After nearly 10 years of trying to lure a brewery to locate in Madras, Initiative Brewing has opened The Fortress brewpub with the help of city grants and loans — the largest the Madras Redevelopment Commission has ever funded.

The opening in November comes on the heels of the opening of The Spot, an indoor-outdoor food pod. Both are designed to capture community disposable income and keep it in the community, and give the city much needed food and beverage offerings.

“I am tickled that we have a real brewery in town,” said Mayor Mike Lepin. “We are branching out in all kinds of ways to stimulate growth. Brewing is part of Oregon’s culture.”

Oregon has 318 craft brewers, of which about 30 are located in Central Oregon, according to the Visit Bend website.

Craft brewing is a competitive marketplace, said Ben Edmunds, Oregon Brewers Guild president.

“There are a myriad of challenges that brewers are facing right now, but there are paths to success for both startups and more established breweries,” Edmunds said. “I think there are stories of success and struggle in both the startup and veteran camps.”

Initiative Brewing was founded in 2019 in Redmond by Ryan Churchill and Chris Brumley. It has pubs both in Redmond and Prineville. The brewery doesn’t can or bottle its brews, and instead sells it on tap or in growlers or crowlers, 32-ounce cans designed to take out.

For a while, Initiative Brewing self-distributed its beer, but has suspended that and will focus on crafting beer for sale in its pubs and other food cart locations.

“This feels like a natural progression,” Churchill said. “We wanted to grow, and Madras has aways been on our radar. Madras has been experiencing residential expansion, and there’s a Starbucks there now. Now there’s no reason for Madras people to drive out of town. It’s been awesome.”

Initiative Brewing brews about 1,000 barrels a year. It employs about 65 people in the three locations, Churchill said.

The city of Madras has been seeking a brewery since 2016, when it actively began offering incentives to recruit a brewery for its downtown core. Initially there were three breweries interested, but nothing panned out.

Initiative Brewing met with the city in 2021 and was able to move forward with the project with incentives from the city and Jefferson County, which offered the former public health building on Fourth and K streets for purchase at a competitive rate.

Madras puts out request for brewery proposals

Madras puts out request for brewery proposals 

In September 2022, the Madras Redevelopment Commission approved a $200,000 grant and a $600,000 low interest loan. The city offered a $100,000 grant, which was approved by the Madras City Council.

Madras still waiting for a brewpub operator to bite

Madras still waiting for a brewpub operator to bite

In August 2023, the redevelopment commission approved an additional $300,000 loan, viewing this as an investment into Madras’s economic development.

The additional funds were needed to help offset rising construction costs, Churchill said. Over the next few years, Initiative plans to shift its brewing operations from Redmond to the Madras location, he said.

“Because of COVID-19 we didn’t have the capacity to fund this on our own,” Churchill said. “There was a mutual need, and we wanted to expand and Madras wanted a brewery.”

Nick Snead, Madras Community Development director, said a survey done a few years back showed that Madras restaurants lost a million a year in sales revenue from people going to Redmond or other cities to dine.