Road Trip to Bend: Final Thoughts

You'll find this arresting sculpture along Bend's Deschutes River Walk

In Bend, beer truly is everywhere. With at least fifteen breweries crammed within, Bend seems like some sort of economic experiment to determine just how many breweries a town of about 80,000 people can actually support. Starbucks competes for with quiet reading spots with beer bars. You can get your growler filled at a gas station. One wonders just how much more locally brewed beer Bend can soak up.

Standing in line at the seafood counter at a Bend grocery store to get clams and mussels for Sunday evening's paella, I notice shopping cart after shopping cart being pushed by holding six-packs of Coors Light and Budweiser. Even in Bend, craft beer still has plenty more worlds to conquer.

The High Desert Museum south of Bend has an excellent bird of prey exhibit

You call fill your growler with over 20 beers to choose from at this gas station

The Deschutes River rolling through Bend

Road Trip to Bend: Boneyard Beer

From all appearances, you'd think Boneyard Beer started when a bunch of guys fixing motorcycles one day decided to brew beer instead. We roll into Boneyard around noon Sunday and people are already coming and going, getting their growlers filled for the day. There's no place to sit, so we stand around sipping from our little sampler glasses in a sparse empty space that mostly likely was once a waiting room for a repair shop.  For all the thrash/metal inspiration, the beers are the brewing equivalent of a collection of Barry Manilow tunes: well crafted, hitting all the right notes, though not particularly daring or breaking any new ground.

Road Trip to Bend: Enjoying the Good Life

Everyone should have a local brewery within walking distance. For our friends in Bend, that place is Good Life Brewing. We walk about a mile through town to Good Life, located near one of Bend's many traffic circles.

I ask out waitress how long Good Life's been there. She guesses 2009. Going back to the kitchen, she finds out was it was founded in Bend in 2011, basically making it one of the Bend's middle aged breweries. The beers taste soft and comfortably worn around the edges. Good Life seems like a good place to effortlessly while away an hour or two in the neighborhood. So that's what we do.

Road Trip to Bend: Visiting Deschutes Brewery

Bend was basically a sleepy logging town in the middle of central Oregon when the Deschutes Brewpub opened downtown in 1988. A few years later Deschutes built a larger production production brewery, a major driver in the craft brewing revolution in the Pacific Northwest and beyond, helping to transform Bend into the vibrant destination it is today.

I suppose after visiting other historic breweries like Anchor Brewing and Sierra Nevada, with their classically traditional copper brew kettles, which are effectively shrines to modern American brewing, I expected the same at Deschutes. Oddly enough, instead, it looks just like a modern production brewery. Thankfully, our tour guide knows an awful lot about malt. He also knows plenty about the hops, yeasts, and brewing methods Deschutes used in their beers. An enjoyable tour that threatened to turn into a class, but thankfully didn't.

We get back to the tap room for our complimentary four tastings and the place is crammed full of people and Deschutes merchandise. People crowd three-deep around the bar for their tastings as funky soul music plays above the din. A party threatens to break out any moment.

Road Trip to Bend: The Crux of the Matter

Yours truly about to enjoy some fine beers at
Crux Fermentation Project

Whenever I asked about where to go for beer in Bend, everyone told me I had to go to Crux Fermentation Project. They were right. Saisons scream with flavor at just the right volume without being overpowering. Sipping a simple Porter, I unwittingly stumble onto a coffee bomb. My only nitpicking complaint was that the sours were barely sour, understanding many would find an un-sour sour something of a virtue. Looking around in the friendly, chattering space, I realize in Bend, sipping barrel-aged beers while high end pub food is lots of people's idea of good family time out.  Or a loud date night. It would have be indelicate to sample the entire tap list so reluctantly, I had to resist the temptation to do so.