Drink a Beer With Founder Gary Fish at Deschutes Brewery’s Now Iconic Bend Brewpub

Before becoming the largest independently owned brewery in Oregon, Deschutes Brewery was just another restaurant in Bend.

(Deschutes, Emily Joan Greene)
By WW Contributor

BY KEVIN GIFFORD

1044 NW Bond St., Bend, 541-382-9242, deschutesbrewery.com. 11 am-10 pm Sunday-Thursday, 11 am-11 pm Friday-Saturday.

Before becoming the largest independently owned brewery in Oregon with distribution from Hawaii to Virginia, Deschutes Brewery was just another restaurant in Bend. That was when the town was defined more by shuttered sawmills than gushing travel-website articles. The Bond Street brewpub has changed quite a bit from those hardscrabble early years, and with the 2012 launch of Deschutes' gargantuan production facility in southwest Bend, the pub has gone back to its roots. All the classics, like Black Butte Porter and Fresh Squeezed IPA, are here, but there are also 10 or so beers tap drinkers will find nowhere else, including a sweet, hefty chocolate barleywine called Satin Pajamas. The food, from the elk burgers to wild Alaskan coho salmon, is also second to none among Bend's beer joints. It's little wonder that founder Gary Fish can still be found having a Bachelor Bitter at the bar now and then.

(Deschutes, Emily Joan Greene)

Nearby: There's also a Deschutes in Portland (210 NW 11th Ave., 503-296-4906, deschutesbrewery.com), which brews its own small-batch beer and features a similar menu of upscale pub fare.

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