Boss Rambler Beer Club expands while RiverBend Brewing closes
As the door closes on Bend, Oregon’s 8 year-old RiverBend Brewing, the 3 year-old Boss Rambler Beer Club (BRBC) has popped it back wide open. The makers of fruited Milkshake IPA’s and other hoppy beer styles at RiverBend Brewing have reportedly ceased operations and Boss Rambler Beer Club has taken over production at their space just NE of downtown Bend.
Boss Rambler Beer Club is the project of former Crux Fermentation brand manager Matt Molletta and former Crux brewer Jacob Bansmer. They began releasing beers through a window in the former Aspect Boards & Brews surf shop on Galveston Rd. in late 2018 and converted the space into a coffee shop and taproom that opened in April 2019. The brands cool color palette and summery beach vibes set them apart from Bend’s other breweries that often tap into earthy tones and the mountain, forest, hiking, biking and snowboarding crowd that Central Oregon is known for.
Boss Rambler Beer Club went on to finish as Best New Brewery at both the Oregon Beer Awards, and the New School’s Best of the Year 2019 awards, they followed that up with #3 Best New Brewery in the USA TODAY 10Best Awards 2021.
While Boss Rambler Beer Club cultivated a chill audience for their colorfully branded cans and approachable Hazy IPA’s, the RiverBend Brewing brand was courting a different crowd with tongue-in-cheek names and graphic cartoon anal sex. Combined with the closure of RiverBend’s satellite taproom/sports bar in 2018, the brand slowly ground to a halt over the last few years and reportedly quietly ended production at the end of 2021. Their social media presence has been quiet, and their website is shut down, while a business filing shows an “administrative dissolution” filed on December 30, 2021.
Boss Rambler Beer Club inherits RiverBend’s old 10bbl Marks Fabrication brewhouse, with a series of 20 bbl fermentation vessels and brite tanks. This will be a big graduation up for BRBC who has up until now produced all of their beer at their local neighbors Silver Moon Brewing’s facility. Last year the brand produced about 800 barrels of beer, and now they will have the capability to produce 4-5K barrels a year.
“With the increased capacity, we plan to continue to focus on highest quality IPA's, but also put more focus on classic lagers,” says BRBC co-founder Matt Molletta. Lagers have been something they have wanted to get into since the beginning, but as a nomadic brewery it was virtually impossible to broaden their output outside of the periodic drops of their Stokes Light. Further down the line they want to break into what they call beer hybrids; types of beers that are progressive expansions from the flavors not normally associated with beer.
Diversifying the lineup and increasing availability will be the most visible changes initially, “This will lead to an always exciting and full tap list at The Beer Club which we haven't been able to accomplish since we opened due to our limited capacity,” adds Molletta.
Original founder and lead brewer Jacob Bansmer has been heading up brewing of BRBC since day one, and has now added another former Crux brewer, Kyle Reikowski, to the team. That means there will be more of their draft beer and cans available around Oregon, and they may be signing on with more specialty distributors in other states.
Currently they don’t plan to open a new BRBC taproom at the off-site brewery right away, but that may be in the future. For now, Molletta says “We've got all kinds of exciting stuff planned now that we've solved our capacity limitations (at least for now!). We've got our eyes set on smart growth and for everyone asking us to drop a Beer Club where they live stay tuned...”