On a fundamental level, food and beer are similar to the very people who enjoy them. People spend an inordinate amount of their time looking for a compatible companion to build a life. But people and their personalities are tricky. Some people like the house warm and others cold. Some people like sports and some people like books. Finding the right person for you can be much harder than finding wrong.

It’s similar with food and beer. The wrong beer paired with the wrong food can wreck an evening and leave you on the hood of a car staring at the heavens. Is it me? Was it them? Was the beer too hoppy or the food too rich? Tricky questions, but fortunately we can help with at least food and beer ones.

Oakshire’s Watershed IPA

IPA’s are known for the “hoppiness” — or how bitter they are. Hops are ingredients used to balance out the sweetness or richness you’ll find in some beer styles (lagers, porters) and they add subtle flavors that make IPA’s such a delightful experience. For example, Oakshire’s Watershed IPA is a perfect example of a “hoppy” IPA, with a level of bitterness that nicely blends sweetness with the aromas and flavors of everything from grapefruits to oranges and even to a bit of pine. The result is a ton of bold flavors that don’t overwhelm and makes IPAs a great beer to enjoy with foods on the “zestier” side of the taste spectrum.

IPAs are probably the easiest beer to pair with food. Because of its intense hop and citrus flavor, it needs a food with a similar intensity. The bitterness cuts well with strong spices, making it ideal for Indian, Mexican, Cajun or Southern dishes, as well the salty American bar food favorites, such as nachos, cheesy-bacon tots or fried mozzarella sticks.

Sweet Sriracha Wings have an Asian spiciness that balances well with an IPA, and if done correctly the sweetness of the honey will caramelize on the meat and enhance the subdued maltiness typical in an IPA. For dessert, a sweet-and-spicy combo is also recommended. Carrot Cake is always a classic and the the spices of the cake — such as cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves — are enhanced by the bold IPA and the carbonation cuts through the creamy, sweetness of cream cheese frosting.

Ninkasi’s Oatis Oatmeal Stout

Generically, the Oatmeal Stout style of beer is supposedly just a stronger or the “stoutest” version of the Porter style of beer but you’ll find a thick, blurred line trying to define the two. Nonetheless, Stouts are generally rich with flavors that can evoke chocolates or vanillas, and they’re much less hoppy than some of their ale counterparts. Take for example Ninkasi’s Oatis Oatmeal Stout — which has a subtle bitter chocolate tinge to it — and a bit of coffee somewhere down in its swirling abyss. Oatis’ rich flavors deserve an equally rich food counterpart like a barbecued red meat such as ribs, steaks, sausages or pork tenderloin.

The malt profile of stouts connect well with juiciness of steaks, so fire up the BBQ and try a classic dry rub. Grilled vegetables go well with the combo as well. With dessert nothing goes better with an oatmeal stout than chocolate — and the richer, the better. In fact, oatmeal stout goes so well with chocolate that oftentimes it’s featured in the recipe iteself. A dense, intense Flourless Chocolate Epresso Cake will seduce your tastebuds and stand up to the dark beer.

Hop Valley’s 541 Lager

Lagers usually get derided as inferior to other styles of beer because of their status as the most widely available and consumed beer in the world (Bud, PBR, Rolling Rock, the usual suspects). This is unfortunate because there are some quality lagers out there and they can complement a meal quite nicely. Take for example Hop Valley’s 541 Lager — which has all the attributes of your favorite cheap beer — but tastes like it wasn’t watered down after brewing (I’m looking at you, Rolling Rock). The 541 has a sweet maltiness to it but also a bit of hop, putting it squarely in the middle of the beer spectrum in terms of heaviness and taste. This makes it an ideal companion to lighter foods in comparison to the stout.

The balance of hops and malt in a lager make for a easy pairing for most foods, and if you aren’t sure what exactly to pair a meal with a lager is a pretty good guess. This pale lager will go great with seafood, salads and stronger herbs such as ginger, garlic, basil or cilantro. Those herbs are typical to Thai, Italian and Mexican foods, so consider pairing a lager the next time you find yourself in a pairing pickle.

For dinner at home, chicken fajitas  or a light spaghetti with lemon and olive oil are both a delicious option the lager. The lager’s balance will help cut through spice, herbs and citrus to cleanse the palate between bites.

While knowledge of food and beer pairings is ideal for home cooking, it’s also especially useful when eating out. Luckily, Eugene is home to both amazing restaurants and breweries, and the combination of both. Michael Zarkesh, a brewer from Eugene’s Falling Sky, has weighed in on couple choice pairings to try if you visit either the Falling Sky Delicatessen or Pub locations, suggesting these mouth watering pairings:

The Hard Rain American Stout coupled with the Grilled Chicken & Brie Sandwich (Pub).
The Daywalker Irish Red paired with the Corned Beef Reuben Sandwich (Deli).
The Daywalker Irish Red with the Pastrami Cheese Fries (Pub).
The Wet Earth Winter Ale with the Corned Lamb Tongue (Deli.)

The Bier Stein also has a revolving menu for each month’s featured beer style. This April try the featured wild ales with fried oysters, truffle fries or a cheese plate. For a heartier meal, Bier Stein servers recommend flank steak tacos with goat cheese, pork and polenta with raab, or black bean and mushroom tacos.

With brewpubs like McMenamin’s, Steelhead, Sam Bond’s, The Beir Stien, 16 Tons and many more dotting the Eugene landscape there are ample opportunities to pair unique local beers with unique foods. McMenamins’ Monday night Burger & A Brew deal ($10) is an excellent way to enjoy the quintessential pairing on a budget–but don’t let the location stop you. Hamburgers are a delightfully versatile food with a plethora of beer pairings, but nearly anything from a classic cheeseburger to a burger overflowing with toppings–jalapeños, onion rings, barbecue sauce, bacon, even bleu cheese– will pair well with the hoppy, seasonal 10 Barrel “Project Failed” Red Ale or year-long Deschutes “Inversion” IPA.

Food and beer pairing might not seem like an exact science or even a worthwhile science, but a few subtle combinations can create truly magical and satisfying results — or the opposite. Pairing a tuna sandwich with a Stout or a piece of cheesecake with an IPA could turn your palate into a superfund site. This is serious stuff with serious implications, but now, armed with insight into the basics of pairings, you should be able to go forth and vanquish the foes of complementary flavors. Or perhaps you’ll just know which cheap beer will go best with your frozen pizza (the answer Coors Light).

Mac Goodwin turned her dream into a reality six years ago. She opened her own music venue, Oak Street Speakeasy, and it matured into one of Eugene’s preeminent platforms for alternative musicians — specifically metal bands.

Now both Goodwin’s venue and her dream are in peril.

On Saturday, March 22 the Oak Street Speakeasy will open and close its doors one last time — at least at its current location on corner of Oak Street and Broadway.

This past January the building housing the venue changed ownership and the relationship quickly soured.

“They’re not nice,” said Goodwin.

Not nice to an extent that Goodwin had to get a lawyer and ultimately decide against renewing her lease.

The Speakeasy is searching for a new home — a process Goodwin hopes won’t take longer than a month or two — but the situation is more complicated and disturbing.

“Music venues are a dying breed in Eugene,” Goodwin said. “Places are dropping like flies.”

Other small venues like Diablo’s, John Henry’s, Muse and Joe Fed’s have all closed their doors — highlighting what Goodwin sees as a disturbing local trend.

“People don’t want to pay cover charges to see live music,” Goodwin said.

Also contributing to the demise are house shows — which are usually illegally hosted at residences without a music license — as well as the recent recession, all of which combined have made Eugene a difficult atmosphere for music venues to survive, let alone thrive.

This makes Goodwin ponder the futility of starting anew and the implications the total loss of her venue.

The Oak Street Speakeasy is known for featuring metal bands, hosting both local and national acts, but also for its inclusivity to all genres — from bluegrass to death metal.

The music community has recognized this. Many of her employees are not only music fans but also touring musicians.

“It’s sad to see another venue in town of this size go down,” said Zack Sawyer, an employee and bass violinist in the Sawyer Family. “It’s a real gem.”

“It has the best sound system in town,” said Adam Aton-Bouris, a Speakeasy employee and guitar player in the metal-ambient band Ninth Moon Black. “Most of my epic shows have been here.”

The last show at the Speakeasy figures to add to that list of epic shows, hosting the Libation Foundation Celebration for the Pet Population’s annual fundraiser and featuring live music from bands Black Magdelene, Battlesnake, Coldfire and local DJs.

The proceeds from the event — collected through a silent auction and donations — will benefit the charity Isabelle’s Dog Wish.

At the end of that night, after the bands have packed up and the green and red lights extinguished, the future is uncertain for Goodwin and her dream.

She wants to press on but after working every shift and not taking a vacation for six years she says that it’s not guaranteed.

“It’s heartbreaking and bittersweet,” Goodwin said. “It’s a labor of love, but people need to show me a reason to open up again.”

Question: How do local bars and restaurants drum up business on historically slow evenings? Answer: Gimmicks. But not like a Joaquin Phoenix “retiring” from movies gimmick, but participatory ones. Enter the trivia night.

The methodology is simple: on Mondays or Tuesdays restaurants and bars need to sweeten the deal to get people to abandon their ordinary routines of couches and reruns of Jerry Bruckheimer shows. But the trivia night is far from ordinary.

It’s the perfect storm. Combine a relatively nondescript evening with cheap drinks and random questions that test you to pull some forgotten fact from the Intro to Modern Film class you took sophomore year and suddenly you have a Wolfgang-Peterson-directed film starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg as fisherman.

Yes, trivia nights are potent attractions.

“It packs the house,” said Katie Courtney, of Eugene’s Cornucopia Bar & Burgers.

It seems local restaurants and bars have tapped into an exclusive market, finding a group of people who actively seek out trivia nights.

“They only come in for trivia night,” said Courtney. “We never see them otherwise.”

Every Monday at 9pm Cornucopia transforms from a restaurant that serves burgers and beverages into a battlefield where obscure facts and/or elementary school age history books become the one ring to rule them all.

But trivia nights wouldn’t be anything special without a dose of charisma. Leading the charge of the Light Brigade at trivia nights are the hosts.

At Cornucopia’s trivia night the festivities are presided over by one “Dr. Seven Phoenix,” which according to Courtney, is the man’s actual legal name (yes, he’s a real doctor). Seven Phoenix is a powerhouse in the trivia field, even publishing a book on the topic, entitled “American Pub Trivia.”

At Rogue Ale’s Public House in Eugene, trivia nights are hosted by Mr. Bill, a traveling trivia host who, according to his website, host shows everywhere from Arizona, California, Montana, North Carolina, Virginia and Washington as well as Oregon.

And according to Hannah Jump, a bartender at Rogue, Bill is quite a character, who is “classy like the monopoly guy, but with a sense of humor.”

The trivia night has infiltrated the University of Oregon campus too. On Wednesdays at 6 p.m., The Buzz hosts their own trivia night, and it’s not a cheap knockoff of the downtown versions.

With questions created by UO students, according to Shelly Pruitt, manager of The Buzz, it’s “super challenging, competitive, but also fun and relaxed.”

And it’s not for Frank Abagnales. Participants who try and use their phones to look up answers have to put money in basket labeled “no cheating.” And in order to avoid cheating, you’ve got have a wide range of random knowledge.

Rogue’s trivia night features themes ranging anywhere from TV, movies, music, politics, to sex.

Cornucopia’s features anything from Hollywood to Halloween, and occurrences like “gangster rap beats” and “pants off dance offs.”

Sounds like trivia night is giving Fridays and Saturdays a run for their money.

Speaking of money, most trivia nights feature some sort of monetary prize. The Top Gun at Cornucopia’s trivia night receives $40 cash-money; the “Goose,” or second place, gets $25.

And while most trivia nights inhabit the less desirable nights of the week, people have begun to recognize its appeal; at Rogue the trivia night seems to have transcended the existence of a “gimmick.”

Their trivia night takes place on Friday nights from 8 p.m.-11 p.m., a night and timeslot that usually needs no gimmick to draw crowds in; that’s because the trivia night are cool like Matthew McConaughey in “Dazed and Confused.” If the popularity of Eugene’s trivia nights is emblematic of their popularity everywhere, then they need not be pigeonholed as a fourth stringer brought in during garbage time.

Trivia nights are a thing, like Brad and Angelina in early 2005.

Rejoice, vinyl record fans — and casual or prospective fans— a new medium through which to enjoy your hobby has reared its head in downtown Eugene.

On Sundays beginning at 5 p.m., roughly, the coffee shop/bar hybrid The Barn Light, in collaboration with Eugene music shop House of Records, hosts “Analog Sundays,” a theme-oriented vinyl listening party — and it’s free of charge.

These listening parties are a chance for casual listeners and aficionados alike to kick back, grab a preferred beverage and enjoy vinyl records, a music medium that has experienced a rebirth of sorts in recent years because, according to event coordinator Tanner Johnson, “MP3s suck.”

Each week features a different host, or DJ, and that host gets to choose a theme and then brings in records of their choosing that support this theme.

This past week’s theme was “True Detective,” homage to HBO’s new firecracker of a miniseries about two detectives in Louisiana investigating a gruesome killing.

“Sometime they get off the wall; sometimes the theme is just a color,” said Johnson, who also works at The Barn Light. “ The week before this the theme was ‘soundtracks.’”

Michael Knackstedt was the host this past Sunday, and he pointed out the range of themes the event has experienced, from “Dad Rock” to “old 70s soul, to even more abstract themes.”

This past Sunday’s fell into the “abstract” (but timely) category, judging from the raunchy Louisiana bayou flavored licks that emanated from the speakers on “True Detective” night.

About 15 odd people sat in on Knackstedt’s performance, spread out in The Barn Light’s intimately lit interior, enjoying coffees, beers and cocktails.

According to Johnson the event was a logical addition to The Barn Light’s weekly repertoire; it’s a way to generate business on a historically slow day and a way to create space for people to enjoy records together.

“It’s a pretty cool mix of people,” said Christie Hill, of The House of Records.  “It’s got The Barn Light crew of people, like in their 20s and 30s, and also a House of Records crew of people in their 50s.”

And attendees don’t just have to come and listen, they can participate too. According to Johnson anyone can bring in their records or request songs on any given Sunday — and anyone can be one of the theme-choosing hosts, as long as they float the idea to The Barn Light beforehand and have the appropriate records.

That’s how Knackstedt became involved.

“(The Barn Light) is kind of my haunt,” said Knackstedt. “ I got to know the bartenders and one day they asked me if I wanted to host.”

The event may be laid-back and modest, but does get its fair share of interesting moments.

“This one guy brought in a bunch of old 70s Prog-rock and made me take a burned CD of a live Phish concert,” said Knackstedt with a rueful grin.

And, during one Analog Sunday, according to Hill, a woman around the age brought in a vintage Ice Cube 12-inch vinyl.

Analog Sundays may be a small and largely unknown gathering, but it’s got a distinct blend of music, people and pop culture to it, and it’s always open and welcome to the prospect of more.

The Jackalope Lounge isn’t quite a typical dive bar — it’s its own animal. Located adjacent to Eugene’s Amtrak station on Willamette St., it has all the ingredients of a rundown bar: affordable drinks, pub food, worn pool tables, an assortment of eclectic tunes spilling from the jukebox and a clientele and staff on a first name basis.

But like the mythical creature from which its name is derived, The Jackalope Lounge isn’t a faceless dive bar that can be lumped together with all the rest. Like Eugene itself, The Jackalope has a dingy, but welcoming atmosphere, and some intangible qualities that make you remember it when you leave (even if you don’t remember leaving).

It’s almost never packed — but it’s never empty either. Even on Saturday evenings, when the pool tables and dart boards get crowded, it’s always quick and easy to get a drink from the genial staff, and rarely do you need to shout to be heard.

“The Jackalope has the feel of a bar that’s in someone’s basement,” said patron Rob Ladwig. “It’s small enough to get to know people.”

And Ladwig speaks the truth. As I stand awkwardly at the bar questioning patrons and staff for my review, I find quickly find myself immersed in a conversation about books and authors with Ladwig and a friend.

My reviewing and interviewing is forgotten and instead of quotes I’ve compiled a list of books that my new acquaintances suggest I read.

And that’s The Jackalope wrapped up in to-go box.

“It’s a good community bar,” said bartender Bridget Gowey. “It’s laid back.”

Price-wise The Jackalope is comparable to other downtown bars, but it gets a leg up (or antler up) by featuring specials every day of the week — including the weekend — and these specials last from when the lounge opens up until midnight, giving patrons plenty of time to save a buck or two.

The food is normal pub fare, and Zagat probably won’t be banging down the door anytime soon, but the portions are sizeable, and make sharing not just a possibility, but an inevitably. And, just like the drinks, there’s a daily food special too.

Combine the people, the place, the food and drink and you get The Jackalope Lounge, and it’s a pretty nice concoction. If The Jackalope Lounge were a mixed drink it’d be whiskey and coke; nothing fancy, but a proficient way to have a good time.

And to show that it’s not just me and my potentially outlandish taste in bars, check out user reviews on Yelp.com and you’ll notice the words “favorite” and “best” popping up quite frequently.

The Jackalope doesn’t profess to be anything it’s not; it’s not glamorous, but trusty, like a cowboy’s horse in an old western. If your expectations include having a laid back night with a couple of drinks and an unfinished game of pool or two, The Jackalope Lounge could be just the place.

What is more grand than a grand opening? A second grand opening. Eugene’s newest wine bar, The Lounge, will be hosting just that.

The Lounge, owned by Myrtle Creek-based Pyrenees Vineyards, was slated for its introduction to Eugene society last Friday, but a foot or so of snow cut in for an unsolicited dance.

Despite the setback, The Lounge’s general manager Shannon Curran says nearly 80 people skied, walked or skidded their way to Willamette Street for the grand opening — an achievement in itself. But now they want to do it again and properly introduce themselves to the downtown Eugene community.

The second grand opening will take place this Friday from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. The wine bar will open its doors in conjunction with the Valentine’s Day Artwalk and a visit from Eugene mayor Kitty Piercy.

The operators believe The Lounge to be unique. “Part of it is bringing the experience of a vineyard to an urban area,” said Robert Stryk, the founder of Pyrenees Vineyards. “But it also has a very downtown San Francisco feel to it.”

The Lounge features a wide variety of Pyrenees wines and champagnes, 12 local beers and a selection of wine cocktails. Stryk says the wine cocktails bring a distinctive twist to fine drinks with the likes of the “Fire Dancer,” a Jalapeño pepper-infused peach champagne, and the “Young American,” a mix of champagne, cranberries and lemons.

The Lounge is aptly named, with low lights, intimate furnishings and a steady but eclectic stream of classic vinyl records providing background noise.

“This place is elegant and sophisticated, but still a fun and intimate place to hangout and enjoy fine drinks,” Curran said. “It’s like my living room.”

Curran thinks it can be like your living room too.

“If you have vinyls, bring them in — and we’ll play them,” said Curran.

According to Stryk, wine tasting rooms like The Lounge play an important role in expanding the appeal and popularity of Pyrenees Vinyards. The central winery is located in the relatively isolated Umpqua Valley.

“We looked at a lot of locations – Portland, Bend, and others – but we felt Eugene really had a burgeoning wine seen,” Stryk said. “It’s a natural fit.”

The Lounge’s neighbors share that sentiment too.

“It’s a great addition. Something different from the liquor bars,” said Thomas of Peetus-Czar, an owner of The Barn Light, a neighboring bar and coffee shop. “It draws a whole different demographic to the area. It’s complementary.”

The winter weather impediments are receding into hibernation and now it’s time for The Lounge to re-introduce itself to downtown Eugene.

Eugene’s fist fight with wintry weather has taken its toll: impassable roads, downed trees, frozen pipes and cancelled midterms. But it couldn’t stop the power of microbrews or Eugene’s penchant for drinking them.

Despite the snow, things went off with nary a hitch at the annual KLCC Microbrew Festival at the Lane Events Center. A few breweries were forced to cancel their appearances (namely Portland’s Laurelwood Brewing and their delicious Workhorse IPA — a tragedy) but overall the event was a whir of commotion. The beer flowed, used vinyls and records found new owners, live music filled the hall and a consistent stream of people from all over the region flowed in and out the doors, all in support of Eugene’s public radio station KLCC.

“We had to ride the bus to get here because of the snow,” University of Oregon student Elizabeth Jansen-Byrkit said as she sipped from the event’s official glass. “But that’s okay. It’s exciting and I’ve discovered tons of new beer today.”

And the attending brewers providing the avenues for fun and discovery echoed this sentiment.

“This is a brilliant opportunity to get in touch with the larger community,”  Agrarian Ales’ Shelley Bowerman said. “It’s wonderful. People are curious about what we do and excited to learn, and this is our chance to educate them.”

The winter months don’t usually feature many chances for breweries to connect with the beer-drinking community and, according to local breweries, the KLCC fundraising event is crucial opportunity for them to do so.

“The brewfest helps us this time of year because it helps us reconnect with our roots,” Claim 52’s owner and brewer Trevor Ross said. “You learn a lot of passion here, meet other brewers and make connections.”

And some of those connections are with the larger, nationally renowned breweries that braved Oregon’s treacherous winter weather to attend.

“Things like this are great. It’s all of us smaller breweries together to help find a way to compete with the ‘big guys,’ the major breweries,” Keenan Delehanty of California’s Firestone Walker said. “There’s a lot of camaraderie here.”

Beyond beer, the event featured live music in form of Sol Seed on Friday night, and the Hank Shreve Band on Saturday, food from the Wild Duck Café and a sale of used vinyls and CDs donated to KLCC for the festival.

The event also garnered the support of legions of volunteers who helped keep things flowing smoothly despite the unforeseen obstacles.

“I’m still here because I like KLCC, and I also like beer,” volunteer Dale Harris said. “It makes sense. It’s a lot of fun.”

But despite the overwhelming atmosphere of good cheer and mirth, not everyone was completely pleased.

“I’d be having a lot more fun if my socks weren’t wet from the snow,” UO student Mariah Melson said.

Hopefully a few more microbrews cured that.

Caution: a glance out the window today might provoke a dangerous bout of Déjà vu. It’s the middle of winter term, and many of us were on the cusp of spring-break daydreams of drinking piña coladas and getting caught in warm tropical rain. Unfortunately, it seems we’ve regressed to the end of fall term, and the snowy doldrums of winter have reeled us back in. But don’t despair and let the snow ruin your evening, instead see it as an opportunity to whip out your wool socks, comfy sweaters, perhaps pop ”Cool Runnings” into the DVD player (in honor of the Sochi Olympics) and whip up one your favorite winter cocktails served piping hot. And if this does the trick, perhaps you can head to the bars later and make someone else make them for you. If you need a refresher on how to make them, here it is:

The infamous Hot Toddy

Ingredients:

1 oz. brandy, whiskey, or rum (the 1 oz. is a subjective one).

1 tbsp. honey

1/4 lemon

1 cup hot water

1 tea bag (preferably mint but you can improvise)

How to make it:

First drizzle honey into a mug, then add teabag and hot water; then add the lemon; then season to taste with your liquor of choice and enjoy.

Hot Buttered Rum:

Ingredients:

1 small slice soft butter

1 tsp brown sugar

Optional spices: ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, allspice

A pinch of vanilla extract

2 oz. dark rum

Hot water

How to make it:

Put the butter, sugar and spices at the bottom of a mug, or an Irish coffee glass if you want to be classy, and then mix them together. Pour the rum and water, stir them together until you see fit and then enjoy.

Baileys and Coffee

Ingredients:

1 cup of coffee

1 oz of Baileys Irish Cream

Whipped cream

How to make it:

It’s pretty self-explanatory folks, but here it goes: mix them together and enjoy.

Spanish Coffee

Ingredients:

1-2 ounces rum

1-2 ounces coffee liqueurs (Kahlua, Amaretto, Cointreau or homemade coffee liqueur)

Roughly 3 oz. of coffee

Lemon juice to rim the glass

Sugar or brown sugar to rim the glass

A few pinches of ground cinnamon and nutmeg

Whipped cream

Hot to make it:

Perhaps the most complex of the group, but also the most rewarding. First rim the glass with lemon juice and the sugar, and then add together the rest of the ingredients in whatever way you see fit. And then, yes, enjoy.

For more on today’s snow day click here.

Like live music, buying cheap vinyl records and CDs, supporting a local public radio station and, most importantly, sampling a wide selection of craft beer? What about a robot that pours you your own beer? Well, then this Friday, Feb. 7, and Sat., Feb. 8, is your own personal thesis statement of utter bliss if you visit the KLCC Microbrew Festival at the Lane Events Center.

“We like to say the brewfest puts the ‘fun’ in fundraiser,” said Gayle Chisholm, KLCC’s marketing director and brewfest coordinator. “It’s a great way to learn about beer and have a good time.”

The annual microbrew festival, a fundraiser for Eugene’s own donation-fueled public radio station KLCC, kicks off at 5 p.m. Friday and offers participants a chance to see live and local music in the form of reggae-influenced Sol Seed on Friday and the bluesy Hank Shreve Band on Saturday, a used vinyl and CD sale and wide selection of local and national craft beers — and people too.

“It’s a rare event that’s inclusive to all ages,” said Chisholm. “You can see people anywhere from 21 to 70 years old mingling about.”

According to Chisholm, the festival will feature 66 booths and over 150 different beers donated to the festival by breweries ranging from local favorites like Oakshire, Ninkasi and Viking Braggot, to nationally renowned ones like 21st Amendment, Lagunitas and New Belgium.

The festival will also feature a booth of German themed beers brewed by local breweries and another booth that features a robot specifically designed to pour beer for lazy humans — the dream of legions of university students.

And in the weeks leading up to the festival, KLCC takes donations of vinyl records and CDs that they sell for $4 and $2, respectively, on Friday and $3 and $1 on Saturday.

And in the donated collection of music are some real jackpots, Chisholm points out, like for example last year, when she found a copy of Alice Cooper’s 1972 album “School’s Out“ with it’s iconic album sleeve that opens like a school desk.

“It’s great. You can hold a beer in one hand, and flip through stacks of records with the other,” said Chisholm.

And the Emerald’s own photobooth will be in attendance, a booth that Chisholm says inexplicably gets more popular as the night wears on.

According to Tripp Sommer, KLCC News Director and avid beer brewer to boot, the event is a logical way to keep the station funded and also provides the community with a good time.

“It’s good for Eugene because in the Northwest is a growing culture of brewing. It’s a win-win,” said Sommer. “It’s part of our demographic.”

“Events like this make sense for the local community,” said Joe Gibson, a representative of Dari Mart, one of the event’s principal sponsors. “The impact is great for everyone.”

Admission to the 21-and-over event is $12 in advance and $15 at the door and runs from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday, and 1 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday.

Michael Morris and his drum kit have nearly reached a blurring state of transcendent synergy when one of his drumsticks decides to derail, flying off into the oblivion of the UO Jazz Combo rehearsal space at the University’s School of Music. Laughter fills the void vacated by Morris’ drumming and is soon replaced by the sounds of a piano, a standup bass and trombone.

“Mistakes are a part of Jazz,” said Morris, a jazz studies major at UO. “But jazz is improvised music. It’s the ultimate musicians music.”

The sounds in room 184 in the Frohnmayer music building are made by four student musicians. They represent one jazz combination group out of nine total and they’re preparing for an upcoming performance.

The UO Jazz Combos are small groups of about six UO student musicians playing various instruments. And even though they’re all “jazz” groups, each performance is unique.

“They all perform a wide range of material from more straight ahead jazz to original compositions and arrangements that include Latin and pop music influences,” said Mike Denny, a UO jazz professor who supervises the combos.

According to Steve Sharp, a graduate student studying jazz composition and a Jazz Combo leader, the combos perform several times a term, but their visits to The Jazz Station are the most informal and spontaneous.

“There’s lots of hollering, cheering and occasionally heckling,” Sharp said. “And good beer and wine if you’re of age. The reactions from people are the best part.”

Events like next Friday are part of the magic for many of the musicians in the Jazz Combos.

“Anytime you get to play, whether it’s in front of nobody, one person, 10 or 100, it’s worth it,” Morris said. “Playing [jazz]with other people is like having a conversation with them through your instruments.”

But according to Morris and Sharp, the existence of UO’s jazz program is relatively unknown to most of the campus community, despite the program’s national distinction.

“I’d rather be here than anywhere else in the country,” Sharp said. “Not all jazz schools are as open to new material as the UO, specifically when it comes to writing music.”

It is this openness and freedom to explore jazz that has drawn Morris and Sharp to the UO.

“Here it’s all seeped in a jazz tradition. You study the tradition,” Sharp said. “Where you go after is up to you.”

Next Friday, they’ll be in downtown Eugene, jazz musicians playing for jazz fans, continuing the tradition.

“It’s one of America’s truly original art forms,” Morris said. “Jazz came from blues, and everything else came from jazz.”

It may be a little known element of the UO community, but the Jazz Combos are dedicated to their art and think it should appeal to a wide variety of people.

“Jazz is a vehicle for expression and human nature,” Sharp said. “It’s spiritual. It’s transcendent. It’s a really pure form kind of experience.”

The Jazz Combos will play next Friday, Feb. 7 at The Jazz Station located at 124 W. Broadway from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.