Category Archives: Excerpt

Happy Repeal Day!

The Bulletin, December 5, 1933: Prohibition EndedToday is Repeal Day, in which we celebrate this date (December 5) in 1933 when Utah became the final state needed for a majority to ratify the 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution—ending Prohibition. To commemorate the date, I’m posting some excerpts from the book about Prohibition and Repeal as it happened in Central Oregon. So crack open a beer and read along!

The state of Oregon, like many states and communities prior to the onset of national Prohibition in 1920, was no stranger to the temperance movement. Temperance took hold in the Oregon country even before the state entered the Union in 1859: in 1844, the Provisional Government of the Oregon territory (not to be confused with the organized incorporated Territory of Oregon, which was established in 1848) passed a prohibition law that was to prevent “the introduction, distillation, or sale of ardent spirits” in Oregon. (“Ardent spirits” referred to beverages in which the alcohol content is measured by proof instead of by percentage.)

Although this law did not last for more than a few years, the temperance movement was not yet finished in Oregon. In 1854, a prohibition petition was circulated and signed by seventy-four people to ban liquor (the “worm of the still”), but as the idea of prohibition did not enjoy the support of the population of the Oregon Territory, the petition was denied.

In 1887, the WCTU and the national Prohibition Party managed to get a strict prohibition measure on the Oregon state ballot for the election of that year. Oregonians weren’t having any of it, defeating the measure by a three-to-one margin. This and other state- and national-level setbacks helped the WCTU, ASL and other temperance organizations to realize that attacking alcohol at the state (and higher) level was fruitless—focus at the local level instead was the key.

Thus were born the “local option” laws, which quickly became the most powerful weapon in the temperance movement’s arsenal. Local option allowed for the individual counties in a state to hold elections to determine whether they would remain “wet” or go “dry,” allowing the prohibitionists to focus their efforts on a county-by-county basis and later, under the “home rule” laws, on a city-by-city basis.

In 1904, the WCTU and ASL were successful in getting a local option bill passed in Oregon, and began working on getting the individual counties to go dry.

Crook County elected to go dry in 1908 in a two-to-one vote that surprised many residents, wets and drys alike. Crook County at the time encompassed all of Central Oregon: Prineville, Bend, Redmond, Sisters, Madras and more. Local prohibition was in force as of June 30, 1908, and all of the saloons in the county were forced to look for other, legal avenues of business or close their doors.

However, by 1910, many residents had had enough of the dry spell, and petitions were filed “by the liquor people” for a new vote on Crook County’s local option measure for the fall election. In November, the county (and the state) voted itself wet again, as did nearly all of the cities under the home rule measure—all but Warm Springs, which voted to remain dry.

With women [acquiring the right to] vote [in 1912], prohibitionists renewed their efforts in Oregon, and in 1914, a state prohibition measure was once again placed on the ballot. [It] was the pivotal role of Oregon’s enfranchised women that carried state prohibition—an estimated three out of every four women who voted chose prohibition—and the law went into effect on January 1, 1916. Oregon became a bone-dry state.

On January 16, 1919, Nebraska became the thirty-sixth state to ratify the Eighteenth Amendment, and it officially took effect on January 17, 1920.

Overall, the arrival of national Prohibition had little impact on Oregon, largely due to the fact that the state’s moonshiners and bootleggers already had nearly four years’ head start. The High Desert was full of ideal hiding places for the moonshiners’ stills: the openings of lava caves, abandoned homestead shacks, sheltered coves and gullies—all spread out over hundreds of square miles.

Central Oregon still, during Prohibition
Courtesy Deschutes Historical Society

American became fed up with Prohibition as it had exactly the opposite effect its proponents had promoted: violent crime had risen dramatically, enforcement was ineffectual, and corruption among the upper class and law enforcement was rampant. Hence Congress fast-tracked the necessary constitutional amendment needed to repeal the 18th Amendment.

Congress put forward the Twenty-first Amendment in February 1933, but it would still take time for the ratification process, so in the interim, an immediate solution sponsored by New York representative Thomas Cullen and Mississippi senator Pat Harrison proposed legalizing the manufacture and sale of beer with an alcohol content of 3.2 percent by weight (4.0 percent by volume). The Cullen-Harrison Act was enacted by Congress on March 21, 1933, and signed into law by President Roosevelt on April 7.

Meanwhile, ratification sped through the state conventions. Oregon was the seventeenth state to ratify the Twenty-first Amendment on August 7, 1933, and on December 5, Utah became the thirty-sixth and final state needed to ratify the amendment. Prohibition was finally over.

The Bulletin, December 5, 1933, the City Prepares

Happy National Beer Day!

Bend Beer on April 7, 1933Happy National Beer Day! It was on this day, April 7, in 1933 that the Cullen–Harrison Act went into effect—the legislation that legalized the sale of beer with an alcohol content of 3.2% by weight (or 4% by volume), which heralded the end of Prohibition.

Since this blog is about Bend’s beer history, I looked up the issue of the Bend Bulletin for April 7, 1933,  and thought it would be fun to reprint the local article on the day here. Enjoy!

Bend’s Beer Supply Disappears Quickly

Bars Are Busy Places For Short Time Today

One “Free Lunch” Appears When Customer Brings It From Own Pocket

Beer, clear as liquid amber and capped with white foam, made its appearance in Bend shortly before 11 o’clock this morning and for the first time in 17 years local residents publicly, uafriad ad in groups quaffed an alcoholic beverage. But the quaffing did not last long. In less than two hours the half-barrel allotments to local pool halls had disappeared and the bars, minus their brass rails, were again deserted. [Illegible] early hour this afternoon, Bend was again “dry”, so far as beer on draught was concerned.

Only five kegs, each holding 16 gallons, reached Bend in the first shipment, and one of the five was sent to Prineville. At one pool hall the beer supply was exhausted in 40 minutes, with three “bar tenders” sliding out the foam-capped glasses just as fast as an open space appeared.

One of the highlights of the morning was the appearance of Fred Gotchey at a bar with a lunch. He ordered a glass of beer, his first in 20 years, pulled out his lunch and sipped and ate.

Bottled goods were being distributed this afternoon and it was expected that another shipment of kegs would reach the town sometime tonight or early tomorrow.

Opinions were varied as to the “kick” of the percentage beer and it appeared to be the general opinion that America will never be known as a nation of drunkards as long as the alcoholic content of drinks is kept at 3.2 per cent. However, some persons whose taste had not been dulled by high-content home brew maintained that the 3.2 per cent stuff is just as good as the beer of the old days.

Legalized beer has its advantage, one very thirsty man said. For instance, a person can enjoy a drink from a bottle without paying any attention to the bottom or fearing that the beverage will be discolored by yeast sediment.

One man who drank enough glasses of the beverage to get himself into a reminiscent mood said he recalled that back some 17 years ago prohibitionists said it would be a “cold day” when beer returned. This reminiscent individual, wrapped in a heavy overcoat, added that the prohibitionists were right.

Cheers to 20 years with Bend Brewing Company!

Bend Brewing Company2015 is a special year for Bend Brewing Company—it’s their 20th anniversary this year! Indeed, they opened way back in 1995 as only the second brewery in Bend (as hard as that is to believe today considering we have 18 here in town alone), and have grown to become one of the most popular and award-winning brewpubs in the Pacific Northwest.

Bend Brewing Company

To celebrate their two decades, today (Friday, February 20th) they are having a party! All day long pints are $3 and appetizers are half-price; and tonight the block in front of the brewery will be closed and from 5 to 10pm BBC will be holding a street party with live music, food and drink specials, raffles, and “20 beers for 20 years”—they will have their 10 taps inside and 10 taps outside in the tent pouring through a staggeringly strong taplist—you can see the full list I posted here. And, to plug the book, BBC has generously invited me to set up a table and sell some books this evening!

BBC's 20th anniversary Outback XX

And to help commemorate their 20th, I am posting some excerpts from the book regarding their history here for your enjoyment.

[In] Bend [in November 1993], businessmen Dave Hill and Jerry Fox were hoping to launch the Brooks Street Brewery downtown, in a building a few doors up from the historic Pine Tavern restaurant overlooking the Deschutes River. Though they “both had experience in drinking beer,” Fox recalled, they had no experience in brewing it. Fox credited Hill with the idea to start a brewpub, and despite the need for extensive renovations for the building they purchased, they hoped the brewery would be open by the following summer.

That timeline proved to be overly optimistic, but the plans for the brewpub were not: the Bend Brewing Company (the name had been changed “in order to give it an identity that would be easy to associate with the city in which it was located,” said Fox) opened its doors in 1995, becoming Bend’s second craft brewery.

Bend Brewing Company opened to the public in February of 1995, located in a building on Brooks Street that had once housed a glassblower. Dave Hill and Jerry Fox oversaw renovations which installed a seven-barrel brewhouse in the upper level, a cramped space packed with tanks and equipment that looked out a large picture window to the dining room below. The west-facing dining room itself looked out onto the Deschutes River through large windows. The brewer was Scott Saulsbury, an alum of Deschutes Brewery who had joined Deschutes in 1993. The brewpub launched with a lineup of five ales: High Desert Hefeweizen, Metolius Golden Ale, Elk Lake IPA, Outback Old Ale, and Pinnacle Porter.

Hill ultimately had other interests besides the brewery, and Fox bought him out within that first year of opening and brought in his daughter, Wendi Day, to manage the day-to-day operations of the brewpub. Day had moved to Bend with her family from Cleveland, Ohio in 1986, and after graduating from Bend High in ‘88, left for Arizona State University to study accounting and marketing. It was at Arizona State that she met her future husband, Rob Day, and her post-college years found her in Seattle working in retail management. When the offer came from her father to manage the business, Day and her husband returned to Bend in 1995.

Bend Brewing from the beginning focused exclusively on the brewpub and restaurant business, with their small-batch beers served only in-house and not packaged for distribution. The brewpub soon became a popular downtown destination, particularly as a post-recreation stop for locals and tourists alike. “Bend Brewing is more upscale than its friendly competitor, Deschutes Brewing Company,” reported The Brewpub Explorer of the Pacific Northwest, published in 1996. “Large windows offer a pleasant view of the park and the Deschutes River. Antique tables and chairs possibly once gracing an old English pub are scattered about the main dining and bar area.”

By February of ‘96 the brewing duties for Bend Brewing had been taken over by Dan Pedersen, a graduate of the Siebel Institute who had spent the previous year and half brewing in Eugene, Oregon for the Eugene City Brewery. Scott Saulsbury moved on to southern Oregon, with brewing stints at Wild River Brewing in Grants Pass, Caldera Brewing in Ashland in 2001 and in 2008 joined Southern Oregon Brewing in Medford.

[The] brewpub continued to be an increasingly popular destination for locals and tourists alike. Brewer Dan Pedersen left in 1998 and brewing duties were taken over by Christian Skovborg, a former brewmaster from the defunct Nor’Wester Brewing. By 2000 Jerry Fox was anxious to retire and wanted to turn over ownership to his daughter Wendi Day. Day was reluctant at first, but partnered with her kitchen manager Terry Standly to purchase the business from her father.

Meanwhile, there was a quiet revolution taking place at Bend Brewing Company. In 2002 Wendi Day hired a new brewer, Tonya Cornett, who was to become one of Bend’s most well-known brewers thanks to a well-honed instinct for an emerging trend in sour ales, a number of high-profile awards, and a featured role in a documentary about women in the brewing industry. But that would be in the future.

Cornett grew up in Marion, Indiana, earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology before moving to Fort Collins, Colorado, in 1996, where she experienced her first taste of craft beer and became hooked. She began homebrewing with a kit that had ostensibly been for her husband, Mark, and started working at H. C. Berger Brewing in Fort Collins putting together boxes and giving tours. Cornett then segued into an unpaid apprenticeship learning the ins and outs of commercial brewing, and when Cornett and her husband moved back to Indiana in 1998 she took a brewing job at Oaken Barrel Brewing.

After three years at Oaken Barrel, Cornett decided to enroll in the Siebel Institute to further her education. Enrollment in Siebel’s World Brewing Academy took her to Chicago and Germany, during which time her husband Mark was scouting three possible “go to” states on the West Coast to move to when she returned. She graduated in 2001, and was ready for larger-scale, production brewing; she wanted to apply her newly-acquired knowledge to a brewing operation beyond the scale of the brewpub. Ironic then, that Cornett ended up accepting a job offer with Bend Brewing, but the opportunity to run the show proved too appealing, and she started at the brewpub in 2002. (The recommendation for Cornett came to Wendi Day from a high school friend of Cornett’s who worked for Day’s cousin, who owned the Southside Pub in Bend.)

There was only a two week overlap with the former brewer, Christian Skovborg, and Cornett took over brewhouse operations entirely. (Skovborg subsequently opened and still owns the Reed Pub in southeast Bend.) She was working 50 to 60 hours per week, brewing four batches per week, and quietly improving the quality of the beer. “I do quality checks all of the time,” she told the Bend Bulletin in a 2002 interview. “I’ll even test the fermenting to detect change. From the beginning, I’ll make sure it’s on the right track.” In addition to cleaning up the house beers (there were no master copies of any recipes, only brewing logs), she was experimenting and developing new recipes, brewing beers such as a “peach lambick [sic] and a razzwheat” (types of beers that would herald the styles for which she would later gain notoriety). The fruits of this labor would begin to pay off in only a few short years.

[She] was consistently improving the core lineup of beers at the brewpub, and introducing seasonals such as Apricot Summer Ale, Axe Head Red, and HopHead Imperial IPA. The HopHead in particular was a popular beer, so much so that the brewpub began offering it in 22-ounce bottles available at the pub only in 2005, and in 2006 the beer won the gold medal in the coveted “American-Style India Pale Ale” category at the Great American Beer Festival—the first such medal for Bend Brewing, and a sudden thrust into the brewing spotlight for Cornett. She would follow up with a win in 2007 with a silver GABF medal for Outback X (a double, or strong, version of the brewpub’s popular Outback Old Ale) and Bend Brewing would go on to win at least one medal per year subsequently.

The GABF medals were followed by an even more prestigious award for Cornett in 2008: at the Brewers Association’s World Beer Cup, Bend Brewing and Cornett won the Champion Brewery and Brewmaster award in the “Small Brewpub” category. Even more significantly, Cornett was the first female brewmaster ever to do so.

Tonya of course moved to 10 Barrel Brewing in 2011, and brewer Ian Larkin took up the head brewer role and continued to rack up awards for the brewery, most recently with his Salmonberry Sour at last year’s Great American Beer Festival.

So make sure to come down to BBC tonight and help celebrate 20 years (and kick off 20 more!)—and if you want to buy a book, I can help you out there too.

Cheers!

Excerpt: History of 10 Barrel Brewing

10 Barrel BrewingThe news of 10 Barrel Brewing selling to Anheuser-Busch has died down a bit since it broke last week, but I am still running into a good number of people who want to talk about it and know what I think. I wrote down some of my own thoughts on the sale, but it’s also helpful to know a bit more about the history behind 10 Barrel to get a sense of where they are coming from. And since I just happened to write a book on the subject (available now!) I thought it would be timely and interesting to post some excerpts about the brewery and how they got started.

These passages are excerpted from Chapter Six.


In 2003, twin brothers Chris and Jeremy Cox were tired of the corporate business world and were seeking a change. The brothers, originally from Lincoln City, Oregon, had graduated from Oregon State University and were working “for the man up in Portland in the corporate world.” They were ready for something new. Casting about for ideas and opportunities, they settled on two possibilities:

It came down to a drift boat company or a bar, and the drift boat company was too expensive; we didn’t have any money. So the bar was super reasonable. We never worked in bars before or anything. We just wanted to get to Bend; we couldn’t find any other way to get to Bend to get jobs, so we bought a bar.

They purchased Lucy’s Place, a small bar and diner located downtown, and renamed it JC’s Bar and Grill. For the first year of ownership, they still worked their corporate jobs in Portland during the week (in software sales and business consulting), drove to Bend on Fridays to work the bar for the three day weekend and then went back to Portland to start the process over again.

Although the brothers had no bar experience or background in the beer industry, they had the business acumen, a desire to learn and a willingness to take risks, and JC’s was a successful venture, proving to be a popular nightlife destination.

Their idea of starting their own brewery had continued to simmer [since 2004], and when brewer Paul Cook left Deschutes Brewery in 2005, he joined with the brothers to bring that dream to reality and formed a new brewing company, Wildfire Brewing, which they announced in November 2006… [By] late March of 2007, they had started brewing the first batches of beer, destined to go on tap at JC’s. The first two beers in the lineup were Code 24 Pale Ale and Logger Lager, which were on tap by late April, and those were soon followed by Backdraft IPA.

[The] young brewing company faced another hurdle in the latter half of 2008 in the form of a trademark violation notice: the Wildfire Restaurant chain… advised the brewery of its trademarked name and suggested that it change the name within six months or face a court battle. Wildfire Brewing opted to change its name, and in December, it announced the new moniker: 10 Barrel Brewing Company. It became official in January 2009.

Although 10 Barrel had a loyal following and a successful presence in Central Oregon, the owners themselves were not making any money—it all went back into the business. That began to change when 10 Barrel’s beer was picked up by a distributor that brought its beers to Portland in mid-2009. The beer was a hit in Portland, and as sales increased, the owners realized that this new market could take the business to the next level—even become profitable. They decided to take a new leap, a risky one in the current economic climate, and in August 2009, they announced plans for their own brewpub, to be opened on Bend’s west side… The pub opened in February 2010, and any doubts about opening a restaurant and pub in the down economy were put to rest, as it was an immediate success.


You can read the whole story and more in Bend Beer, on shelves now and available online.