The Great Northwest Brewery Tour: Day 1, Bend Oregon

This is going to be a little different from normal.  It has been my custom up until this point, to select a brewery... maybe two if I was getting wild and crazy with the cream cheese, do a nice write-up and spew it forth for your reading pleasure.  I... can't do that this time.  See, here's what happened:

I am getting married in October to a wonderfully patient and loving woman who agreed to marry me despite the fact that I spend most of my time jetting all over hell and creation drinking beer and then coming home only to stink up our small apartment with the smell of mashing barley and fermenting wort.  (Obviously I'm using her opinion of the smell here.  I, on the other hand love it  If they made a scented candle called 'IPA brewpot', I would buy all of them  In fact, someone should make a candle like that.  There you go, there's a million dollar idea from me to you.)

My friends and I decided to mark my transition to married life in a different way.  Instead of the usual tradition that requires gallons of alcohol, a superfluity of strippers (the official group name, by the way and if it isn't it should be), a few illegal drugs and a donkey, my friends and I decided to hop into the car and set out on the Proud Highway on the Great Northwest Berwery tour.


Basically what I am trying to say is that there was a lot of beer, and a lot of drinking of beer.  My normal format would not only double the size of this blog, but probably drive me absolutely mad the process.  The whole trip was kind of a blur while it was happening and I found myself torn between the desire to interact with my friends and enjoy myself and my need to document the experience for posterity, so I some of the details are missing or lost in the haze of the whole experience.  So what I have done instead is kind of a highlights reel of the whole experience.  City by city, day by day this is what happened.

Bend, Oregon:
 It was once a rather quaint little logging town nestled at the base of the Cascade mountains.  Today it's a quaintess-based economy where displaced Portlanders, Seattleites and L.A. - type-humanoids gather to hike up mountains, and then barrel down those mountains balls-first on a bike, a pair of skis, a snowboard, a raft or some combination of the thereof.  After those activities, people like a beer to help sooth their battered egos, strained muscles and bruised genitalia.  Add to that equasion the Oregonian love of all things fermented and you've got one hell of a micro-brew culture.

Silver Moon Taster

We started at an old favorite of mine: Silver Moon Brewing.  The last time I was there it was six or seven years ago and Silver Moon was just a homebrew supply store with a few fermenters in the back and two beers on tap.  It's grown up a bit since.  The Hop Nob stood out here.  It was citrusy (and you're going to be seeing that word a lot over the next few posts), crisp and refreshing.  It was an IPA for someone who doesn't like IPA's.  The Boys in the Wood was also notable for it's berry, cherry caramel and herbal aroma.  "It tastes like a cherry Twizzler" said my friend Garrett, "Ti would go go with sperament gum."

Sweet Potato Fries and Tasters at Deschutes

It was on to Deschutes Brewing.  Fellow Northwesterners will immediatly recognize the name as well as their famous porter that has been cloned by so many breweries that it's almost a style in and of itself.  The brewery in addition has a mind-blowing assortment of additional brews on tap, but none really, really stood out.  The Quick Bane was light bordering on watery, but it had a nice sweet flavor with a slight cinnimon spice to it.  The Hop in the Dark was a dark ale that started off citrusy and became sweeter adding caramel and cholcolate flavors to the palate and finished with an earth, bitter aftertaste.  It is part of a new, and rapidly growing style out here in the northwest, but I'm going to wait until Portland before I dive into that particular snake pit.

Bend Brewing was next.  There was a clear stand-out here, the Elk Lake IPA with it's wonderful pine aroma and flavor, it just tastes like the air smells in this area of Oregon.  The Scottish heart was a close second with it's sweet dark fruit and red wine flavors that make for a wonderful Scotch ale.

10 Barrel is Bend's newest location for some local color.  The S1nistor Black Ale was nice, it was surprisingly light but it had lots of sweet caramel, coffee and mocha flavors going for it.  The Imperial Pray For Snow had some nice complex Belgian flavors to it.  I picked up some champagne, strawberry and white wine flavors.  It finished just slightly bitter with a fizzy mouthfeel.

Goodlife brewing company is a brewery that in every way celebrates the 'outdoor lifestyle' of this town.  (i.e. barreling ball-first down a mountain as discussed earlier).  The Good And Worthy deserves some note because it was one of the few Belgian wheat beers we encountered.  Far from the 'weak-ass lemonade' flavor as described by both of my friends Garrett and Gary, this one had lost of bannana, tropical fruit, clove and citrus peel and/or corriander spice.  The Indian Brown Ale was noteworthy with a sweet coffee, caramel flavor backed with some English hops.  Not as strong as and IPA should be, in my opinion, but pretty good.

Finally, we come to Cascade Lakes.   I was a fan of the River Red. It had a sweet, caramel and red wine aroma and a herbal hoppy, caramel and light fruit flavor.  The 30" was a close second with lots of raisen and dark fruit and malty flavors that finished just slightly bitter.

Brewery count: 6
Beer count: 50

And.... that was a nice warm-up.  Next it's on to Corvallis and then Portland and Seattle.