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Breweries and cideries across the state are working to protect agricultural land, one craft beverage at a time. The Cheers to the Land campaign challenges makers to create a beer or cider using only Oregon-grown ingredients. On Oct. 17, beer enthusiasts can try them during a festival at Claim 52 in Eugene.
In Toby Schock’s hand was a rare sight: Oregon-grown barley.
“Try some,” the Wheel APizza Pub founding brewer said in his Eugene microbrewery.
From the flour in its naturally leavened pizza dough to the grains and hops in the beer, The Wheel uses as many Oregon-grown ingredients as they can find.
Take the barley variety in his hand. It was recently developed by Oregon State University and grown by Camas Country Mill in Eugene. It’s nutty and slightly crunchy, a little sweet but not at all sugary, like a cross between cereal and toast.
Breweries are often the face of Oregon’s craft beer industry — and its challenges — yet less attention is given to those who grow and manufacture hops, barley and other essential brewing ingredients. Breweries such as The Wheel are trying to change that.
Sourcing those ingredients from the Pacific Northwest — let alone Oregon — is becoming more challenging.
The barley Schock held was among the last batches to be steeped, germinated and toasted by Admiral Maltings, the closest malt manufacturer to Eugene. The California-based company announced late last month it was closing due to economic challenges.
“It’s just like a gut punch to have yet another small craft-scale malting company go out of business,” Schock said. “I’ve been chasing Oregon-grown barley around wherever it gets malted. It’s like every year it gets shuffled around to a different small malting company, and then they close down.”
Since The Wheel opened in 2018, Schock counted at least five malting companies that closed in the region, including Oregon-based Gold Rush Malt.
It’s partly why The Wheel is participating in Cheers to the Land, an agricultural campaign that challenges 16 breweries and cideries around the state to release a craft beverage using only Oregon-grown ingredients. It’s also a fundraiser for the Oregon Agricultural Trust, a nonprofit known as OAT that has preserved more than 33,000 acres of farmland since 2019.
“What [OAT is] promoting aligns naturally with what brewers should support,” said Stephen Such, whose Eugene brewery, Falling Sky Brewing, also is participating in Cheers to the Land.
Falling Sky’s Cheers rendition was dubbed Spruce Wayne, the Dark Pint. The punny ale’s locally harvested spruce tips are balanced by a darker ale, producing fragrant notes of pine and citrus (without it tasting like a Christmas tree farm.)
You can taste Spruce Wayne and other brews during a Cheers to the Land beerfest, Saturday, Oct. 17, at Claim 52 in Eugene.
Oregon’s lost farmland
This fall, alongside its fifth Cheers campaign, OAT launched its Farmland Protection badge, a label marker that brewers can display on products that prominently feature Oregon-grown ingredients.
Beyond local hops and malt, Lane County brewers used spruce tips, honey from Glory Bee in Eugene and raspberry puree from Oregon Fruit Co. in their Cheers specials.
It’s an important campaign for Oregon craft beer: Since at least the 1930s, generations of hops farmers in the Willamette Valley have grown and harvested verdant, 20-foot-tall vines, producing flowers with notes of orange peel and tropical fruit, peppery and sharp on the nose.
Oregon is the second-largest hops producer in the United States. Together, Washington, Oregon and Idaho account for 99% of the land used to grow hops nationally and more than 25% worldwide.
That land is at risk.
Between 2017 and 2022, Oregon lost 4% of its farmland to development — that’s about 667,000 acres.
Uses such as new homes, destination resorts and hotels are particularly insidious, said Nellie McAdams, the founding executive director of OAT. That’s because surrounding land values inflate beyond what a farmer or rancher can afford. Conservation practices are also lost in the sale.
“It will never be owned by a farmer again,” McAdams said.
It’s something she sees happening more and more in Oregon.
Cheers to the Land, now in its fifth year, helps OAT permanently protect farmland. The trust give incentives to landowners to remove development rights through voluntary agreements, keeping the property affordable and active for farming and ranching.
The nonprofit also assists aging ranchers and farmers with succession plans so their land doesn’t get fragmented, sold off or otherwise lost to nonfarming uses. Upwards of 80% of farmers don’t have a succession plan, according to OAT.
When a farm shuts down, it hurts an entire food ecosystem.
“If you lose enough farm businesses to fragmentation and development, you can see a cratering of the surrounding rural economy and food system,” said McAdams, who is also a third-generation farmer. “It’s a snowball effect where you lose your local agricultural product.”
‘Value to being local’
The fight to protect farmland tastes hazy and bright at Claim 52, where the Cheers Eugene beerfest will be held Saturday, Oct. 17.
Head brewer Aaron Brussat brewed his Cheers IPA with Crosby’s aromatic comet hops and malt grown by Goschie and Westwood Farms. The malt was processed by Admiral Malting, a sponsor of this year’s Cheers.
“I really want people to enjoy the flavors of Oregon land,” Brussat said.
It’s also a way to deepen your palate: If you enjoyed the Cheers IPA at Claim 52, maybe you’ll see comet hops on another brewery’s menu and want to try that beer, he added.
“There’s value to being local,” Brussat said.
For Schock, supporting local breweries such as The Wheel in turn supports Willamette Valley farms and other mom-and-pop agricultural businesses.
“If you want to have a thriving culinary or drink or music or art scene, you have to participate in it and support it,” Schock said. “Otherwise, it just can’t sustain itself.”
Saving Oregon farmland is a tall order, but drinking a local pint is a good start.
If you go
Claim 52, at 232 Lincoln St., Eugene, is hosting a mini beer festival for Cheers to the Land from 2 to 6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 17.
The fest will spotlight eight Cheers to the Land breweries and one cider, with tastings, a chance to meet local brewers and live music.
Tickets, which get you a tasting of all the beer and cider specials, are $20 and can be purchased online. Alternatively, you can also purchase $4 half pours and $7 full pours.
