The Brew SiteBend Resilience Beer Fest Recap
By any measure that I could see, the Bend Resilience Beer Fest that took place this past Saturday the 5th was a resounding success. The event was thrown together hastily, with about three and a half weeks of planning, and in all 18 breweries were present and pouring beer—all versions of Resilience IPA as originally created by Sierra Nevada Brewing to support the Camp Fire Relief Fund.
One of those breweries was Sierra Nevada itself, and founder/CEO Ken Grossman was present along with a team from the Chico-based company. The rest of the breweries were Central Oregon based save for one, 1188 Brewing out of John Day, Oregon.
We arrived early to wait in line, and managed to be the first in line before the 2pm opening. As with many Bend events, I expected the event to start out relatively slow and pick up towards 5pm—assuming there would even be many people at all (given such a short lead time, would there have been enough time to get the word out?). I was wrong; a large line formed shortly after we arrived and the beer fest was filled with people within a half hour of opening.
All of the beers were donated by the respective breweries, and the $10 charge for a mug and five tickets (additional five for $5) was donated entirely to the charitable fund. Each version of Resilience IPA was a bit different, and I ended up sampling 10 different ones, starting with Sierra Nevada’s itself. I will note that ultimately lines did form at each pouring station, but the first line was for Sierra Nevada, early on.
I had a chance to talk to Ken Grossman and get a picture (see below), and DJ Paul of Brewpublic had come down for the weekend to attend so we had the chance to catch up and compare beer notes.
One fun highlight that I didn’t know was going to happen was an auction. Grossman had brought several 3-liter magnum bottles of Celebration Ale, and Gary Fish of Deschutes Brewery and Chris Justema of Cascade Lakes Brewing got up on stage and auctioned them off for charity. To I think everyone’s amazement, the bottles sold for several thousand(!) dollars in total!
As I said at the start of this post, this fest was a resounding success. I haven’t seen any figures yet on how much money was raised for the Camp Fire Relief Fund, but I would expect it’s quite substantial.
Check out photos from the event:
Hi Jon ~ Thanks for a nice writeup. We were in that pre-opening line, too, and loved seeing how long it was. I think my favorite Resilience was Spider City’s. Wondering if you know when we might learn the amount the event raised for the Camp Fire Relief Fund? In talking with the t-shirt guys they said the 250 shirts they sold out of in the first 2 hours raised $5000; combined with the $5600 from the Celebration auction is a great start. Thanks again ~ Karen Bennett (Bend)
We at Secret Trail Brewery in Chico had our release party December 12th with Ken in attendance. Needless to say, it was a hit.