For the fifth straight year, Northbank Beer Week will take place to highlight SW Washington’s beer scene. The regional celebration stretches along the northern shores of the Columbia River from Goldendale to the Long Beach Peninsula. Then north and south from Vancouver to Centralia and all places in between.

As head-scratching headlines continue to baffle brains across the land, this 2020 series of events will take a different shape over an extended weekend — October 1-4. In contrast to previous years, large gatherings will be replaced by responsible small events, beer releases, virtual happy hours, online educational events, beer can derby races, and even Trap Door's Run The Haze "Festival In A Can".

While the beer week almost didn't happen, organizers had to reimagine what a mini-series of smaller events could look like. Some traditions will continue while others, like the annual Brewing Bridges Collaboration Fest, will not happen this year. In keeping with one annual tradition, there will be 160 FREE Northbank Beer Week T-shirts handed out at various events throughout the weekend.

Another tradition that took a different twist in light of COVID-19 is The Official Beer of Northbank Beer Week.  The 2020 beer is a hazy pale ale called Extra! Extra! brewed by Brothers Cascadia Brewing.  In a pivot from Northbank Beer Week tradition due to time constraints and state health guidelines for gatherings, this year's beer was not the annual mega-collab involving all breweries. Instead, Brothers Cascadia was tapped directly by Perozzo on short notice to make a beer happen to help promote the weekend's events and all breweries in the region. The design concept and theme for the weekend is "headline news." It was developed in collaboration between Ambient and ZZeppelin - two Vancouver-based marketing and design agencies who work closely with breweries and pubs around the Pacific Northwest. The story of this year's Northbank Beer Week(end) is that the region's breweries continue to persevere despite the mounting obstacles of COVID-19 and 2020 in general. The beer is available now in cans at Brothers Cascadia and at bottle shops and taprooms up and down I-5 from Portland to Seattle. Drink all about it!

Highlighted events include:

Backwoods Brewing hosts an outdoor movie night showing of Strange Brew.

Bob and Doug MacKenzie are on the big screen in the backwoods of Carson, WA tonight at 7:30PM. The 1983 classic will be shown alongside tappings of new beers - including Backwoods' new Face Off IPA, the latest in their Venture Forth Series of hazies.

Final Draft Taphouse's Virtual Scavenger Hunt (put together by The Couve Brew Bevy).
This event happens virtually all weekend long. You can win great brewery prizes by completing one or two available hunts online. Check out the details at http://www.finaldrafttaphouse.com/nbbw-virtual-scavenger-hunt .

Heathen Brewing's Feral Public House presents Yippee Ki Yay, MotherPucker! 

The sour beer festival in downtown Vancouver runs four whole days beginning today and going through Sunday. It features over 15 of Heathen Brewing's signature sour beers - from goses to brett beers to kettle sours and back. They've also tapped guest sours from pFriem, Cascade, Crucible and Ecliptic. 

Barlow's Public House presents Barlow's Oktoberfest.

The pour-your-own-beer pub on Vancouver's Waterfront launches a German-style menu, Bavarian music and German-style beers from around SW Washington. The event kicks off on Friday, October 2nd and runs beyond Northbank Beer Week all the way to October 11th. Guests can get a keepsake Maß and two fills for $20. During Saturday's festivities, brewers from Brothers Cascadia Brewing will be on hand to pour their festbier along with other guest taps on the self-serve tap wall. Mask up in your lederhosen and join the fun.

Trap Door Brewing's Run The Haze "Festival in a Can".

Online orders and taproom sales are happening NOW for Trap Door's new collab beer with Great Notion, Fortside, Ex Novo, Grains of Wrath, Claim 52, Culmination, Urban Family and Level Beer. The hazy double IPA is an homage to the annual festival that won't be held this year. It would have been the 3rd year of the Run The Haze Fest. Get the beer at TrapDoorBrewing.com for FREE deliver in Clark County or stop by the taproom. A special "Toast & Post" Facebook Live event with owners Michael Parsons & Bryan Shull will happen on Friday at 7PM where prizes will be awarded for sharing your at-home festival fun with the Run The Haze can, T-shirt and glassware (all available from Trap Door). 

Final Draft Taphouse's Northbank Beer Week(end) Virtual Mini-Fest.

Only 24 spots are available for this special online festival. To participate on Saturday at 12:30PM, stop by Final Draft on Thursday or Friday for one of the two dozen 6-pack/T-shirt combos. You'll get to join a special Zoom Meeting live feed with Mike & Kimberly and brewers from Grains of Wrath, North Jetty, Everybody's Brewing, Brothers Cascadia, Loowit and Fortside. 

Ben's Bottle Shop presents the 3rd annual Beer Can Derby Races.

Stop by Ben's on Mill Plain in Vancouver to pick up a can of beer from a participating Northbank brewery. You'll receive 4 wheels, 2 axels, tap, scissors, lead weights and more in order to turn your empty can into a speed machine. Leave your beery aluminum dragster at Ben's and watch the races LIVE on Facebook at 7PM on Sunday, October 4th as the last gasp event of Northbank Beer Week.

There are more events and more breweries involved than can possibly fit in this article. The full calendar can be viewed at NorthbankBeerWeek.com. Raise a pint of beer brewed here on the Northbank. Find a small event to safely attend in your neighborhood or join in from your couch.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it — NorthbankBeerWeek.com.