A strong beer week

Spokane Craft Beer Week returns for its second year May 16-22 with another bevy of beers and events.

The centerpiece of the schedule released last night is again a series of collaboration beers between local brewers, with more than twice as many this year – 15, compared to last year’s six.

Thirteen of those are typical collaborations between two breweries, including the likes of an orange chocolate porter by the Steam Plant and Waddell’s, a Simcoe single-hop black IPA by Trickster’s and Twelve String, and a single-hop, single-malt by Black Label and Badass using the new local malt from Palouse Pint .

There also are two joint efforts among larger groups of brewers: a cream ale from downtown’s River City, Young Buck, Little Spokane, Orlison, Steam Plant and Black Label, with each adding variations to the base beer, and an unspecified offering from North Idaho’s Daft Badger, Downdraft, Laughing Dog, Selkirk Abbey and Slate Creek.

All will pour at a collaboration festival on Wednesday, May 18 at No-Li. Among the many other events on the schedule:

– Like last year, Twelve String will again present a vertical tasting of its past three anniversary beers (plus some barrel-aged specialties) on Tuesday, and host six guest breweries for a Meet the Brewers day on Thursday. It also will release its rum barrel-aged Mojito Golden Strong Ale on Friday and bring back the Double Drop D Stout (accompanied by chocolates) on Saturday.

– Perry Street reprises its Night of the Living Kolsch on Tuesday, and beer dinner at Durkin’s Liquor Bar on Thursday.

– Orlison offers coffee and beer pairings on Tuesday, a barrel-aged night Thursday, the finals of a homebrew contest Friday (with the winner having their recipe on tap all summer) and an Ale Day on Saturday with a dozen limited releases, as it continues to expand on its lager roots.

– Along with the collaboration event, No-Li has an IPA party on Thursday at the Lantern Tap House and its Red, White & No-Li small-batch festival Saturday (though tickets for that one just sold out).

– Several events through the week at Bellwether include a five-course beer and dessert pairing Tuesday, beer-themed trivia Wednesday and flights of local homebrew all week with customer voting on the favorites, to be announced Saturday.

– New Boundary’s five-kilometer Pints 4 Paws Dog Jog on Saturday benefits SpokAnimal C.A.R.E. (registration now open).

– Big Barn visits the Valley Total Wine on Friday, offers military specials for Armed Forces Day on Saturday and has live music and a food truck Sunday.

– Both Black Label and the Steam Plant will offer specials all week.

– Non-brewery events include a local IPA competition with blind tastings all week at the Area 51 Taphouses at both the downtown and North Side Onion Bar & Grill, and a sour beer tasting Saturday at Huckleberry’s.

Oh, and it all starts Monday at Perry Street with a kickoff event co-sponsored by this very blog. See you there!