Brian Yaeger, Author at The Source - Bend, Oregon

Boss Rambler Gets Its Own Brewery

Boss Rambler’s IPAs and slushie beers find a new home at the old Riverbend brewery

by Brian Yaeger April 13, 2022August 3, 2025

Boss Rambler Beer Club has pulled off a lot in its brief run that, this Saturday, April 16, celebrates three years since opening its doors on Galveston. (The beer debuted a year before the taproom.) That means two-thirds of the operation overlapped a world-paralyzing pandemic. To survive, Boss Rambler did what virtually everyone did: pivot. Originally […]

Food & Drink

Bend’s Avid Cider Levels Up

A new future with Michigan’s Blake’s Hard Cider

by Brian Yaeger March 16, 2022July 4, 2025

When Samantha Roberts and her then-husband Dan McCoy attended Bend Brewfest in 2011, something eyebrow-raising struck them: the longest line for samples didn’t belong to a single brewery, but rather to the lone cidery in attendance. Roberts was no stranger to hard cider. She’d gotten hooked on the stuff in her mother’s native England, where […]

Food & Drink

Bar Fiori’s Wine-Music Pairings Seek to Turn Tables

Natural wines find their supernatural songs by the glass

by Brian Yaeger March 2, 2022August 31, 2024

Bar Fiori is not a bar. For that matter, it’s not a flower either, but it does offer a bouquet of colorful, natural wines. It’s a business project started by Bendite Kelsey Kuther, who got turned onto the vibrant world of natural wines in, of all places, Los Angeles. For the moment, Bar Fiori is […]

Food & Drink

Zwickelmania Offers Beer Lovers Hopportunity to Peek Under the Hood

Complimentary samples abound at Oregon brewery open houses

by Brian Yaeger February 23, 2022July 30, 2025

Feb. 26’s Oregon Brewers Guild’s 14th annual Zwickelmania may seem slightly confounding since the event is all about getting everyone to crowd into every craft brewery in the state, and we’ve been told for the last two years not to crowd into anywhere. So if you want to try a bunch of beer—wait, let me […]

Food & Drink

Bend’s Best Apple Fritters

Is there any doughnut phatter than a fritter?

by Brian Yaeger February 16, 2022August 2, 2025

When looking for a doughnut style befitting a winter roundup, the hearty apple fritter seems like the obvious choice. These are usually the largest option in the most impressively grand display cases. They’re bigger in both diameter and height and the chunky appearance serves as sort of an optical Braille that lets you know: this […]

Food & Drink

Over a Pint: Crux’s Cam O’Connor

An occasional Source Weekly series, inviting brewers and beer geeks to talk about the biz of brewing

by Brian Yaeger February 16, 2022July 11, 2025

I frequently interview brewers and occasionally socialize with them. But those conversations tend to revolve around a new beer release or festival or trends. So one day I thought, let’s get to know brewers (or winemakers, distillers, bakers, chefs, or anyone who makes our lives tastier) more holistically. To do this, I invite someone out for […]

Food & Drink

Bend’s Newest Brewery is Old News

Van Henion Brewing takes over Boneyard’s brewhouse

by Brian Yaeger February 2, 2022August 1, 2025

While a lot of today’s craft beer focuses on the new new, there’s always been a thread in beer realizing that what’s old is new. When Monkless Belgian Ales opened in 2014, it was the first local brewery to focus on old, Belgian style ales. When Porter Brewing launched in 2018, it became the first […]

Food & Drink

Funky Fauna Launches as First New Brewery in Years

Saison-centric Sisters brewery opens with hoppy lagers and IPAs

by Brian Yaeger January 19, 2022August 1, 2025

During the pandemic these last two years, we’ve bid farewell to a number of cherished eateries but welcomed some new faves, too. Until now, the same could not have been said about breweries, for although we’d lost a few outside of Bend, it’s been the area’s longest period without a new brewery since 10 Barrel […]

Food & Drink

Healthful Alternatives to Beer

N/A drinks for a Dry January

by Brian Yaeger January 5, 2022June 24, 2024

Adam Driver once joked that Dry January “means you just don’t take a bath.” When the month-long test of self-wellness was invented, by modern-day abolitionists, I suppose, I’m sure their hearts and livers were in the right place. It’s believed that more than 10% of Americans will lay off the hooch, the vino and the […]

Food & Drink

Winter is Finally Coming. Drink These Beers to Fend it Off.

Whether you celebrate Santa or Saturnalia, sip these seasonal suds

by Brian Yaeger December 15, 2021July 7, 2024

I‘m not even sure if serious wine lovers enjoy mulled wine, but I can assure you beer lovers love “winter warmers.” These are ales that are typically brewed to higher gravities, meaning punchier in the ABV department so as to fight off Jack Frost. While we can start to get excited that the 8th annual […]

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