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Sort of a slow beer news week,* but this weekend's going to be a blast if you've got one more beefest in you before the summer's over. And of course you do. Hell, it's not even going to be your last one this season, but the rain is back and it's starting to feel like you'll blink and summer will be gone. But even if it doesn't heat up outside, at least the beer will have some heat to it at Fire & Brimstone Celebration of Smoke and Chili Libations this weekend. The North Portland festival, hosted by Saraveza and The Hop & Vine (where, I should mention, I work part time), is in its third year already, and now includes cider and cocktails on top of the smoke and chili beers offered.

Both locations will have a handful of smoke and chili beers, special food items to pair (Bamberg Onions at Saraveza, which is what that gorgeous pile of food in the picture below is), and at least one cocktail made with one of the beers or ciders on tap. Particularly exciting this year are those cider additions: Finnriver's semi-sweet habanero cider and a peated cider from Portland's own Reverend Nat's.

The bars are a ten-minute walk from one another, but from 12:30 - 3:30, PDX Pedicab will be giving free rides back and forth. A glass and eight taster tokens good at both venues is $20, and the festival runs 11am to 6pm. And now, as promised, a mouth-watering picture of Saraveza's Bamberg Onions:

If the witchs house in Hansel and Gretel was made of this, I would gladly be imprisoned there.

Tell me you don't want to eat that. Tell me you don't want to hollow it out like a Tauntaun and sleep in it.

*It should be noted that we at Blogtown totally, regrettably, unacceptably slept on the De Garde Brewing bottle release last night at Tin Bucket. De Garde's Mulligan - a gin-barrel-aged, spontaneously-fermented India Wild Ale - is in bottles, people! Go get it at a bottleshop near you!