Look, any time is a good time to drink local craft beer, and now, as temperatures are dropping and the cloud cover is picking up to a deep and fluffy gray, there aren’t a whole lot of events where you can try a bunch of seasonal beers by different breweries all in one festive place. Enter the Ballard Brewed Winter Beer Festival, in which Ballard-area breweries (Bad Jimmy’s, Hale's Ales Brewery, Lagunitas Brewing Company, Lucky Envelope Brewing, Maritime Pacific Brewing Company, NW Peaks Brewery, Obec Brewing, Peddler Brewing, Populuxe Brewing, Reuben’s Brews, and Stoup Brewing) offer tastes of two winter beers each—and one of those will be released for the first time ever at the festival. Proceeds benefit Bellwether Housing, touted as Seattle’s largest private, nonprofit affordable-housing provider. by Leilani Polk