more photosConstruction workers will break ground on a new 26,000-square-foot brewery just east of Bend by the second week of February.
At least that's what Chad Kennedy expects.
Kennedy is the brewmaster and CEO of the recently formed Worthy Brewing LLC, named after attorney Roger Worthington, a part-time Bend resident who owns the land on which the brewery will be built.
It's located between Bellevue Drive and Dalton Road along U.S. Highway 20, east of Northeast 27th Street.
Worthington and Kennedy have been meeting with city officials and plan to finalize construction plans next week, Kennedy said.
They've been juggling many kinds of work associated with starting a brewery, Kennedy said. Their task list includes creating a logo, establishing a website and coordinating with builders.
“I've got 20 flaming hatchets in the air, and I'm trying to decide which one to let drop,” said Kennedy, who has been living in a house in northeast Bend in recent months.
Oh, and Kennedy has to come up with beer recipes, too. He's been experimenting with a 20-gallon home-brewing system, he said.
But that shouldn't be a problem.
Worthington lured Kennedy away from Laurelwood Brewing Co. in Portland, where he was brewmaster.
The Worthy brewery is one of six in some stage of development in Central Oregon. Assuming they all start brewing beer, the region would have 18 breweries.
That's almost half of Portland's brewery count, which stood at 40 in June, according to a news release from the Oregon Brewers Guild.
And Bend itself continues to up its brewery profile. The city has the second-highest number of brewpub licenses in the state, at 13, behind Portland, which has 59, according to Oregon Liquor Control Commission data.
But the Worthy facility won't be like every other brewpub, Kennedy said.
Aside from the 30-barrel system and a tasting room, the brewery will feature a laboratory, a yeast-propagation area, and a beer garden where customers will be able to eat and drink, according to plans the company has filed with the city of Bend.
Kennedy has said the brewery will have a scientific bent, describing the concept as a “beer university,” for Worthy's benefit and for other brewers, according to The Bulletin's archives.
Worthy will be eager to please locals, Kennedy said. Still, he said, the company's main focus will be distributing its beer, which will be canned.
Kennedy expects the brewery to start pumping out beer by the end of 2012.
Six to seven years after the brewery opens, Worthy Brewing plans to be pumping out 20,000 barrels per year, according to documents on file with the city of Bend. That's 10 percent of Deschutes Brewery's current annual production.
