In my latest article for The Bulletin which came out on Sunday, I profile Craft Kitchen and Brewery, starting with a potato beer. The barrel-aged Sweet Potato Imperial India Nut Brown drew me in to the taproom in northeast Bend where I tasted several other beers and chatted with owner Courtney Stevens.

This wasn’t the first potato beer Craft has brewed. Mashed Out was a stout brewed with potatoes that was a staple of the brewery’s original pub location on Industrial Way. These days, Craft maintains its brewery and taproom on Layton Avenue in northeast Bend, and runs it as a mom and pop operation, according to owner Courtney Stevens.

“We do like to merge kitchen and brewery any chance we can,” said Stevens via email. She was referring to the potato beers, but this philosophy extends into other beers and the brewing process overall. Such as the Granola Porter, brewed with golden oats, coffee and cocoa nibs to evoke a “deconstructed granola bar.”

Honey Raspberry Pilsner is another example, brewed in conjunction with the Central Oregon Beer Angels organization earlier this year as a fundraiser for Soroptimist International of Bend. Craft brewed it with locally sourced raw honey and Oregon fruit.

A confession: it was the first time I’d visited the Layton Avenue taproom location, and I liked what they’ve done with the space. And in talking with Stevens, I found out something new that I had gotten wrong in the past: when Old Mill Brew Wërks closed its restaurant location on Industrial Avenue (where Monkless Brasserie just opened up), I had assumed Craft had taken over the brewing operation when it opened up. Not so.

The Stevens had purchased their own 3.5 barrel brewery and were brewing their own beers. OMBW, meanwhile, had spun off Brew Werks Brewing which later became Fresh Tracks Brewing before closing. Fresh Tracks was brewing in the original location that 10 Barrel started in.

And according to Stevens, that brewhouse and equipment that Brew Werks/Fresh Tracks owned was bought by none other than Monkless Belgian Ales during that expansion, and Monkless moved into the former 10 Barrel space (its current brewing location). So there’s some interesting Bend beer provenance for you.