Perhaps Portland has more breweries than any city in the world because it has more diehard craft-beer drinkers who live to let their livers process as much new, unique beer as possible. But along with in that scenario comes the “problem” that folks will always want to try something they haven’t tasted before. For one day only, one taphouse provides a solution by accumulating a baker’s dozen kegs from Oregon’s most remote breweries. The Rural Brewer will take place Sunday, June 14 from 2-7 pm at the Hawthorne Hophouse.

[Full disclosure: this blogger, who created a series of blog posts on the New School Beer Blog called the Rural Brewer, is also the event organizer. I receive no compensation and requested that a portion of the day’s proceeds benefit the Oregon Environmental Council. The non-profit organization protects the place we call home by working for clean air and water, a healthy climate, an unpolluted landscape, and sustainable food and farms.]

Paid entry includes 13 tokens to ensure sampling from each of these off-the-beaten-path and often obscure brewhouses. The all-ages festival also boasts a suitably acoustic jug band, country-fashioned barbecue, and a kids zone.

Beyond Oregon's celebrated beer meccas of Portland, Bend, and Eugene, great breweries exist all over the state. Each is worthy of its own beer trip, but if you don’t have the time or a built-in GPS, no road-tripping is necessary to experience a little slice of these rural breweries by attending the fest. Variety will be in abundance with styles ranging from fruit beers and other summer delights to Belgian styles, and, naturally, IPAs and other hoppy creations. The full list of far-flung yet truly great breweries, as well as single kegs being tapped, includes:

Beer Valley from Ontario: Hop Shoot American Pale Ale
Boring Brewing from Boring: Big Yawn IPA
Conner Fields from Grants Pass: Zin Saison
Dragons’s Gate from Milton-Freewater: Blood Orange Saison
Fire Mountain from Carlton: Free Thinker Citrus IPA
Hermiston Brewing from Hermiston: Lemondrop Kölsch
Ochoco from Prineville: Prinetucky Pale
Prodigal Son from Pendleton: Huckleberry Wheat
Plough Monday from Veneta: Summer IPA
Twisted Snout Brewing & Pig Feathers BBQ from Toledo: Raspberry Squeal
Solera from Parkdale: TBD
Wolf Tree from Seal Rock: Spruce Tip Ale
Yachats Farm Store and Brewery from Yachats: Coastal Dark Ale

The Rural Brewer, Hawthorne Hophouse, 4111 SE Hawthorne, Sun June 14, 2-7 pm, $13-15 (proceeds benefit the Oregon Environmental Council), TICKETS HERE