Alesong’s unconventional approach to craft beer

QuickTake:

Alesong Brewing & Blending stands out in Oregon's craft beer scene with its winery-inspired approach to brewing. For nearly a decade, the brewery has specialized in barrel-aged, wild-fermented beers that develop complex flavors through months or years of aging in wooden vessels.

Nice views are not only reserved for wineries. Alesong Brewing & Blending’s location on Territorial Highway, about 20 miles southwest of Eugene, is a case in point.

Alesong’s neighbor is King Estate Winery, and while Alesong’s picturesque production facility and tasting room mimics a winery more than a typical brewery, it’s not just because Alesong serves its beer in stemmed glassware — it’s a reflection of its distinctive approach to brewing.

Celebrating nearly 10 years in operation, Alesong’s brewers focus exclusively on barrel-aged, wild-fermented beers.

Alesong brewers follow the initial steps of beer-making, which is steeping malted barley in hot water, extracting the sugars, adding yeast, and fermenting.

“That’s basic beer-making,” said Doug Coombs, one of three founding partners. “We go through that same process. But at the point where a normal brewery would be adding CO2 and putting it in a can, we are just getting started.”

Man standing in brewery production room — Doug Coombs stands in Alesong’s production room. Credit: Vanessa Salvia / Lookout Eugene-Springfield

More art than science

The brewery’s back room resembles a wine cellar more than a production brewery. Wooden barrels of various ages and origins are stacked on racks, and a large oak vessel known as a foudre dominates the space.

“Once it’s in the casks, each one starts to do its own thing,” said Coombs, as he gestured toward the rows of barrels. “Different woods, temperature differences, older wood or newer wood, it all has an effect.”

The beer ages in these barrels for months or years, developing complex flavors through microbial activity. The team samples the aging beer at least monthly to track development, just as a winemaker would.

This hands-on approach allows the team to create delicious and unique flavor profiles through careful blending, much as traditional Belgian and French farmhouse breweries have done throughout history.

“Let’s say four barrels have a great aroma but they’re just a little thin,” Coombs said. “If you can find a barrel that’s got a little more body, a little more mouthfeel, you can add that in and beef the whole thing up. If you’re feeling like you want to brighten it up, you can add in a barrel that’s got some higher acidity.”

While the team employs scientific knowledge about microorganisms and fermentation, Coombs describes their process as more artistic than industrial.

“We’ve kind of given up the idea of efficiency,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s awesome that Sierra Nevada tastes like Sierra Nevada every time. I drink that beer. I love that beer. But that’s not what we do.

“We can’t make it taste the same every time because we’ve introduced wooden vessels and temperature changes and all of those other things, and it starts to become more of an expression of our palate, like a winemaker’s palate, where you’re picking and choosing.”

4 bottles of beer with blurred background — Alesong’s spring release beers were announced in mid-May. Credit: Ashli Blow / Lookout Eugene-Springfield

Award-winning innovation

Alesong has received multiple awards since it opened 10 years ago. In 2024, Alesong was named Brewery of the Year in its size category at the 2024 Great American Beer Festival, the nation’s largest professional beer competition. In 2021, the Oregon Beer Awards recognized Alesong as Small Brewery of the Year.

At the Oregon Beer Awards held April 10, Alesong won a silver medal in the barrel-aged stouts category for its Oak & Ember, which is rich with the flavor of dark chocolate and black coffee aged in 10-year bourbon barrels. It also won bronze in the barrel-aged beer category for Cinnamon Roll Maestro, a beer with the cinnamon and vanilla taste of the classic pastry, aged in whiskey barrels.

Overall, Alesong has won more than 75 awards in nine years, and its website lists them all.

Alesong’s small-batch approach, with production at about 400 barrels annually, allows it to experiment with local ingredients, including wine grapes, cherries, blueberries and blackberries. This smaller-scale production stands in contrast to other local breweries operating at different volumes: ColdFire’s new Junction City facility recently doubled its capacity from 2,000 to 4,000 barrels annually, while Ninkasi produced about 61,250 barrels in 2023.

Alesong’s new spring beers are the light 4.2% Blossom, aged two years in oak before being conditioned on Oregon lavender along with freshly grated lemon zest. In collaboration with Xicha Brewing, Alesong released Mezcla, meaning “blend” in Spanish, which was aged for more than a year in añejo tequila barrels before being conditioned on fire-roasted pineapple and morita chili peppers.

The Bright Copper Kettles is a blonde ale blend beer, conditioned on malbec grapes from Quail Run’s Sophie Vineyard in Southern Oregon. The wine grapes give it not only a blackberry and cherry flavor but also make the color a bright red. Finally, Double Barrel Oak & Ember is a double-barrel reprise of the beer that won a silver medal earlier this month — first aged in Henry McKenna 10-year bourbon barrels for a year before aging in 8-year Elijah Craig bourbon barrels.

Man holding glass of beer with barrels behind him — Doug Coombs helped found Alesong Brewing & Blending 10 years ago with the goal of focusing on barrel-aged beers. Credit: Vanessa Salvia / Lookout Eugene-Springfield

Creating an elevated experience

Like its beer, food from Alesong aims to be sophisticated without pretension. The on-site restaurant, now in its second year, focuses on seasonal preparations with local ingredients as much as possible.

Alesong’s brewers opened their own kitchen two years ago and brought in chef Brenden De Leon, who has an affinity for Latin flavors and has experience at King Estate. This in-house approach evolved after they experimented with food trucks, which Coombs found sometimes created a disconnect.

“When it’s somebody else’s food truck, you don’t really have the ability to ask them to change the menu or make something differently,” Coombs said. “I think we do a good job of working together to make sure the food fits with the beer and vice versa. The whole experience feels cohesive.”

With De Leon at the helm, there’s a shared commitment to quality local ingredients, which complements Alesong’s brewing philosophy. A mid-April menu featured crispy Brussels sprouts with chorizo jam, cotija cheese, citrus crema, and blood orange, with a fresh lime half to squeeze over it. By early May, the kitchen was highlighting burrata with fresh strawberries and snap peas from Groundwork Organics farm in Junction City.

The menu for its release of spring beers, held May 15–18 for Blender’s Circle Club members, featured Blossom paired with fava bean, Mezcla paired with ceviche, Bright Copper Kettles paired with lamb with manchego, and the Double Barrel Oak & Ember paired with strawberry cheese cake with rosemary crust.

All four of the new beers will be available on draft and in bottles for nonmembers starting May 24.

The quarterly release parties with food pairings have helped Alesong build a loyal following. Club members receive perks like free flights when visiting the tasting room, and can select bottles they want from each release.

“People are really excited for our release parties to come around quarterly,” Coombs said. “For a lot of people this may be the first time they thought about pairing beer with food, where we would argue that food pairs better with beer than wine, because you have so many more flavors with beer, and you have the carbonation.”

brussels sprouts small plate — Brussels sprouts at Alesong get a Latin treatment with chorizo jam, citrus crema, and blood orange. Credit: Vanessa Salvia / Lookout Eugene-Springfield

Building community through beer

When Alesong was still just an idea, Doug Coombs’ brother Brian Coombs and their other business partner, Matt Van Wyk, were working at Oakshire Brewing. Barrel-aged beer was a small part of their work there, and what they were most excited about brewing.

But in the Northwest, IPA pays the bills.

“The barrel-aged beer was a nights and weekends thing,” Coombs said. “The thinking was, if you want to do these cool things, go ahead, but they don’t make any money.”

Coombs recalled wondering, “What if we do only this and really make it something we can hang our hat on?”

The trio took a leap of faith to specialize exclusively in what had been relegated to side projects. Coombs had worked in the wine industry in the Bay Area before experiencing what he calls a “quarter-life crisis” that took him to South America, where he founded a small technology company. By the time these conversations were taking place, he was ready to leave South America, and his brother convinced him to join the project.

“There’s a lot of wine influence in the way we set up our experience,” he said. “All of us believed that the beer industry was in the process of growing up. There was starting to be demand for a little bit of a nicer experience” beyond sitting at a barrel table in a cold warehouse.

Coombs said it’s been fun seeing visitors open their eyes to the many interesting flavor combinations of good beer and how the overall experience — the setting and the food, along with the beverage — can be elevated.

“People tell us, ‘I never imagined beer tasting like this.’”