Tater tots are celebrating their 70th anniversary this year, having been invented on the Oregon side of the Oregon-Idaho border (hence the founding company’s name, Ore-Ida). So while it’s easy — sensical, even — to ignore National Grilled Cheese Day or National Condiments Day, celebrating National Tater Tot Day makes sense, even if it only […]
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.
Posted inSpecial Issues & Guides
Move Over NA Beer – Hop Water is So Worthy
Hop waters leave out three other things bountiful in beer: calories, carbohydrates and gluten
The first brewery to skip past non-alcoholic beer and go straight to hop water made of two (and a half) of beer’s ingredients—water and hops (and carbon dioxide)—but not the other two—malts and yeast—was Lagunitas with Hoppy Refresher. It’s good, but truly more bitter than you want in what is essentially hopped LaCroix. Larger craft […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Bend’s Best Boston Cream Doughnuts
In an ongoing series of doughnut reviews, one man with a sweet tooth (and some fifth graders) rate a cream-filled favorite
Now that we’re through with pumpkin pie season as well as apple, sweet potato and pecan pie seasons, it’s time to kick off Boston cream pie season. The dessert was, in fact, created in Boston (in 1856, the year the Oregon Territory was established) but is a misnomer as it’s not pie. So, doughnut makers […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Under 10 Barrel’s Roof Lives a TinyHaus
Some of the most innovative beers the most adventurous beer drinkers have never tried
Going off of the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission’s year-end numbers in 2019, selected both because it was the last of the pre-pandemic sales and because the Commission has stopped reporting the numbers, 10 Barrel Brewing sold nearly half a million barrels of beer in Oregon. But that’s a drop in the bucket compared to […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Central Oregon’s Top 10 Beers of 2022
Interesting doesn’t always mean better, but in the case of these beers, it does
By my best guesstimate, each of Central Oregon’s 27 breweries released, on average, at least a dozen beers in the past year, meaning we had no fewer than 350 local beers to choose from. I confess, nay, lament, I did not try them all. (That said, drinking a new beer each day in 2023 is […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Funky Fauna Celebrates First Four Seasons
Saisons put year-old Sisters brewery on the local-and beer geek-map
From butterfly pea flowers that turn beers purple to Carolina reaper chili peppers that turn beers spicy AF, Funky Fauna Artisan Ales technically is a brewery, but it’s more like an idea factory. Funky Fauna is now celebrating one successful year of ideation. A full year into its existence it likely remains Central Oregon’s smallest […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Late Harvest Means Bumper Crop for Central Oregon
Maragas Winery expects 2022 will be an excellent vintage
If you grow anything at home—tomatoes?—did you notice your bumper crop this season? Maragas Winery owner Doug Maragas sure did. Not just with the tomatoes, as well as garlic, pumpkins and more, but chiefly in this year’s harvest of Vitis vinifera. European wine grapes. It isn’t just that he had a banner harvest in terms […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Endangered Brown Ales Come Out of Hibernation for Winter
The style may have fallen out of favor, but never out of flavor
Getting modern craft brewers to brew a brown ale is like getting the kids on my son’s Parks and Rec basketball team to practice lay-ups instead of chunking three-point and half-court shots. There’s so much interest and emphasis on trickery that the fundamentals get overlooked. In today’s world of double-dry-hopped hazy IPAs, the once-elemental brown […]
Posted inFood & Drink
It Was Beer Before Liquor
Bendistillery and Deschutes Brewery Collaborate on cask-strength Black Butte Whiskey
While whiskey is essentially a distillate of beer, the primary difference in the contents of your last glass of beer and what goes into whiskey is hops. You have to search high and low to find a hopped whiskey—but otherwise, the mash used for each is quite similar. In the case of Black Butte Whiskey, […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Cascade Lakes Brewing Becomes Not-for-Profit
Profits will go towards positive values
When Cascade Lakes Brewing opened in 1994 it was the second most profitable brewery in Central Oregon. The Redmond-based brewery was the area’s second brewery, and the Rhine Family became the brewery’s third set of owners in 2018. General Manager Andy Rhine announced that Cascade Lakes is now joining the ranks of Patagonia, which announced […]