22 breweries. *phew. If you know me, than you know I am a brewery girl. Going to another city? What is their brewery scene like? When we decided that we were going to spend 8 days in Bend, I automatically knew we had to create a brewery route. Guess what?! The city of Bend was kind enough to already put one together.
The Bend Ale Trail consists of 22 breweries: 1 in Sisters, 4 in Redmond and 17 in Bend. Your goal is to get a stamp at at least 5 breweries (you don’t even need to have a beer at them), take a selfie with your passport and send it off to the City of Bend. They will mail you a gift card to a brewery you didn’t make it to for next time. Granted the gift card is enough for one beer, but I didn’t even care. Getting all of those stamps was just what I needed!
Tip: Going to Bend? Print your passport ahead of time. You temporarily cannot get one from the visitor center.
Now. How do I rank these breweries? That is a tough one for me. I honestly didn’t have a bad beer at any of them. Each one was completely different from the other. Some had food via trucks or a restaurant, some had large outdoor space, some were nice and quiet. I decided I am going to choose my top 5, but will still tell you about the remaining 17 because you just can’t miss out on any!
Top 5
1. Boss Rambler takes the top spot as my favorite. This was one of only two spots that we ended up visiting two times. Though we didn’t get beer here, their reviews state their beer is great, but I highly recommend the Frose and Margarita slushies. I also love their interior. It is a different take on typical breweries.
2. I love Wild Ride for a few reasons: Their outdoor space, large, open brewery, great beer and food truck court. You could spend hours here.
3. Monkless by far has the most unique beer. No other brewery in the Bend area has a whole line up of belgian ales + belgian style foods to match. I branched out and enjoyed a beer that I normally wouldn’t like but still liked. Their space is also the most unique. It looks like the bottom of a viking ship.
4. Goodlife was the second brewery we visited. I was amazed at their LARGE beer garden space. People were spaced out and their food was great! Top 5 best pretzel I have ever had (and I try pretzels at every spot they are on the menu). I also recommend trying their tacos.
5. Porter made my top 5 due to their unique beer. They brew cask style beer. It is a popular beer style in the UK. It is a more room temperature beer and is almost like a nitro beer. They are all VERY smooth.
The remaining 22
How we visited 22 breweries in 8 days:
I used Google Maps to plan out the various routes and tried to group breweries together based on their vicinity to each other.
- Worthy, Bevel, Spider City
- Crux, Immersion, Monkless
- Cascade Lakes, Deschutes, GoodLife
- 10 Barrel, Boss Rambler, Sun River
- Silver Moon, Bend Brewing, Boneyard
- Bridge 99, Craft Kitchen
- Three Creeks, Porter, Initiative
- Kobold, Wild Ride – we did these before going to the airport
Have you been to any of these breweries? Which one is your favorite?
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