Visiting Bend/Sunriver (2015 Update)

Want to plug Sunriver's Hop Shop Session IPA...got it on tap in PDX @ Untapped, Saturday. With the advent of FH beer nearly in full swing, I sure am glad I got this filled! Geeky hop profile & sopping wet, it certainly is now the best session I've tried! I'm a huge fan of Vicious Mosquito, & feel nearly the same about this beer!

 

Vicious Mosquito's back on @ Hawthorne Freddie's!!!

 

I just got back from Bend, so I thought I'd make some comments.

- Sunriver was the runaway winner in terms of overall experience (beer quality, food, and service). Even though it's not reachable without a vehicle, its worth the trip. The whole "Village" area is pretty nice/family friendly as well.

- Boneyard was disappointing in the sense that the "tasting room" is a tiny standing-room-only affair which doesn't even serve pints. The only options are samplers or growler fills. While it's cool to be able to fill a growler with Hop Venom, and it's really easy to walk to from downtown, the actual experience was rather perfunctory.

- Craft Kitchen and Brewery was the only place that had offensively bad beer. They had a berlinerweiss on tap which both smelt and tasted like cheese. Not only could we not drink it, we couldn't even stand to smell it; we put an over-turned water cup over the taster to block out the odor. While not all their beer was a disaster, that one was not fit to be served to the public (and we talked to other patrons who agreed, so it wasn't just us).

- Deschutes and 10 Barrel are just as busy on the weekends as their PDX counterparts, so definitely try to go during the work week if you don't want to have to wait an hour for a table.

- Almost every brewery has the same bar food menu (burgers & fries) and I personally found it quite tiring after a while. So you might want to take some time to plan your meals unless you don't mind eating pretty much the same thing every day. Also, every place advertises Fish and Chips, but I did not think any place was particularly good. My "standard" is the Frying Scotsman food cart in Portland (British style), and all the places I tried it in Bend were typical American style. They weren't bad, but not impressive in any way so don't fall for the hype.

- Go to bendaletrail.com and get the beer trail map. If you visit 10 breweries you get a free Silipint glass and if you visit 16 you also get a free bottle opener. You might as well get free merch for your efforts.

 

Sunriver's Cocoa Cow Milk Stout is delicious! On my flight @ Untapped PDX.

 

Well, to be fair, they actually run a "tasting room", unlike a lot of breweries that run a bar, and call it a Tasting Room. If you can go in, sit down, and have several pints, you are not in a tasting room, you're in a bar. I visited Boneyard shortly after they opened, and loved the whole feel of the place. Tried all 3 of the beers they made at the time, and fourth beer made by blending two.

 

Perhaps, but to me that distinction is kind of arbitrary.

My standard for a "tasting room" is Upright. It's definitely too sparse to be considered a bar IMHO, but you can at least get glasses of beer. You also get to wander around the brewery, take a peek at the open fermentation tanks through the window, and there is usually something interesting on tap that you don't normally see around town. In other words, you feel like you are visiting a brewery.

Visiting Boneyard felt like visiting a merch closet which just happen to have samplers for sale. You don't get to see any of the brewery, everything on tap is standard, and you can't even enjoy a simple glass of beer. I imagine it might be more interesting to someone from out of state, but considering how easy it is to find Boneyard in PDX there was really nothing new to the experience.

 

For me, something like Upright is more of a tap room and Boneyard is a tasting room, but that's just me.

 

Did you happen to goto crux? I felt like their menu was a lot different then burger and fries. It also is my favorite of the bend brewery taproom/bars/Etc. just curious of your opinion haven't been to sunriver.

 

I did go to Crux.

To be honest, I barely remember anything about the food there; I presume it was fine. I guess they had sandwiches instead of burgers, but I don't really consider that a big difference; it's still just meat with bread around it. Plenty of places in Bend had sandwiches and burgers together, so it didn't feel like a significant difference in menu options. It did have a good atmosphere though; live music outside, lots of people in communal seating, etc.

Just to be clear, I didn't think any of the breweries had bad food; I just got tired of eating the same type of food every day. I guess part of that is on me since I made the decision to eat at breweries. But for example, we had fried avocados at Sunriver which was a cool unexpected twist. Yes, it's still fried food, but at least it's something that you don't see on every menu.

(To be honest, even in PDX I prefer to eat at places that happen to have good beer rather than going directly to the brewery. Outside of Breakside, it's not that easy to find breweries that also have an interesting food menu. I think this was just tougher than usual because I don't usually eat at breweries every day for a week straight.)

 

Thanks for the suggestion.

Yeah, I probably over did it on the breweries because it was my first time in Bend. Next time I won't be concerned with trying to hit everything and I'll definitely check it out.

 

Looks like I will be going in about 2 weeks, really can't wait. Hopefully the Growler Guys will have some Hop Venom on tap to stock up on Crowlers back to Boise.

 

So I should be there next Wed, Oct 7th. Any recommended places to watch the Cubs Wild Card game?

 

Anyone ever stay at Wall Street Suites? How is this in terms of walking distances to things?

 

@sharpski , got a couple friends down in Bend this week, anything in particular I should have them check out?

 

@ Bonfire (gettin' my gyro on) & wanted to state just how delicious this batch of RPM is, on around town. Like a PJ clone on the malt bill...not quite on the nose, but so damn good!

 

Newport Avenue had Ale Apothecary - Sahile as of a few days ago.