Made any Halloween plans yet? If not, we suggest checking out Noble Hops' (1335 W. Lambert Lane, in Oro Valley) awesome bash on Friday, Oct. 26.

If you're a beer lover this event is a no-brainer being that Noble Hops stocks one of the best selections of beer in Southern Arizona. But there will be tons of other holiday entertainment as well, including a midnight bartender showdown, raffles, specials on various edibles and drinkables and more.

Sounds like a blast. Head on over to the Noble Hops Facebook page for more information.

Tickets for the biggest booze bash to ever hit Southern Arizona - except maybe for Club Crawl®, which is this weekend - are on sale.

The Tony Abou-Ganim Southwest Spirit Summit takes place this November. It includes competitions, tastings, a Jim Beam barbecue and myriad other cocktail-related offerings.

The event takes place at Casino del Sol at 5655 W. Valencia Road - which currently has a rather amazing cocktail program that's well worth checking out - and is a must-attend event for alcohol lovers or those who just consider themselves somewhat alcohol-curious.

Get tickets over here.

I came across the new Sentinel Peak Brewing Co.'s Facebook page this weekend and spent a significant amount of time lurking around, checking out what we're in store for when the place opens. Take a look for yourself over here.

Considering that the place is going in at the old slaughter house at 1102 W. Grant Road, it will be rather close to Dragoon Brewing Co. at 1859 W. Grant Road, Suite 111. A similar thing is happening over at the original Nimbus brewery at 3850 E. 44th St. — it'll soon have the new nano-brewery Ten Fifty-Five Brewing as its neighbor, which is setting up shop at 3810 E. 44th St.

A third brewery-heavy area is shaping up downtown, with Borderlands Brewing Co., the new second location of Thunder Canyon Brewery and the new Corbett Brewing Co., which are all within a mile or so of each other.

The Wine Depot at 3844 E. Grant Road is throwing a big ol' beer-and-wine-tasting event for Oktoberfest. It takes place this coming Saturday, Sept. 29, and tickets are half-price ($15) if you RSVP by the end of the week! Check it out over here.

I'm always near the front of the line when it comes to finding opportunities to make fun of those freaks upstanding young folks from Tempe Normal, a.k.a., Arizona State University. But this is just too much.

A photo surfaced over the weekend of a bunch of ASU fans holding a toddler (in just a shirt and a diaper, no less) up to the nozzle of a keg, likely during tailgate time prior to Saturday's game against Utah. See the report from a Phoenix TV station for yourselves: (UPDATE: Looks like the video's no longer available on the Fox 10 site. We'll keep looking for it.)

Whether it's staged or not — the kid's mouth is ON the nozzle, by the way — doesn't really matter, except in terms of the possibility of any sort of child abuse charges that could come from it. What does matter is that this is a school that many of your kids want to go to. In fact, the photo participants might have gone there.

Says a lot about a school, don't it?

If you were concerned about whether or not you'd be able to drink the beer that you've been oh-so-carefully storing away in the event of a nuclear apocalypse, worry no longer: the federal goverment answered this question 57 years ago, during a series of tests they called "Operation Teapot."

Their conclusions? That, aside from unusual tastes that might make the beer a bit difficult to resell commercially, it's fine! (If you overlook any potential radiation issues, of course.)

From Restricted Data:

They took a number of different types of bottles and cans, filled with different liquids, and put them in various positions relative to Ground Zero for two nuclear tests (“Shot I” and “Shot II” in the report, probably “Apple I” and “Apple II” of Teapot). The closest ones were less than a quarter mile away from the first test — a mere 1056 feet. The furthest ones out were about 2 miles away.

The results were somewhat interesting. Even the bottles pretty near the test had a fairly high survival rate — if they didn’t fall off the shelves, or have something else smash into them (a “missile” problem), or get totally crushed by whatever they were being housed in, they had a good chance of not breaking. Not super surprising, in a way: bottles are small, and there’s a lot of stuff in between them and the shockwave to dissipate it. (Bottles seem more fragile than human beings, but in certain respects they are probably easier to keep safe. Also, human beings are rarely in refrigerators, Indiana Jones notwithstanding.)

As for radiation, only the bottles closest to Ground Zero had much radioactivity, and even that was “well within the permissible limits for emergency use,” which is to say, it won’t hurt you in the short term. The liquid itself was somewhat shielded by the bottles of the containers which picked up some of the radioactivity.

But there were, of course, still pressing questions to be resolved… how did it taste?

Examination made immediately upon recovery showed no observable gross changes in the appearance of the beverages. Immediate taste tests indicated that the beverages, both beer and soft drinks, were still of commercial quality, although there was evidence of a slight flavor change in some of the products exposed at 1270 ft from GZ [Ground Zero]. Those farther away showed no change.

So, to sum, your beer will taste absolutely fine, if it's more than a quarter-mile away from ground zero.

Unless it's any of that "light beer" swill, of course. That should just be tossed into the blast crater.

For more on how bombs can affect beer, and other interesting facts from nuclear testing, check out Restricted Data.

Best idea I've heard of a while when it comes to enhancing the beer-drinking experience. Rock on 1702, you never cease to impress.

Dragoon Brewing Co. has added a new beer to its line up. It's called Ojo Blanco, and I highly suggest grabbing a pint or growler of it at your earliest convenience.

From a description on the Dragoon Brewing Co. website:

A traditional Belgian-style wit bier, our version is light bodied, finishes dry, and features a spicy clove-banana flavor and aroma profile. It is brewed with a touch of spice (coriander, lime and cumin) for complexity and is unfiltered, which leaves it beautifully hazy. Available mid-August on draft and in growlers.

The brewery's Blue Saison beer also comes highly recommended, but watch it: It clocks in at over sever percent alcohol and has a tendency to sneak up on you.

The brewery is located at 1859 W. Grant Road. Check in at its website for tasting room hours and more information.

It looks like the new bar going in at 63 E. Congress St., where the motorcycle shop Knucklehead Alley used to be, will be called the JunXion Bar. We first told you about it back when there was a sign on the door that said it was to be called Public Bar.

From a Craigslist advertisement seeking employees for the new bar:

The JunXion Bar will be a destination for EVERYONE open 7 days a week featuring fantastic cocktails, 20 tap beers, live music, parlor games, sports, special events, a GREAT staff, and much more!

We put in a call to the place to see what's going on, but nobody answered. We'll be back with more details when we get them. Until then you can follow JunXion Bar on Facebook over here

Image via Mediaite.

Over the weekend, the Obama White House released documents that the public has demanded feverishly since they were aware of their existence.

Those documents?

The recipes for the White House's own home-brewed beers, the Honey Ale and Honey Porter, made with honey collected from beehives on the South Lawn of the White House.

From whitehouse.gov:

Inspired by home brewers from across the country, last year President Obama bought a home brewing kit for the kitchen. After the few first drafts we landed on some great recipes that came from a local brew shop. We received some tips from a couple of home brewers who work in the White House who helped us amend it and make it our own. To be honest, we were surprised that the beer turned out so well since none of us had brewed beer before.

As far as we know the White House Honey Brown Ale is the first alcohol brewed or distilled on the White House grounds. George Washington brewed beer and distilled whiskey at Mount Vernon and Thomas Jefferson made wine but there's no evidence that any beer has been brewed in the White House. (Although we do know there was some drinking during prohibition…)

As of yet, there have been no complaints accusing the Obama White House of lacking transparency for refusing to release the recipe of the White House Honey Blonde Ale.

For the recipes themselves, as well as a short video about the White House's brewing methods, click through to the White House website.