Hopworks Urban Brewery

I’ve been to Hopworks many times with my wife and friends.  The beer is great, the food is top notch and it’s just a neat place to hang out.  This last Sunday, Hopworks hosted an AHA rally at their brewery which I attended and I learned some really cool new things about Hopworks that I didn’t know and that makes them just even that more impressive.

Owner/Brewmaster Christian Ettinger talked at the beginning of the rally and then later Head Brewmaster Trevor Bass gave the brewery tour that I was on and this is where these tidbits came from.

• Hopworks is solely owned (and locally owned) by Ettinger and his wife.  They have been careful not to expand too quickly and not have to allow an outside equity firm to come in and prop them up.
• Hopworks is expanding.  They’ve taken control of the building that adjoins the brewery and the building behind them (which I always assumed was already part of their property).  The distant building is housing the experimental beers such as sours and lacto beers to prevent infecting the main brewhouse.  The side building is going to become the new brewhouse, and Hopworks is also going to begin making ciders. While still being careful not to overstretch their bounds, they feel they can begin to expand their presence in the neighborhood.
• Hopworks gives away it’s yeast to homebrewers.  After they’ve used it as many times as they are going to, but when it still has usefulness left, HUB will give it’s yeast to homebrewers who come in with a clean sanitized jar.  The two strains they use are Wyeast 2124 Bohemian Lager and (I believe) 1332 Northwest Ale.  Christian also acknowledged if one of the neighborhood brewers such as Laurelwood came to them in dire straits they would give them yeast as well, highlighting the  “work together” mentality of Northwest brewers.
• Hopworks has a single dairy farmer that they sell their spent grain to, and in Christian’s words he pays “a little bit of money”.  They are committed to processes further down the chain, and offer the grain to him as organic food so he can get his dairy products certified as organic.
• Hopworks used to get organic two row pale malt trucked in from Canada, but now, whether from market pressure or insistence from Hopworks, they can get organic malt locally from Great Western Malting, which lowers their transportation burden and carbon footprint, and supports a local company.
• Hopworks is constantly upgrading their brewery and restuarant to reduce time, electricity and water usage.  They recently installed a centrifuge which reduced water usage compare to previous filtering and also means they can stop using diatomaceous earth, which while not harmful to skin or the environment, can be harmful if inhaled.

I already had a lot of respect for Hopworks, but this new insight into their inner workings just gave me even more things to like about them.  Big thanks to Christian and his crew for hosting the AHA rally and really making us feel welcome with pizza, beer and unprecedented access behind the scenes.