Sagebrush – Did You Say Street Fare, Scavenger Hunt, Private Dinner?!

You might have heard the buzz about Sagebrush:
“There’s going to be a scavenger hunt—I think they call it a Scramble.” — “It’s a huge community fundraiser.” — “I can’t believe a Sagebrush chef is cooking us a private dinner!”

Sagebrush is going to be better than ever this year—and involve the entire community in new ways like never before. This week-long series of events will benefit more than 100 nonprofit and create a Sagebrush Match Fund to help those charities raise even more money. Here’s a break down of the new Sagebrush events – and of course, those old favorites that make Sagebrush the must-attend culinary event in the Northwest:

• July 9 – Community Challenge/Scramble: This scavenger-hunt style race sends contestants dashing around to garner points and win prizes. There are great prizes at all class levels – from serious athletes to families pushing strollers. Participants can choose to donate to their favorite charity, with their dollars going even further by pairing them with the Sagebrush Match Fund. (This kind of fundrasier was first dreamed up by in Jackson Hole, Wyoming – check out this video to see what a scramble looks like.)
• July 13 – Street Fare: This outdoor festival will feature the area’s best local restaurants and street carts along with local indie music. Popular vendors will pair their specialty dishes with Deschutes ales for an evening of street food, live music and craft beer.
• July 14 – Private Dinners: The Sagebrush Private Dinners provide an intimate dinner in an exceptional setting: select private homes in Central Oregon. Each exclusive dinner is prepared by a local chef and a Sagebrush Feast chef and the menu is developed through a collaboration of the host and the chefs. 
• July 15 – Classic Golf Tournament: Cash, trophies and bragging rights are the golf tournament prizes at stake for up to 52 teams competing in a best ball competition in this fierce but friendly golf tournament at one of the top golf courses in Bend, Oregon. Entry fees directly benefit the Deschutes Children’s Foundation Endowment Fund, a long-time recipient of Sagebrush charitable dollars.
• July 16 – Feast: A mainstay of Sagebrush, you can not only sample the food of celebrity chefs, you can actually meet them and talk with them in person! Held outdoors in the beautiful setting of Broken Top Golf Club, this wildly popular event features small plate pairings, amazing live music, Deschutes Brewery’s handcrafted ales and Northwest wines.

Sagebrush will provide a matching grant opportunity and proceeds will benefit organizations serving the Central Oregon community. Donors are able to designate funds to any participating nonprofit, and also donate to the match fund being raised by Sagebrush. After the event closes, each nonprofit receives 100 percent of their designated funds, plus a percentage of the Sagebrush match funds.

Monk's Blood is Here! 21st Amendment's Belgian Ale

Fans can start lining up in the supermarket and pub—21st Amendment Brewery’s Monk’s Blood is finally here! There’s been a flurry of buzz about this Belgian-style dark ale brewed with cinnamon, vanilla, oak chips and dried figs. Initially released in December of 2009, Monk’s Blood is the first installment in 21st Amendment’s Insurrection Series, a limited edition, once-in-a-while, four-pack release of a very special beer that rises up in revolt against common notions of what canned beer can be.

Monk's Blood has a rich malt aroma, slightly fruity, with notes of dark figs and oak tannins at 8.5% ABV. The beer is a tribute to the brewmaster monks of Belgium’s monasteries. These monks drink only beer during their fasts—providing a new perspective to drinking beer, or “liquid bread” as they call it, on an empty stomach.

To develop the original recipe for this beer, 21st Amendment founders Nico Freccia and Shaun O’Sullivan traveled to Belgium. Near the famous Trappist Abbey of Westvletren, the visited traditional breweries in the hop fields of west Flanders. Monk’s Blood is designed to pair with winter stews, cheeses and desserts or to be savored by itself in a Belgian tulip glass, perhaps contemplating the higher plains of life.

Draft Magazine rated Monk's Blood as one of the Top Beers of 2010 - pick yourself up a four-pack and see what all the buzz is about!

What’s the best part of TED? Oh yeah, it’s BIL

As we all know, TED is in full swing down in Long Beach—the glossiest, bling-iest, intellectual conference around. With a price tag of $6,000, it’s an elites-only event. Sure, TED now posts a sample of talks on their website—which are well with a watch—but I think it's more fun to explore BIL.

BIL, the unconference. A free, self-organizing, emergent arts, science, society and technology unconference held near TED that first formed spontaneously in 2007. I read about BIL yesterday in the Wall Street Journal and it made me smile (when the front page of WSJ makes you smile, it’s something memorable). I loved the idea of a bunch of smarty-pants couch surfers rubbing TED the wrong way, stealing a bit of their publicity. In this particular article, when a TED spokeswoman was asked about the conference’s relationship to BIL she declined to comment.

No comment?! (First off, the PR side of me says, “Ouch, that was a mistake—now you look like a real snob.”) But the real zinger is this:

If TED is all about “ideas worth spreading” than they should be spreading around a little more BIL.

BIL is the ultimate DIY—because the organizers of the original BIL encourage people to create their own BIL unconferences—to organize their own community events that share great ideas, not just about technology, but about comedy, politics, communication, really, anything worth talking about.

We all know that ever since higher education became accessible to everyone (thanks, Kennedy) great ideas are no longer limited to the realm of the leisure class. It’s just a matter of putting time aside to, you know, actually do something great.

So, when will the creators of BIL be gracing the stage of TED?