Another round up of Merc beer blogs, capped by a cider blog.

• Ménage à trois and circle jerk jokes aside, this one’s about a pair of IPA collaborations from two separate brewery trios involving Fort George & Pfriem Family Brewery and another involving Portland’s Ecliptic Brewing.
• The beacon of the state capital’s emerging brewing scene, Santiam Brewing, released their first sour ale, Gin Peche, at the Upper Lip
• A recent Live from the Barrel tapping—Cascade Barrel House’s weekly series—blanches palates once again with Napoleon Cherry, a blend of blonde and wheat ales aged in white wine barrels with local Napoleon cherries
• Meadmaker Brooks Cooper is crazy enough to turn an NE industrial space into Stung Fermented. It is Portland’s only dedicated meadery.
• It was apparently National Ketchup Day, and the third annual one at that. Enter a malty homage to tomato paste and vinegar: two collaboration beers from Portland’s Coalition Brewing (who are gearing up for their fifth anniversary) and Portland-via-Eugene’s Red Duck Ketchup.
• 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 provided a solution by accumulating a baker’s dozen kegs from Oregon’s remotest breweries. Full disclosure: I’m the guy who organized The Rural Brewer.
• Oh, is it beer fest season? It certainly feels as if they occur at a rate of more than one a week. Having said that, only a handful feel like cornerstones of the yearlong sudsy celebration, and the upcoming fifth annual Portland Fruit Beer Festival is deservedly one of them.

That’s enough for now.