My latest article for The Bulletin, which was published last week, covers Not Your Usual Barrel-Aged Stout, the collaboration beer from Bend Brewing Company and Newport Avenue Market (with a bit of Bohemian Roastery thrown in the mix); it’s a coffee-infused barrel-aged and blended imperial stout.

Newport Avenue Market’s beer and wine manager Robert McCarthy and Bend Brewing’s lead brewer Ryan Blasquez came up with the idea for the Stout. I reached out to both companies to find out more about it.

“The way this collaboration (came about) was Ryan said I sold a lot of the barrel-aged (beer) that they did last time,” McCarthy said via email. “We talked about (another) barrel-aged beer. We were thinking a winter ale or something for the wintertime.”

“We thought that seasonally a big stout would work well in December and it would be a good counterbalance to the IPA,” said Bend Brewing head brewer Zach Beckwith.

I’ve also got comments from Bohemian about the coffee selection, and my review (of course). It’s a really good beer, and still available from Bend Brewing and Newport Market (and its satellite stores in Terrebonne and Sisters, under the Oliver Lemon’s name).