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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

Boneyard’s Been Pouring High Quality Liquids for 13 Years

As luck would have it, Boneyard Beer’s anniversary party is this Saturday
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Elevators don’t go to the 13th floor, yet the number is good luck for Boneyard Beer founder Tony Lawrence, who’s certainly achieved great heights. The brewing industry veteran — who got his start in beer at Deschutes in 1988 — says of Boneyard’s baker’s dozen trips around the sun, “It’s aged me 26 years.” Born […]

Posted inFood & Drink

From the Crux of Bend to the Southeast of Portland

Crux Fermentation Project to introduce Portlanders to “Sundowners”
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Crux is opening its first satellite pub in Portland later this summer, as Andre Meunier of The Oregonian reported Feb. 28. I used that breaking news as an excuse to sit down with Crux’s marketing director, Jason Randles, to learn more about one Bend brewery’s—make that three Bend breweries’—obvious response to the Portlandification of Bend […]

Posted inFood & Drink

Celebrate International Women’s Day with Beer

With a hazy pale ale, Bend’s Pink Boots Society clarifies women belong in beer
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It’s a bit wild to think — perhaps to admit —that the very idea of celebrating International Women’s Day with a commemorative beer could be in some way anathema to a global day of elevating women in the workforce (and beyond). But take it from the dozens of women in Central Oregon who are members […]

Posted inFood & Drink

Zwickelmania is a Statewide Open-House at Every Brewery

Get your Zwickel on by enjoying free samples of beer from noon to 4 on Saturday, February 25
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Feb. 25 is the Oregon Brewers Guild’s 15th annual Zwickelmania® held at every brewery (except for Portland’s bounty, which celebrated Zwickelmania last Saturday). The event began as equal parts incentive and invitation to visit Oregon breweries—as many as you can safely hit—and sample beer so fresh it hasn’t even been kegged. The name comes from […]

Posted inFood & Drink

Sand Lily Sparkling Wines Are for Beer Lovers

After more than 30 years making wine and beer for other companies, it’s Phil Brey’s time to sparkle
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A couple weeks (issues) ago, Source writer Donna Britt introduced us to the players leading the winification of Bend, transforming an idyllic beer town into a wine hamlet. Phil Brey has straddled that fence his entire career, spanning more than 30 years. His occupational trajectory has taken him from Fresno State University where he studied winemaking […]

Posted inFood & Drink

A Tale of Two Tots

Meet two women who revolutionized tater tots
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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 […]

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
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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

Under 10 Barrel’s Roof Lives a TinyHaus

Some of the most innovative beers the most adventurous beer drinkers have never tried
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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

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
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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 […]

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