When Brian Yaeger published “Oregon Breweries” a decade ago, he documented 190 breweries and brewpubs from sea to high desert. Today, we’re closer to 300 in the Beaver State, he says. Yet, the massive brew fests of the aughts and twenty-tens have gone the way of the dodo, including Portland’s waterfront Oregon Brewers Festival and the Bend Brewfest, “which became the state’s largest brew fest in recent years,” Yaeger notes, but was canceled in both 2023 and ’24.
COVID can shoulder some of the blame, but “there are constant challenges and the current trend toward people ditching beer altogether or folding in more beverages beyond beer is one of those challenges,” Yaeger says. “I always think of those challenges as opportunities.”
Introducing Memorial Day weekend’s Bend Brews & Beyond on Saturday and Sunday, May 24 and 25, a festival featuring 50 Oregon breweries and cideries — plus nonalcoholic purveyors of hop water, kombucha, cold brew and more — at Drake Park. Hosted on a similar footprint as the summertime Munch & Music series, the party will include “every locally owned Central Oregon hopped, appled and honeyed beverage producer as well as over a dozen nonalcoholic beverage makers,” according to a release.
“It’s now a beer-and-more festival with a larger focus on cider as well as an array of N/A drinks, so whether you wholly abstain from alcohol or simply want to sample more of what’s available,” there’ll be options for all, Yaeger says.
The new location “will allow for people to float up to the fest” (yes, there’ll be tube and SUP parking), attendance will be limited to 5,000 people per day (ensuring shorter lines), and tickets will be $40 for those consuming alcohol and $30 for the sober curious, with early bird tickets $10 off if purchased by Valentine’s Day.
The area’s largest and oldest brewer, Deschutes, will be in attendance, and event sponsor Silver Moon Brewing will celebrate its 25th anniversary. “Bend’s newest and smallest, including Terranaut, Van Henion and Funky Fauna,” will be there, Yaeger says, plus “we even have a meadmaker in Sisters, Lazy Z Ranch, that will have a new sparkling honey wine. On the N/A side, Backporch Coffee Roasters will be pouring new brands of cold brew, Humm Kombucha will be supplying those probiotics, and there will be several non-alc beers as well as hopped seltzers called hop waters. If a local beverage maker off my radar hasn’t been invited yet, I encourage them to reach out.”
After chatting with countless brew fest attendees (drinkers) and vendors (beer slingers), Yaeger is “over the moon to be staging this evolved form of the brew fest that is designed to be a win-win by making Bend Brews & Beyond the best — if not the biggest — version of a celebration of local and Oregon-wide food and beverage, except it’s really beverage and food.”
With 10 food trucks, live bands, DJs and activities — both informative (Meet the Makers) and silly (Drinking Pants Pageant) — there’ll even be a “Brewers Decathlon where teams of brewers get to compete… in 10 challenges designed for professional brewers only,” Yaeger says.
At the end of the day, Bend Brews & Beyond is all about “what makes our local brewing and beverage-making industry so great as well as what makes communal gatherings super fun.”
Full disclosure: Brian Yaeger regularly contributes to the Source Weekly — you can find his work here.
This article appears in The Source Weekly February 6, 2025.
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