My journey through the upper Rogue River valley and across the Crater Lake Highway and up the center of Oregon to Bend and Tumulo State Park was uneventful and scenic. The upper Rogue River valley is quite scenic and very beautiful.
After setting up at Tumulo, I headed into Bend. After all, Bend has more brewpubs and breweries than anywhere else on earth. Ten brewpubs and two breweries in a town of less than 100,000 people. Since I’ve been to Bend many times in the past, I wanted to visit the new breweries like Crux and Goodlife. I started at Goodlife, a large distribution brewery with a limited food menu. I had the Bleu Balls (bleu cheese meat balls) and Beer Bread (made with some spent grain from the brewery). Both were very good and a perfect partner with their beers. I left Goodlife with a growlette of their 29er Brown Ale.
From Goodlife I went to Crux Fermentation Project, a place that’s almost too hip for it’s own good. It was very crowded, with a bike ride (some riders in costume) of perhaps 20 bikes forming up outside. I had a glass of their Belgo Gale, a low-IBU very malty “Belgian-style” ale. Everything else on the menu had IBU ratings in the 60s and higher.
From Crux I went to 10 Barrel Brewing, a very different experience than Crux. 10 Barrel is very family oriented, with not a bicycle in sight. I had one beer, a Cherry Tart, a semi-sour mildly cherry character beer.
Back to camp, where I treated myself to a bottle of Duchess du Burgoyne while I wrote up my notes.