The Bend Ale Trail
If you happen to be visiting Bend, Oregon, anytime soon (obviously something I highly recommend), you’ll want to check out the Bend Ale Trail. This is a project launched and sponsored by our local tourism bureau, Visit Bend, and (I gather) it’s based loosely on the “New York Beer Trail” —with the purpose to promote both craft beer in Central Oregon and travel and tourism to Bend itself.
Here is the official description:
Starting on June 1st, you can use the Bend Ale Trail Map and Passport available in the latest Discovery Map of Central Oregon to discover Bend’s 7 breweries – and for extra credit, head to our neighboring brewery in Sisters to visit the 8th! Be sure to get your passport stamped at each location. When you get all 7 stamps, stop by or send your completed passport to the Visit Bend Welcome Center and receive a commemorative Bend Silipint made especially for beer drinkers on the go! And, if you do your extra credit and visit Sisters, you’ll receive a special surprise.
It should come as no surprise that I’m already participating in the Bend Ale Trail—though to be fair, my wife (who has a much more competitive “racing” streak than me) is all over it—and so far I think it’s a great promotion and a big step in the right direction for beer boosterism for Bend. Thus far, of the eight breweries on the Ale Trail map, we have four of them stamped; and as another nice touch, each brewery seems to have a custom stamp made for this purpose (a rubber stamp of their logo).
Aside from the enticement of visiting all of Bend’s breweries, Ale Trail followers who get the seven Bend brewery stamps can take their “passports” back to Visit Bend and receive the “Silipint” mentioned above—a foldable, collapsible pint “glass” made out of silicone, specially made by tazlab, a local company that makes collapsible silicone dog bowls.
Personally I think having a travel-ready, collapsible pint glass would be… well, amazing, really. Something easy to take to tastings, festivals, camping, that is non-breakable and would be a conversation starter—just what a beer blogger ordered!
Need I say more? If you needed another reason to come check out the beer in Bend, Oregon, then this is a pretty good one.
5 Comments to “The Bend Ale Trail”
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GRRR, i typed up something and it disappeared!!
Competitive “racing” streak? How long have you known me?
We would have hit more had you not been out of town this week and if we didn’t have the kids “do we have to go to a Brewery AGAIN?” We have hit many microbreweries in a day when your brother was here, just to see how many.
To complete the Ale Trail, I will have to go to one by myself since they are open hours when you are working and grab a growler so you can feel like you were there in spirit.
Out here in Astoria we have the Astoria Ale Trail on days when cruise ships come to town. They get on a bus and travel to Rogue Ales – Astoria, Fort George Brewery, and Astoria Brewing Company in the Wet Dog Cafe.
Locals and non cruise ship visitors can duplicate the trail riding our 1913 Trolley ($1 or $2 all day Noon til 6 p.m.) or on foot along the Riverwalk.
Parking South and East of Ft. George is all day. And entering these destinations in Google maps “walking” shows a 1.6 mile, 30 minute walk to Rogue and a 1.7 mile return trip to the Wet Dog. Returning to your car is a 6 minute walk of 3/10 mile.
Nice write up thanks!
The Ale Trail is on Twitter @
http://twitter.com/bendaletrail
[...] complete the Bend Ale Trail yesterday, having visited all seven Bend breweries plus Three Creeks Brewing out in Sisters. Today [...]
[...] a month ago I wrote about the Bend Ale Trail and how, for completed Ale Trail maps, the Visit Bend organization was giving away Silipints: pint [...]