I have to say, one style I wouldn’t have expected the big breweries to delve into (even as part of their smaller “craft” branches) is the relatively-new Wheat or Belgian IPA… but that’s exactly what Anheuser-Busch has done with their latest Shock Top

I recently came across the term "degrees of frost" in Wade Davis' excellent book Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest. It is used to express cold, specifically how many degrees the air is below the freezing point of water.Jack London also used it in To Build A Fi

Today is The Session‘s Diamond Anniversary! (Although technically it would be its &#

The VOM for February 2012 is:

Where are we at with this whole foreclosure mess?  That seems to be the million dollar question lately.  Last year (2011) we saw a 39 percent reduction in the number of foreclosure filings in Oregon from 2010 which for now has been the peak year of foreclosure activity.  So does that mean we are out of t

Happy Friday! Here’s the beer news from around Oregon for Friday, February 3rd (and going into the weekend). I will be periodically updating this post throughout the day w

As you have read, we added the iPod Touch to our daily activities in the classroom last fall.  What started out as a fun experiment has turned into quite an integral part of our daily activities.   You can see how we started utilizing it

It’s First Friday and Art Walk in Downtown Bend and the Old Mill District tomorrow: art galleries and other businesses stay open late to showcase art and often live music, and many also offer complimentary food and wine. The festivities … Con

Mrs Elliott and I visited Brother Jon's newly-open Alehouse today for a late lunch. The place was jumpin', only a couple seats short of full; the staff were friendly but not pushy, the food plain and hearty, and the clientele cheery. Several largish screens were tuned to manchannels: ESPN and Fuse.Mi

I don't care if you're investing one thousand dollars or ten million, you can do a better job at a much lower cost by avoiding most traditional financial advice altogether. There are a handful of advisers out t

The Bend Bulletin reported Tuesday that an Ironman triathlon will not be coming to Bend this year.  For the last two months the Oregon Sports Authority had been leading a push to bring an Ironman event to Central Oregon.  The problem was, Visit Bend h

Welcome to the start of a new regular feature here at The Brew Site for 2012: Apocalypse Beer. This is a (mostly tongue-in-cheek) subject I’ve been thinking about for awhile and since nobody else appears to be doing it, I thought it was high time to tackle it. What follows is the introduction t

Registration for the 2012 U.S. Bank Pole Pedal Paddle is open.  This year's race will be held on May 19.  If you know you will be racing this year, now is the time to regis

Happy Groundhog Day! Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow today which means six more weeks of winter, traditionally. Do any

Ladies: Having a hard time figuring out your clothing size? This little web app will help.Fun with math: Dividing one by 99801 yields surprising result.Fun Android toy: Wreak havoc on (and

Each January the Central Oregon Rental Owners Association (COROA) publishes the results of their annual member survey.  The survey is not scientific but does offer some insight into the Central Oregon rental market.  This y

If it wasn't clear enough from the last post, when it comes to investing costs kill. They kill your returns and ultimately your financial goals. Using index funds and index ETFs is the most effective way to reduce this

True conversation: W: Good stew, mom. Me: Thanks. Want to know the secret ingredient? W: Umm...was it made with love? Me: No, beer. Well, love too, but mostly beer.

Here’s the news in Oregon beer for Wednesday, the first of February. As usual I’ll be updating this post periodically throughout the day so if you have some news to

The GOP's primary process is basically "American Idol," but with more racism and less rhythm.

For two reasons: One, so I can see my wife's birthplace, and two, so I can see this amazing model railway: Model railroads have always fascinated me, especially well-done ones. The East Cascades Railroad HO-Scale

The Oregon Department of Justice has issued a press release warning home owners to beware of people calling and offering an indepenent foreclosure review for a fee.  The federal government already has an Independent Foreclosure Review program in place and it is FREE.  You can read the full release below. 

Tonight at GoodLife Brewing is the Ignite Bend Battledecks event and voting party: the free “Ignite improv” event where you can come and sign up to do an impromptu presentation to a bunch of slides you’ve never seen—or simply come …

So I recently explained why a broker is not fit to be an adviser. I'd like to now take the next step to show why you shouldn't even hire the typical financial adviser. As opposed to a commission-b

Oregon Beer News for Tuesday, January 31, 2012. News in beer and brewing from all around Oregon, including events, tastings, festivals, and more. If you have news to share, let me know! Continue reading →

On Saturday, we were able to hit up Deschutes Brewery‘s Bend Pub for the soft opening of their expansion and remodel, and while there I snapped a few pictures. It’s really nice, and they’ve done a good job of sprucing up the older space as well. And, later today I’m attending a media event at the Pub

Have you been thinking about community this week?  Have you been thinking about the health and wellness of YOUR friendships?  I have.  I loved what Rebecca had to say last week about being authentic and about being picky when it comes to the people we surround ourselves with.  This is so true.

I wrote at the beginning of the month about the Abbey Pub changing hands, to become the Broken Top Bottle Shop, and by the end of this week (if all goes well) the new beer bar (or Ale Café as … Continue reading →

It's been years since I've done this, but it's time to check on the most-commented-on entries for this site over the years. Most of these were from way back in the day but are still indexed well in Google. The top two still get

You might remember earlier this month I wrote about how Bend’s Abbey Pub was changing, to become the Broken Top Bottle Shop & Ale Café; this past week one of the owners commented on the blog with details on the new beer bar, and this weekend I (along with my wife and kids) was able to visit, meet the owners and g

Just before the weekend I received a big package from Widmer, containing an imperial pint glass and four beers: two of the new W’12 seasonal, Dark Saison, and two of the latest in the Rotator IPA series, Spiced IPA. The W’12 should be hitting the shelves now, and the Spiced IPA is upcoming. As in the past, the

The National Council of Nonprofits has called 2012 'The Year of Nonprofit Video' - See Nonprofit Knowledge Matters 2012 - Year of Nonprofit VideoCrowd sourcing is a re

From The Foundation Center...[If you are interested in more information on this grant opportunity, click "Link to Complete RFP" at the end of this post.]Deadline: February 29, 2012 Nominations of LGBTQ Youth Activists Invited for Colin Higgins Youth Courage Awards

So, last weekend I found out that my blogs had been hacked. Actually, it wasn’t just my blogs, nothing personal involved or anything like that: the shared server space my sites were hosted on was compromised, and a good number … Continue re

Some great videos to kill off some copious amounts of time (and bandwidth). Enjoy!

If you're someone who doesn't like to camp in fee campgrounds and is used to camping wherever you could drive to in the Deschutes or Ocheco National Forests or the Crooked River Grasslands, you may find that your favorite lovely dispersed campsites where you could set up a tent are no longer legal sites.A

Located in the space formerly occupied by the Bond St. Market, La Magie Bakery opened their doors for business for the first time today. High-end French pastries are what they are about, according to the nice lady working there who somehow tricked Jack into buying an apple turnover.949 NW Bond

One of my favorite sessions at last summer’s Beer Bloggers Conference was the one about beer laws, and in particular Craig Hendry’s work in Mississippi with Raise Your Pints, an organization whose goal is to get the state Mississippi to raise the alcohol limit on beer and to legalize homebrewing. A surprising ta

My birthday is coming up in Marc

The Deschutes Brewery Bend Pub is holding their grand (re)opening coming up this next Wednesday, February 1st—you’ll recall they closed down at the beginning of the month with a wall-smashing ceremony to finish the major expansion and remodel of the Pub—and owner Gary Fish waxed rhapsodic on their blog yes

The deadline for proposals for the next Ignite Bend is tomorrow—Friday, January 27th. So if you have a burning desire to give a five-minute presentation on stage (on anything you want, really, as long as it’s not a sales pitch …

For those who are fans of BroJo's (and Jack is), mark your calender for February 1, the date they are scheduled to open their new downtown location at the former site of The Decoy and then the Bond Street Grill.That is all.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how I've decided to refocus the blog on exploring ideas and topics related to finance and investing. To do this, I've farmed out some of the alternative purposes to other platforms like

Though there aren’t any more hacking issues going on with this site, I’m in the process of switching servers so even though I have a ton of beer-related things to blog about, everything is on hold for the time being until the server move is complete. In the meantime, there are many other good beer blogs that I h

Make that a soy latte I've been hearing the buzz about the documentary Forks Over Knives for a while saying it will convert you into being a vegan. Being a vegan was a challenge I was going to take for a month last year until I found out I was pregnant. I could totally be a vegetarian but cutting out dairy seemed super ext

Pending Home Sales Decline in December, Remain Above a Year Ago Washington, January 25, 2012 After reaching a 19-month high, pending home sales eased in December but stayed above year-ago levels, according to the National Association of Realtors®. The Pending Home Sales Index,* a forward-looking indicator based on contrac

Yesterday I posted a rant I shared on twitter over the weekend. The focus of the rant was an annuity that was offered to a client of mine. Essentially, it paid the investor $5,500 per year (1.1% on $500,000) for ten years with a $50,000 early w

Friend, fellow blogger, Bend's honorary goodwill ambassador,  and (gag) "Bend treasure," H. Bruce Miller, has turned me on to a new obsession.For many, many years, Jack has shaved his rugged, manly face and chiseled chin with a Gillette Mach3 razor: a system with a cheap handle and expensiv