(Portland, Oregon) – You are invited to ROOTS Organic Brewery on Wednesday October 3rd to help Craig Nicholls’ wife, Jeannie, raise funds for her run at the San Francisco Marathon, on October 21st. You will help raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. All tips and a percentage of sales for that night will go towards her fundraising goal of $3,300. ROOTS Organic Brewing is also having the release party for the fall seasonal Toasted Coconut Porter. This will be the first time Craig and Jason have ever bartended together, so it should be a funny night! If you can’t make the event, you can also donate to Jeannie’s run here. Roots Organic Brewing is located at 1520 SE 7th, Portland, Oregon. their number is (503) 235-7668. Cheers!

Right on the heels of my recent interview with Jon Cadoux of Peak Organic Brewing, this evening I got to chat with Heather Conlin, the Special Projects Manager of Alaskan Brewing Co. Here is what she had to say:

What is your role at Alaskan Brewing?
My role has sort of evolved over time, but currently I work in human resources and am the special projects manager. So I do a lot of hiring, employee motivation, and performance reviews; my special projects have evolved, too. I started as a chemist in the brewery lab 7 years ago and then worked in both production and quality assurance, before settling on what I do now. My current special project is marketing, but I’ve worked with our I.T. department for the development of our production database, I’ve also worked on our website, and even on the retail side of the brewery. I’ve done a little bit of everything, really; we have a very collaborate environment here, you work where your interests lie. Alaskan Brewing has an active Rough Draft Program where employees from any department can participate – I’m currently working on convincing our brewer to try a Belgium Whit. It’s neat because we can really make those things happen.

How did you come to work there?
It’s funny; everyone has a story for how they end up in Alaska. Some people are born here but most people just sort of end up here – most people come on vacation and just never go home. I was born in Alaska but not technically raised there. But, after grad school—at the time having lived here none of my adult life—I decided to go home. So I packed up a 1974 motor home and headed out. When I got here, I looked for the best job available; I started at the university as an adjunct professor of business, but when I saw the brewery was hiring a chemist, I thought “how fun would that be” and before I knew it, they had hired me. And I’ve never been happier.  

What is your favorite part about working for a brewery?
That every day is totally different: I wake up am and excited to come here. Also, you never know what the day is going to bring. The employees are what make it all happen – they’re passionate and are driving us to succeed every day; it’s an exciting environment to be in.

…About Alaska?
I’ve been fortunate to explore throughout the state recently and one of the things that’s so amazing is Alaska is HUGE, it is still very much a frontier – so really just the sheer size; but also the diversity of climates and the wildlife across the state. Believe it or not, Juneau is in the middle of a temperate rainforest, and right on the water, so we have all sorts of wild animals here that really are part of our lives. On the other hand, If you go further north, the terrain changes completely – I drove the Top of the World Highway through the artic tundra earlier this year. Every community in Alaska is so unique and the people here approach life with open eyes; there is a real can-do will about everyone and everyone is ready to take on life. It is harder to live life here, so relationships and bonds are a lot stronger.

What is the coastal CODE program and what is Alaskan Brewing Co. doing to help?
Well, Coastal CODE started earlier this year to coincide with the launch of our Alaskan IPA. We have a long history of corporate philanthropy and environmental stewardship, and saw the CODE program as an opportunity to give financially to both of those. The program is really both a call to action and a grant-making fund; it’s completely non-profit and run by a group called Ocean foundation. The program has an advisory board which meets quarterly and awards 3 grants a quarter to support coastal clean up, awareness, education, and our Paddle Out events. There is one such event going on in California right now—with one of the extreme athletes—to raise awareness about the harmful effects of plastics in the ocean. He is currently paddling the length of California and talking to people about how they can help at every stop along the way. We’re also planning beach cleanups around each of his stops. Really we’re just trying to get the community out there and aware of what’s going on with our oceans and their health.

Why should we care?
Oceans take up the largest percentage of mass on the earth and most people directly use the resources of the ocean in one way or another every day – we use it for recreation, fishing, and transportation – and people’s health depends on it. Every stream & river everywhere flows into the ocean, so even if you’re in a landlocked state, you are still directly tied to the ocean. Oceans are a very large piece of the puzzle when it comes to global warning, too, and Alaska especially sees the effects of that. Here’s a neat fact for you: 180 million Americans make a total of two billion visits to oceans a year, and 75% of all recreation in this country occurs within a ½ mile of our shorelines. We should all feel comfortable using our oceans and using them responsibly. 

How can others get involved?
There are a number of ways people can be involved: start by visiting our website, www.coastalcode.org; there you can buy a t-shirt to show your support, and $5 of each sale goes directly to the fund. You can find volunteer info and links on the site, and you can donate directly to the fund. But best of all, drink our Alaskan IPA – 1% of all sales of the beer go directly to the fund, which is what is granted out to non-profits.

What is the IPA all about?
The IPA is currently available in 9 states, however only on the west coast (sorry). It’s the newest product in our product line and features awesome graphics inspired by the coast of Yakutat, AK – a well-known cold water surfing destination. We recently funded a two-week beach clean up there, and sent our entire Brew Crew to Yakutat to help clean. We cleaned a total of about seven tons of garbage from the beach. There is no natural barrier there to protect the beach from man-made elements, so the beach collects garbage that flows in from all over the world. We found some very “interesting” stuff.

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This evening I was lucky enough to sit down for an exclusive interview with Jon Cadoux, the founder of Peak Organic Brewing Co. in Portland, Maine. The pesticides used in non-organic farming have been linked to cancer, Developmental Toxicity, Reproductive Toxicity, Endocrine System Toxicity, Neurotoxicity, Immune System Toxicity, and more. The good news, however, is that in the past decade, sales of organic products have shown an annual increase of at least 20%, the fastest growing sector of agriculture. Please do all you can to support Peak Organic Brewing and the organic movement. What follows is a transcript of my conversation with Mr. Cadoux, enjoy:

How did you first get into brewing?

Like many of the best brewers, I got my start home brewing in college. My friends and I were real foodies and kitchen rats, so home brewing was a natural extension of that. Home brewing really builds a good foundation for brewing, since you’re coming at from an experimental and improvisational standpoint. It’s one thing to be able to read and follow a recipe, but the real key to success is to bring improv to your brewing, to push the boundaries of style. Along the same lines, my friends and I starting making crazy beers and really getting into it; at the same time we were starting to get incredible feedback on the beers we were making.

As competitive as the beer world is, I think Peak Organic is just winning because of the sheer quality of our product, that organic point of difference; we’re really just along for the ride. Being organic allows us to cut through the clutter of the commercial beer world, but really we’re like anyone else – just a bunch of friends who got into the beer business.

What were the early days of Peak Organic Brewing Co. like?

There is a lot of paperwork involved with selling things commercially, but even more when what you’re selling is alcohol, and even more when it’s organic. I was really blown away by the bureaucracy of it all. But I guess that saves the integrity of the organic products, and beer in general really—this way no one is out there selling poisonous beer or faulty organic products—it was just surprising. But once the product got out there, on shelves and into restaurants, like I said, we were really just along for the ride.

Why did you decide to go organic?

Organic ingredients are just better. I like to think that I have some good business sense and I knew it was best to brew with the best ingredients we could get our hands on. You can have the best marketing plan and the best distribution deals, but when all’s said and done, you succeed when your product is great; we survive with people who believe in sustainability. To me, it didn’t make sense to be in business if I wasn’t in a business with a purpose. Not just making beer but continuing to turn people on to sustainability.

At the end of the day, I took a look at the state of agriculture in our country right now – at the use of pesticides, at the determent caused by agriculture runoff, at what will happen if our country continues operating at a non-sustainable pace, I didn’t want to contribute to that. Really, I can’t think of a reason not to brew organically.

Is it tougher to produce organic beers?

It can be, yes; organic brewing—like organic products in general—is often more expensive. We’re lucky enough, however, to have been doing this for eight years, so we’ve built great business relationships with those same original farmers who were amazed someone was just calling them up out of the blue.

What’s your favorite part about the industry?

Making beer. At the end of the day, attention goes to a lot of other things, to marketing, to distribution, to personnel—and it has to—but tomorrow morning at 7:00am I’ll be there brewing a batch of beer. It’s what I love more than anything else, so to be able to make money off of that is pretty cool.

Why did you decide to open up shop in Maine?

I’m from Baltimore originally and like a lot of people came up to New England for college. I’ve lived all over New England and traveled a great deal, but in the end, Portland just made sense.

On your website you ask people to share their photos and explanations of their “peak experience” – what was yours?

Someone take a picture of me at 7:00am tomorrow brewing beer, that’s what it’s all about. A lot of us at Peak are passionate surfers and outdoors people and that’s taken us all over the world, but at the end of the day – brewing beer is my favorite.

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The Alaskan Brewing Co. has created the Coastal CODE (Clean Oceans Depend on Everyone) to encourage everyone to keep our oceans healthy. The small craft brewery located in the coastal community of Juneau, Alaska, is committing 1% of proceeds from its newly released Alaskan IPA to the Coastal CODE Fund, created in partnership with The Ocean Foundation. This unique initiative combines efforts from ocean-minded organizations, a Portland artist and hundreds of Pacific Northwestern residents to clean up and protect all 7,863 miles of coastline in California, Oregon, and Washington, and the more than 44,000 miles of coastline in Alaska. Click to Read Full Article and visit the Coastal CODE website.

Organic brew news is coming across the wire like crazy today! Domestic sales of organic food and drink grew from $1 billion in 1990 to $14 billion in 2006, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Organic beer still represents less than 1 percent of U.S. beer sales, but those sales doubled to $19 million between 2003 and 2005 (the last year with available figures), according to the Organic Trade Association. In 2005, organic beer ranked with coffee as the fastest-growing organic beverage.

But organic beer isn’t easily brewed; it can be expensive–especially for small, craft brewers–to maintain separate equipment for organic brewing, and, most notably, to obtain organic hop flowers.Organic hops are 20 to 30 percent more expensive than conventional hops, and brewers must import them (especially those from New Zealand) because hops grown commercially in the United States are sprayed with pesticides to fight mites, mildew and other plagues. Lastly, only a few varieties of hops are grown organically (nonorganic varieties number in the dozens).

Last year brewing Golieth (biblical reference intended, as some day the little brew guy will kick the big guy’s ass) Anheuser-Busch debuted organic beer under its Wild Hop and Stone Mill labels, instantly changing the organic brewing industry.

Anheuser-Busch’s venture into organic beer suggests a strong market, but, by the same token, the company has often been criticized for using less than 10 percent organic hops in its beer. (Although hops contribute a great deal to flavor, they constitute nearly nothing to the percentage of a finished beer; and so Anheuser-Busch’s new labels still meet the USDA’s requirement that 95% of ingredients be organic to qualify for certification).

I’m hopeful, however, that if the tread towards organic products in the U.S. continues, more U.S. growers will produce organic hops, lowering the price of the flower and rising the bar of beer in America.

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