One of the region’s best beer festivals, The Little Woody, returns to the grounds of the Deschutes Historical Museum on Friday and Saturday with its focus on wood-aged beers and ciders. The festival celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, with 45 offerings listed from 22 breweries and cider-makers both near and far.

Each attending brewery serves at least one specialty beer to celebrate the theme of aging in wood.

While all of the listed barrel-aged libations are appealing, in surveying the ones from our local breweries, I found several highlights that are well worth a deeper look.

Worthy Brewing Company: Betty White

Billed as an imperial blonde ale, this beer was aged in bourbon barrels for six months. “We then added 70 pounds of fresh bing cherries and fresh orange zest to create the beer version of an Old Fashioned,” said head brewer Dustin Kellner via email. “Since Betty White is also old fashioned, it seemed like a fun name for such a big beer.”

9.7 percent alcohol by volume (ABV), 31 IBUs

Tumalo Cider Company: Heirloom Bourbon Barrel

Many modern ciders rarely if ever touch wood, which makes this offering from Tumalo Cider an intriguing one to seek out. The cidery put its Heirloom cider, crafted from a blend of organic heirloom apples, into bourbon barrels to age for six months. I would expect some interesting complexity and structure to the cider to come from the barrels — notes of oak, vanilla and possibly even a light smokiness.

6.5 percent ABV

GoodLife Brewing Company: Long Acronym

Fans of last year’s Brett Lager, the collaboration beer from GoodLife and The Ale Apothecary, likely will enjoy Long Acronym, a similarly barrel-aged creation. Billed as a mixed fermentation, dry-hopped India pale lager, the beer spent more than a year in Oregon pinot noir wine barrels with a mixed yeast culture. “Once we were happy with the progression of the beer, after about 16 months believe it or not, we blended back to stainless, dry hopped, crashed, carbonated and finally kegged up,” said head brewer Tyler West.

7.8 percent ABV, 45 IBUs

Deschutes Brewery: The Ages

It’s fair to say The Ages represents a culmination of 30 years of brewing experience from Bend’s oldest brewery. Inspired by gueuze, a type of blended Belgian sour lambic beer, The Ages is a multiyear blend of several barrel-soured ales, and was entirely aged in oak. The Ages is deeply complex, presenting layered flavors of fruit, tart sour, peppery spice, balsamic vinegar and more.

8 percent ABV, 14 IBUs

Boneyard Beer: Rum Barrel Aged Suge Knite

Suge Knite Imperial Stout is one of Boneyard’s most popular beers, a boozy behemoth rich with chocolate, coffee and dried dark fruits. After aging in second-use rum barrels, the beer exudes complex flavors of molasses, rum and oak. I expect this one will be a favorite at the festival, so don’t rest on your laurels and miss out.

13 percent ABV, 80 IBUs

10 Barrel Brewing Company: Sour Raspberry Russian Imperial Stout

10 Barrel goes a different direction with its imperial stout, one that I suspect will be highly evocative of dessert. “We will be the first to admit this beer has a lot going on,” reads the description. “We aged a big burly Russian Imperial Stout in previously used bourbon barrels for just a hint of sweetness. Then we added a sour-raspberry beer to take it to the next level.” Think chocolate cake and raspberries with a splash of bourbon.

9.5 percent ABV, 50 IBUs

The Ale Apothecary: Ralph

Sampling beers from The Ale Apothecary at a festival is a rarity, as none of the beers handcrafted by brew master Paul Arney is kegged and easily available. All of his beers are aged in wood, making The Little Woody a natural fit, and Ralph may well be the most complex and unusual beer pouring this weekend. Ralph is a mixed-fermentation ale brewed with white fir, aged in Oregon pinot noir barrels for one year, and aged an additional two months on fir needles prior to bottling.

7.22 percent ABV

— Jon Abernathy is a Bend beer blogger and brew aficionado. His column runs in GO! every other week.