Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives Oral History Collection, 2014-2017

Title: Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives Oral History Collection, 2014-2017

ID: OH 035

Primary Creator: Edmunson-Morton, Tiah K.

Extent: 259.0 gigabytes. More info below.

Arrangement: Interviews are arranged chronologically by date of interview.

Languages of Materials: English [eng]

The Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives Oral History Collection is a growing repository of interviews with industry professionals, journalists and community members.

The collection is entirely born digital. Interviews led by project staff are captured using either video and audio recorders (sometimes both), and the resulting raw .mts files (almost always multiple files per interview) and .wav files constitute the original materials described in this collection. These raw files are stored on the libraries preservation server, as are lower-resolution derivative .mpg files that represent the processed length of certain interview videos. In addition, .mp3 copies of each interview file have been generated from the raw files and are stored on the Special Collections and Archives Research Center (SCARC) file server for local access. Online copies of each interview video are likewise available in two locations: as lightly described video files accessible through OSU's MediaSpace media distribution platform and on the OHBA Research Guide.

Most interviews have been indexed with time-stamps or are in the process of being transcribed. Unless otherwise stated, all interviews are available for streaming online.

Materials assembled in the process of developing interview topics and permissions forms signed by interview subjects are held in the SCARC central files.

Lisa Allen is a brewer at Heater Allen Brewing in McMinnville. Allen was born in Portland and grew up in Tualatin, Oregon, but spent her junior year in Moraga, California. Allen was strong academically in science and math, but was also interested in history and English. She started at Oregon State University in 2001, studying Anthropology/Archaeology. After she graduated she lived in New Zealand for six months, where she worked in the restaurant industry. After returning to the U.S., Allen got a summer job at Pelican Brewing; she helped open the Monroe McMenamins in Corvallis in 2006. Allen also worked in the wine industry, starting with harvest and then working in tasting rooms, while simultaneously studying for the GRE and applying for grad school in historic preservation. She was accepted into a graduate program in England for historic preservation, but by then had decided to pursue a career in wine. In 2009, Allen left the wine industry to join her father at Heater Allen Brewing, which he'd opened in 2007 after a long career as an investment banker.

Rick Allen is the owner and head brewer at Heater Allen in McMinnville, Oregon. He was born in Palo Alto, California and lived there for most of his childhood. He graduated from Woodside High School and though he was interested in a variety of subjects, including chemistry and meteorology, he chose to study business at Oregon State University. He was a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity. The Allen family has a deep connection to Oregon State University: Allen's grandfather went to OAC (Class of 1923) and his grandmother studied Home Economics; his parents both attended OSU, meeting during their freshman year at an "alternative Thanksgiving" retreat and marrying during their junior year; his two brothers attended OSU; he met his wife at OSU; and their daughter, Lisa, attended in the early 2000s. After university, Allen took a position as an investment banker in Portland, with short moves to Washington and California for employment; he left that field in the early 2000s. An avid home brewer, Allen considered a second career as a vintner, but decided to open a brewery in 2007 in McMinnville, Oregon.

Kyle Almlie is a home brewer and graduate teaching assistant in the chemistry department of Oregon State University. He grew up in Chico, California, where he stayed through college graduation from California State University-Chico with a B.S. in Chemistry in 2012. He moved to Oregon State University that same year to study Analytical Chemistry and work as a Graduate Teaching Assistant.

Warren Aney is alum of Oregon State University, who received his Master’s degree in the 1970s. He went on to work as a wildlife ecologist, and later worked for a Portland-based travel agency leading wine tours. Aney met vintner and brewer Charles Coury, who started Oregon's first post-Prohibition microbrewery in 1980, through their mutual interest in wine.

John Annen is a fourth generation hop grower in Mount Angel. Annen’s family came to the area in the late 19th century from Wisconsin and Minnesota, following the priests and sisters who moved to Oregon when the Catholic Abbey was established. He comes from a large family, with ten siblings and an extended family with lots of cousins; most of his siblings stayed in farming, but Annen was left alone to run the farm in the mid 1990s. He has two sons, and one has taken over the management of the farm.

Natalie Baldwin is the Head Brewer at Burnside Brewing. She grew up near Vail, Colorado, where her dad was a ski instructor. While she was growing up she spent a lot of time outdoors, skiing and mountain biking; she was also interested in art and photography, but by the end of high school decided to pursue education in Biological Chemistry at University of Colorado in Denver. She moved to Portland in 2012 and started working at Pints Brewing Company in 2013; she stayed there through 2015, when she left to take a position at Burnside Brewing.

Fred Bowman co-founded Portland Brewing Company in 1986. Bowman was born in San Francisco; moved to Montana; to Empire, Oregon in elementary school; and finally settled in Hillsboro, where he has spent most of his life. Bowman's first job was for worked for a Volkswagen distributor in high school, which fit with his interest in cars and mechanics. In addition to cars, Bowman was also interested in biology and music, playing trumpet in the youth symphony. He travelled through Europe after graduating from High School, sparking another lifelong interest in beer and brewing. He returned in time to start school at Oregon State University, but soon transferred to University of Oregon and then again to Portland State University. He returned to his job with Volkswagen, a position he held for 16 more years. He began home brewing in the late 1970s and after leaving Volkswagen Bowman, Art Larrance, and Jim Goodwin joined forces to open a brewery. They hired Bert Grant (Yakima Brewing) as a consultant, which resulted in a licensing agreement for them to brew Grant's beer in Portland; this ended in the early 1990s. Bowman and other early microbrewers were instrumental in the passage of Oregon's Brewpub Bill in 1985, which allowed breweries to brew and sell beer onsite. By 1998 the company was in financial trouble, and it was sold in 2004. Bowman had been employed as a brewing consultant, work he continued to do after the brewery was sold.

Brad Clack is a retired hop buyer for S.S. Steiner (now Hopsteiner). Clack's family did farm work on the Oregon coast before moving to Salem, where Clack has spent most of his life. He started working in the hop industry in 1978 and has deep relationships with growers and hops brokers. He retired in 2015, and his son has taken over his duties at S.S. Steiner.

Jeff Clawson has worked for the Department of Food Science and Technology as the research brewery and food processing manager since 1993. Clawson grew up in Davis, California, where his father was a University of California Extension Agent and his mom worked as a department administrative assistant. He moved to Oregon to study Agribusiness at Eastern Oregon College (now Eastern Oregon University) in La Grande. It was in college that Clawson took a class in brewing, which became a personal hobby and ultimately led to a career. He transferred to Oregon State University to finish his B.S., adding a Food Science minor and working with Mina McDaniel on sensory analysis. After graduating in 1988 he worked at NORPAC Foods in Stayton, Oregon. He returned to OSU for graduate school in 1991 to study Rangeland Resources and Water Quality; he finished in 1993, and took a position with the Department of Food Science and Technology.

Bill Coleman is part of a large multigenerational hop growing family, primarily based in St. Paul and Mt. Angel. He was born and raised in the area and all the children worked on the farm; many of the family members are still actively involved in Coleman Agriculture. The Coleman farms experienced rapid expansion from the 1950s through the 1970s, and as a result branches of the family began to become more specialized in the work they do; Bill Coleman has always been interested in and excelled at mechanics, and he developed new pieces of equipment and processes that have made the farm and the industry more efficient. In addition to the work on the farm and involvement in the church community, Coleman has also travelled extensively.

John Coleman is a hop grower based in St. Paul, Oregon. He manages the hops and perennial crops for Coleman Ag, a large family run company. Coleman grew up in St. Paul and spent most of his extra time working on the farm. He went to St. Paul Parochial and attended St. Paul High School, where he was active in the Future Farmers of America. He attended Oregon State University, where he was in the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity and studied Political Science; he graduated in 1988. He has held various positions in the family business, but is currently the Perennial Crops Manager.

Denny Conn is a home brewer, author, and podcaster. Conn was born in Newton, Iowa, where his father and grandfather ran a lumberyard; Conn worked there as a child. Conn played guitar in rock bands, performed in bars and talent shows as a kid. He graduated from high school in 1980 and attended Iowa State University. He initially wanted to be a chemistry teacher, but later decided he wanted to be an English teacher. He dropped out of college part way through because he wanted to play in rock bands. He moved to Eugene, Oregon, where he attended Lane Community College for electronic technician coursework. He got a job helping a friend’s digital audio technology company, and they toured with Split Ends, Supertramp, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. When he returned, he worked at a video store, the Hult Center, and opened a recording studio. His wife bought him a Pike Place Brewing home brewing kit from Costco in 1998; brewing made sense to him because of his chemistry education, his love of cooking, and his experimental nature. He learned about different styles and methods, and soon began to experiment in a rather radical way. One method was batch sparging, which turned out to be a divisive one for home brewers; Conn started publishing his information about batch sparging online in 2003 to 2004, and people criticized it. He also experimented with ingredients, including rye for a Rye IPA, which John Maier from Rogue liked; Conn’s RIPA as inspiration for one of Rogue’s anniversary beers. He's also experimented with equipment, and is a big fan of the Pico-Brew. He and his friend Drew Beechum have co-written the books Experimental Brewing and Homebrew All-stars; they also have a podcast, Experimental Homebrewing.

Ted Cox was born in Eugene, Oregon, but soon moved to California to help his aunt manage her ranch. He graduated from Chaffey Junior College in 1967 and from La Verne College with a B.A. in Physical Education in 1969. He did two tours with the Peace Corps (1969-1973) in Sierra Leone and Belize. In Sierra Leone he worked in a teacher's college and in Belize he coached track and field, helping to create a physical fitness manual that is still used today. He returned to Oregon in 1973 to attend graduate school at Oregon State University, graduating with his master's in Physical Education in 1976; his thesis was entitled "Physical fitness parameters of male youth in USA and Belize, Central America." He was also the women's volleyball coach and taught both physical education and first aid at Linn Benton Community College (1975-1976). He opened the Old World Deli in 1977 and soon bought the building, which houses shops and the Oregon Trail Brewery (established 1987). He is the author of three books: When British Honduras became Belize: A Peace Corps memoir, Murray Loop: Journey of an Oregon Family, and The Toledo Incident of 1925: Three days that made history in Toledo, Oregon.

Chris Crabb is the Public Relations Director of the Oregon Brewers Festival and owner of the firm Crabbsoup Public Relations. She grew up in Beaverton, Oregon and attended Sunset High School. In 1991 she graduated from the University of Oregon with a BA in Journalism, with an emphasis on Public Relations. She was the PR Director and Account Manager for Campbell Production/Consulting Group, and has been working as a PR Associate at Weinstein PR since 2009. In 2003, she started her own firm Crabbsoup. Her career has focused on the hospitality field, with an emphasis on food and beverage events and promotion. She's worked with the Oregon Brewers Festival, Holiday Ale Festival, and BrewFest in the Park, as well as many other individual brewery clients.

Blake Crosby is a 5th generation hop grower who grew up on his family's farm in Woodburn, Oregon. Crosby attended the University of Oregon, where he earned a B.A. in History in 2008, and Willamette University, where he earned an M.B.A. in 2013. He is the CEO and President of Crosby Hop Farm.

Brian Crosby is a fourth generation hop family member and works at Crosby Hop Farm LLC as an accounts manager. Crosby was born in Portland, Oregon and grew up on the family farm in Woodburn. Hops production was a community and family effort, and he and his siblings all worked on the farm. After graduation, Crosby left Woodburn and joined the Navy; after three years he left the military and went to Oregon State University to study Civil Engineering; while there he also played rugby. He worked for a construction company in Portland, moved to Bend to run their local office, left the industry during the 2008 recession, and spent the next several years working in construction and earning a degree in Financial Planning. He returned to the farm in the late 2000s as a financial manager and salesperson.

William Dettwyler is the owner of Codus Medicus, Inc. He grew up on a hop farm in Silverton, Oregon, where he worked on his family farm and processing facilities in the 1930s through the 1950s, when they sold the farm. He graduated from the Oregon Institute of Technology with an Associate of Science degree in Clinical Laboratory Science/Medical Technology/Technologist in 1958. He has done lab work for since the early 1950s, and has owned Codus Medicus since 1961; his work has allowed him to travel extensively through the U.S.

Otto Fredrick “Fred” Eckhardt (1926-2015) was a well-known advocate, critic, educator, mentor, and historian. Born in Everett, Washington, Eckhardt traveled widely with the U.S. Marine Corps before moving to Portland, Oregon. After leaving careers as a swim instructor and studio photographer, Eckhardt began photographing new Northwest pubs and writing about beer full time for various brewing publications. Eckhardt rose to prominence in the brewing community with his 1970 A Treatise on Lager Beers, a guide to homebrewing and the evolution of lager beer (a hobby which was notably still illegal at the time of publication). His 1989 The Essentials of Beer Style is still considered a required read for brewers and beer lovers alike. A beloved member of the brewing community, Eckhardt has been called the icon, pioneer, and founding father of craft beer, as well as the much beloved “Dean of American beer writing.”

Jeff Edgerton is the Brewmaster at BridgePort Brewing Company in Portland, Oregon. Edgerton grew up in Canby, where he was surrounded by agriculture and hop yards. After graduating from Canby High School, Edgerton moved to Corvallis to attend Oregon State University, where he majored in Microbiology; he graduated in 1987. After leaving OSU he took a job at the Blitz-Weinhard brewery, working here as a Lab Tech, Quality Assurance Manager, and Brewery Microbiologist from 1989 to 1998; the brewery closed in 1999. In 1998, Edgerton became the Quality Assurance Manager at BridgePort Brewing, six years later he became Assistant Brewmaster, and then in 2010 became the Brewmaster.

Emily Engdahl is the Executive Director of The Pink Boots Society. She grew up in Portland, Oregon, where she was surrounded by family, art, culture, food, and gardens. After graduating from Grant High School in 1994 she went to Southern Oregon University for a year, but didn't continue her studies there. She returned to Portland in the late 1990s, and in 2000 started working at Professional Fiduciary Services providing social service coordination for mentally ill or elderly clients. In 2003, she graduated from Marylhurst University with a degree in Communications and a certificate in Conflict Resolution. She began home brewing in 2010 or 2011, and fermentation soon became core to her work. In addition to working as a freelance graphic designer, Engdahl was the co-founder of #pdxbeergeeks, a community-based beer blog, worked as an event development coordinator for Women Enjoying Beer, was a beer blogger for "1859: Oregon's Magazine," and was the creator and owner of Oregon Beer Country. In 2013, she became the Executive Director of the Pink Boots Society.

Teri Fahrendorf grew up in a German-American family in Wisconsin. She has a B.A. in Business Administration from the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire and earned a certificate in Brewing Technology from the Siebel Institute of Technology in Chicago. She worked as the Brewmaster at Berkeley's Golden Gate Brewing Company in 1989 before becoming the Head Brewer at Triple Rock Brewing Company (1989-1990). She moved to Eugene to become the Brewmaster at the Steelhead Brewing Company (1990-2007) and worked as a brewing consultant before becoming a Territory Sales Manager for Country Malt/Great Western Malting (2009-2015). In September 2015, she became the Malt Innovation Center Manager at Great Western Malting. She founded the Pink Boots Society in 2007, which is a non-profit organization dedicated to education and support of women in the brewing industries.

Irene Firmat is the founder and CEO of Full Sail Brewing Company, located in Hood River, Oregon. She was born in Havana, Cuba and moved to New York when she was 3. She moved to Oregon in the early 1980s for a job as a buyer for the department store Meier and Frank. After several years she decided to change careers; inspired by the food and drink culture that was emerging in the Northwest, she found partners to start a brewpub in Hood River in 1987, aptly called Hood River Brewing Co. David Logsdon, who later founded the yeast company Wyeast and Logsdon Farmhouse Ales, was their original brewer. Soon Logsdon left and brewer Jamie Emmerson replaced him. Emmerson and Firmat soon married, living in Portland and commuting to Hood River. Full Sail became employee-owned in 1999; in 2015, the employees voted to sell to Oregon Craft Brewers Co., a local investment group.

Gary Fish is the founder and board president of Deschutes Brewery. He was born and raised in Northern California, where his father was a wine grape grower and a part of the state's modern wine renaissance. He moved to Utah to attend University of Utah, working his way through college waiting tables; he stayed to work in the restaurant industry. He and his wife returned to the West Coast in the late 1980s, settling in Bend with the goal of opening a brewpub after his parents had travelled through the city returning from a college class reunion at Oregon State University. Deschutes Brewery opened in 1988, with Fish running the restaurant and John Harris as the first brewer; the first years were rocky, the company soon saw success and expanded. In 2008, they opened a brewpub in Portland and in 2016 announced plans to build a new plant in Roanoke, North Carolina. Fish built a company with community values in mind, and has been recognized as a civic leader in Central Oregon and beyond; in 2012 he was awarded the Civic Leadership Award and the Governors Gold Awards. Fish has also been quite involved in the brewery profession too; from 2014 to 2016 he was the Chairman of the Brewers Association. Fish stepped down as President and CEO in 2017, but he's staying on as the Founder and Board Member.

Mick Flanagan is a mechanic at BridgePort Brewing Company. He was born in Sydney, Australia and spent his childhood living there and in the United States. He graduated from high school in Portland in 1987 and has worked for the brewery since 1989.

John Foyston is a beer culture freelance journalist in Portland, Oregon. He was born in a small town in East British Columbia; his family moved to Vancouver before settling in Portland in 1956. He attended Sunset High School and then studied Liberal Arts at the University of Oregon. He had a variety of jobs (mechanic, musician) before becoming an Oregonian Staff writer in 1994, a position he left in 2015 to pursue freelance work full time.

Dana Garves is a brewing chemist who owns and operates BrewLab, a company that provides chemical analyses for breweries, cideries, meaderies, and home brewers. Garves has always been interested in chemistry, starting with early successes in science and math classes in the Seattle area. She joined the Science Olympiad team in high school, serving as the club president her junior and senior years, and was enrolled in the International Baccalaureate program. She also played competitive softball through the end of high school, and was active in community service and volunteering. She began coursework at the University of Oregon with a goal of being a high school chemistry teacher, and helped out with a UO STEM summer camps for girls. She graduated with a degree in Environmental Chemistry in 2010. That same year she saw a Craigslist ad that Ninkasi Brewing was looking for a chemist. During her employment she was a Lab Tech who propagated their in-house yeast, ran the quality control program, and collaborated with Team Hybriddyne to launch Ninkasi yeast into space. She left Ninkasi in 2014 to set up BrewLab.

Cheryl Gillson is the Rogue Farms marketing and farm manager in Independence, Oregon. Gillson was born in California, but moved to Oregon when she was 18 months old; her family settled near Hillsboro, where Gillson had opportunities to grow her interests in outdoor activities and photography. She moved to San Francisco in the early 2000s and moved back to Oregon in 2004, which is when she got her first position at Rogue Ales and Spirits working as founder Jack Joyce's assistant. That position led her back to San Francisco for a few years, but she left the company to move to Istanbul, Turkey in 2010 with general plans to explore and travel. After four years in Turkey she returned to Oregon and to Rogue. After a few months of odd jobs for the company she was transferred to her position on the Rogue Farms.

Gayle Goschie is a third-generation hop grower and Vice President for Hops and Winegrapes at her family's Goschie Farms, Inc. in Silverton, Oregon. Gosche studied at both University of Oregon and Portland State University, earning a degree in Political Science at PSU. After college she worked for a small advertising agency in Portland, returning to the family farm in 1981.

John Harris is the owner of Ecliptic Brewing in Portland, Oregon. Harris grew up in Beaverton, developing an early interest in astronomy and home brewing. He was one of the first brewers at McMenamins, answering an ad in Willamette Week they'd posted for a brewer in Hillsdale; he worked there from 1986 to 1988. He left to take a job at Deschutes Brewing, where he was the founding Brewmaster for the brewery, which had opened in 1987; he stayed with that position until 1992, when he moved to Portland. That move led to a position at Full Sail Brewery, working in their small experimental brewery on the waterfront and focusing on the brewmaster reserve line. In 2012 he left Full Sail, and in 2013 he opened his own brewery.

Alfred Haunold was born in Austria in 1929, where he spent his teenage years fond of science, especially botany. He attended a prep school for agricultural studies and graduated from the Agricultural University of Vienna; he earned his doctorate in plant production and wheat breeding in 1951. He obtained a Fulbright scholarship to work on wheat breeding and genetics at the University of Nebraska; after a brief return to Austria, Haunold came back to Nebraska, where he obtained an American PhD and married. He accepted a hop research position in the USDA offices in 1965, despite not being trained as a hop researcher. Soon Haunold found himself in charge of the breeding program after Stanley Brooks resigned. This position as a hop breeder defined the rest of Haunold's career. Haunold's team released the Cascade  in 1972, a hop that changed the hops and brewing industries. Haunold had a solid research team, including Chemist Stan Likens, Pathologist Jack Horner, Agronomist Chuck Zimmermann, and Agricultural Chemist Gail Nickerson. This group continued to research, release varieties, and publish their findings in a variety of publications. Haunold retired from the USDA in 1995, but continues to be a valued resource for growers, brewers, and researchers.

Lee Hedgmon is a professional and home brewer, as well as a distiller. Hedgmon is a third generation Portlander who grew up in the Woodlawn neighborhood and attended All Saints Catholic School. She graduated from Lincoln High School in 1991 and attended Portland Community College before joining the JobCorps at Tongue Point on the Oregon Coast. She returned to Portland to work at the Red Lion and attended Portland State University, where she earned a B.A. in Women’s Studies in 2003. She travelled to the University of Minnesota for doctoral work in Feminist Pedagogical Theory in 2010, but moved back to Portland before finishing her dissertation; she returned with an interest in fermentation and was an avid home brewer. She soon joined the Oregon Brew Crew, first holding office as the Festival Coordinator, then Volunteer Committee Chairwoman, and then the President (the first woman in that position). Her first professional brewing position was at Coalition Brewing Company in Portland. That job led to many others, including posts at Portland U-Brew, Old Town Brewing Company, Gateway Brewing, Pints Brewing Company, Ground Breaker Brewing and F.H. Steinbart. She started work as a distiller at McMenamins Edgefield in August 2016.

Jessica Just is the Director of Technical Services for Brew Dr. Kombucha in Portland, Oregon. Just grew up in Portland, where she developed an interest in home brewing quite early. She attended Oregon State University (2005-2008) and was one of the first three graduates (first female) from the OSU Fermentation Science program in the Food Science Department (established 1995). She stayed at OSU for graduate school, where she earned her M.S. in Food Science and Technology in 2001. She interned at the St. Michelle Wine Estates from 2001-2002, and then took a job at Scott Laboratories. She moved to London in 2012, where she worked with the local chapter of the Campaign for Real Ale. She moved back to Corvallis to take a job as an academic advisor and instructor for the Fermentation Science program in 2015 and in 2017 moved back to Portland to take a job at Brew Dr. Kombucha.

Jennifer Kent is the brewer at the McMenamins Thompson Brewery and Public House. Kent spent her early childhood in Alaska and Colorado, but moved to Newport, Oregon in elementary school. When she was in high school she got a horse, which occupied a lot of her time; she graduated from Newport High School in 1993. Her mother is an artist, so Kent spent time being creative and exploring art. She moved to Springfield, Oregon before settling in Salem in 1999. After five years in the food service industry, including at the McMenamins Boons Treasury as a line cook and server, she got interested in brewing. Under the mentorship of McMenamins brewer Gary Nance, Kent learned the fundamentals, but also how to experiment to make new creations or variants. She's inspired by foods, spices, flavors, places, and improvisational belly dancing.

Nathan Kirk teaches in Oregon State University's Department of Integrative Biology, specializing in Marine Ecology. He is also a home brewer. Kirk grew up in New York state, where both his parents were teachers. He studied Biological Sciences at State University of New York at Buffalo (B.S. 2003, M.S. 2006); he was a University Honors Scholar and graduated Magna Cum Laude. He moved to Alabama for a doctoral program at Auburn University, studying Biological Sciences and working as both a teaching and research assistant; it was in Alabama that Kirk explored home brewing. He's been a postdoctoral researcher at Oregon State University, focusing on Marine Ecology, since 2013.

Lee Larsen is one of the founders of 2 Towns Ciderhouse in Corvallis, Oregon. Larsen was born and raised in Corvallis, and he grew up exploring the McDonald Research Forest and playing soccer. He and his family lived in Barcelona, Spain while Larsen was in high school, and it was there that he learned more about the European cider culture and industry. He returned to Oregon in 2003 for his senior year at Corvallis High School. He attended Oregon State University, graduating with a degree in Finance in 2008. He and friends Dave Takush and Aaron Sarnoff-Wood started 2 Towns Ciderhouse in 2010.

Sonia Marie Leikam co-owns Leikam Brewing with her husband, but also works full-time at the Oregon Jewish Community Foundation. Leikam grew up in the Bay Area and moved to Portland in 1999 to attend Lewis and Clark College; she graduated in 2003 with degrees in History and Theater. She graduated from Portland State University in 2006 with an M.Ed. in Secondary Teaching and Education. She worked for North Clackamas School District from 2005 to 2006, at Hillsboro High School as a Drama and American Studies teacher, and at St. Mary’s Academy from 2007 to 2010 as the Director of Student Activities. In 2011, she began work at the Oregon Holocaust Resource Center as their Executive Director, in 2012 she earned a Certificate in Holocaust and Related Studies from Georgetown University, and from 2014 to 2015 she was a Carl Wilkens Fellow, a program to end mass atrocities and genocide. She began work at the Oregon Jewish Community Foundation in 2015, the same year she and her husband opened their community supported and certified kosher brewery (the first in Oregon).

Nick Lorenz is the co-founder and co-owner of Nectar Creek Mead in Corvallis, Oregon, which he runs with his brother Philip. Lorenz grew up in Corvallis, where is family was involved with local farming and agriculture; both siblings worked at Denison Farms as teenagers. Beyond farming and food, Lorenz was especially interested in pottery and soccer. He moved to Burlington to attend the University of Vermont, where he studied Ecological Agriculture and played college soccer. Lorenz worked in an apple orchard during summer breaks from college, where he learned to make apple cider and brandy, and as a river raft guide. His brother pursued a college education in Apiculture and Fermentation Science, and ultimately worked in commercial beekeeping, an interest that led both of them to an interest in mead. They opened Nectar Creek in 2012.

Mark McKay is the owner of McKay Farms and is a sixth generation hop farmer; the McKay family came to Oregon from Scotland and Ireland in the 1840s. He was born in Salem, Oregon and grew up in St. Paul, where he attended a Catholic elementary school. McKay took over the farm after graduating from high school. His family has always grown a variety of crops in St. Paul (hops, mint, filberts, grass seed) and McKay expanded into Independence, Oregon. McKay’s left the hop business in the 1970s when prices dropped; McKay and his brother returned to hop farming in the 1990s when Anheuser-Busch was contracting with growers and the market was getting stronger. He farmed with his brother until 2015, when they split the business.

Lisa Morrison was an early Pink Bots Society board member and founder of the Barley's Angels. She co-owns Belmont Station, a bottle shop and pub in Portland. Morrison grew up in Oklahoma and attended Colorado State University, graduating with a degree in Technical Journalism. After graduation she worked as a television news reporter and anchor, a career she continued after moving to Portland in 1989, where she worked for KOIN TV. It was at CSU that her interest in imported and local microbrews was sparked. She began home brewing with her husband and joined the Oregon Brew Crew, a large home brew club in Portland, where he met well-known brewers, journalists, and people interested in making their own beer. Her personal interest turned into a career when she offered beer education classes and wrote about beer for local and national publications. She released the book Craft Beers of the Pacific Northwest in 2011. In 2008, she started Beer O'Clock, a weekly commercial radio show on KXL, where she interviewed people from all facets of the brewing community; the show ran through 2015. In 2013, Morrison became the majority owner of Belmont Station.

Gary Nance is the brewer at the McMenamins on Monroe in Corvallis, Oregon. Nancy was born and raised in Oklahoma, and moved to the west coast after college. He started brewing professionally in 1995, working as the assistant brewer at Spencer's Restaurant and Brewhouse in Springfield, where he helped develop Oregon's first certified organic ale in 1998, and worked briefly at Eugene's West Bros. and Steelhead Brewing Company before taking a job at the McMenamins Thompson Brewery and Public House in Salem in August 2002. He transferred to the Monroe Street facility when it opened in 2006.

Gail Nickerson is a former Agricultural Chemist at Oregon State University. Nickerson grew up in Portland, and as a child was interested in science. Told by her high school guidance counselor that she could only be a teacher, she enrolled at Oregon State University as an Education major. She left school and in 1959 started to work as a full-time laboratory technician. Though she began washing equipment, she soon spent more time in the fields and doing high-level Agricultural Chemistry projects, working on many that were immensely important for the global hop industry. After developing an interest in programming and statistics, she completed her undergraduate degree in computer science in 1984. She retired as a Senior Research Assistant in 2003.

Don Norton is the owner of Norton Hop Farm, a small organic hop farm established in Goshen, Oregon in 2008. Norton was born in Eugene, and spent most of his life in the Spencer Creek area where there were large hop farms. His family moved to Oakridge in 1973, where he attended high school. Norton spent most of his working life doing factory work, before buying the farm and starting to grow hops.

Carole Ockert grew up in Ireland and moved to the United States in 1969, settling just south of Seattle. She met and married Karl Ockert, who later became the first brewer at BridgePort Brewing in Portland, and they moved around the west coast before settling in Portland with their twin daughters. Ockert is a Certified Hypnotherapist in Lake Oswego.

Karl Ockert is the Director of Brewery Operations at Deschutes Brewery. Ockert grew up brewing with his mother, though he didn't initially see that as a professional calling. He attended Humbolt State University to pursue a degree in Natural Sciences/Resources, but he changed directions while he was there and transferred to UC Davis to pursue a degree in fermentation. He mainly took oenology classes while he was there, graduating in 1983 and hopeful to get a job with a Pacific Northwest brewery. Unfortunately, the macro brewing industry was still contracting at that time, so he found himself working at Ponzi Vineyards. He was there for one harvest, and soon Dick Ponzi shared his interest in opening a brewery in Portland. They found a building in late 1983 and by April of 1984 Ockert was the first brewer at BridgePort Brewing; he hired Matt Sage as his assistant and stayed until 1990. He took a position at Anheuser Busch in Newark, but only stayed from 1992-1993. He returned to the west coast, briefly working at Nor'Wester with Jim Bernau in 1994, and in Tacoma starting two brewpubs in 1995 and 1996. He returned to BridgePort in 1996, where he stayed in a position as Brew Master and Plant Manager through 2010. He left to work at the Master Brewers Association of America as their Technical Director; during this time he also worked as a professional brewing consultant. He took his job at Deschutes Brewery in 2015.

Sarah Pederson is the owner of Saravesa, a bar, bottle shop, and breweriana showroom in North Portland. Pederson was born in Denver, Colorado and grew up in a small town in Wisconsin. She went to Minneapolis for college, starting with a graphic design major before switching to journalism; eventually, she created her own major in "aural history," which involved listening to sound and looking at communication. She finished college at California State University in Los Angeles as part of national student exchange, and then went to work for a record company doing public relations. Pederson moved to Portland in the early 2000s, working in PR for high tech firms, but also for her friend at Pix, a patisserie and bar. After leaving the tech industry, she explored brewing through home brewing, workshops at the American Brewer's Guild (brewing certificate 2005), and early jobs at the breweries Hair of the Dog and the New Old Lompoc Bar. She opened Saravesa in 2008.

Sybil Perkins is a Graphic Designer, as well as the brand director and a board member for the Pink Boots Society. She grew up in the Eugene/Springfield area, and had an early interest in arts and music. Perkins was also very engaged with community and civil rights at a young age, thanks in large part to her mother; she lived in Philadelphia and New York City, where she had a variety of experiences as an activist. She returned to the West Coast, where she began to home brew and explore jobs in graphic design. She was an adjunct instructor at both Shoreline Community College and Henry Cogswell College, a Graphic Designer at Cascade Bank (2000-2004), and taught at the School of Visual Concepts from 2003 to 2007. She now has her own graphic design company, where most of her clients are from the foods, hospitality, spirits, and brewing industries. She lives in Everett, Washington.

Mellie Pullman is a professor at Portland State University, where she is the Director of the Business of Craft Brewing Program. Pullman grew up in Chicago; after high school she travelled around the country and took classes at The Evergreen State College, where she studied energy systems and alternative energy. She started a master's program at the University of Utah, focusing Operations Management, Marketing, and Mechanical Engineering and earning an M.B.A., M.S., and Ph.D. She was the first female brewmaster in the U.S. when she took a position in 1986 at Schirf Brewing in Park City, Utah. From 2003 to 2006 she worked at Cornell University, teaching classes related to Service Operations Management and Hotel Administration. She's been at Portland State University since 2005, teaching courses related to food supply chain management, forecasting and production, and global supply chain management. In 2013, her research focus shifted from food to beer and she began work as the Director of the Craft Brewing Program, which provides instruction on business operations for beer, spirits, cider, mead, and kombucha.

Joel Rea is the owner of Corvallis Brewing Supply. Rea spent his early life in Kirkland, Washington, and his family moved to Albany, Oregon when he was in elementary school. He did college work in environmental studies at Prescott College (1993-1993) and the fine arts at the University of Oregon (1995-1996). He worked for the Forest Service, but changed careers to open a home brew and bottle shop in 1997. He has held many classes, hosted events, and mentored many home and commercial brewers.

Joy Hoerner Rich is the daughter of Oregon State University hops specialist G.R. Hoerner. She was born in Ithaca, New York when her dad was on staff at Cornell University; the family soon moved to Portland. She spend most of her youth in Corvallis, and her family regularly hosted parties with people in the macro brewing industries (e.g. Bill Blitz). Rich met her husband at OSU and graduated in 1940s with a degree in home economics. After her husband returned from WWII, the couple moved to Roseburg, where Rich ran a private kindergarten; after kindergarten was part of the public school curriculum Rich started an after school program for kids who needed assistance. Rich is also the niece of artists Berta and Elmer Hader, who are noteworthy in the world of children’s literature; Rich wrote a book in 2014 about their work.

Matt Sage has been a brewer, vintner, and hop consultant whose work has contributed to the creation and expansion of many small businesses across the Pacific Northwest. Sage was born in Portland and graduated from Central Catholic High School. Initially interested in biology, while at Evergreen State College he became more interested in agriculture and farming. Later he had a brief stint at a USDA research lab in Yakima, Washington before getting his first winery job at Columbia Winery. He was hired by Karl Ockert as the second employee at BridgePort Brewing in Portland. Sage left BridgePort in 1990 for a position at Cameron Winery in Dundee, Oregon. He worked for the Colorado-based brewpub chain Rock Bottom, helping open both the Denver and Portland locations and working there through 2004 when he returned to a much bigger BridgePort Brewing. In August 2010, Sage joined Indie Hops, a company that supplies craft brewers with hops.

Robyn Schumacher is a brewer at Stoup Brewing in Seattle's Ballard district. Schumacher was born in Billings, Montana and grew up in Spokane. She had early interests in sports, literature, and science, and after graduating from North Central High School in 1991 she moved to Helena, Montana to study biology at Carroll College. Schumacher moved back to Spokane after college to work odd jobs before returning to Montana to work for the forest service; she returned to Washington to attend Eastern Washington University for her teaching license. She spent 13 years teaching high school science before quitting in 2011 to pursue her interest in the restaurant and brewing industries. In 2012, she became a certified cicerone, the first woman in Washington to be certified. After managing a bar in West Seattle, she joined Lara Zahaba and Brad Benson in opening Stoup Brewing in 2013.

Guy Seghetti taught Social Science for Roseburg, Oregon public schools before retiring in 2008. He grew up in Corvallis, Oregon and went to the University of Utah to pursue a degree in Anthropology. He worked as a USDA Hops and Essential Oils lab and agricultural technician at Oregon State University from 1968 to 1977, where he worked with Gail Nickerson and Alfred Haunold. This was a crucial time in hops breeding program with the release of the Cascade and other hops in the 1970s. Seghetti left the program in 1977 to teach in Roseburg.

Thomas Shellhammer is the Nor’Wester Professor of Fermentation Science at Oregon State University, where he runs a lab dedicated to the chemical and sensory analysis of hops. Shellhammer grew up in San Jose, where his father worked as a field biologist studying fire ecology and his mother worked as an arts educator. He earned all three of his advanced degrees from UC Davis: B.S. in Fermentation Science in 1987, M.S. in Food Science in 1989, and Ph.D. in Food Engineering in 1996. He was an Assistant Professor at The Ohio State University from 1997 to 2001 before taking his current position. He has been actively involved in the American Society of Brewing Chemists, Master Brewers Association of the Americas, Institute of Brewing and Distilling, and Institute of Food Technologists.

Larry Sidor is the founder of Crux Fermentation, a brewery in Bend, Oregon. Soda was born in Corvallis, but moved to La Grande when his father became an extension agent for Union County. The family returned to Corvallis and Sidor graduated from Corvallis High School. He graduated from Oregon State University in 1972 with a B.S. in Food Science and a minor in Enology. He took a wine internship, but his first major professional position was at Olympia Brewing Company, where he worked from 1974 to 1997, occupying positions as an Operations Manager and Assistant Brewer. In 1997 he left Olympia to work at S.S. Steiner in Yakima, Washington as a VP for Operations. Sidor left S.S. Steiner in 2003 and for a time had a vineyard in Yakima. He took a position as the Head Brewer for Deschutes Brewing in Bend, Oregon in 2004, a position he held until 2011 when he left to open his own brewery.

Blair Smith is the owner, orchardist, and cider-maker for Apple Outlaw. Smith was born in Seattle, Washington, but grew up in Stockton, California, where the family had moved for his father's job as a Math Professor at the University of the Pacific. Smith stayed in Stockton for college, where he graduated with a Computer Science degree in 1990; he spent the next 20 years as a software engineer in Livermore. In 2003, Smith and his family moved to Applegate, a town in rural Southern Oregon, where they had a property with an old apple orchard. Smith continued to work as a software contractor before switching careers to run an organic orchard and work full-time as a cider-maker. The Smith family sold apples to cider-makers throughout Oregon and began to press their own apple cider for selling at farmers markets and co-ops. In 2013, transitioned from non-alcoholic to hard cider with their first sales of Apple Bandit.

Hilda Stevens owns Bazi Bierbrasserie, a Belgian-style beer taproom and soccer bar in SE Portland. Stevens immigrated from Guatemala when she was 8 years old, living and going to school in The Woodlands (a community north of Houston, Texas). She attended St Mary's University in San Antonio, studying International Business and Marketing. After graduation worked for business and marketing companies; these jobs provided opportunities to travel extensively through the U.S. and internationally. She became a citizen in 1997, and the next year she moved to Portland in 1998, continuing to work for the San Antonio based NCR. With that job she had the change to travel to Europe in 2006, which is where she discovered Belgian beers. During this same period Stevens took night classes at George Fox University in an accelerated M.B.A. program. After the economic downtown and rolling company layoffs, Stevens decided to revisit a graduate school business plan for opening a bar. She began looking for locations in 2010 and opened Bazi in 2011.

Dave Takush is the head cider maker at 2 Towns Ciderhouse in Corvallis, Oregon. He was born and raised in North Corvallis, surrounded by acres of grass fields and farmland. Takush has always been interested in science classes and cooking, so after graduating from Crescent Valley High School he studied Food Science and Technology at Oregon State University, specifically focusing on Fermentation Science and Oenology (B.S. 2007, M.S. 2009). He worked briefly as a winemaker in Eugene before he and friends Lee Larsen and Aaron Sarnoff-Wood started 2 Towns Ciderhouse in 2010.

Gillian Tobin is the Events and Marketing Coordinator at Mazama Brewing in Corvallis, Oregon. She was born in Colorado, but spent most of her childhood in Albany, Oregon. She moved to Eugene to attend the University of Oregon in 2006, earning her B.A. in Journalism and Communications in 2010. In 2008 she studied Italian language and literature at the Universita per Strainieri di Perugia. She worked for Hotel Deluxe in Portland from 2010 to 2013 before returning to Corvallis to begin working at the family brewery. In 2014 she began studying Graphic Design at Linn-Benton Community College, earning her Associate of Arts and Sciences in 2016.

Kathy Tobin is a co-founder and manager at Mazama Brewing in Corvallis, Oregon. She was born and raised in Michigan, and earned her B.S. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Michigan Technological University in 1983; while in college she was a member of the Blue Key Society and Eta Kappa Nu. She attended the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management from 1994 to 1995, earning an Executive M.B.A. from the Executive Development Program. She returned to school in 2004 and earned a diploma from the Entrepreneurship Development Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management. After living in Colorado, Tobin moved to Corvallis and in 1998 took a position at Agilent Technologies as a Business Unit manager; she was there through 2002, when she left to take a position as a Vice President and General Manager at Hewlett-Packard. She was there until 2013, when she left to start Mazama Brewing with her husband Jeff.

Jeff Tobin is the co-founder and brewer at Mazama Brewing in Corvallis, Oregon. He born in West Branch, Michigan. He came from a very musical family, and played the trumpet for many years; he also loved science and math. Tobin went to college in 1979 at the Michigan Technological University, initially intending to become a sound engineer; he studied Electrical Engineering (B.S. 1983). He and his wife Kathy moved to Burlington, Vermont, where they began to home brew regularly. Tobin worked at IBM in Vermont before moving to Colorado in the 1980s, where he and his wife Kathy had two children. His family moved to Corvallis for jobs at Hewlett-Packard, where he worked as a Design Engineer until 2000. He worked at Agilent Technologies 2000 to 2005, Avago 2005 to 2006, and Marvell Semiconductor from 2006 to 2013. He and Kathy opened Mazama Brewing in 2012, where they use many recipes developed over their 24 years of home brewing.

Shaun Townsend is the senior researcher leading Oregon State University’s Aroma Hop Breeding Program. Townsend grew up in Central Illinois. He attended Montana State University, obtaining a B.S. in 1988 in Agronomy and a M.S. in Agronomy Plant Breeding and Forage Production in 1990. He received his Ph.D. in Agronomy Plant Breeding and Genetics in 1998 at New Mexico State University. Townsend began his work in Corvallis working with John Henning in the USDA-ARS hop breeding program; in 2010 he assumed responsibility for a new aroma hop breeding program in the OSU Department of Crop and Soil Science.

Don Weathers is a second-generation hop grower in the Willamette Valley. He was born in Salem and lived around the state on various family-owned farms. Weathers married Rosalie Kerr, who was also from a hop family, in 1958 and the couple had 6 children. The Weathers' farm was one of the test locations for growing the Cascade hop in the 1960s. The Weathers' land holdings expanded both in size in geography, most of the family's farms are now run by his children and grandchildren.

Kurt and Rob Widmer launched Widmer Brothers in 1984. Kurt graduated with a degree in psychology from the University of Oregon in 1978, then moved to Germany to work for a pharmaceutical company, registering foreign-made drugs for sale in the German market. His younger brother Rob studied business at Oregon State University in the early 1980s. The Craft Brew Alliance was formed in 2008 through a merger of Redhook Brewery and Widmer; at that time, the two companies sold stakes to Anheuser-Busch in exchange for access to a nationwide network of wholesalers. In 2015, Kurt Wider announced he would retire as CEO of the Craft Brew Alliance.

Dave Wills is the owner of Freshops, Oregon Trail Brewery, and Dave's Christmas Trees. Wills grew up in Santa Paula, California, and studied Agriculture at a junior college before transferring to Oregon State University (B.S. 1980). His early interest in home brewing was sparked by a trip through Europe, and when he returned he sought to educate himself and find others to experiment with him; he saw a sign in a natural food store advertising a “Homebrewing Class," so he tried it out. Around this same time he took a trip to the USDA hop research farm because he wanted to grow his own; this interest soon became a real job, and he sold his first hops through his company Freshops in 1982. He and Jerry Bockmore took over the management of Oregon Trail Brewing in 1993, a brewery that opened in downtown Corvallis in 1987 and closed briefly in 1992.

Ralph Woodall works in sales for Yakima-Chief Hopunion, a company he has been with since the mid-1980s. Woodall was raised in the Yakima Valley, and most of his professional career has been in the hop industry. He travelled extensively for his job, attending many festivals, trade shows, and other events. He was also active in the Master Brewers Association of America. Tom Carpenter is a fourth generation hop grower based in Granger, Washington. Carpenter's family has deep roots in the Valley; Carpenter Ranches was established in 1868 when Charles Carpenter left his hop growing family in New York to settle in the Ahtanum area of the Yakima Valley. Theirs was the first hop farm in Washington State east of the Cascade Mountains, which is now the largest hop producing region in the world. Tom Carpenter started growing hops when he was 12, selling them by the pound to his father; he has been growing the crop ever since. Later in his professional career he helped form the grower cooperative that eventually became the Yakima Chief hop company. Carpenter is largely retired now, and his children and grandchildren continue to expend their family operations.

Aaron Sarnoff-Wood is one of the co-founders of 2 Towns Ciderhouse in Corvallis, Oregon. Sarnoff-Wood was born in Riverside, California, where he lived for five years. In 1986 his family initially moved to Albany, but after nine months relocated to Corvallis, where Sarnoff-Wood lived until graduating from Crescent Valley High School. As a child he played soccer, had interests in sciences like field biology, and found opportunities to explore both art and graphic design. He moved to Eugene in 1999 and lived near campus, in a rundown house a couple of blocks away from where Animal House was filmed; it was in the basement of that house that he began his home brewing experiments. While at the University of Oregon Sarnoff-Wood studied Graphic Design and also worked at an independently-owned video store. After college he took a position doing design for InterVision Media, but was laid off in 2007 and began to consider a career change. He and friends Dave Takush and Lee Larsen started 2 Towns Ciderhouse in 2010.

Gary and Susan Wyatt are the founders and owners of Tumalo Hops, a farm near Bend in Central Oregon. Susan was born in Bend, and Gary was born in Reno, Nevada. They married in 1973 and moved to Tumalo in 1978. Susan stayed home with their children, but took a position at brokerage house and construction company after they were in school; she worked there until the business closed in 2008. Gary was in the Navy during Vietnam, and after his second tour he left the service. He began work at a sawmill and was laid off when the mill closed in 1992; he learned how to do carpentry, glassmaking, and electrical work. The Wyatts chose to utilize five acres of their land to grow hops, planting, cultivating, and harvesting everything by hand starting in 2008.

Veronica Vega is a Brewmaster at Deschutes Brewery, focusing on research and development. Vega grew up in Southern California, where her family had an avocado orchard. She came from a big family, and her early life was full of good food and lots of work on the farm. She moved to Northern California to attend Humboldt State University and study Botany; she wanted to be in the forest, so she chose that school because it was the farthest north without paying out of state tuition. She worked briefly in the forest service before moving to Bend. In 2006, she took a position with Deschutes Brewery as a tour guide, moving up to cellar work, production brewing, and lead brewer at the downtown pub. In 2015, she was promoted to one of the top brewer positions.

Accruals: Future additions to this collection are anticipated.

More Extent Information: 70 sets of video and audio files

Statement on Access: Collection is open for research. Access to the John Harris audio file is available on site only.

Physical Access Note: All interviews described in this collection are available online. Born digital .mpg or .mp3 files created in the building of this collection are also available on site.

Acquisition Note: All interviews were conducted by OSU Libraries Special Collections & Archives Research Center staff or colleagues as indicated.

Related Materials:

The Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives Oral History Collection is complemented by several other collections. The Brewing and Fermentation Collection (MSS BFRC) consists of materials collected by the OSU Special Collections and Archives Research Center pertaining to the history, growth, and culture of the Pacific Northwest brewing industry, including regional hops and barley farming, commercial craft and home brewing, and craft cider and mead.

Additional materials related Oregon State University research and manuscript collections are detailed on the Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives library research guide. More information pertaining to the history of hop growing and brewing in Oregon can be found on the Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives website.

The Larry Sidor, Jeff Edgerton, and Theodore Cox interviews have also been described in the Oregon State University Sesquicentennial Oral History Collection (OH 026).

Preferred Citation: Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives Oral History Collection (OH 035), Oregon State University Special Collections and Archives Research Center, Corvallis, Oregon.

Edmunson-Morton, Tiah K.

Agricultural chemistry--Oregon.
Agriculture--Oregon.
Beer--Oregon--Portland--History.
Beer--United States.
Brewing industry--Oregon.
Hops--Harvesting--Oregon.
Hops--Oregon.
Hops and Brewing
Microbreweries--United States.
Oregon State University--Faculty.
University History
Women brewers--Oregon.

Born digital.
Oral histories (literary genre)