Jon Abernathy

Deschutes Brewery VIP Tour and Media Event

On Thursday I (along with a group of other local media folks) was invited to Deschutes Brewery for a special VIP brewery tour and media event. I was entirely unsure what to expect beforehand, and as it turned out the Brewery had set up a special tasting for attendees beforehand, presented by one of the senior brewers Jimmy Seifert and marketing manager Jason Randles.

While the brewery tour was great (particularly so due to main tour conductor Aaron), it was the tasting that was the main event of the evening. For each beer tasted, Seifert talked about the making and history of the beer, and there were interesting nuggets of information to be gleaned along the way.

To Age or Not To Age

I am a bit of a packrat personality: I tend to collect things and in recent years this has turned towards beer (go figure). When I’m buying beer (particularly specialty beer) I have an impulse toward buying extra to “put away”—to cellar the beer with the idea that it will change (hopefully for the better) [...]

The Bend Beer Scene, Part 1

If you’ve taken a peek at my about page you know that I live in Bend, Oregon: right smack in the middle of the state, the largest city in Oregon east of the Cascade Mountains. Bend is unusual in a number of ways; first, it’s relatively geographically isolated: the nearest Interstate is two hours away, [...]

Deschutes Jubelale Vertical (‘07, ‘08, ‘09)

The last couple of years I’ve been doing some (small-scale) cellaring of beer, putting some away each year to save for… well, I haven’t figured out exactly what yet, other than to open up the occasional bottle for special occasions. (In the back of my mind I have an idea that I might have a [...]