Hammer and Stitch Makes a Covid Debut
Hammer and Stitch’s Ben Dobler
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We learned this week that Covid didn’t stop the explosion of new breweries from opening even during a global pandemic—the US now has nearly nine thousand of them. One of Portland’s most-anticipated debut comes from Widmer alum Ben Dobler, who quietly opened his new place, Hammer and Stitch, last October. The continuing new-brewery explosion has created specialization as breweries focus on segments or niches. Generalist breweries may find themselves lost in the scrum—the way to stand out is by focusing on hazy IPAs or sour/barrel-aged beers or lagers. Since it’s vanishingly hard now to grow a start-up to regional or national size, the smart money is focus.
Ben has done that, but in a rather unexpected twist, his “niche” is regular drinkers.
“We’re aiming at the European approach of beer complementing social activity.”
Back to Basics
Usually brewery reviews, much like brewery tours, end with the beer. Let’s start there instead. In a very diverse, competitive Portland market, finding a new lane is hard. Hammer and Stitch, located just about halfway between Breakside Slabtown and Great Notion NW, found it less by looking around than back—to an earlier era in American craft brewing when pale ales, ambers, and porters dominated the scene. Breweries still occasionally make them, but Dobler thinks they should be at center stage. The core line reflects that, with those three styles plus an American-inflected pale lager and throwback IPA. Here, it’s the hazy that is the occasional beer.
“I would like to see people get back to the basics: crisp, easy-drinking lagers and some maltier beers, ambers and English-style beers,” Ben said. “Don’t get me wrong, IPAs are amazing, but there’s so much more to beer than just hops.”
This reflects Ben’s conviction that there are a lot of drinkers out there who want a more European experience, one where beer accentuates the social aspect rather than being the diva at the center of the table. He and head brewer Cam Murphy have created beers of balance and modest intensity like the lagers of Bavaria and Czechia or the cask ales of the UK, hoping people will settle into a session with them the same way a family enjoys sipping half-liters under the chestnut trees of a biergarten.
This may be a bit more forward-thinking than geezers like me realize: many younger drinkers have rarely seen these styles. An amber ale, hopelessly passé to drinkers over forty, is a new creature to those under thirty. With decades of experience, Ben and Cam have updated these beers so they are cleaner and crisper than those old caramel bombs, and also feature more modern hop flavors. They’ve already watched as young drinkers embrace them without irony, and Ben notes that women in particular seem to enjoy them. Looking around at a crowd of millennials enjoying amber ales might even encourage older drinkers to approach them with a fresh appreciation.
Slabtown’s Latest
A few short years ago, the Slabtown neighborhood of Northwest Portland was a lonely tract of warehouses and parking lots bordered by a freeway. It is now becoming a dense neighborhood of chic popup apartment buildings and a growing number of breweries. Hammer and Stitch now occupies a third of the 18,000 square-foot building formerly occupied by Clear Creek Distillery on NW Wilson. It’s a quiet pocket of the old neighborhood north of the freeway that still has some homes amid industrial buildings.
Building a brewery and brand from the ground up has some advantages. Hammer and Stitch has a very clean, spare brand aesthetic—and that’s mirrored in the whitewashed, open-concept brewery. Although it’s set in the back corner, the brewery’s gleaming steel instantly becomes the focal point no matter where you are inside. The ownership structure includes silent partners with relevant experience—one of whom has a background in marketing. Ben wanted the brewery to be prominent and accessible, no glass walls or physical separation. “Brewery theater,” Ben said, repeating the marketing language they used as shorthand when designing the space. “I was repelled by the name at first, but it’s what we wanted—an open brewery, right there.” Drinkers can sit immediately adjacent to the brewery, or if they’re lucky enough to grab a seat at the bar, have an even better view of any wort that might be making its way through the steel.
If they see someone working there, it’s liable to be Cam, whom Ben met when they worked at Laurelwood together a few years back. He came on as head brewer (Ben’s title is brewmaster) and recently joined the ownership group. He will work the deck of a two-vessel system made by Agile Stainless, just a few miles north of the brewery. They expect to add a whirlpool as production picks up, but for now the stripped-down system works fine.
In an interesting arrangement, the brewery has partnered with Alex Chong and Grand Cru Hospitality to run the full kitchen onsite (it’s the group that does the same thing for Stormbreaker). For brewers who don’t want to manage a kitchen, this partnership offers a more seamless variation of the increasingly popular taproom + food-truck setup. Old Portlanders enjoying an amber ale are likely to smile at the menu, too, which includes jojos and fried seafood typical of the beach haunts of yesteryear.
The Beer
The beer is familiarly beer-y whether you came into adulthood on amber ales or not. Yet it’s also slyly updated. The lager is a good example. Ben and Cam used an old American template rather than something European (helles or pilsner), deploying six-row malt and corn in the grist. Yet the hops, which are delicate and unobtrusive, are modern varieties—Idaho 7 and Cashmere. The Cashmere, with its sprightly lemongrass note, stands out. The hops aren’t aggressive in the slightest—the level of intensity is barely above a helles’—yet to anyone paying attention, they taste American, not European. It’s a clever union of the older and newer meanings of “American.”
Cashmere makes an appearance in a few of the beers, and signals a bright, citrusy house character that inflects the beers in greater or lesser measure depending on the style. This is intentional. “I’m going to use 3-5 hops in a blend,” Cam said. “We’re not going to focus on varieties.” In The Pale, Cashmere joins Chinook, Cascade, and Azacca for an update on the classic all-Cascade originals from the 1980s. The character is similar, but more nuanced and fuller. More chorus than soloist. It also skips the caramel entirely, finding body and maltiness in aromatic Munich instead. It tends toward bread rather than toffee.
Cameron Murphy on the Agile brew deck.
The Amber was in some ways the most interesting beer. How do you update a beer that seems—apologies—frozen in amber? The late ‘80s/early ‘90s versions were made with too much caramel malt, often with nothing else in the grist. They were sweet, very caramelly, and one-dimensional. The flavor of caramel does go beautifully with citrus hops, though, so Ben and Cam retooled theirs, using two varieties of English malt, a bit of caramel malt, and a bit of chocolate malt to create a more three-dimensional caramel base. And it definitely is caramelly—but there’s a distinct breadiness and a hint of raisin. It’s also quite a bit drier than those ambers of a generation ago. To finish it off, they placed a nice dollop of their citrusy hops on top to preserve that classic two-note harmony that once dominated Oregon taps. It tastes like an amber ale, but it doesn’t feel nostalgic.
In general, I would describe the beers as bright and clean—no surprise given the experience the brewers bring. The IPA is the only truly old-school beer in the house. “An IPA should have crystal or caramel malt in it,” Ben argued. “It should have a backbone.” I’m not sure that’s still the conventional wisdom, but H&S’s IPA delivers the goods. It has a fuller body and a kiss of caramel, though the bitterness is moderate and it does have a modern juiciness. Possibly my favorite beer is The Porter, which offers a perfect balance between roast and red fruit, with just the right density to support both. Porters are hard to balance and usually have too much roastiness or too much sweetness. Finally, the brewery also has a line of one-offs, and their raspberry stout (Berry Cozy) is exceptional.
Hammer and Stitch broke ground in December of 2019, having no idea that a tiny infectious agent was about to turn the world upside down. They had the ill fortune of trying to open just as the cold weather arrived and sent the number of infections skyrocketing. Soon the country would be shut down again and no one would be headed to the pubs. They managed to create some outdoor seating, but few braved the cold for the next few months.
It’s spring now, and the vaccine is here. Hammer and Stitch has been “open” for seven months, but most Portlanders haven’t been tracking the movements of breweries. Over the next few weeks, more and more people will begin venturing out and trying to return to a more normal life. For them, Hammer and Stitch will still be the new kid in town. So go give the brewery a look, and prepare to do it right. Stay a bit, have at least a couple pints, and enjoy some conversation. That’s the reason Ben and company made this place.