NorthWest Crossing Resident Plans to Start Up New Brewery

According to a recent article published in The Bulletin, Bend will soon be welcoming it's 11th brewery - Below Grade Brewing.

The article follows:

11 breweries and counting: Below Grade plans to start small in Bend
By David Holley / The Bulletin

Published: September 16. 2010 4:00AM PST
Yet another brewer has taken his first steps toward opening Central Oregon’s 11th commercial brewery.

Dean Wise has applied for a brewery-public house permit from the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, as well as required federal permits, under the name Below Grade Brewing. Wise’s plan is to keep Below Grade small as he tests the market “to see if people will buy it on a regular basis — to see if it’s worthy.”

Wise has been a home brewer for 18 years.

Below Grade would be Bend’s ninth brewery. The region’s other two breweries are in Redmond and Sisters.

Initially, Wise plans to brew in his NorthWest Crossing home. For the first six to 12 months, he plans to brew three or four batches of beer at a time, bottling the product for retail sale and possibly selling kegs to bars.

He hopes to have his first batch ready for sale about a month after he receives state and federal approval, which is as soon as is legally allowed, he said. Federal approval can take 95 days or longer, Wise said. He has been waiting for five weeks, but has a meeting with the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau today.

For Wise, who is a project manager for the J.L. Ward Co., brewing is about quality. He thinks his first retail beers could be two different India Pale Ales and an Old Ale — a dark, full-bodied beer like Deschutes Brewery’s Jubelale.

“I will focus on the craft of brewing beer in small batches, using only the highest-quality ingredients available,” he wrote onhis company website, which is intermittently accessible during construction. “The best ingredients make the best beer.”

The naming of his brewery, Below Grade, was three-pronged. It’s an inside joke among Wise and friends. It refers to his basement, where he brews beer. And it’s meant to be a bit self-deprecating.

“I think, hopefully, it might be an ironic name,” Wise said.