Sunday, April 29, 2012

Looking for reasons, after the fact.

The article in the Bulletin this morning about Bend's water being the reason for all the breweries.

I kind of doubt that.

I think we got Deschutes Brewery here pretty early in the game, and that encouraged a couple of other big breweries, and we've had a bunch of spin offs since then. It would have happened with or without the water, but it certainly sounds better to point to the water.

I have the same problem when I hear the common narrative that downtown Bend's revival was inevitable. Because of the river, the "old" (?) buildings, the street layouts.

As it happened, I was here through the entire process, and I can tell you it was never inevitable. It was much more happenstance and luck than people realize. It was even touch-and-go there for a few years, that we wouldn't fall back. Timing was a big part of it. Things gain or lose momentum for what seem very small reasons at the time, but they are tipping points.

But it's always nice and easy to go backward and fill in all the best reasons that something happened.

13 comments:

Leitmotiv said...

Bend, Oregon has some really good water. I wish they never put the fluoride in. Today we are over fluoridated. Europe doesn't have fluoride in their water and they don't see increased levels of cavities. It's just more BS.

The water definitely plays a part in the brewery's success, but just a part. Not the whole.

Anonymous said...

Am I the only one who thinks the city is trying to push through the water system "upgrades" in order to appease the breweries, effectively subsidizing that industry directly with homeowner's tax increases? The Guinness brewery in Dublin has a 9000 year lease (yes, you read that right) specifically so that they would never have to deal with water availability issues. Methinks this (the Bend "upgrade") is yet another short sighted waste of tax dollars being inflicted by the city on us in the hopes of making Bend some kind of brewing center. If that is what is really going on (and prove to me that it isn't!), then make the breweries pay for this, not me and the thousands of people living here who are barely able to make a go of living in Bend.

Anonymous said...

The big issue with the Bridge Creek pipe is that the City has to keep water running in it so it does not collapse. Right now they are running more water through it than the city consumes. It would be better for Bridge Creek and Tumalo creek if that excess water was not remove just to keep the pipe together.

Deschutes Brewery uses 28 million gallons of water per YEAR which is 2 DAYS worth of summer time usage.

All the other little Breweries in town probably only use around 3 million gallons per YEAR combined.
( 9 other breweries averaging 3000 barrels per year)

The real water consumers in this town are still the golf courses.

Anonymous said...

And here I thought the reason for the breweries was the alcoholic population rising....

Anonymous said...

Just to follow up on my comment about golf courses...

Inn of the 7th Mountain uses 400,000 - 500,000 gallons to water their course per day during the summer. Which is 48 million to 60 million gallons of water per YEAR.
That's just one course. Multiply by 25 to 35 courses...

Golf courses don't necessarily get the water from the city of Bend, but it is a staggeringly large figure when compared to what all of the breweries in Bend use.

H. Bruce Miller said...

"I think we got Deschutes Brewery here pretty early in the game, and that encouraged a couple of other big breweries, and we've had a bunch of spin offs since then."

Yep. The water here is good, but not uniquely good. And some beer expert can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe that extraordinarily good water is essential for making good beer. Good beer is brewed in many places all over the globe -- including Portland, whose water is mediocre at best.

H. Bruce Miller said...

It's all part of the myth of Bend "uniqueness" that the local boosters tireless try to promote. Uniquely good water, uniquely good skiing, uniquely good mountain biking, uniquely good rock climbing, and yada-yada-yada.

Leitmotiv said...

Apparently, when Deschutes Brewery moved into Portland they have pretty big troubles getting their recipe just right because of Portland's water. So there is truth to the quality of water playing a role.

Duncan McGeary said...

I still sort of maintain that the decision to do a brewery came first, and the water came second.

The interview in the paper was with a guy who I think was a brewer for another company in town, so if he lives here and works here and starts another brewery here, it seems to me that the "water" is an afterthought.

Better good water than not, I suppose.

Duncan McGeary said...

"Apparently, when Deschutes Brewery moved into Portland they have pretty big troubles getting their recipe just right because of Portland's water."

Kind of proves the point, doesn't it? They put breweries where it makes economic sense --

H. Bruce Miller said...

"I still sort of maintain that the decision to do a brewery came first, and the water came second."

I know for a fact that that was the case because back in the day I did publicity for the Deschutes Brewery. Gary Fish, whose family were grape growers in California, wanted to live in Bend, and then he decided to open a brewpub here because he liked traditional English-style ales, which were impossible to find here at the time. Everybody said he was crazy because his pub wasn't going to sell Bud and Coors and Miller, only its own beers. But people liked those beers, they started asking to take some home, and so gradually Fish got into the bottling business. And then, as you said, that brewery spawned others, which in turned spawned others.

Leitmotiv said...

Oh I totally agree with you. It's just happenstance that Deschutes Brewery has good water for their beer. I don't think the first they thought of was what region in our nation do we want to utilize for water. They just lucked out.

H. Bruce Miller said...

I believe that except for a small amount of "experimental" beer brewed on-site, the beer served at Deschutes Brewery's Portland pub is trucked in from Bend in kegs.

But I could be wrong.