Did You Miss the News About Oregon's Newest Brewery?

Forest Grove is a beautiful little town resting amid the rolling hills of wine country about 25 miles from downtown Portland. It is also the site of Oregon’s newest brewery, Pelagic. But you already know about Pelagic if you subscribe to the Celebrate Oregon Beer newsletter, the inaugural issue of which was delivered yesterday. What?? You don’t subscribe? Well get on it! (Scroll down for the form.) Fortunately for you, these emails will be archived, so you can go have a look at all you’re missing here. (There’s also a place to subscribe.)

I know, many of you don’t live near Oregon. Consider subscribing anyway. This is an easy way to keep up with one of the world’s premier beer regions. Even if you never visit, it’s worth knowing what’s happening here in the same way you’d like to keep up with Bavaria or Bohemia. And I dare you to subscribe and not visit—you’ll find the charms of our wonderful little beery state too enticing to ignore.

Now, because I would like to give them a bit more attention, I’m going to reprint the “Spotlight” on Pelagic from the newsletter. Enjoy!

Spotlight: Pelagic Brewing

Forest Grove's newest brewery opened their doors in late September. The new brewery puts a NW spin on classic European styles.

Pelagic is a project of two brothers, a friend, and a spouse who all came together over their love of a certain kind of refined, European-style beer (though IPAs are in the mix as well. They thought those beers would be especially well-received in wine country and Pelagic was born. We spoke to co-founder Christina Chamberlain about the newest Oregon brewery.

Inspirations
"I first got into beer after law school at Willamette, when Josh, at the time my future husband, dragged me all over Portland to find folks like Commons and Upright and other great saisons," she began. "But we've also been lucky to spend a lot of time in pubs in England and Brasseries in France, Belgium, and Luxembourg. We landed in Forest Grove after looking at a lot of locations throughout the north and western parts of the Willamette Valley."

Brewing in Wine Country
"To us, there are two sides of wine county: fantastic, inventive food and drink experiences for the visitors, and long, hot days of dusty hard work for the industry. As you know well, saisons were literally born to quench the thirst of field workers, and we've already built a local following for our blonde saison, which contrary to our expectations has been our top seller."

"But we also believe the beers, especially the saisons, are amazing with wine country and farm-to-table food. We target 1 degree Plato during fermentation; 1.5 is the highest we'll go, so they are bone-dry and made for food pairings. Josh's Thanksgiving dinner at our house starts with our lightest saison super-chilled alongside oysters or mussels, followed by the farmhouse ale with cured ham before we pop open the pinot for turkey and stuffing!"

"Likewise, there's nothing like good IPA to clean the palate after visiting a few wine tasting rooms, and Ben, our head brewer and my brother-in-law, loves IPA's that fit this bill - American style, but lower on the ABV, easy to drink, and with some British influence."

All the Details
"We welcome all ages and pups with lots of fun amenities for all, and we hope they'll come check us out and hang in our cozy taproom or on the heated patio! We offer a focused menu of a couple of panini pressed sandwiches and charcuterie, with more offerings coming very soon - partnerships with restaurants and farms nearby are in the works!"