Saturday 27th of September 2014 04:06:02 PM

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The front door takes you into a seating area of picnic and tall tables by the kitchen area with a good size bar to the left in front of a cold room. Past the bar is another long table seating area adjacent to the copper kettles in the open brewing area. As mentioned by jackofallbrews, there is also a nice outside seating area. When we visited there were 14 house brews on tap along with a guest cider. We enjoyed both the Cruxtennial fresh hopped pale and the Peated Scotch ale and took a few bottles of Doublecross strong dark belgian when we left. The food menu includes a nice array of appetizers, sandwiches and wraps as well as some beer based desserts. There is ample parking as well as a hop growing trellis in the lot out front.

Thursday 11th of July 2013 02:22:10 PM

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Taking another walk across town we ended up in a shabby warehouse district near the train tracks, down a long driveway marked as "Private Road Do NOT Enter!" Past some razor wire flapping with shredded plastic bags, chain-link fence, abandoned warehouses and a storage facility, we came upon our goal: Crux Fermentation Project. This is the brewery where former Deschutes brewer, Larry Sidor, went after leaving. All the beer geeks in Portland and Bend we talked to pointed us this way as the "happening" or next big thing in local brewing. The brewery is set up to allow for decoction mashing, open fermentation, wild yeasts and barrel aging, so they are really trying a lot of techniques here. I can see why Sidor wanted to get away from the massive batch mechanical brewing of Deschutes for a more hands-on approach. They had 15 different beers on tap, and our sampler was served in a cool tray made of a branded barrel stave.

I love the branding (both the design of the logo and the actual hot poker branding of the wood in this place.) All of the beers here were good, but not quite as impressive as I'd been expecting. A mosaic hop DIPA was really interesting, but I think I just don't like that hop based on the few beers I've had that are made with it. They had a Flanders Red, but it wasn't really sour...apparently this is the base beer that is going to go in barrels for a year. I guess I need to go back! Beer geeks love this place, and as a whole they do a great job.

We came back a second time the next day and I got to try the heavenly Bourbon barrel Imperial stout they had on tap. I'd go just for this. They have a nice outdoor seating area with a huge metal fire-ball (not a fire pit) and cable spool tables.