doing free Tastings & a guided tours by our head brewer every 20 minutes.“
• Silver Moon Brewing: “For Zwickelmania we are participating in Bend Brew Bus Shutlle, special rides from Bend Cycle Pub“
• Worthy Brewing: “For Zwickelmania we are doing free tours, tastings and special beer releases.“

(I’ll keep this post updated if new information comes in.)

Also, the Bend Brew Bus will also be providing a special Zwickelmania shuttle service, with two 14-passenger vans running in two loops (north and south):

Both vans will begin at 11am in Downtown Bend at Deschutes Brewery’s original Bond St. location and complete their last loop at 5pm.

The North Loop shuttle will take approximately 1.5 hours from Bond st. back to Bond st. It will visit Rat Hole Brewing, Atlas Cider, Worthy Brewing, 10 Barrel’s Production Brewery and River Bend Brewing.

The South Loop shuttle will take approximately 1 hour from Bond st. back to Bond st. It will visit Boneyard Beer, Old Mill Brew Werks, GoodLife Brewing, Cascade Lakes Brewing, Deschutes Brewery Production Brewery and Crux Fermentation Project.

This is a free shuttle so if you don’t have a driver then you should definitely take advantage of this! (Note, it’s also first-come, first-served!) And though they have a stop at Atlas Cider on the north route, I haven’t seen particular information about what they’re doing for the day but if I get that I’ll list it.

Finally, if you want to add a bit of fun to your zwickel-ing, you can play Zwickelmania Bingo, a totally whimsical enhancement to the event that I created last year on my beer blog. You can generate a card (or many) to print out just for Central Oregon (or other regions, or the whole state) and play along as you visit the breweries and drink the beer. It’s strictly informal though, so there’s no prizes—just a way to have fun!