Celebrate Oregon Beer
For the best part of the past year I have been working on a project I’m finally able to announce. It started when I pitched our local travel sites on the idea of updating their beer coverage, which is both anemic and out of date. This is a minor travesty, because every state’s travel association should at least adequately promote local beer. It’s worse for Oregon, though, a genuinely exceptional place for beer. The more I thought about all this, the more unacceptable the situation seemed. I reached out to the Oregon Brewers Guild to see if they’d like to step into this promotional breach, but following Covid, they didn’t have the bandwidth for a big project. Then Sally had an intriguing suggestion: maybe we need a stand-alone organization devoted to telling the Oregon story. Interesting!
Let’s pause to consider what makes Oregon special. Brewing has been a continuous fixture in the state since 1852. Oregon’s hop fields, which produce more pounds of green cones than all other countries save two (the U.S. and Germany), date back nearly as far. The USDA hop breeding program in Corvallis set the stage for a small-brewery revival when it bred the Cascade hop in 1971. Oregon State University also houses the national hop germplasm repository, Tom Shellhammer’s research lab, and a well-regarded brewing school. In 1934, regional Northwest breweries set up a malthouse ten miles from the Blitz-Weinhard brewery in downtown Portland that became a national resource for brewing malt.
But wait, there’s more! Portland is home to the oldest homebrew shop in the U.S. (FH Steinbart); Oregon’s first craft brewery opened in 1979 (Cartwright); the first steel fabricator made the country’s first brewhouse here in 1983 (JV NW); and the state’s first national yeast lab launched in 1986 (Wyeast). America’s hoppy brewing tradition started in the Pacific Northwest, and breweries were already making IPAs in Oregon in the 1980s. Teri Fahrendorf, one of the first women to be hired as a brewmaster, founded the Pink Boots Society in Portland in 2007. Finally—or not, because this list is far from complete—Oregon is home to the best beer and hops archive this side of the Smithsonian.
And none of this touches on the diverse and exceptional breweries here, the drinking culture, or the annual celebration of fresh hops—truly one of the most interesting seasonal events anywhere in the world.
It’s a story that deserves to be told, and visitors and locals alike should be aware of its special place in American brewing. So, on Monday, I signed articles of incorporation to create Celebrate Oregon Beer, a nonprofit 501(c)(6) that will do just that. It has the backing of both the Oregon Brewers Guild and Oregon Hop Commission, as well as 26 breweries, growers, and allied groups (and counting) that have pledged donations to launch the project. I’ve convened a Board of Directors, and soon we’ll get started. In the meantime, let me tell you a bit more—and borrow your wisdom as I do.
Nonprofit organizations are organic entities, and the Board of Directors will ultimately guide its strategy. As I’ve been pitching the idea, however, I’ve been talking about three components that seem to be core to the mission of promoting Oregon beer and hops:
Develop and maintain a regularly-updated site online. The site will include accessible, sortable information about all things connected to Oregon beer and act as the anchor for other activities, as well as serving as the front door for people seeking information about Oregon beer. A thirsty person should be able to plug in a few criteria—dogs and children allowed, food available—and get a map and listing of breweries meeting the critieria nearby. I also think it would be cool to have “biographies” of the major Oregon hop varieties grown in the state, highlighting how our native conditions create unique flavor expressions.
Market Oregon’s unique fresh-hop season as the signature event of the Oregon beer year. Each year, Oregon breweries make hundreds of beers with fresh, unkilned hops, and the frenzy that ensues is one of the coolest things that happens anywhere in the world. Few people outside the region know it exists or why they should care—but with a little boost, they can learn.
Finally, bring travel professionals and press to Oregon for site visits, tastings, and special events where they can see the best Oregon has to offer. This piece won’t happen immediately, but I have been speaking to area travel associations (Oregon Coast Visitors Association, etc.) to learn how these things happen.
Beyond the major components, there are tons of fun things this organization can sponsor or arrange. Again, the Board will set the course, but examples include: Annual or semiannual collaborations between growers and breweries (same beer with different hops, different beer with the same hop variety, etc). Events might not raise a ton of money, but they are great vehicles for fun, community, and education. The organization can focus a spotlight on different regions of the state, different kinds of beers made here, and all the fun ways we knit beer into our lives. The first order of business will be a website that will act as an online portal for general information, event information, brewery listings, useful hop info, and so on, along with newsletters, a social media presence, and who knows—maybe videos and podcasts in the future. That alone will be an enormous benefit, but there are many other programmatic possibilities down the line.
In the months I’ve been fundraising, I’ve had involved conversations with a couple dozen folks, and that has fleshed out the potential scope of the project. Below I’ll list the folks who have pledged to donate money to launch the project—their enthusiasm has gotten me all the more invested in this. It feels a bit like writing a book—huge, a little scary, and exhilarating.
As Celebrate Oregon Beer moves from theoretical to tangible, I realize I’ll need a lot of help. Since readers have always been so much smarter collectively than me, I’ll throw out a few next steps. If you can offer some of your knowledge, I’d be much obliged.
Website design. This is going to be a critical piece. The general architecture will be fairly simple, but it will need to be searchable and be able to generate lists based on selected criteria as well as maps. Designers operated by underrepresented groups very much invited to inquire!
Further fundraising. The project is a go and we’ve reached a minimum threshold to launch, but it’s less than I’d hoped for. With fatter coffers, we will be able to do more. I know some folks in the industry are still considering making a pledge (thanks!) and others are hearing about this for the first time. If you wish to discuss this with me and potentially join the Founders Circle, please reach out. I am committed to funding this going forward with grants, income, and sponsorships. Click here to contact me.
Other help. There are a lot of moving parts here, and a lot of them I have little/no experience with. The organization will need a bookkeeper. Merch may be part of the revenue stream, and I have very little idea how to approach that. Finally, this organization is designed to raise awareness about the great work of an entire industry. I hope to get to know every brewery and hop grower in the state before this is all over, and I definitely want your great ideas. One brewery, for example, suggested doing a brewers dinner to raise awareness/funds for the project. That was fantastic! I would love to hear from you.
That’s plenty from me. Things are under way, so there will definitely be more soon. Stay tuned.
Members of the Founders Circle (Yay!)
Arzner Family/Block 15, Away Days, Baerlic, Beervana Blog, Bitter Monk, Breakside, Cascade Lakes, Coldfire, Coleman Agriculture, Deschutes, Double Mountain, Ferment, Fort George, Goschie, Great Notion, Level, Little Beast, Maletis, Oregon Beer & Wine Distributors Association, Old Town, pFriem, Rogue, Steeplejack, Sunriver, and Von Ebert.