Collab Deschutes brewery

UILTJE: Jake, you’ve been with Deschutes Brewery for 25 years, and the head brewer of this big Public House in Portland for eight. How’s that working out for you?

JH: Look around, I run my own pub, I would say I’m pretty happy.

UILTJE: I’m sure you’ve been asked every question under the sun. So what’s the one question no one ever asks you?

JH: Haha, that question right there. Most people ask me, “What’s your favorite beer?” or “Which beer have you tweaked the most?” But I think what’s overlooked is how much you learn from brewing on different systems. Each one teaches you something new, and that knowledge really helps you dial in your process.

UILTJE: This pub has an incredible set-up. What do you got, like 20 taps?

JH: 24, including a cask handle for an English Bitter.

UILTJE: What’s on tap now?

JH: We’re pretty lager heavy right now—about 6 or 7 of them. We’re also in fresh hop season, so we’ve got four fresh hop beers on tap with two more coming. There’s a Japanese rice lager with honey, a Saison with honey, plus our other pub staples and core brands like Fresh Squeezed IPA, Black Butte Porter, King Crispy German Pilsner and Fresh Haze.

UILTJE: How many mainline brands does Deschutes carry?

JH: Our total portfolio is probably around 20, but our mainline brands sit closer to seven or eight.

UILTJE: How many collabs do you do each year here?

JH: About five to ten, including brewers and ingredient-focused groups like the National Honey Board. I love working with hop growers, malt producers and unique ingredients.

UILTJE: Today we’re brewing a Helles Lager. That was a specific request from Paddi because it’s a style we are eager to explore more in Haarlem.

JH: This is a Helles with a twist – we’re using a single hop, Dolcita. We’ve never brewed one like it. Our original idea was to do a fresh hop version, but we missed the harvest window by about a week. So Paddi proposed a Helles Lager, and I was all in. It’s tough to break out of the norm in Portland’s craft scene, so doing something fresh is always a win. We’ve used Dolcita in hazy IPAs and West Coast styles, but never in a lager, and never as a single-hop lager. I’ve tasted a few single-hop lagers with Dolcita and they’re phenomenal. I’m excited to see how this one turns out.

UILTJE: Do you get to travel a lot for collabs, or do most of them happen here in Portland?

JH: Most brewers want to come here because of our system. Clay and I have a green light, but honestly we rarely get to go out and sip beers at other breweries, We’ve done a few international collabs and I’d love to do more abroad—The Netherlands sounds like a great destination.

UILTJE: It’s lovely in the spring.

JH: Sounds great, let’s do it.

UILTJE: You’ve been at Deschutes for 25 years, is there still more to learn?

JH: Always. That’s the beauty of brewing. The science keeps evolving, and there’s always something new. For me, the biggest learning comes from exploring different brew systems and seeing how they’re engineered. I’ve brewed on 10 to 12 different kits, and each one has its quirks.

UILTJE: How much creative freedom do you have to brew what you like?

JH: Total freedom—within cost considerations, of course. We’re essentially an R&D brewery here, so we get to experiment and go wild. We’ve brewed everything from Bloody Mary and Margarita Sours to all kinds of offbeat styles. That’s the best part of the job: we’re not locked into pumping out the same beers. We can test, tweak and see what resonates with the public.

UILTJE: What’s your take on the current state of the craft beer market? Oversupply of hops, too many breweries?

JH: It’s a bit of both. There’s definitely an excess of some raw materials because the industry has shrunk a bit. Younger generations are shifting toward flavored malt beverages, cider and seltzers. Smaller breweries with niche portfolios—like all-Belgian or wild beers—are struggling to hold onto their audience. We’ve adapted by exploring non-alcoholic options and tailoring our portfolio to younger drinkers by scaling back our core craft beer portfolio and making a big push into non-alcoholic beer—it’s a growing segment. We recently introduced Anytime Hard Lemonade to our portfolio and our pub guests loved it.

UILTJE: How about hop water? JH: Hop water is interesting, but I think it’s better suited for companies with strong analytical backing. A company like BarthHaas has the science to support iso extraction and hop oils. Craft breweries don’t have the same resources, and I don’t see a huge market for hop water in our space. If younger drinkers are moving away from craft beer, hops might be part of the reason. So replacing beer with hop-flavored water and no alcohol? I’m not sure where the draw is.

UILTJE: Is the oversupply of hops affecting innovation?

JH: Possibly. There’s a ton of new hop products—oils, extracts—and I wonder if that’s tied to the surplus of leaf and pellet hops. These new formats give brewers better yield than traditional T90 pellets, and growers might be able to produce more efficiently. We’ve continued to experiment with alternative hops products and started using them in production and development beers.

UILTJE: Deschutes has been around for 37 years. How do you balance legacy with innovation?

JH: Deschutes has done an excellent job balancing legacy and innovation. A legacy beers like Black Butte Porter, which we introduced back in 1988, is #1 in the Porter category in the US. When we began investing in non-alc beer a handful of years ago, we introduced Black Butte Non-Alcoholic. It’s now the fastest selling non-alc 6-pack in the country. Our Non-Alcoholic Fresh Squeezed IPA is crushing it as well.

UILTJE: And then you’re competing with breweries that have been acquired by larger companies and often larger marketing budgets.

JH: That’s true, we’re one of the largest independently owned breweries in the US. We do have smaller budgets than some of the publicly-traded breweries, but our focus remains on innovation.

UILTJE: Let’s talk about some of your bigger collaborations. You work with Patagonia and sell beer through Costco. How do those partnerships come about?

JH: We were grateful to be asked by Costco to produce some of their brands and are honored to have the Deschutes Brewery name featured on them. Patagonia Provisions wanted to scale their taproom program and find a mission-aligned brewing partner to brew packaged beer for nationwide availability. We have the organic certification and believe in the mission of increasing the use of regenerative and organic ingredients within the industry. Today we have three USDA Certified Organic beers in partnership with them, two of which are non-alcs. Our Patagonia Provisions Non-Alcoholic Organic Golden won a gold medal at the 2024 GABF competition in the Specialty Non-Alcoholic Beer Category.

UILTJE: Was the Kirkland beer a new recipe or something you’d already developed?

JH: It came from our lager program, which started with King Crispy—a German pilsner we brewed for a competition hosted by Bitburger and Prost. We won and got sent to Germany for a two-week collab. That beer kicked off our Crispy line: King Crispy, Ludwig Von Crispy, Contessa Crispy and Prinz Crispy. Prinz Crispy won gold at The Great American Beer Festival three years ago, and that’s the beer that became the Kirkland Signature Helles Lager. We’ve stayed true to the original recipe and ingredients.

UILTJE: Where do you see the craft beer industry in five years?

JH: That’s a tough one. It really depends on younger beer drinkers and how many breweries can stay afloat. We’ve seen exponential growth, then furloughs, and now—post-COVID—it feels like things are leveling out. The industry’s adaptability is what gives me hope.

UILTJE: And Deschutes specifically—what’s the five-year outlook?

JH: We are in a solid position for the next five years with an exciting and diverse portfolio of liquid offerings.