Your Fantasy Travel Destination For Craft Beer? Bend, Oregon!

Jon Katz•Updated: June 8, 2015 3:54 pm EST

With Fantasy Travel Week upon us, we asked our trusted beer columnist to pick one location in the United States that he would travel to for a legitimate beer safari. His answer sort of surprised us. But then again, the craft beer scene in 2014 always surprises us.

Oregon beer fan boys and girls are seriously lucky. Not only is the state one of the biggest hop producers in the country (hooray for fresh hops!), it also hosts a number of amazing breweries. While Portland has long garnered coverage for its craft beer scene, the smaller city of Bend — located three hours drive to the south — is one of the most thriving areas for beer in the country. You can thank local Deschutes Brewery for kicking it all off. They've been making delicious suds for an incredible 26 years and are now America's 5th-largest brewery. Ernst & Young even named founder Gary Fish its 2013 Entrepreneur of the Year.

Despite Bend's size — just 80,000 residents — it really does offer some of the best beer in the country. As I mentioned, all roads to the city go through Deschutes Brewery, so that's where to start. Oregon's largest brewery is about to get bigger with a $46 million expansion set to take place this year. Deschutes nails practically every style out there. And while their limited releases — like The Dissident, a sour red aged in wine barrels, and their bourbon barrel-aged imperial stout — might get the most attention, it's their control and balance of hops in seasonal releases that really stands out. Their Red Chair North West IPA is a sure bet: clean with just enough juicy citrus hops and caramel malt to make its 6.2% ABV virtually undetectable.

Less than a mile from Deschutes Brewery is 10 Barrel Brewing Company. Like Deschutes, they specialize in hoppy beers, churning out Apocalypse IPA and DUB double IPA. My suggestion: check out their 16 Barrels release, a double golden ale aged in pinot noir barrels from Lange Estate Winery. Although wine barrels are increasingly being used for aging beer, it's still rare to find ales aged in fruity and occasionally funky pinot noir barrels. Super-smooth and with tons of fruitiness from the yeast and barrel, 16 Barrels has no trace of its near-10% ABV.

One of the best new American Farmhouse breweries, The Ale Apothecary, is located just outside Bend's city center in a nearby part of the Willamette National Forest. The location plays a huge part in the beers' creation: they're all wild mixed-fermentation ales aged in oak (like the forest around them). This is true to an even greater extent in Sahati, their fantastic interpretation of a traditional Finnish Sahti beer, brewed in a 200-year-old hollowed-out spruce tree along with branches and needles which impart resinous oils. Their brews are naturally carbonated and distributed in champagne bottles: this is indeed special beer. While the facilities are closed to the public, you may be able to tour this special property if you ask very nicely (and tell them that Food Republic sent you).

If you like your IPAs of the imperial variety, Boneyard Beer Company is your next stop. Boneyard was literally born from taking old equipment from other breweries and restoring it for their own use: hence the name "Boneyard." Though the ABVs of many of these beers (10% and up) may scare you, the tropical fruit flavors are perhaps the boldest and best in the country outside of California. Try as many of these as you think you can handle, but if you're thinking of hitting more than one brewery on your Bend tour, may we suggest the sessionable Bone-A-Fide Pale Ale? It's just 5.5% and 38 IBUs, with all the pineapple, mango and citrus of a much bigger beer. If you go there on a Wednesday, enjoy a $7 growler fill! They also make non-alcoholic beer for dogs called Dawg Grog made from Boneyard's beer wort! How cool is that?

Located just a few minutes walk from Boneyard is one of the newest entries into Bend's brewing scene Crux Fermentation Project. You might be wondering, why the lack of stouts on this tour? Well I've been saving the best for last in the form of Crux's Tough Love [Banished]. Yes, this imperial stout has been left all alone in Kentucky bourbon barrels for nine whole months. Patience has certainly paid off as the 11.5% is seriously smoothed out with hints of chocolate, bourbon, cherry and vanilla oakiness that makes this just as great on tap as it is for the cellar.

All of the breweries are open for tours, but make sure to call ahead as tour times can sometimes change.

Deschutes Brewery

901 Southwest Simpson Avenue

541-385-8606

deschutesbrewery.com

10 Barrel Brewing Company

62970 18^th Street

541-585-1007

10barrel.com

The Ale Apothecary (tours by appointment only)

61517 River Road

541-318-9143