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Brian Yaeger

Brian Yaeger is a beer author (including "Oregon Breweries"), beer fest producer and beer-tasting instructor at COCC. Because he’s working on doughnut authorship, you’ll find he occasionally reviews our local doughnut scene. Yes, he absolutely floats all summer long with a beer in one hand and a doughnut in the other.

brian@beerodyssey.com
Posted inFood & Drink

Deschutes’ New Brown Ale is its Old Brown Ale

Oud Bruin, aka Flanders Brown, is worth discovering, or re-discovering
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In 2008, craft breweries were still on the verge of tapping into beer’s wild and wooly past. Historical styles were truly all the rage. You literally (not figuratively) weren’t guaranteed to find an “India Pale Ale” on taplists! So-called sour beers were on the cusp of becoming A Thing. Allagash Brewing in Portland, Maine, built […]

Posted inFood & Drink

Pairing Burgers with Beers

Breweries cater to customers’ demand. And customers demand burgers.
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Although Bend lacks the food diversity of larger cities, it’s hard to argue that the greatest meal isn’t a burger with a cold beer. And that’s something decidedly not lacking locally. For this round-up of Bend’s burgerific brewpubs, note that tasting rooms hosting smashburger trucks are omitted, so this exclusively focuses on pubs with burger-slinging […]

Posted inNews

State of the Brewnion

The people who make our beer discuss the state of our beer
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I was already halfway done with the first draft of this story when the news broke that AB-InBev, the brewing conglomerate that makes Budweiser, sold off 10 Barrel Brewing, less than a decade after buying the Bend-based brewery. The deal included a slate of craft brewery acquisitions including Portland’s Widmer Bros. Brewing (after just three years […]

Posted inBest Of Central Oregon

Best Specialty Cocktail

The Botanist, Five Fusion
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There are probably some people who don’t like the word verdant, but it’s an apt descriptor for this cocktail. Not only is it a joyous shade of green, dare I say chartreuse, but it smacks of many a garden’s delights, or at least well-stocked bar’s garnish station. Gin, already the most botanical of all spirits, […]

Posted inBest Of Central Oregon

Best Light Beer

Sweet As Pacific Ale, GoodLife Brewing
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When GoodLife’s Sweet As won “People’s Choice” at the Bend Brewfest — in the brewery’s first year out of the gate, no less — it showed that this brewery knew it was onto something from the drop. A dozen years later, Sweet As is still undeniably and indelibly a Bend favorite. “We’re making classic, clean […]

Posted inFood & Drink

Is the World Ready for an A.I.P.A?

Machine learning not yet impacting human drinking
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My young son is so freaked out from all the stories about AI that he overhears on NPR while I’m chauffeuring him around, he’s having nightmares about the robots obliterating the human race. While self-driving Tesla crashes (273 last year!) and chatbots that use machine learning to learn to act like Nazis and deepfake videos […]

Posted inFood & Drink

Mead or Ranch Wine?

Lazy Z Ranch is Oregon’s fifth meadery
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You’d be forgiven for lumping mead enthusiasts in with LARPers, because mead conjures images of women dressed as tavern wenches and men dressed as Robin Hood. But you can only envision these RenFaire types drinking mead out of horns, or horned Viking helmets, if you know what mead is in the first place. Its simplest […]

Posted inNews

Oral History of Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale

The story of the beer that turned Oregon into a hop haven
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Only a few beers can be considered truly emblematic of Bend—ones that sprang from, and also shaped, Bend’s beer culture. This is the story of one of those beers, told by the people who brought and continue to bring it to life. Gary Fish: Founded Deschutes Brewery in 1988, which he still owns independently. “I’d […]

Posted inFood & Drink

Frosé All Day

Confessions of a beer geek who forgoes crispy lagers for fruity frozen wine
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The weather forecast says it will hit 96 this Saturday. If you plan to beat the heat floating on the river, by all means, take some cans of crispy rice lagers with you. But if you’re heading to a watering hole, consider making it a frozen-watering hole. Indulge me in a memory. When I found […]

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