Beer & Drink
Posted inFood & Drink

LISTEN: Grand Craft Beer: Alesong’s Matt Van Wyk 🎧

Alesong’s Matt Van Wyk talks wine & cocktail-inspired beers
by The Source Staff

In this episode of Grand Craft Beer, cicerone Brian Yaeger kicks off 2024 with Alesong Brewing and Blending’s Matt Van Wyk, whose many hats include owner, brewer, and runner-arounder to get Alesong’s award-winning barrel-aged beers all across Oregon including Bend. While Van Wyk is accustomed to fitting bungs in bungholes, his real specialty is fitting […]

Posted inFood & Drink

LISTEN: Grand Craft Beer: Deschutes Brewery Barrel-Master Dustin Jamison 🎧

Deschutes’ Dustin Jamison talks warehouse beers, relegated to bourbon barrels and oak vessels
by The Source Staff

In this episode, Christmas doesn’t come early, it comes year-round via Deschutes Brewery’s Cellar Reserve beers thanks to guest and barrel program manager, Dustin Jamison. Jamison lords over “Oakland,” the portion of Deschutes’ warehouse devoted to oak barrels from which its barrel-aged beers—such as The Abyss, The Dissident, and Black Butte3—emanate from. From bourbon-aged stouts […]

Posted inFood & Drink

Red Sheds and Dead Heads

McMenamins’ next generation creates a podcast to document the first 40 years of the company
Avatar photo by Brian Yaeger

Last week’s guests on the Grand Craft Beer podcast, Shannon McMenamin and General Manager Rob Vallance, discussed launching the homegrown beer empire’s foray into podcasting to reveal the hidden stories—much like many of its properties’ hidden bars—behind 40 years of putting out beer, putting on concerts, and putting Cajun tots on the map. This is […]

Posted inFood & Drink

LISTEN: Grand Craft Beer: Shannon McMenamin & Rob Vallance of McMenamins 🎧

Shannon McMenamin hosts Red Shed Tapes Podcast to tell 40 years’ worth of stories
by The Source Staff

In this episode of the Grand Craft Beer Podcast, we focus on…a different beer podcast. Our guest is Shannon McMenamin—whose father, Mike McMenamin, along with Shannon’s uncle, Brian—founded the McMenamins empire of breweries, pubs, and hotels 40 years ago. Her new podcast, The Red Shed Tapes,  focuses on the wealth of stories from all those renowned […]

Posted inFood & Drink

LISTEN: Grand Craft Beer: Melani Betti of Spider City Brewing 🎧

A chat with Bend’s all-women-owned Spider City Brewing, brewing international craft beer inspired by global travels & the Pacific Northwest
by The Source Staff

In this episode, Brian Yaeger opens things up with a surprise award for guest Melanie Betti, brewmaster and co-owner of Spider City Brewing, Bend’s all-women owned craft brewery. Betti, along with her twin sister Michele and their friend Tammy Treat, launched Spider City five years ago and is both a Certified Sommelier and Cicerone-Certified Beer Server. […]

Posted inFood & Drink

A Love Letter to a Unique Ingredient: Smoked Vermouth

Rancher Butcher Chef’s Prescribed Burn smokes any Manhattan
Avatar photo by Brian Yaeger

E ven as someone who does most of his cocktail drinking at home, equipped only with my limited bottles and unlimited whimsy, I’m really digging Bend’s boom in cocktail bars and revamped menus. For starters, they provide experiential research, which explains my attempts at homemade shrubs, syrups, extracts and infusions. From housemade fruit-infused vodkas to […]

Posted inFood & Drink

The Kokua Project Raises Funds While Raising Pints

Central Oregon breweries participate in nationwide campaign for Maui fire victims
Avatar photo by Brian Yaeger

As Maui residents are still rummaging through the rubble of the wildfires that incinerated the town of Lahaina in August, the scene is an all too familiar visage, just in a place no one expected. After all, Hawaii is a lush paradise. So how is the community of craft brewers responding? Just like they did […]

Posted inFood & Drink

LISTEN: Grand Craft Beer – James Owen of Immersion Brewing 🎧

Overhauling the brewery’s recipes, creating an international beer style program and more with Immersion’s brewer
by The Source Staff

In this episode of Grand Craft Beer, host and cicerone Brian Yaeger welcomes James Owen, brewmaster at Immersion Brewing. They talk about Owen getting to completely overhaul the Box Factory brewpub’s recipes when he came on board just two years ago so as to refresh and revive the lager program, the IPA program, the international […]

Posted inFood & Drink

LISTEN: Grand Craft Beer: Joshua Savage 🎧

Exploring fall beer styles with a local adventurer
by The Source Staff

In this episode of Grand Craft Beer Brian Yaeger is joined by the author of “100 Things to Do in Bend”, Joshua Savage. As fellow beer lovers, they explore perfect fall beer styles. As the writer behind the Source Weekly’s series “Savage in Bend: Exploring the Quirks That Make Central Oregon Unique,” Savage and Yaeger […]

Posted inFood & Drink

Bend’s Best Pumpkin Spice Doughnuts

Whereas a beer writer moonlights — again — as a doughnut reviewer
Avatar photo by Brian Yaeger

—Beer and/or cannabis will be back on the menu next week here in Craft, but for now, beer writer-slash-avowed-doughnut-lover Brian Yaeger spins another yarn about one popular seasonal flavor. Seattle’s jolly green giant of a coffee chain has weathered years of derision for its pumpkin spice latte to the point where it’s celebrating two decades […]

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