Bend Beer (and Cider) Scene Gets a Collective Shakeup

To paraphrase the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, “The only thing constant in life is change.” Some 2,500 years later, his musings describe the state of beer here in Bend. It’s a city rich in craft brewing culture where Deschutes Brewery is one of the nation’s oldest and largest breweries, but beyond that monolith, everything is in flux. Namely Crux. Rather, make that the Oregon Beverage Collective — the newly formed amalgamation that consists of Crux Fermentation Project (opened in 2012), Cascade Lakes Brewing (1994), Silver Moon Brewing (2001), GoodLife Brewing (2011), and Tumalo Cider (2014).

Listing those legacy brands is the easy part. Understanding exactly what this new OBC cooperative means is where we find ourselves in the weeds. But as Silver Moon co-owner and newly minted CEO of the OBC, Steve Augustyn, says, “Yes, a lot of questions still needing to be worked out, but that’s the best part: the flexibility of it all.”

The development mirrors the recent news that two of Bend’s coffee roasting juggernauts, Thump and Backporch, are collectively TB Coffee.

In a Feb. 12 press release about the brewing merger, several terms were used to describe it (except “merger”). It used the couplets, “production partnership,” “strategic partnership,” “joining forces,” “newly-formed coalition,” and “community of breweries.”

One critical shift is that Crux has been sold to the Rhine family that purchased Cascade Lakes in 2018. The Rhines turned the brewing company into a not-for-profit in 2022. Asked if Crux might also go the not-for-profit route, president of the newly-formed OBC Andy Rhine replied, “I think it’s a possibility. We’re community driven and we want to give back as much as possible.”

In late 2011, Larry Sidor left his post as Deschutes’s brewmaster to co-found Crux in 2012, the beginning of the third wave of American craft brewing that began to recede during COVID-19 pandemic. Although Crux continued to show signs of growth such as opening a satellite pub in Portland in 2023, it shuttered less than two years later. Also in 2025, Crux relocated its original pub system from its home in the Southern Crossing neighborhood (referred to as The Riverlands on the Bend Ale Trail map) to its modern, efficient production facility in Boyd Acres (aka the Brewers District on the Bend Ale Trail)

National Headwinds Hit Local Industry

According to the Brewers Association (BA) representing America’s independent breweries, 434 craft breweries closed in 2025, following similar stats for 2024 and 2023. There remains nearly 10,000 across the country with roughly 250 in operation in Oregon. The BA also reported that overall volume among craft brewers fell 5% last year, a percentage higher than in 2024.

“If the craft beer industry is a ship, we can comfortably say we’re no longer in the safety of a harbor,” said Matt Gacioch, staff economist at the BA. Gacioch pointed to “changing consumer behaviors, retailer rationalization, cost increases due to inflation and tariffs, and more competition than ever” as the industry’s primary challenges. But when the national industry accounts for some 450,000 jobs and has a $72.5 billion impact on the economy, craft beer isn’t defeated, it’s simply limping.

The BA’s report went on to note that, “With acquisitions, mergers, and collaborations, the stainless tanks in the background may not be as important as the brand story” and that craft breweries are leaning into their role as community ‘third spaces.’”

For their individual parts, the lawn that is Crux’s biergarten remains a crowded family hub. Silver Moon welcomes guests for beer as well as a popular food truck pod and concert venue. GoodLife has already decommissioned its brewing system and will replace it with pickleball courts. (GoodLife co-owner Garett Oliphant is quoted in the OBC’s press release, “With rising costs from real estate and suppliers, collaboration…allows us to protect what matters most: keeping beer accessible for our customers, and ensuring GoodLife thrives long into the future.”) And Cascade Lakes’s newer Reed Market pub serves one of the last neighborhoods without a brewpub. They have already mastered the notion of “third spaces,” meaning the place you spend the third most amount of time after home and work.

This isn’t to say that the business of making and selling beer becomes secondary. But moving forward, OBC members have less of that to worry about. “Almost all brewing will be transitioning to Crux Fermentation Project’s facility,” said Rhine. “Larry and the Crux team have built an exceptional, high‑quality space capable of producing an incredibly wide range of beverages. What’s important to emphasize is that each brand will continue to create its own distinct beers — the recipes, styles, and personalities aren’t changing. We’re simply bringing production into a shared, state‑of‑the‑art space that allows every brand in the collective to grow, innovate, and operate more efficiently.”

As for additional methods of reaching consumers who have either reduced their alcohol intake or ditched it altogether, while this reporter crushes Crux’s 5% ABV Bochi Bochi rice lager and delights at the opportunity to enjoy a snifter of its 14% Tough Love barrel-aged imperial stout, their NØMØ non-alcoholic brews have become Crux’s best-selling brand. Rhine says Crux is “leading the way” for the OBC family of brands in terms of scale and broad distribution.

Speaking of distribution, it was merely three weeks ago that Columbia Distributing announced it purchased Point Blank Distributing. How this techtonic shift in the distribution world affects the OBC, or vice versa, is still shaking out but Columbia distributes Crux and Silver Moon, Tumalo Cider was with Point Blank, and both Cascade Lakes and GoodLife are signed with Bigfoot Beverages.

Nearly 30 Breweries in Nearly 30 Years

Since Deschutes opened in 1988, Central Oregon has grown to include 27 brewing companies. For every one that has closed—Boss Rambler most recently but some folks may remember names such as Phat Matt’s, Smith Rock, and Rat Hole—we seem to gain in pairs, most recently including Funky Fauna, Van Henion, Terranaut, and the upgrading from Immersion to UPP Liquids. Rhine said that none of the five partners in the OBC were in danger of disappearing, but it certainly ensures their longevity.

“The collective has been almost a year in the making. It really began with early conversations between (Augustyn) and (myself), and from there it naturally grew as different breweries and organizations started connecting with one another. It’s less about any one person approaching another and more about a group of like‑minded, beer‑loving folks recognizing the value of working together to keep craft beer strong in our region.”

This article appears in the Source February 19, 2026.