C.O. Brewfest Week: A look at Bend’s beer business

In celebration of Central Oregon beer week, we spoke Monday with Gary Fish, founder of Deschutes Brewery, to find out what it took to pave the way for the Bend brew scene.

Fish moved to Bend when it was a small town that had not yet embraced the craft beer industry. Now, Deschutes is the fifth-largest craft brewery in the country, shipping beer to 21 states and Canada.

“I never imaged that the beer industry would take off the way it did in central Oregon,” Fish said. “I think there are probably many chapters to be written. I think we can all be very proud of that, because it took the consumers, more than it took me or anything that we might have done here.”

The pub in downtown Bend looks a lot different today than it did when it opened back in 1988. Fish knew things were taking off when they couldn’t brew enough beer downtown and had to open a brewery and bottling plant near the Old Mill.

“For a lot of that 25 years, we were almost in denial of our growth,” Fish said. “We never thought we would get that big. We never thought we needed to plan for that, and never thought that was in our future.”

Classics brews their Black Butte Porter and Mirror Pond Pale Ale are sold all over the United States. Now Philadelphia wants a taste of the action.

“Selling beer on the East Coast is more evolutionary than revolutionary for us,” Fish said. “We’re still taking it kind of slowly. We’re still putting one foot in front of the other for the next market.”

Twenty one states down, with 29 more to go — and it doesn’t look like Deschutes will tap its keg any time soon.

Deschutes Brewery is still family-owned. Last year, they implemented an employee stock ownership program, so all the employees are now co-owners.