Last Update: March 16, 2024
Ann and I love our craft beer and while we love supporting our local brewers and taprooms here in Bend, Oregon, we've been here long enough to have settled on Crosscut Warming Hut, the tap house across the street from the Box Factory, as our home away from home. Bend is perhaps the most beer-centric town in the entire Pacific Northwest and there is almost no place in town where you cannot get a great beer. As we explore the beer world here in Bend and in nearby locales, we share our thoughts here on this page.
Quick LinksBend Breweries and Brew Pubs
Other Beer Venues (Tap Houses and Food Cart Pods)
Nearby Venues
Breweries and Brew Pubs (Alphabetic Order)
Bend Brewing
Bevel Craft Brewing
Boneyard Beer Pub
Boneyard Beer Taproom
Boss Rambler Beer Club
Of the three pubs right next to each other on Galveston (Sunriver, Boss Rambler, and 10 Barrel), it's a toss-up for us which has the better beers, Boss Rambler or Sunriver. The place is a small, no-nonsense cinderblock building with a service counter fronting Galveston Avenue. Founded by former Crux employees, Boss Rambler isn't trying to win any awards for slickest pub. Here, it's all about the very good beer. There is space for a food truck, but that seems to be hit or miss. There are plenty of places to eat in the area, especially at The Lot food truck pod across the street. Pro tip: If you're at Boss Rambler near the lunch hour, right across the street is the seasonal (opens mid-April, closes November, breakfast and lunch only) Sol Verde food truck serving bomb New Mexican food.
Bridge 99
Bridge 99 is a small brewery located in the very far north of Bend just off of Empire Avenue. Ann and I really love the space done with a lot of contrasting wood and metal in a PNW x industrial style. Although they pour a fair number of beers, we just have not been able to find a hop profile at Bridge 99 that suits us, and that puts them in the bottom tier of breweries for us.
Cascade Lakes Brewing, Pub on Reed Market
In 2023, the Reed Market pub was Cascade Lakes' second and newest venue in Bend; they're a Redmond-based outfit. At the end of 2023, they closed the Century Avenue pub and largely, nobody noticed. By virtue of being one of the only beer outlets in an area starved for outlets (Southeast), the new pub that opened in late July 2023 is pretty busy. Despite the beautiful new space and a reworking of the beer packaging, the same old stale beers remain on tap. The food from the kitchen is passable and the beers, as always, remain in the bottom tier of local brews.
Craft Kitchen and Brewery
Crux Fermentation Project
Deschutes Brewery Bend Public House
GoodLife Brewing
Immersion Brewing
Monkless Belgian Ales
In the PNW, it can be really hard to find styles other than West Coast beers. Monkless bucks the trend with very good Belgians—too bad they're not my jam. The woodwork on the interior is pretty spectacular and the seating on the back deck overlooking the river is awesome. The vast selection of dubbels, trippels, and quads will knock you for a loop if you're not careful! The kitchen seems to handle the fairly traditional brasserie menu well.
Silver Moon Brewing
One of the OG breweries in Bend—only Deschutes and Bend are older—Silver Moon brews reliably mid-tier beers, but they just never change things up. We like the interior of the pub and the terrific beer garden out back, surrounded by food trucks. With $3 beers on Mondays, we sometimes find ourselves there frequently to start the week. The name of the food truck pod, The Office, is a Bend in-joke nod to the prior strip club of the same name where the pod now sits. The Moon Room is one of the better concert venues in Bend. Pro tip: The Greenwood Avenue address, on the edge of downtown wedged hard against the parkway, is totally misleading: all the parking and the entrance is around back off Kearney Avenue.
Spider City Brewing, Downtown Tasting Room
Tucked away off quaint Tin Pan Alley in downtown, the tasting room is neat space for those who like finding places off the beaten path. The tasting room is co-located with The Wine Shop, so a good selection of wines by the glass is available for those who don't want a beer. Besides making good beers, Spider City is something of a unicorn in that it is the only brewery in town run by women. The tasting room only pours a few beers, so if you want to experience the full range of brews, you'll need to head to the brewery in Southeast. Unfortunately, the beer list seems to change only rarely.
Spider City Brewing, Southeast Brewery
Located at the southern end of 9th Street where it tees into Reed Market, the warehouse location of Spider City doesn't look like much from the outside, but inside, it is charming enough and is growing on us. For us locals, it's an off-the-beaten-path haven away from the über-popular touristy beer joints. However utilitarian the space, it houses a nice selection of some very good beers, their Baltic Porter being one of the very best examples of its kind. We also love the Soleil Rubis, a mixed berry sour that is crushable after a hot day on the lakes or trails. We really like to support the woman-run brewery, a unicorn on the Bend beer scene, even if the beer selection seems fairly static.
Sunriver Brewing, Eastside Pub
For the high quality of their beer, the Sunriver Galveston pub is one of our go-to places in town, so the addition of a pub right by the hospital in Northeast is welcome. This location, opened in May 2022, was the former eastside outpost of Jackson's Corner and is situated across from the hospital at the intersection of Neff and Medical Center, just a baseball toss from neighboring food cart and beer pod, On Tap. The beers are the same as at Galveston, but the space is a good bit larger and more modern than the homier westside pub, with a beer hall vibe. They inherited a pizza oven from Jackson's Corner that sees a lot of use on our visits, but the product is not all it could be. Our food experiences have been pretty sad here.
Sunriver Brewing, Galveston Pub
Of the three pubs right next to each other on Galveston (Sunriver, Boss Rambler, and 10 Barrel), we like the atmosphere at Sunriver best. The garage doors opening onto Galveston and the heated beer garden in the rear are great. As a bonus, Sunriver's beers, brewed at the brewery in Sunriver upstream on the Deschutes, are among the very best in town. After faltering quite a bit in our earlier visits, the kitchen seems like it is getting back on its footing. Sunriver also has a brand new and much bigger pub right at the hospital on the east side, but there's no reason to venture over there unless you have business in the area.
10 Barrel East Side Pub and Brewery
Now that Anheuser Busch has sold 10 Barrel to a Canadian cannabis company, we are a little less leery of spending our money to support mega-corporate brewing. That said, we really enjoy 10 Barrel East and don't mind helping to support our friends and neighbors who work there. The industrial feeling pub is a shotgun room with a long bar along one side and a long kitchen along the other side, with tables in between. We like the feel and the vibe of the pub, but there's also plenty of outdoor seating. The kitchen turns out really good pub food, which is a reason to visit, but our prime driver for visiting is the beer. With 20 rotating taps, 10 Barrel showcases some great and fun beers, many of which will never see distribution. Tucked away in Northeast, this is a mecca for locals who tend to avoid the hyper-touristy Westside pub. Of the breweries and pubs in Northeast, this is probably our go-to on our rare forays to Northeast.
10 Barrel West Side Pub
Of the three pubs right next to each other on Galveston (Sunriver, Boss Rambler, and 10 Barrel), we like the atmosphere at 10 Barrel second best. The pub with attached beer garden is one of the most popular in Bend (read: just like the Deschutes pub, 10 Barrel is a tourist mecca). Like at Sunriver, the garage doors opening onto Galveston are nice and the beer garden in the rear is cool. A reason to visit for us would be the kitchen which turns out really good pub food. 10 Barrel is known for their pizzas and many people think they are the best in town. The pizzas are good, but not close to the best in town.
Worthy Brewing, Eastside Brewery and Pub
For the below average quality of food (constant churn of kitchen staff) and beer, we no longer find it worthwhile to visit Worthy. While Worthy runs on solar energy and has extensive gardens outside the brewery, all great Bend things, it seems to be resting on its reputation and longevity in the market and not really trying to be a great Bend brewery. Located right across the street from Costco, it used to be our lunch spot after a Costco run, but they've blown their chances with us.
Worthy Brewing, Beers & Burgers
Location: Downtown, 806 NW Brooks St
High Points: Small, quiet and quirky space
Beer: Reliable, but treading water
Food: Burgers and fries sound better than they are
As a quiet refuge downtown just down the street from Bend Brewing, Beers & Burgers is a tiny and quirky pub on the Brooks Street promenade. On visits to the adjacent farmers market, the burgers and fries here have left us less than thrilled, especially for the price. The pub has a small bar, a garage door opening onto the street, and interesting booking photos of "Worthy Criminals" adorning the wall. As for beer, Worthy is in the bottom half of local breweries and doesn't seem to be interested in changing that.
Other Beer Venues (Tap Houses and Food Cart Pods)
Crosscut—Warming Hut No. 5
Our home away from home in the Box Factory area, Crosscut is our must-visit tap room when we don't have a specific brewery in mind, which is most of the time, to be totally transparent. The cozy interior is an ersatz ski chalet with an enormous wood stove to keep everyone toasty during our long winters. Lots of outdoor seating around firepits for when the weather is mild and the breeze coming off the river is gentle. We generally do not eat here, but we do make an occasional exception for the really good Detroit-style pizza at Abe Capanna's. Bonus: an entire wall of whiskey!
The Lot
Location: Westside/Galveston Corridor, 745 NW Columbia St
High Points: Nice alternative dining for the Galveston beer stops
Beer: 16 rotating taps, mainly local beers
Food: Four pretty decent food trucks
When we're in the Galveston corridor, which is home to two of our favorite pubs in Sunriver and Boss Rambler, plus 10 Barrel West Side, The Lot is a decent option for lunch or dinner. Boss Rambler doesn't have food and Sunriver's kitchen doesn't match their beer in any way, so we generally plan to eat at one of the food trucks across the street at The Lot, Bend's original food cart pod. There is a variety of outdoor seating and a central indoor/outdoor roofed space that is heated in winter, making The Lot a year-round option. They have enough beers on tap to find something to drink while you wait for your food.
Midtown Yacht Club
Location: Northeast/Midtown, 1661 NE 4th St
High Points: Great space in a part of town lacking great spaces
Beer: Roughly 16 beers etc. on tap
Food: Great selection of food trucks
Whenever we're in the midtown section of NE, we drop down 4th St a block south of Revere to hang at Midtown Yacht Club, a great indoor/outdoor food truck court with about 7 food trucks featuring a wide variety of food. If you can't find something decent to eat here, that's your problem. With roughly a dozen PNW beers on tap, we can always find something to drink, generally a beer that's not from Bend. When we want a change-up, we can generally find beers from Portland, Seattle, Washington State, or Hood River on tap. They also have an impressive array of beers to go. The only downside is that the counter service can be a bit grumpy, especially if you're the least indecisive about which beer you want.
On Tap
Location: Northeast, 1424 NE Cushing Dr
High Points: Perhaps the food cart pod with the best overall beer and food
Beer: Roughly 18 taps of non-Bend PNW beers
Food: Great selection of food trucks
When we're in NE (Costco, hospital), we like to drop by the always hopping On Tap food truck pod, mere feet from the newly opened Sunriver eastside pub, which despite excellent beer has consistently sub-par food. On tap has an extensive list of PNW (Cali too) beers for when we want a change up from Bend beers. When we want a Block 15 beer for example, this is where we head. Bonus: the beers are $5 all day, every day. There is lots of seating indoors and outdoors, but it's always going to be hopping, and sitting space can be scarce especially around lunch time. The food trucks offer pretty consistently decent grub. We really do enjoy this space which is in the process of being expanded.
The Podski
A go-to for Ann and me and one of the places we love to visit for a late night nosh, The Podski food truck pod and bar is just a fun place to hang and have a beer. The beer selection isn't all that awesome with only a few draft heads, but the vibe more than makes up for it. We love the PNW-themed fire pit in the courtyard. Pro tip: Not to diss any of the other food carts, but we love Big Ski's pierogis, with the OG (original mashed potato) pierogis being the best. Also, the Americana food truck, home to Bend's best smashburger, relocated to Podski in the fall of 2022.
Spoken Moto
Location: In the process of relocating to 2nd Street; closed temporarily
High Points: ???
Beer: ???
Food: ???
We loved this place, but they got booted from their Box Factory location because of redevelopment of the huge tract between the Box Factory and Crux Brewing. They are relocating over to N. 2nd St and hope to be open in the summer of 2023. It was really cool to watch when they jacked up the building and drove it to the new location. We have high hopes for the new location.
Waypoint by Bend Brewing
Location: NWX, 921 NW Mount Washington Dr
High Points: Upscale casual bar in The Grove with plenty of outdoor seating
Beer: 8 taps of BBC beers
Food: Lots of surrounding restaurants
Although Waypoint is a Bend Brewing establishment, it feels more upscale cocktail bar than taproom to us, especially since there are only 8 draft taps, hence its inclusion in this Other Beer Venues section. We really like the feel of this place when we find ourselves in the rarified air of Northwest Crossing. Because of its location in The Grove, a food hall arranged around a communal space, right on the NWX roundabout, there is no shortage of places to find food to bring in to Waypoint, which serves only beverages. Beer offerings are fairly weak for a taproom, but the Grove Pale Ale, available only here and not at the brewery, is a decent choice. Honestly, we don't go here for the beer, but rather for the excellent craft cocktails.
Nearby Venues
Sunriver Brewing, Sunriver Pub
Sunriver has three pubs: the original in Sunriver, a westside pub on Galveston in Bend, and a newly opened eastside pub by the hospital in Bend. While the original pub in Sunriver is very convenient after we have explored south of Bend, it is one of our least favorite venues. In the summer season, it is constantly slammed with tourists and really isn't a great place to go sample beers. Frankly, it reminds of super-touristy Snake River Brewing in Jackson Hole, not a place we'd go for a quiet beer. The beers, however, are among the very best in Central Oregon. Standard pub food is what you'll find here and the original and busiest kitchen is the best of the three.
Wild Ride, Redmond
Stopping for a beer in Redmond after a day at Smith Rock or other points north of Bend is almost de rigueur. There's not a whole lot of seating indoors; the draw here is the massive patio punctuated by a shiny grain silo. Bordered by high-top fire pits along 5th St, the patio has many cable spool tables shaded by either red or white umbrellas. Hop vines growing up the façade of the modern building soften it a bit. As attractive as it is, it's also a very popular space with locals and tourists alike and seems to draw a different crowd than Bend breweries. Even off hours are busy and in good weather, kids run amok would not be unusual. The beers are good and worth the visit, but the Wild Catch food cart with outstanding fish and chips is the big draw for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment