Last weekend the Suttle Lodge hosted its first-ever beer festival with its Winter Brew Fest, featuring a number of regional breweries pouring beers from the Lodge resorts rustic cabins in an outdoor campground setting. The Lodge and resort is located on the shore of Suttle Lake, a popular recreation and camping destination in Central Oregon not far from Sisters and Bend. I’d been invited by the organizers and given two free passes to the event, so we went up on Saturday (the fest ran three days, from Thursday through Saturday).

Here are some notes and thoughts about this first Winter Brew Fest, and a picture roundup (all but one taken by my wife).

I really liked the venue and setting. There are six rustic cabins in all; one was set up as the registration booth, the other five hosted breweries pouring beers. Central to all of them were a number of firepits and picnic tables, pretty much a standard campground layout. Each cabin had a Traeger grill fired up with snacks available: brats, pretzel sticks, peanuts, for instance.

Inside each cabin, brewery reps were set up with a variety of beers to pour, and many brought more than was listed in the program. Some had kegs and jockey boxes, others had cans and bottles to sample. There was quite a nice variety and something for everyone, including ciders.

However, it was unfortunately a drizzly, rainy day; for a winter brewfest I’d much rather it were snowing which would have added to the experience. (No fault of the Lodge, of course.) It was a cold rain, so we tried to optimize our time in the cabins. Perhaps a similar beer fest during warmer months could work out here as well.

The mugs were quite nice, Miir Camp Cups with the Suttle Lodge logo on them, and really seemed like a premium offering. Each package also included ten tasting tickets, and here are the beers I got:

• Everybody’s Brewing: Pear Brandy Barrel Aged English Dark Ale
• GoodLife Brewing & Boss Rambler Beer Club collaboration: BossLife, Sprucey Juice Red IPA with Amarillo and Galaxy hops and fresh-picked spruce
• Bend Brewing: Spot Market IPA
• Super Brewing: Pilsener
• Everybody’s Brewing: Uncle Stepdad’s Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Stout
• Little Beast Brewing: Fólkvangr Dark Norwegian-style Ale
• Buoy Beer: Baltic Porter
• Breakside Brewery: This one wasn’t listed in the program, but I wrote “Sunny Wheat one” — it was from a bottle but I didn’t write it down until later
• Heater Allen Brewing: Sticke Alt
• Everybody’s Brewing: Cryo-Chronic IPA
• Super Brewing: Vienna Lager (a friend gave me an extra ticket)

I also tasted Breakside’s Teamwork/Dreamwork (collab with Fremont Brewing, a coconut imperial stout), pFriem Family Brewers’ Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Stout, and a taste of Son of Man Sagardo cider.

One improvement that could have been made is with the availability of restrooms. The nearest/only available ones were the two in the Lodge, and more by the Boathouse—all of which required a short hike through the drizzle from the rustic cabins, and of course a wait in line. Perhaps bringing in some portapotties would help in this area.

All in all, it was a nice outing and a pretty good first beer festival. It will be interesting to see if this one was successful enough to return, and possibly introduce additional beer events.

As promised, here’s a photo gallery from the day: