So it's not all fun and games on our trip--in between our backpacking trip in the 3 sisters wilderness area and dipping into bagby hotsprings, we ducked into bend, oregon to try the 2 famed beer places there.
We started with a tour at Deschutes, where a (extremely beer loving) tour guide explained the brewing process step by step and showcased the very expensive brewing equipment. One thing that makes DBC unique is their use of the whole hop flower instead of pellets or extract. The tour was quite interesting and ben and I were glad to learn more and bulk up knowledge.
At the end of the tour we stopped by the tasting room where we tried Mirror Mirror (a decent barleywine), inversion ipa (a good and classic northwestern ipa), black butte porter (surprsingly their most popular and also the best we had), green lakes organic ipa (ok pale ale--they admit u sacrifice quality in some ways w organic beer--makes me think we should do an organic beer club night), and lasly the black butte xxi (their 21st anniversary smoked espresso stout...kind of like a cup of coffee poured in a beer--interesting but not good!!).
Deschutes is huge. They talked about their huge distribution and their love of the environment. They are taking some interesting steps towards going green and reuse their spent grain to make breads.
Ruling: pretty decent. Nowhere near the best but obviously a bit step above anything we get from sweetwater.
Instead of trying more we went to bend brewing co. We had read about their female brewmaster and good beers in beeradv mag and were excited for their half price happy hour apps. But their beer was mostly not memorable. We did the sampler and tried all ten on tap and had some bad, some decent and one or two good ones. Their oatmeal stout nitro was good and their dark lager was like slovenian pivo temno. We will try their hop head ipa later (their best and imperial ipa).
Ruling: blah. Depending on the imperial ipa.
We also think full sail brewing is overrated.
Finally, I write this from the timberline lodge in mt hood where we tried the mt hood oatmeal stout. Not at all a dud--a really yummy and not too heavy stout that deserves its A on beeradv. Ok ben is reminding me to get back to our leisurely dinner and view of mt hood.
And tomorrow we go back to the woods for 3 days--in need of a beer respite!!
I've only ever had Deschutes' Stonehenge Imperial Experimental IPA, which I thought was awesome. Sorry to hear their lineup doesn't back that brew up. Never had full sail (their label art turns me off; yeah, I know how lame is that) but glad to know I'm not missing liquid gold or something. Oh, and Catherine slept in a parking lot in Bend once. She said it was fine for sleeping.
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