Tuesday was bottling day at the Ninkasi brewery. And as the volunteer with the tattooed hands boxed up the freshly filled bottles of Tricerahops, Metallica’s ‘Master of Puppets’ blasted through the gaping door into the Whiteaker neighborhood.
Ninkasi’s unprecedented growth:
June 2006 – December 2006: 566 barrels January 2007 – December 2007: 3,000 barrels January 2008 – December 2008: 6,000 barrels (projected) Source: Oregon Brewers Guild, Ninkasi Brewing Company |
The unassuming building at the end of a block of art communes is home to Ninkasi Brewing Company, which has evolved from an idea into one of Oregon’s largest breweries in less than two years.
“Being in a business is like a dream,” co-owner Jamie Floyd said. “You’re in it, but you can’t really control it.”
“It’s a being of its own,” he said. “We’re just getting to know each other.”
From its inception in June 2006, Ninkasi has ripened into about 80 accounts in Eugene and has spread into Springfield, Corvallis, Salem, Medford, Cottage Grove, Florence, Portland and Ashland in Oregon, along with Vancouver and Longview in Washington.
And until nine weeks ago, it only sold its beer in kegs.
“It seems like we’ve grown faster than any brewery in Oregon,” Floyd said. “I get told that a lot.”
Brian Butenschoen, executive director of the Oregon Brewers Guild, agrees. He said that in less than two years Ninkasi has become Oregon’s 11th largest brewery out of 64 total, and that no other brewery has grown so rapidly from its launch – it’s “not even close,” he said.
When asked about plans for expansion into national and international markets like other Oregon breweries, Floyd said that while “we’ve done a lot in the past 19 months … we’re really trying to be Ninkasi. I don’t want to be Rogue, I don’t want to be Deschutes.”
“Eugene’s our home,” he said.
Where to try it
Ninkasi beers are sold at 80 spots around Eugene, including: Starlight Lounge $1 pints of Ninkasi starting mid-May 4-7 p.m. 830 Olive St. Hilyard Street Market 1698 Hilyard St. Market of Choice 1960 Franklin Blvd. Tiny Tavern 394 Blair Blvd. |
While Rogue Ales ships its beer internationally, “we’re more regionally focused,” keeping Ninkasi beer in places that can be reached in eight hours or less, Floyd said.
The commitment to keeping Ninkasi local stems from Floyd’s degree from the University in community studies and an off-shoot of environmental studies called bio-regionalism.
The idea is to supply as much as possible from a local bio-region, like the Pacific Northwest, to cut down emissions, cushion businesses from volatility in the global crop and oil markets and to involve businesses in their communities.
The bottles for its beer and most of its barley is malted in Vancouver, Wash., the yeast is from Hood River, Ore.; the hops come from the Willamette Valley and Yakima, Wash.; and the water is from the McKenzie River.
Part of that local focus is the Whiteaker neighborhood, where community members throw “three to five really big parties a year,” and support cultural events and the Whiteaker cleanup parade, Floyd said. Locals also volunteer on bottling days in exchange for a few beers.
“My dream was to be the village brewer – one of the oldest professions in the history of civilization,” Floyd said.
Offering advice for people wanting to open a business, Floyd had this to say:
“We got where we are by a combination of hard work and really good fortune,” he said. “No matter how prepared you are, it’s harder than you think.”
Floyd said he’s always wanted to own his own business, and he “waited a long time to be prepared for it.”
Meeting the right people to open Ninkasi with was extremely important because of how closely they had to work with each other.
“You’re going in about as deep as it can get,” he said.
Floyd has worked for more than a decade in the beer business, and he said the work is tough.
“We’re really over-glorified janitors,” he said. “All we do is scrub stuff.”
The work is “hard, tedious and monotonous” at times, Floyd said, so the best advice he can give is to “make sure you love what you’re doing.”
Brewer Dan D’Louhy certainly does.
“Once I started brewing I knew I’d be doing it for the rest of my life,” D’Louhy said. “I’ll probably be right here.”
D’Louhy said he was hired because he was in the right place at the right time wearing the right T-shirt. The shirt advertised a small brewery in Fort Collins, Colo., and D’Louhy said Ninkasi’s beer specialist Dave Lawrence started chatting him up and found out he knew bottling. D’Louhy was invited down to the brewery and “now I’m in this crazy position.”
He takes care of all the tanks, brews beer and keeps the timing right between brewing beer and having it ready to drink.
This last responsibility makes D’Louhy “the most blamable person in the whole group.”
But “my main focus is keeping my babies clean,” D’Louhy said, gesturing to the giant fermentation tanks behind him. “The brewer guy is papa bear, the cellar guy is mama bear, and we got to take care of the kids.”
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