Brothers Cascadia Brewing Puts Bloom on Hazel Dell

As referenced in past posts here, these are wild times for craft beer. The crazy growth of recent years is slowing. Part of that is reality. You can't easily grow 15 or 20 percent a year once you reach a certain size. Brewery count is another reason. Access to local beer has dimmed retail sales.

We're going to hear a lot about the state of the industry from this week's Craft Brewers Conference in Washington, D.C. The Brewers Association brass are going to talk about the good and the bad. It'll be a giant drunk fest in between press conferences and presentations. This much I know.

But not everyone connected to the industry is spending a drunken week in Trumpland. Some folks are at home working in their breweries or busy opening up new ones.

Monday afternoon I stopped in on the private soft opening of Brothers Cascadia Brewing in Hazel Dell. This place has been in planning for a while and they opened the doors to a nice crowd of friends and family. Pretty cool.

How did I get invited? Fair question. Because I rarely get invited to anything. Never mind why. It turns out the general manager there is Micah Loiselle. For years, Micah worked behind the bar at Laurelwood's Sandy pub, a place I frequented almost nightly. If you've visited Laurelwood on any kind of regular basis in recent years, you know Micah. He's the guilty party who invited me.

When I walked in just after the 3 p.m. start time, the place was already busy. You hate to take too much stock in a situation where it's almost all friends and family, but I suspect the crowd is a good omen. This place has the potential to do nicely. 

As I've said once or twice in past columns, there's still plenty of room for smaller, neighborhood breweries that intend to serve a mostly local clientele. That's particularly true in places where that clientele is underserved from a craft beer standpoint. Hazel Dell is that kind of place. 

Once upon a time, Hazel Dell was a thriving area. Today, the area around Brothers Cascadia Brewing on 99th St and Highway 99 could use some investment and help. In some ways, it reminds me of the Lents area in Southeast Portland, where a revitalization project is underway. 

Three partners, Sherman Gore, Jason Bos and Richard Tiffany, installed a 10 bbl brewery in an old, bombed out auto body shop building. They intend to focus on mainstream styles like IPA, Kolsch and Pilsner. But they are also developing an interesting barrel program. They aren't selling food in the pub, but there's a food cart-ish scenario out front.

The pub itself is just quaint and charming enough to meet the needs of thirsty beer fans. High ceilings and a clean grubbiness are a reminder of what most craft breweries looked like back in the day, before gobs of money flowed into the industry and places got spiffy and flashy. None of that here, thank the Dog. 

I sampled two beers: Hellcat Imperial Stout is a barrel-aged monster (9.5 percent) brewed with raspberries, then aged in red wine barrels. Interesting beer. I think a bourbon barrel treatment would have added more character, but Hellcat is pretty tasty as is; Saison de La Mancha is fermented with French Saison yeast and lacto, aged in red wine barrels and dry-hopped with Mandarina Bavaria hops. Mildly tart, nicely refreshing. My guess is the beers will be fine here. If you can make boutique styles like these well, your standards should be fine. 

I'm not exactly sure about regular hours. They will evidently have a soft opening for the public on Wednesday, the 12th, from 3:00-10:00 p.m. After that, they're off and running. There's no functioning website at the moment, which leaves the Facebook page if you need information. Hopefully, it will be updated in coming days.  

Brothers Cascadia is a nice example of the breweries that continue to pop up around the country. They identified an underserved area and opened there. As long as they run the business well and don't have visions of grandeur fueled by dreams of regional distribution, they'll be fine. Staying true to local fans will pave their way to success.

Things are looking up in Hazel Dell. Trust me.

Update: As of today, Brothers Cascadia will be open 3:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., Wednesday through Monday. They will be closed Tuesdays.