FACT No. 5Worthy will be pilot brewing with experimental hop varities that emerge from the Indie Hops-OSU aroma hop breeding program. Worthy will connect these dots. We will draw our water from cool, clean Cascades snowmelt. We’ll use the best hops Oregon can offer, and if Oregon can’t deliver particular varieties, we’ll scour the globe, starting with the bountiful hopyards across the Columbia River in Yakima, Washington.
Hops will be a special feature for Worthy. We will be building a low trellis hopyard on site. Our friends at Oregon State will select and plant a variety of hops, from ornamentals to experimentals, from the hand-grenade big daddy alphas to the seductively sweet and velvety aromas.
The Haunold Hop House
We will also establish the Worthy Hop House as a tribute to our country’s greatest hopmeister, Dr. Alfred Haunold. Over a 30-year career at the USDA, the Austrian born Dr. Haunold quietly crafted, nursed and released over 20 hop varieties to the thirsty public – a feat which we can comfortably predict will never be matched.
We will open our greenhouse to OSU and their students as a satellite hop and horticulture research facility. We will use the greenhouse to educate and inspire our guests, to maintain hop breeding material for OSU as a “clean house,” and to propagate and maintain hop plants during the winter. Lastly, our house yeast strain will be hand selected by our Brewmaster from a lab in Hood River, again not just because it's local, but because we believe it will be the best. The brewing equipment at Worthy was designed and built in Oregon. While we opted for a few bells and whistles to allow us precise control over every step of the brewing process, we intentionally preserved enough manual controls to give our beer that hand crafted touch. Yes We Can
Our uniquely designed hop back will allow us to add further hoppy flavor and aroma to all our beers. We are also fascinated by the prospect of inventing new dry hopping techniques that can reduce the volume of hops but increase the extracted oils – more flavor for the buck. As much as we support the “Made in Oregon” label, we have to let quality be our guide. To that end, we sourced our Vimercati 4000 cph canning line from Italy. As with bicycles and race cars, our friends in Italy know a few tricks on building durably divine packaging equipment.
We like the research that shows that cans provide better protection of volatile hop oils than bottles. Why do we care about hop oils? Because that’s whence the flavor comes! For our money, hop oil is a terrible thing to oxidize. Plus we like the ease of transporting cans to our favorite watering holes in the Cascade mountains for a refreshing treat after an arduous hike or bike ride. Finally, and this is the clincher, the roads have enough broken glass on them and it’s no fun getting a flat tire. Tinkering, Toying and PilotingWe don’t take “Worthiness” for granted. Before any beer makes it into a keg or can, it must first prove itself Worthy on our pilot brewhouse. Our brewers will tinker with each recipe on the smaller system to make sure we've got it just right before sending the beer off to production. To combat complacency and keep our skills sharp and our minds playful, we’ll always be fiddling with pilot batches. Worthy absolutely will not bring sand to the beach. If it’s not new, different, and tasty, it’s not Worthy.
Going Green
When building our facility, we also took great care to make sure we took full advantage of the latest green technologies. We thought it was important to not only make great beer, but to feel great about making beer.
Nearly 90% of the hot water used at our brewery (and breweries use a lot of hot water) will be heated by the good old Sun. Further, we will pretreat all our brewery wastewater before shipping it back to the city. If you take a gander at our roof, you'll also see that we harness quite a bit of electricity from the Sun as well. We utilize an extensive heat recovery system to capture “waste heat” from the machinery that we then use to heat additional brewery water. Our beer cooler, and it's a beast, is smart enough to turn off its cooling mechanism and pull in cold outside air when the weather is right. Drive the Future, Respect the Past
We will hire some of the most talented and creative brewers in the country. Brewing has a long, storied history and our brewers will honor the past with reverent attention to time-honored brewing customs. We will also look to the future and hold our brewers to the highest standard of knowledge and discipline. We will constantly challenge ourselves to not only keep up with the latest brewing methods and technology but take the lead in driving forward progress.
Our brewers have been awarded serious hardware for their beers that were brewed elsewhere on subprime equipment using subprime ingredients. Medals feed egos, but good beer keeps the customers coming back. Worthy has the talent, the equipment, the spirit, the bank and the mandate to attract new customers, delight them, and keep them coming back. We can’t wait to get going. We Brew, You Judge
Finally, know this: we will not take our customers for granted. We believe that our customers will be worthy and that they deserve worthiness. Yes, the customer is King. But even a King now and then needs to step outside his comfort zone and try something new, and have a little fun. We’ll respect the diversity of opinion that our beers will register, learn what we can, and vow to keep working to get it right.
We know that whether you’re a Grand Imperial IPA imbiber, or a Hardworking Pilsner Pounder or Once-in-Awhile Hefeweizen taster, Worthy will brew a beer for each class of consumer and for each major mood. We will always walk that fine line between giving beer lovers what they want and what we think they should want. And we won’t tell you how to live, or what life’s all about. But if you know the answers, let us know. Life is __________. Drink Worthy beer. July 11, 2012 |
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