USA, OR: Ordnance Brewing announces major expansion
By his own description, Eastern Oregon farmer Craig Coleman doesn’t like to get bored. So in addition to growing blueberries, hay, field corn and cut flowers — not to mention renting ground to a potato farmer – he and several partners decided to open a brewery in Boardman, Capital Press reported on January 8.
“Why not?” he said. “The way I look at things is, if we can do one, why not do 10?”
Ordnance Brewing, named for the ghost town across the highway from the defunct Umatilla Chemical Depot that once housed the deadly agents used in chemical weapons, opened for business around Halloween 2014 and this month announced a major expansion.
The brewery, in the Port of Morrow, will jump production from seven barrels per brewing cycle to 50. For perspective, one barrel equals 31 gallons. The company now produces two or three brews per week, head brewer Logan Mayfield said. Production eventually will increase to six or eight brews per day, he said.
The company will focus on producing four types of beer in cans and bottles: A Rye Pale Ale; an India Pale Ale called FMJ, for Full Metal Jacket; Rivercrest Kolsch, a German-style light lager; and an English-style ale called “Old Craig,” named after Coleman, the farmer. Ordnance will make seasonal beers as well. Mayfield, the brewer, jokingly described some of the company’s offerings as “lawnmower beer,” meaning the type you’d drink after yard work.
“I believe we have a very solid product,” said Coleman. “Is it the greatest beer in the world? Probably not, but we make good beer.”
Coleman is Ordnance’s manager; other partners keep the books, own the brewery building, oversee taphouses that serve the company’s beer and have other roles. Coleman hired Mayfield, originally from Ashland, to do the brewing.
Coleman previously farmed with his extended family in the Willamette Valley, but moved to Eastern Oregon to do something different.
“It was time for a change,” he said. “The business was maturing and it’s not as fun as when your hair is on fire.”
He and partners first opened a couple taphouses that served beer, then decided to up their game and make beer themselves.
Ordnance uses some of Coleman’s blueberries in one of its beer, and buys hops from the Willamette Valley and barley from Idaho. Coleman and Mayfield said they’re looking to use more local ingredients as the business develops.
In its promotional material, Ordnance describes itself as “smack dab in a beer desert,” with very few other breweries operating between Hood River and Pendleton.
An industry group, Oregon Craft Beer, said the state had 234 breweries in 72 cities as of July 2015. Of those, 91 are in the Portland metro area, which some in the industry have taken to calling “Beervana.”
Craft beer brewing, like wine before it and hard cider now coming on, has proven to be a hot economic sector in Oregon. Brewers produced 1.6 million barrels in 2014, a 17 percent increase over the previous year. Craft beer made in Oregon now accounts for 20 percent of the beer consumed in the state, according to the industry group.
Coleman, the Ordnance manager, said the business is in “great spot” geographically and market-wise.
“What I’ve found is, the more questions you ask, the more doors open,” he said. “We’ve been lucky. We have great people around us. The opportunities are out there if you’re willing to capitalize on them.”
13 January, 2016
