Whitney Burnside Oral History Interview, October 26, 2018

Partial Transcript: Okay, go ahead...

Segment Synopsis: Whitney Burnside grew up in the Seattle, Washington area. Her father worked in the city, and her mother worked in Bellevue, a city 10 miles east of Seattle. Whitney shares about her childhood, emphasizing the amount of time they spent outside making dirt slides, rope swings, treehouses and any other activities they could get into. Although she went on to attend Culinary school, she explains that food and drink weren't a point of emphasis for her as a child. It wasn't until a high school culinary class that she learned that she loved to be in the kitchen. As she began her journey into the world of cooking, she became very intrigued by the Food Network, noting Paula Dean as one of the figures who inspired her.
In High School Whitney joined the culinary team and had a really positive experience, prompting her to pursue Culinary School. She elected to attend Johnson & Wales, in Denver Colorado, a private university with a culinary arts undergraduate program.

Partial Transcript: I was like Denver, ok, I don't know what Denver is like but lets do it.

Segment Synopsis: Whitney explains her experience in Denver, noting how quickly she fell in love with the music scene, specifically, blue grass and folk music. But while attending Johnson & Wales, the curriculum consisted largely of classical textbook material such as proper knife cuts, and the definition of sautéing, a style that Whitney didn't love it in the way that she loved the experimentation she was used to when cooking at home. To complete the program at Johnson & Wales, you have to complete an externship which led Whitney to an herb farm where she was largely responsible for what she defined as the grunt work. After a period of time she was appointed as the individual responsible for making the in-house cheese.

Partial Transcript: I'm buying the full on deluxe kit...

Segment Synopsis: Whitney talks about how she became involved in homebrewing as a hobby, where she would brew in her mothers barn with the horses. Her first successful brew was a lavender hefeweizen, which she cultivated from her mothers property. She explains that her experience with the herb farm where the used various herbs in all of their products served to be an inspiration for her brews, where she followed suit.
During this period Whitney was in pursuit of finding employment as a cheese maker, but quickly learned that most creameries were small ma and pop operations that weren't looking for additional help. So she decided to shift her attention towards breweries in the Seattle area. After attempting to secure interviews with breweries throughout the Seattle, she decided to make an effort with those located around Portland. After a series of attempts, she finally landed a position with Laurelwood Public House & Brewery, in downtown Portland. In the immediate months following her hire, she still lived in Seattle and would commute to Portland once a week and stay with friend. However, she found that she couldn't keep this up, and eventually moved down to Portland. While at Laurelwood, she found another gig to earn extra income at TasteBud, a wood fire pizza restaurant where she would work the farmers market.

Partial Transcript: When did you transition from homebrewing to full time?

Segment Synopsis: Whitney was working at Laurelwood in Portland but was looking for a full time position. She had an encounter with the Elysian team and was a fan of their Avatar beer that had lavender in it. She dropped off her CV and some homebrew to their offices and was offered a job at their Seattle location, which she accepted and relocated for. During this time in her life, Whitney was hiking, baking, and going to concerts with her free time. She was not putting her culinary school knowledge to use, but found that her experience at the Herb Garden was very useful.

Another brewery, Pelican, visited Elysian to see their equipment. Whitney bottled her IPA and brought it to a fermentation festival and handed out her business cards to breweries, including Pelican. Darron Welch from Pelican, who called her when a position opened up at Pelican. Whitney accepted and moved to a small town in Oregon where she worked until moving up to the position as head brewer.

Keywords: Avatar Beer; Darron Welch; Elysian; Laurelwood; Pelican; Portland; Seattle

Partial Transcript: How did you build your style?

Segment Synopsis: Prior to Pelican, Whitney did not have much experience styling beers. Darron provided her with foundational knowledge at Pelican, he made classic styles. Eventually, Whitney became the head brewer at Pelican and was their first female head brewer, which was unbelievable for her. At this point, Whitney unintentionally became a mentor to other women in the field and was mentoring others while still feeling like a novice herself. Overall, Whitney enjoyed her time at Pelican and getting to learn from Darron, but she did bit enjoy the small town life and having to drive to Tillamook for necessities.

Once she had earned trust at Pelican, she was given more freedom to experiment and created a Belgian golden strong named Coir Chardonnay with aged pears, this won an award at the Great American Beer Festival.

Keywords: Barrel Aged Beer; Belgian Golden Strong; Brew Master; Classic Beer; Darron Welch; Female Brewer; GABF; Golden Strong; Great American Beer Festival; Head Brewer; Pelican; Tillamook

Partial Transcript: Why did you decide to leave Pelican?

Segment Synopsis: Whitney heard that 10 Barrel was opening a pub in Portland that would give full creative control to their head brewer. This sounded like a fun opportunity and one that would offer her creative freedom. At the time, she had been working at Pelican for several years, making both fruity and classic style beers, and had been part of Pelican's build out. 10 Barrel would also be in the beginning of their build out when she joined, but 10 Barrel was different in that Anheuser-Busch had recently bought the company. Whitney joined as head brewer and saw the creative freedom she was promised, she had a very relaxed relationship with Anheuser-Busch.

Keywords: 10 Barrel; Anheuser-Busch; Portland

Partial Transcript: What was it like to return to Portland?

Segment Synopsis: Whitney was excited to return to Portland with more experience and knowledge under her belt. Now back in Portland, Whitney was making friends and networking with other breweries to share information. She was respected within her field, but 10 Barrel and her boss Tonya Cornett were fielding backlash from the Anheuser-Busch acquisition. Local and small brewers were upset by the decision to sell to Anheuser-Busch and wore protest material and had an anti-Big Beer sentiment. Whitney can empathize with the issues that globalization poses to small businesses, but suggests that rewriting the Three-tier system law that governs the alcohol industry would be the most effective approach. Big businesses like Anheuser-Busch have major advantages: they get the shelf space they want, create their own distributors, and get the tap handles they want.

Keywords: 10 Barrel; Anheuser-Busch; Globalization; Portland; Three-tier System; Tonya Cornett

Partial Transcript: What do you wish people would ask you, or stop asking you?

Segment Synopsis: Whitney enjoys the way this interview has been structured, starting at the beginning of Whitney's career in culinary school to show the progression of her vision. She has a complicated relationship with being asked to represent women in her field though, which she does get tired of being asked while also recognizing the importance of this question. She would like to first be seen as a brewer and to be asked about her career and products. She has recognized that her boss, Tonya, has made it a point to see more women and more people of color in the beer industry, so she knows this is something that she needs to keep talking about so that they can continue to pave a way for others to join as well.

Keywords: Female Brewers; Feminism; Representation; Tokenization; Tonya Cornett

Partial Transcript: What are some of your favorite beers that you've made?

Segment Synopsis: Whitney has not yet had a chance to make her Willy Wonka inspired "Blueberry Whip" beer, but she has made Bambam, a choclatey Belgian Stout and Pebbles, a fruity Belgian IPA. The first homebrew she ever made contained Fruity Pebbles in the batch. She has also made beer with green tea and brown rice, which sold out at the pub. She made a Key lime pie flavored kettle sour beer with lactose and used a drill bit to zest the limes. She has made a Grapefruit tartelette with citrus, honey, and vanilla. She has made a Mounds Bar beer, called Glenn Coco, which won a couple medals and is made up of 50% toasted coconut and 50% untoasted using Bobs Red Mill.

Keywords: Belgian IPA; Bobs Red Mill; Homebrew; Kettle Sour; Lactose; Willy Wonka

Partial Transcript: How awesome is it to have won awards for your beer?

Segment Synopsis: Whitney has won a couple medals with 10 Barrel at the World Beer Cup, which is both rewarding and a fun community to be part of. She does note that some of the creations she is most proud of are not award winners, as they tend to be riskier choices with less mass appeal. She enjoys being creative with her style and experimenting, but is not interested in allied beverages like hard soda pops or adding CBD to beer. She did make a Grapefuit La Croix though, which took influence from the La Croix method of flavoring: she used hops essential oils to add the aroma and essence of hops from oils she sourced from Montana. She also has made a Brut Rosé beer, using pinot noir grapes she created a fermented beer wine with a high carbonation. To achieve the high carbonation, Whitney used a pigtail and zwickel to create air pressure restrictions to create the wine beer without any foam. This product is poured straight from the tap at their pub using a tap that had a pigtail custom-welded on so that customers get an extremely carbonated pour.

Keywords: 10 Barrel; Barrel Aging; Brut Rosé; CBD; Hops; La Croix; Montana; World Beer Cup; Zwickel

Partial Transcript: Do you have anything you'd like to talk about that I haven't asked you?

Segment Synopsis: Whitney got into fly fishing recently through her fiancé and did not expect to like it. She found fly fishing to be incredibly frustrating and challenged her competitive nature and lack of patience. Over time though, her fiancé has encouraged her to continue and she is now in place where she enjoys it and has built a skillset where she has the muscle memory to cast according to fly and rod weight.

Keywords: Casting; Fly Fishing