Rat Hole Brew Pub, the small taproom and Southwestern restaurant tucked into an unassuming corner of the Old Mill District, is expanding. And they’d like your help. Earlier this week, Rat Hole—named after the storage barn on the outskirts of Bend where brewers Al and Susan Toepfer built their 2.5-barrel brewery—put up a page on […]
Kevin Gifford
Posted inFood & Drink
Logsdon Brings the Funk
New beer and new taproom for Hood River’s farmhouse brewery
It’s hard to tell the story of beer in Oregon without mentioning Dave Logsdon multiple times. He’s authentically oldschool, co-founding Full Sail Brewing Co. back in 1987, and serving as its first full-time brewer. Before that, he founded Wyeast Laboratories, eminent makers of yeast cultures for the industry, and a name every homebrewer in North […]
Posted inFood & Drink
The Great Oregon Summer Beerfest Crawl
Road tripping? Some boozy destinations.
Summer is flying by, but the beer festival season is, if anything, just kicking off. Next month is gonna be hopping locally, of course, with the big annual Bend Brewfest unfolding across the Old Mill August 13-16 and the Little Woody barrel-aged beer-and-whiskey festival pouring closer to downtown just two weeks later. (Pro tip: Volunteers […]
Posted inFood & Drink
It’s Hot, Let’s Drink
Summer beers to keep you alive ’til September
July may be Oregon Craft Beer Month, but given the painfully hot weather around the region lately, Bendites can be forgiven for wishing this month passes as quickly as possible. But, like it does for many of life’s other annoyances, beer provides a solution. Summer seasonals are all over the bars and shelves right now, […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Downtown Bend’s True Taproom
White Water Taphouse devoted fully to the craft
Nick Griffin has lived full-time in Bend for only about four months, but the taproom he’s just opened up downtown seems destined to have a major impact on the beer scene here. White Water Taphouse, which officially opened last weekend while Deschutes Brewery held its 27th anniversary party across the street, is the result of […]
Posted inFood & Drink
A Trip Down Beer History
Why Kentucky common beer isn’t so common
If you want to complain about Central Oregon’s beer scene (and yes, that’s a very petulant thing to do), you could note that despite a few very high-quality beer stores, Bend can’t compete against the I-5 corridor when it comes to distribution from other breweries. We prefer to roll out our own, you could say, […]
Posted inFood & Drink
New Beginnings in Craft
Craft Kitchen & Brewery kicks off a summer of openings
It’s a time of highly-anticipated debuts in Central Oregon’s craft scene. The new version of the Ale Trail Atlas (and App) is out. Atlas Cider Company’s new and quite large taproom and production facility in the Old Mill will have its grand-opening party on Friday night (see page 45). White Water Taphouse, a 30-line taproom […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Get Hammered Off Root Beer
We live in glorious times!
Remember the Great Four Loko Moral Panic of 2010? Newspapers and TV commentators alike fell over themselves to condemn the line of powerful, caffeine-fortified alcopops, ubiquitous in classier 7-Elevens nationwide, as college students found them exceedingly useful for getting trashed ASAP. Not Your Father’s Root Beer ($11 six-packs of which debuted in Bend supermarkets last […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Radlers Do Not Make You a Wuss
If adding cola to lager is wrong, who wants to be right? Whenever the temperature climbs above 80 degrees and Bendites are suddenly reminded that, yes, mosquitoes really do exist after all, the idea of pounding Boneyard and barrel-aged sours during summer barbecues can grow a bit off-putting. What if you want something reliably refreshing […]
Posted inFood & Drink
The Beers of Summer
Swill and 3-Way IPA kick off the summer beer season
With Memorial Day behind us and tourists already flocking to the bars from all four corners of the world, it is clear that the summer season is almost here. And even as Central Oregon Beer Week presses on (see you guys at the Three Creeks factory opening on Friday, hopefully!), breweries across the region are […]
