CENTRAL OREGON
Beer aging at Ale Apothecary's warehouse & taproom.
BENDING ELBOWS IN BEERTOWN, USA
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>> BEERSEEKERS
hree hours southeast of Portland, nestled against the Eastern edge of Oregon’s Cascade Mountain ski playground, lies the tourist town of Bend. Popularly dubbed “Beertown, USA”, the city and surrounding area boast more than 25 breweries, making it a sort of hotspot for Cascadian beer travellers. But all the same, it’s off the beaten path. After years of Oregon visits, the BeerSeekers finally got to Bend in 2009, when there wasn’t yet an overwhelming number of breweries; we may have visited four or five that time. Nine years later, we returned for a four-day "fact-finding" tour, dropping in at a dozen breweries as well as some top-class beer bars and an amazing urban cidery. Any discussion of Bend's beer scene starts with its biggest success story. Founded here in 1988, Deschutes Brewing is Oregon’s single largest brewer, so they dominate the local scene. Many of the smaller 16 WHAT'S BREWING S U M M E R 2018
breweries that have cropped up here were founded by Deschutes alumni. Instead of covering the giant in town, let’s start our report with one of its progency.
gers and IPAs. This truly artisanal boutique operation, with only eight team members, has a cult following for a reason. They burst onto North American beer geek radar when it got out that they were brewing beer in the woods using a lauter tun carved out of a spruce tree. The resulting signature ale, Sahati, is rated a perfect 100 by style at RateBeer. To really see what all the fuss is about, we embarked on a bold voyage of discovery. On an extremely snowy March morning we departed Bend and headed half an hour into the forest to Paul’s rural home.
Kirsten Schopen at the Ale Apothecary taproom
THE ALE APOTHECARY
If you’re going to Bend, do yourself a favour and make sure you’re in town between Thursday and Saturday. It's the only way you'll get into the limited-hours tasting room for what is probably the local brewery with the most cult-like national following: The Ale Apothecary. Here you will find no run-of-the-mill la-
It was a seriously snowy March day
