Collab Breakside

Breakside is one of America’s most decorated brewers of West Coast IPAs. With a loyal hometown following and a trophy case full of awards to prove it, their hop-forward beers like Breakside IPA, Wanderlust IPA and Rainbows & Unicorns are almost the stuff of legend. So when a small team from Haarlem arrived in Portland one autumn morning, we knew exactly what we were there to brew: a true West Coast IPA. 

Breakside’s Slabtown brewery is precisely what spruced-up industrial gentrification looks like. Still gritty enough to find offbeat gems, but with mind-blowing coffee on nearly every corner. Properly caffeinated, we met Breakside’s Head R&D Brewer Dylan Norby at 8 a.m. and immediately got to work.

Each year, Breakside hosts an international brewer for a collaboration, typically brokered by nearby hop grower and merchant Crosby Hops. Past guests include Wicklow Wolf, Fauve and Hoppy Road. This year, Uiltje earned the honor of a collab brew. 

“It’s fun to meet new brewers, especially international ones,” Dylan says. “It’s good for our relationships, it keeps things fresh—especially with breweries we vibe with.”

Raised in Oregon’s hop country, Dylan worked five harvests before ever stepping into a brewhouse. After just two batches of his own homebrew, he was hooked. “I knew what I wanted to do and contacted 75 breweries in Portland alone,” he recalls. “Only three replied. The first said, ‘Call back in nine months if you want to work hard for no money.’ The second offered me a delivery job. The third was Breakside—but I had to wait a year until they had an opening.” 

He started in the Breakside warehouse, loading trucks and making deliveries. Today, he oversees the brewer’s Slabtown Hoplab, working under the tutelage of Ben Edmunds: Breakside’s founding brewer, current Brewmaster, and industry legend in his own right. While Breakside’s nearby Milwaukie facility produces roughly 95% of its 30,000 annual barrels, Slabtown was designed to crank out super hoppy beers. It’s no coincidence that the Breakside x Uiltje collab is a West Coast IPA.

“Breakside is one of the world leaders in West Coast IPAs. At the last World Beer Cup they won six awards, four for their IPAs. So there’s a lot for us to learn here,” says Uiltje’s Paddi Parupudi, Master of Craft. “They are leading by innovation—their dry hopping, their yeasts—and they are quite scientific in their methods. Moreover, quite a few people on their team are panelists at the Great American Beer Festival. Then there is Ben, one of the most respected brewers in America.”

The Breakside x Uiltje collab is a day-long affair, but many of those hours are spent chatting and observing. 

“It’s one thing to compare a recipe over the phone, quite another to watch someone making it,” Paddi says. “You take a lot of things for granted, but when you really observe another brewer’s systems it makes all the difference. Only then do you truly understand how things get done.”

In addition to its close relationships with local Oregon hop suppliers like Crosby and Indie Hops, Breakside is one of fifty-odd craft beer members of the Hop Quality Group, a nonprofit founded in 2011 to advocate for hop quality across the craft brewing industry.

“We really benefit from our close proximity to the many growers in the region,” Dylan says. “Going to farms once a year isn’t always the best way to evaluate new hops. You’re just smelling what’s drying at that moment. But being local means we can visit multiple times throughout the season. If they have something incredible, they’ll put it on the table for their friends—which tend to be local breweries.”

Throughout the day, we balanced technical discussions and debates with beer sampling and shooting the shit about Portland and the West Coast craft beer scene. For this, we sat inside the Slabtown brewery, which since its opening in 2019 has become an anchor of the local community. In addition to beer, Slabtown hosts yoga fests, LGBTQ+ events and paint-and-sip nights. It also sits along the Portland Marathon route.

“We’ve established ourselves as an IPA destination,” says Carter Pelly, a 23-year-old Breakside teammate. “People know our beer, which gives us freedom to engage with the community in more meaningful ways.”

This engagement is critical in a city where the craft beer scene is shifting. 

“Ten years ago, a new brewery opened every other day,” Dylan says. “Now, more are closing than opening. The new openings are mostly expansions—existing breweries adding locations.” 

Despite the turbulence, Breakside has remained stable over the past three years, thanks largely to the breadth of their brands. “To non-Breakside people, we’re best known for our hoppy beers. But internally, we pride ourselves on variety. We’ve always hung our hat on brewing unique brands – over 150, each with its own unique recipe.”

The Breakside x Uiltje West Coast IPA will be on tap at Breakside’s three locations—Portland, Beaverton, Milwaukie—from the end of October. Alas, Uiltje fans at home looking for a taste of this incredible IPA will have to fly to the West Coast. We will, however, use a few tips and tricks taken from Breakside at our own brewery this year—which is precisely how a quality collab should be.