Portland's Brewery of the Year
One of my favorite features the past six years has been Portland’s Best Breweries. It was the list of the ten or so breweries I’d recommend people visit. The purpose of the list was to guide visitors to a selection of the breweries doing the best work that year, with a diverse selection so any drinker would find at least one brewery to suit their tastes. I was getting so many emails and messages from beer fans planning a visit that a blog post seemed like the most efficient solution.
This year I’m putting the feature on hold. I’ve just launched a project to bring attention to Oregon’s beer and hops, and it’s an ecumenical one. I want to elevate the entire industry, not just ten breweries. Still, I hope everyone will agree there’s a little wiggle room here. One new brewery has done such impressive work in the past year it deserves a little extra attention. I’m speaking of not-quite-two-year-old Grand Fir, which has a brewer with a distinct vision who is at the top of her game. It’s rare that such a small brewery would distinguish itself so soon after its debut, but unsurprising for those who have followed the career of Whitney Burnside.
Brewery of the Year: Grand Fir
Grand Fir is a small operation in the Buckman neighborhood of inner Southeast Portland—but an ambitious one. Whitney is one half of a team that includes husband Doug Adams, who is one of Portland’s best chefs, training with Portland legend Vitaly Paley before becoming the high-profile chef at Imperial, a much-lauded Covid casualty. Following his time at Imperial, he opened his own restaurant, Bullard, which also garnered much press. As you’d guess, Grand Fir puts an emphasis on food.
On the beer side, Whitney has been brewing professionally for fifteen years, with stops at some of the Northwest’s best breweries, including Upright, Pelican, and Elysian. When 10 Barrel decided to open a brewery in Portland in 2014—before the sale to AB InBev—they tapped Whitney to be the brewmaster of that location. In the eight years she brewed at 10 Barrel, she became recognized as one of Portland’s best brewers. 10 Barrel was one of those breweries that confounded the argument against “selling out,” though, and ABI gave Whitney and Tonya Cornett, her counterpart in Bend, a lot of freedom—with spectacular results.
Winning medals isn’t the sole measure of excellence, but it’s hard to ignore a brewery that wins a lot of medals. And since Grand Fir opened, Whitney has won a lot of medals. In the past year, she picked up four Oregon Beer Awards, three World Beer Cup medals, and one GABF medal. At this year’s OBAs, she won three golds—a bit more than 10% of the total available, in a state with around 300 breweries. Three of her beers won more than once—Foxglove Session IPA won twice, as did Redside and Heart Island. Impressive!
Those medals are worth mentioning, but it’s Whitney’s distinctive “voice” and approach to beer that is Grand Fir’s real calling card. The most interesting breweries always make beer with a unique house approach, and Grand Fir is a great example. Two things in particular stand out. In an era when breweries seem to be downsizing their beer, Whitney’s swing the other direction, toward strength. If she’s making a pale ale like Undergrowth, on tap now, it’s liable to be 6%. Her pilsners run in the upper fives. Even beers kept ostensibly in session strength are stronger than others in their class. I’m thinking of one of my favorites, Ember, a 5.5% Schwarzbier (Kostritzer, to take the classic example, is 4.8%). If they’re stronger beers, she doesn’t hold back, like Heartwood, an export stout (7.3%) or Lichen IPA (7.4%). Or take Tack Shack, which might be the flagship beer. It’s ostensibly a Czech amber lager, but it’s a bit unclassifiable (it won silver at the World Beer Cup in the American amber lager category) at a beefy 6% ABV.
Part of Whitney’s reputation at 10 Barrel rested on her experiments with alternate ingredients. This makes sense—she started out studying the culinary arts. One great example is ULMO, a honey kolsch (possibly my favorite Grand Fir beer). Yet what I have noticed is her appreciation of classic styles. The aforementioned pale ales, red ales, various black ales, plus a penchant for lagers. Younger brewers (I know, she’s been a professional brewer for 15 years—but she got an early start!) often gravitate toward the experimental or buzzy styles. Perhaps it’s a bit of Pelican’s Darron Welch rubbing off on her, but she really likes those styles and treats them with respect. They’re not just filler beers to round out the line. That isn’t to say she’s averse to hops—not by a long shot. At any given time, three or four IPAs will be pouring, but they, too, have a traditionalist streak. She likes bitterness for structure, and she doesn’t do hazies.
Finally, Whitney’s beers are always very well-crafted. They are intentional, meticulous beers. I don’t mean they’re fussy or twee—rather, they’re dialed in and the pieces are all right where she put them. It’s possible I’ll encounter a process fault one day, but I haven’t yet and would be surprised if I did. A Whitney beer is made with care and pride.
Portland has a lot of wonderful breweries, and I encourage you to try them all. (I’ve been trying to compile a final list, and it looks like there are around sixty, depending on how you count.) Definitely include Grand Fir on your visit, though. No one is doing better work right now.