Bend’s local alt-weekly The Source broke the news today that there will be another new brewery opening up in Central Oregon, possibly by this summer: Sunriver Brewing Company, based south of Bend in the resort town of Sunriver.
In what will be about the 15th brewery in the area to receive federal approval to brew, Sunriver Brewing Company plans to open this summer.
The owners are keeping extremely silent on the details, and declined to release information about the size of the brew system, the identity of the brewmaster, the styles of beers to be produced or the pub’s menu. The owners will keep mum until opening, said Brian Cameron, one of the three co-owners.
“We are keeping the specifics under our hat until then,” said Cameron, whose brother is also a co-owner.
The brewery is moving into a space at the Country Village Mall and will operate as a true brewpub, combining brewery and pub operations at the location. The square footage of the space is around 3,600 feet.
Interesting timing on this news; I had heard about a new Sunriver brewery this weekend when we visited Phat Matt’s Brewing over in Redmond (a spur-of-the-moment visit, met the brewer Josh) who mentioned the new venture. I had done some initial searching online for details about it and had sent an email off to the Village Bar & Grill in Sunriver, asking if they were the operation (since they are moving into a much bigger space to be completed later this spring). I hadn’t received a response, however, and with The Source’s news it sounds like it’s not the Village B&G.
In the meantime, here are a few other tidbits that I dug up while searching:
- A Facebook post from the 15th (from “Discover Sunriver Vacation Rentals”) that says, “We just found out we’re getting a brewpub that hopes to be done early this summer. It’s Sunriver Brewing Company and will also have food. Can’t wait.”
- The domain name “sunriver-brewing.com” was created on February 12th of this year. (There already is registered a “sunriverbrewing.com” that was created back in November of 2009. Both domains point to domain landing pages only.)
- As far as brewing system size, I’d guess 1 to 3 barrels, based on the square footage number (3600) given above, considering it’s a brewpub that will need kitchen, food storage, dining area, etc. At least up to 5bbl system at most (this source gives 3 to 5bbl systems as needing at least 300 to 500 square feet).
More as I learn about it.
Boulevard Brewing has issued an 
Word hit this week than a new brewery is looking to get started in Mississippi, in the Jackson metro area, which would have the distinction of being only the second production brewery in the state: 
The 
Back in October we made one of our semi-regular trips to Hood River to pick apples and other fruit and while there, stopped for lunch at the Big Horse Brew Pub (aka Horse Feathers). Big Horse is the third brewery within the Hood River city limits (along with Full Sail and Double Mountain), which tallies up one brewery for every 2400 people or so for the town, an amazing per-capita number (compare Bend at one every 8900 people—and we have a lot in Bend!).
I’m a big fan of collaboration brews, and here in Bend Tonya Cornett of 
Back in July 
On Sunday I had the good fortune to meet Paul Arney, former brewer for Deschutes Brewery who is now heading up his own brewing project, 
One of the goals I’d had for quite awhile was to visit the 
When it comes to pumpkin beers (
Last weekend my friend 
The hop harvest seems to be ready early this year: both 
Hop Valley occupies a corner lot with plenty of parking and the brick building that often typifies the newer Oregon brewpubs. Inside is much as you’d expect—windows viewing the brewing equipment, a dining area with plenty of seating, and a nice bar at the back, where we chose to sit.
Our Labor Day trip to Portland yielded a first-time visit to the iconic 
It’s the first Friday of September, so that means it’s time again for another round of The Session! The Session is a group blogging effort hosted each month by a different blogger (who gets to select the topic for the month) where anyone and everyone who wants to participate only has to do one thing: write up a blog post related both to the theme of the month and beer. That’s it. (Well, you should let the host know what you wrote, too.)
Our first day in San Diego (which was the first Monday after Christmas), we headed up to Carlsbad to hit the shopping outlets and visit 
Even though I’m doing an entire week on French Beer, there were only three actual beers from France that I was able to find locally this week: 
The Bière de Mars is a 5% farmhouse ale, a nice session beer that gets high marks on the review sites: 
Located in historic 
It wouldn't be much of a Halloween without ghost stories and haunted places, so naturally—being a beer site and all—I'm wondering about haunted breweries.
Since I was wrapped up in Theme Week last week, I hadn't had a chance to write up reviews from our Portland trip a couple of weeks ago. We managed to get one brewery visit in: the Hawthorne brewpub for the 
Founded in 1988, Deschutes bottles and distributes six year-round beers, at least four regular seasonals, and a variety of special 22-ounce "Bond Street Series" beers. In addition, their Public House in Downtown Bend also has at least eight or nine other specials on tap (a mix of the current seasonals and specialty batches).
It's garnered a slew of awards, deservedly so, and if you visit the brewery and find yourself drinking only the Porter, you'll still walk away satisfied. It's that great and that drinkable. My all-time favorite Porter.
The next beer is a seasonal, but in many ways I consider it to be the seasonal: 
The brewpub has a small parking lot on the north side of the building, but we parked on the street a block away—the lot was full. There is also outside seating along this north wall, but it was all filled when we arrived. No problem; we got a seat inside right away.
