Despite resounding praise for the quality of its beers, Deschutes Brewery isn’t in much of a hurry to expand beyond its western roots
By James Buchanan
There is a certain Zen-like quality to the way the Deschutes Brewery and its founder, Gary Fish, view its mission and how that mission should influence the company’s growth.
Through its history, Deschutes Brewery has ridden a wave that lifted other micro-breweries to national prominence — such as Samuel Adams, Red Hook, and Pyramid Breweries. However, while embracing success, Deschutes has steadfastly resisted the impulse to grow beyond its western roots.
In fact, the company’s roots have grown deeply into its home community of Bend, Ore., which has acted as something of an anchor helping the company adhere to its core principles — commitment to community and brewing great beer before financial reward.
“My background is primarily in the restaurant business, which influenced the decision to put together a brewpub here in Bend, in central Oregon, which really was the sum total of our vision - to create a restaurant that made very good food and great beer,” says Fish, who is also president of Deschutes Brewery. “Wholesaling our beer was something of an offshoot that grew from that original vision.”
Though his immediate background is in the restaurant business, his experiences include having a father that played a significant role in the wine renaissance California experienced in the late 1960s and 1970s.
The growth of small craft wineries in Sonoma County and the Napa Valley is analogous to the way in which people embraced microbreweries and brewpubs in the late 1980s and 1990s.
“A lot of pub owners from around the area came and tried the beer and heard about us from word-of-mouth after we opened, and not too long after that they began approaching us with requests to purchase our beer for their taps,” says Fish. “You can draw comparisons to what would happen to craft brewing at the time we founded the brewpub here. As for me, my restaurant background meant that an investment in a brewpub made sense, and the rest kind of just happened.
“We work hard, but there is something to be said for being in the right place at the right time,” he says.
The company is privately held, with the original single brewpub opened in 1988 (Fish says another is in development in Portland, Ore.) and a brewing facility also located in Bend.
Sales are measured in barrels and for 2006 were at 160,000 barrels. Fish says that he expects to sell around 170,000 barrels in 2007.
By its own choice, the company has limited its sales to the 12 western states of Montana, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Idaho, California, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Wyoming, and the really western state of Hawaii.
“We do that because it’s all the beer we have,” jokes Fish, but then adds, “We have been in business for 20 years, but we have never rushed to get into a new market just because somebody said we should. We have grown at our own pace — though we have grown rapidly — but the point remains to maintain our devotion to the quality of the beer we brew and our commitment to our core principles.”
That said, he adds that the company does consider its expansion options and currently has its sales director in Texas evaluating that market for Deschutes’ potential entrance into it.
But for now the brewery is sticking with its current western base and 110,000 sq. ft. of brewing space in Bend, which includes two brew houses. One, built in 1993, is described by Fish as being manually operated, while the other, built in 2004, is completely automated. This second brew house is equipped by Huppmann Brewery Systems, which Fish says is the oldest brew house equipment manufacturer in the world.
Fish adds that automation within a brewery simply refers to the pumps and valves connecting the equipment; when they open and when they close.
All of these decisions are controlled by a computer rather than a person — through a series of sensors that determine when the wort has been cooked long enough, or certain temperatures have been reached, or when fermenting requirements are met according to how they have been programmed.
“There are a variety of switches that are activated in a variety of ways that trigger the next step in the process based on what we want,” he says.
Fish goes on to add that technology is used only in ways that enhance the quality of the product and the efficiency of how it is produced.
“The brewing process is a blend of the tradition of brewing — which goes back thousands of years — and the new,” he says. “We use technology to be more consistent, efficient and improve on thousands of years of brewing history.”
The success of the company and the growth in its volume of sales, says Fish, can be attributed to a number of things — not the least of which is getting into the business early in the development of craft beers in Oregon and the U.S.
Adhering to its mission statement, which in part commands, “Celebrating beer, its culture and tradition,” has also created a foundation upon which Deschutes maintains the high quality of its products.
For example, the brewery only uses whole leaf hops — a critical flavor component to beer — rather than processed hops.
“Using these hops rather than pellets or some other processed form of hops allows our beers to develop a full set of flavors,” says Fish.
Within the world of beer there are two general categories that most beers fall into. They are lagers and ales.
The term lager is firmly rooted in its German heritage and means “to store,” which refers to the traditional process of storing lagers for several weeks in barrels.
Today, lagers are among the most popular beers in the U.S. and include brands such as Budweiser, Coors and Miller.
Ales, on the other hand, are fermented much more quickly than lagers by using what are termed “top-fermenting yeasts,” and are brewed from barley malt with the addition of hops for flavor. Within the ale category are varying gradients of beers that include ambers, India pale ales, bitters, extra special bitters, stouts and other dark beers such as brown ales and porters.
Deschutes has placed its focus firmly in the ale category, and according to Fish it is the company’s dark beer — Black Butte Porter — that has become its flagship brew. As such, he says, this one beer has redefined how many people think of dark beers.
“It is not a particularly astringent beer; it doesn’t have that burnt flavor that most people would associate with a dark beer,” says Fish.
“It has the body to be interesting as a dark beer, but the depth of flavor to interest an experienced and knowledgeable beer drinker. as well as more novice beer drinkers.
“We have found that more women like it, and people who wouldn’t expect to like a dark beer enjoy ours,” Fish says.
The brewery’s principles, as stated above, extend to the community of Bend, which is named after a bend in the Deschutes River and is located in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains.
The company’s website includes a calendar filled with events and activities it participates in to support the people of Bend and elsewhere. Of particular note, though, is the Sagebrush Classic golf tournament, funded and sponsored by the brewery, which is a local, non-profit fundraising event used to help meet the needs of children and families in central Oregon, says Fish.
Also listed on Deschutes’ mission statement is the company’s commitment to seeking a greater understanding of everything, which could include the ways the brewery can reduce its impact on the environment.
“Being more environmentally aware is not really something unique that we are doing, because there are a lot of other breweries that are focusing on the environment these days,” says Fish. “We are maybe a bit quieter than most about what we are doing.”
As one example, Fish says reducing the amount of water used to brew the company’s beers is a focus and reflects that water usage is a critical issue in the west. Currently, the company uses between 2.5 and 3 gallons of water to make 1 gallon of beer, which is considerably lower than the traditional standard of 10 gallons of water for 1 gallon of beer.
“This is not the result of a single action we are taking, but is reflected in virtually everything we do, in every area of the plant,” says Fish.
Deschutes receives its water from the Bend municipal system, which is fed by a glacier in the nearby Cascade Mountains and the local aquifer.
“It’s a wonderful water source that we have here in central Oregon,” he notes.
If water can be considered a raw material of the brewing process, so too are the hops used by Deschutes. The company purchases the bulk of its hops from Oregon and the Yakima Valley in Washington State, which has developed into one of the premier hops growing regions in the world. The company also purchases a smaller amount from growers in Europe.
“Our brewers will go to the Yakima Valley and seek out what lots they want to purchase,” says Fish. “Because hops are an agricultural product, our brewers like to go and see the field they are grown in and select the highest quality hops.”
Asked about how he plans to grow the company, Fish almost bristles at the question. The vision he has had of the company since he first launched the brewpub has been to grow at a manageable pace.
“We have grown and existed and thrived here in central Oregon, kind of off - the - beaten - path,” he says. “I suppose that if we were in it for the profit only we would want to be near an urban area, with access to highways and other forms of transportation and materials as many other breweries have done. But we love it here in Bend; there is the community and the people we know [that we] are committed to, as well as being committed to brewing great beer. We do things because they are the right thing to do, not necessarily the most profitable.”
Fish adds that the company does have its eyes open to growth opportunities that fit with its ethos, as evidenced by the company’s sales director traveling to Texas. However, caution is the catchword, and Fish says he will only grow into new regions when it makes sense to do so, and when the opportunity is the correct one.
As a privately held company, that is a decision left to Deschutes’ discretion, which is subjectively based on its guiding principles.
“The Deschutes Brewery has been here for 20 years with the goal of brewing the finest beers in the world and to be here for the community,” he says. “We feel we still have a lot of work to do in that regard and are enjoying the task.”