Second Prineville brewery planned

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, October 12, 2016

PRINEVILLE — Jesse Toomey, 41, said mountain biking keeps off the pounds he’d otherwise accumulate by eating pizza.

“We’ve really been eating a lot of pizza,” he said, “every night.”

Pizza consumption is product development for Toomey because pizza will be the menu mainstay, he said, when he and his brother-in-law Joshua Saxbury open Crooked River Brewing LLC. Toomey said he expects to open in winter; he’s begun work turning the building at 420 N. Main St., current home of The Wild Angel Art & Antiques, into a brewpub. The Crooked River Brewing application for a liquor license is pending with the Oregon Liquor Control Commission.

Love of beer is behind the project; the head brewer, whom Toomey declined to identify, is a longtime homebrewer ready to make the leap into brewing commercially. “He makes the best beer I’ve ever tasted in my life,” Toomey said Friday.

Ron Storey, the building owner, said he’s leasing the building to the brewery partners with an option to buy. He said the property attracted plenty of attention from would-be buyers but Toomey’s proposal struck a chord.

“When I originally bought the property,” Storey said, “it was one of my intentions to make a brewery.”

Toomey said he plans to experiment with a four-barrel brew system he purchased in Colorado. He’s partial to IPAs but expects to produce a variety of beer styles. He foresees eight to 10 rotating taps once the place is up an running.

“We’re keeping it fairly small,” he said, adding that he and Saxbury, both Prineville residents, will do as much of the renovation work themselves as they can.

The interior design, he said, will reflect the feel of Prineville by incorporating reclaimed materials from railroads and sawmills. Toomey acquired some kiln rollers he plans to turn into table legs, for example. The open, 6,800-square-foot space will have a stage area up front for live entertainment, the taps and pizza oven in the middle and outdoor seating in the back, he said.

Crooked River Brewing would be the second brewery in Prineville. Ochoco Brewing Co., established in the city in 2012, will mark one year at its new pub location, just a block south on N. Main Street from Toomey’s planned brewery. Ochoco owner Joseph Barker moved his seven-barrel brewing system to a separate location on U.S. Highway 26.

Barker said he expects Toomey, whom he described as a friend, would do well. The Crooked River concept as craft brewer and pizza restaurant differs enough from Ochoco Brewing, which operates a full-service restaurant, that it would provide customers a different experience, Barker said. Whether the city can support two breweries over the long run, he said, is an open question.

“We’ll find out,” Barker said. “There are a lot of options in Prineville for craft beer.”

A recent construction boom in Prineville, attributable, in part, to additions to the Apple and Facebook data centers southwest of town, helped fuel business at the Ochoco pub, he said. How long that growth will last is on the minds of many in Prineville, he said.

“It’s a good time to be open, but you never know what’s going to happen long term,” Barker said. “We’re in for 30 percent growth this year. It’s kind of a crazy year for us, which explains why I’m tired all the time.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7815,

jditzler@bendbulletin.com