Terranaut Beer, Bend’s newest brewing company, launched this summer with the release of several beers at locations around town, before opening its taproom earlier this month. It was launched by former 10 Barrel brewer Bryon Pyka, along with his partners Peter Brantley and Katie Dunbar.

My latest article in this week’s Bulletin is about Terranaut with a focus on the beers:

[Pyka’s] been hard at work brewing since [May], starting with “some maltier, English-style beers” but quickly moving into all types of styles. During his time at 10 Barrel, Pyka was best known for sour and mixed-fermentation beers. “It’s really invigorating to tackle styles that I didn’t really have a chance to do in past years,” he said.

Of the beers I’ve had so far, the standouts are: Allora Ancora Italian Pils; Bucky, a coffee brown ale that just won a silver medal at the Great American Beer Festival(!); and Goat Beer, a cocktail-inspired ale with lime and bitters. That’s not to say the rest of the beers aren’t up to par—they are all solid and worth checking out.

But the styles Pyka is known for are largely sour and unusual beers. When working on the article, I’d sent him some questions about the new venture and about the beers. One of them, about the beers, I wasn’t able to incorporate into the article so I’ll print it here:

Q: I know your specialty (especially in the homebrew club days) is sour beer, and you certainly got to brew some cool sour/interesting things at 10 Barrel. Based on the first beers I tried, can we expect a mix of “standard” and specialty beers for Terranaut? Or will you lean into the specialty more?

A: Yeah, I definitely had a strong focus on sour beer, particularly mixed culture while I was at 10 Barrel. I always wanted to explore more in the realms of classic styles or classic styles with a slight modern day twist. At Terranaut, we have yet to brew any sours, but we plan to eventually. For now we have a really cool collaboration with Crux to fill the sour beer slot in our taproom for now. Once we get going, our lineup will be varied without a particular beer style taking up too much space on our taplist. The way I’ve explained our lineup has been an even mix of classic beer styles, modern beer styles, and experimental beer. I definitely learned a fair amount at 10 Barrel about using unconventional ingredients in beer, and I fully plan to utilize that experience at Terranaut.

That collaboration with Crux Fermentation Project, Stay Zesty, is pretty tasty too. It’s a barrel-aged mixed culture sour ale with Meyer lemon zest. I had a glass of that along with the For Pete’s Sake ESB when I had the chance to visit the newly-opened taproom last week.

Terranaut’s brewery and taproom is located in northeast Bend, in the spot formerly the home of Monkless Belgian  Ales. Earlier this year, Monkless moved over to the central eastside of Bend, taking over the space formerly occupied by Avid Cider; the company purchased a new brewery and opened The Abbey tasting room. Monkless’ old brewing system was left behind, along with three fermentation tanks, allowing Pyka to purchase a turn-key brewery.

“I’ve been friends with Todd and the rest of the Monkless crew for a while now, and we even did an awesome collaboration beer when I worked at 10 Barrel,” he said. “They’ve been amazing in helping us hit the ground running and even allowed me to hang out and brew with them as they wrapped things up in the building we’re in now. That experience was invaluable, and we had a lot of reassurance in being able to brew great beer here because Monkless obviously does such an incredible job with everything they do.”

He continued: “We took over the space in April of this year and had to make some minimal improvements in the brewery building (the taproom is in a separate unit next door). We were brewing by late May, so we were pretty thrilled that it didn’t take long at all to get going.”

The taproom itself is a remodeled version of what Monkless offered, with new tables and chairs, colorful wood and metal accents, hanging lights, and a comfortably eclectic vibe. The current hours are Wednesday thru Friday from 2:00 p.m. to close, Saturday from noon to close, and Sunday from noon to 6:00 p.m.

Okay, that’s enough words! Here are the rest of the photos I took during my visit: