Indie Hops Welcomes Matt Sage: Brewer, Vintner & Now In Hop Pursuit

Matt Sage was born and raised in Portland, OR. After attending college in Olympia, WA, Matt  moved to Seattle where eventually he started working at  Associated Vintners winery (which later became today’s Columbia Winery). The name reflected its founding in the 60’s by a group of University of Washington professors and was the first winery in the state to make premium wines from noble European grape varieties grown in Washington. Matt and other young guys working there at the time often discussed how cool it would be to start a brewery to make something other than the dominant style of bland light lager.

The opportunity to work in such a brewery came a few years later in 1984 when another winemaker, Dick Ponzi, founded Bridgeport Brewing Co (Portland, OR). At the time, there were only a few small breweries in the country, not many people knew of them, and so nearly everyone thought that a brewery which didn’t take up at least 4 city blocks had zero chance of success.

Nay-sayers at the time warned:  “The industry is consolidating; there’s going to be fewer players not more; and especially, a new small brewery? Well, good luck with that!” As we now know, the doubters were wrong; Bridgeport (and others) survived and thrived, and Matt stayed at Bridgeport for the next 6 years.

For about half of the next dozen years, Matt worked at the exceptional Cameron Winery in Dundee, OR.  He then worked for the Colorado-based brewpub chain Rock Bottom. He helped  open both the Denver and Portland breweries and also was the head brewer at both brewpubs for several years. In 2004, he returned to a much bigger Bridgeport Brewing and worked as the purchaser of brewing and packaging materials, as well as in all aspects of production and planning.

In August 2010, Matt joined Roger and Jim at Indie Hops. He was drawn to the idea of empowering craft brewers with the breeding, growing and processing of hop ingredients.  In his words:

“I think that companies like Indie Hops represent another step in the evolution of the craft brewing industry by giving craft brewers a say in the research, development, and production of their raw materials that they haven’t had before. I still see myself as a craft brewer, working with others to produce flavorful beer, but this my efforts will start in hop labs, greenhouses and fields.  I think that Indie Hops will involve craft brewers with the research, breeding  growing  and processing of hops in many new and interesting ways.”

Matt lives in Portland with his wife, Sheila Custer and their son, Ian, born in 2002.
[Interestingly, Sheila’s family is originally from Engleberg, Switzerland, home of the parent abbey to Oregon’s Mt Angel Abbey which is located on a hill overlooking the heart of hop country. They first came to the U.S. in the 1880’s to help build Mt Angel.]

Matt will be in charge of business development. He will be available, with reasonable notice, to provide craft brewers with a tour of the hopyards at both Goschie and Coleman Farms, the fields and lab at Oregon State University, and of course our super cool “patient” pelleting mill in Hubbard, Oregon. Click here to contact Matt

At Indie Hops, we sell Flavor!

Hopservations by Matt Sage (2/8/11)

As a brewer who had worked away inside the same four walls for many years before joining Indie Hops, I've enjoyed getting out to visit other brewers and to see the great variety of situations and characters at work in the craft beer world today.

One thing I’ve been surprised to see is that the list of beer styles being brewed does not vary as much from region to region as I had assumed. Even in "Thunder Valley for Beer"*, where 65+ B.U.s & 6.5+ % alc. is the ascendant normal, there are also brewers devoted to making German-style lagers, or Saisons, or Sour / Brett / fruit infused beers, or even milder English-style ales. And what region of the country, however mild it’s reputation, does not now make an Imperial IPA?             

The result is that beer drinkers everywhere have more choices but also that  regional differences have been reduced a little by a more nationalized craft beer culture.

Maybe this is the yin and yang of craft brewing: a spirit of creativity and innovative rebellion that is expanding the variety of beer everywhere; but at the same time, an understandable gravitation towards brewing trends (not to mention hop varieties) which win awards, get the blogs, and are what the “popular kids in class” are doing (now). In any case, I think it can be said that nobody in history has brewed beers like the ones we're seeing craft brewers brew today. We're off the chart in terms of older notions about what's correct. 

I've been bringing brewer's cuts of whole hops along with me in my travels and not surprisingly, I've heard a spectrum of comments and descriptors, often about the same hops. The many scents found in any given Lot are sure to call up different associations in different people. Many of those comments have been  astute and I’ve enjoyed expanding my own way of thinking about hop aroma and flavor because of them.

A friend who once worked for an English brewery said that an older brewer there once told him: "Don't get me wrong! I'm not against education, but all the schooling in the world won't help you if you can't brew beer with your own five senses."

Cheers!
Matt Sage
matt@indiehops.com
* Prof. Michael Lewis’ teasing term for San Diego County at CBC 2008