While Oregon has long been known for its craft beer scene, as tastes change and sales dip, breweries around the state are shutting down. In 2024 alone, 35 breweries or taprooms in Oregon have closed their doors.
Owners of a Lane County brewery think they’ve found a path to stability, even among nationwide trends of declining craft beer sales and young people drinking less alcohol.
For Brian Coombs, this stability lies about 20 miles southwest of Eugene, along Territorial Highway, which winds through the fields and woodland of rural Lane County.
Coombs is the director of operations and co-founder of Alesong Brewing & Blending, which specializes in small-batch barrel aged beer. Their countryside brewery is a small wooden building at the top of a hill. It has a patio of picnic tables and is decorated with glowing string lights. It’s homey, casual, and last year, won a national accolade.
The Great American Beer Fest is one of the largest beer competitions in the United States, and Coombs said it’s also one of the most competitive.
At the 2024 competition, Alesong took home the title of “Best Brewery” for its size category.
Alesong doesn’t follow the same business model as some other breweries. For instance, they don’t make two popular styles of beer: American light lagers or Northwest IPA’s. They also don’t distribute all of their beers, with some drinks only available to try on site at their brewery.
Despite—or perhaps because of–these limitations, Alesong isn’t facing the same challenges as many other breweries around Oregon, and is taking home awards instead of shutting their doors.
Aged to perfection
Coombs started Alesong nine years ago with his business partner, Matt Van Wyk. They worked at Oakshire Brewing in Eugene and bonded over a shared dream: producing barrel-aged beers. It’s a unique product that most craft breweries don’t specialize in.
“In a manufacturing environment, that happens on nights and weekends,” Coombs said. “We really just wanted to focus exclusively on these long maturation and long processed beers.”
The difference between barrel-aged beer and other brews is the time it takes to ferment.
Lagers and IPA’s can be fermented and ready for distribution in about three weeks. The timeline for an Alesong beer is much longer.
“Any of our beer's primary fermentation happens for about a month to six weeks, and then it goes down and rests in oak for anywhere from another 6, 7 months to three, four years,” Coombs said.
Rather than solely fermenting in metal vats, the beers at Alesong also spend time in wooden barrels. While the lengthy process limits the amount of beer Alesong can produce, it offers a connection to the industry’s origins.
“This type of brewing–small, local, doing it out in the country like this–this is how brewing started,” Van Wyk said. “The farmhouse brewing philosophy is something we hold dear to our hearts.”
Barrel aging is also a crucial part of developing unique flavor profiles. The process is different for each kind of beer. Coombs said that for bolder stouts aged in bourbon barrels, fermentation can mean infusing the beer with flavor from the spirit. For sour beers, Alesong utilizes locally-sourced whole fruit to create the primary flavor notes.
“We work with farmers to get fruit at peak ripeness, so that when a peach or a pinot noir grape is at peak ripeness, the sugars in there are strong and nature knows that the sugars are there,” Coombes said. “That's when yeast and bacteria start to populate on the skins.”
The fruit goes into the beer: bacteria, wild yeast and all.
“What you ended up with was a really complex beer with varying levels of acidity, varying levels of fruit character,” Coombs said.
Coombs and Van Wyk call their process part of the “slow beer” movement, comparing it to the slow food movement, which prioritizes taking the extra production time to source healthy products from local food systems at fair wages.
Their products are unique, and aren’t like other beers available in cans or on tap. Coombs said that interactions with first-time customers are some of his favorite moments on the job.
“In the tasting room when somebody comes in and is like ‘I don't like beer.’” Coombs said. “It can potentially blow people's minds when they come out and it's like ‘This is all beer? It doesn't taste like beer!’”
Hops and hurdles in the PNW
Alesong’s success is coming despite a challenging time for the industry as a whole in Oregon.
Lisa Allen is the vice president of the Oregon Brewers Guild and owns Heater Allen Brewing in McMinnville. She said that there has been a distinct decline in sales since the pandemic.
“People in general aren’t buying as much beer as they once were,” Allen said.
She noted that changes in consumer habits and new tariffs on aluminum make it hard to predict what comes next.
Still, Oregon brewers are remaining resilient.
“People prepare for the worst, but also ‘what can we do to make this work?’” Allen said. “Finding the next thing to make your business successful.”
Brewing up community
Alesong found an answer to Allen’s question: use a different business model.
Fans of Alesong beers can join their “Blenders Circle,” or a paid-membership to what Coombs calls a“beer club.” Members get exclusive beer releases, menu discounts, and invitations to tasting events.
“We have this core group of consumers that are really bought into what we do,” Coombs said.
Though, it’s not the easy way out. Operating the club and coordinating member events takes more effort than if Alesong were to sell more, simpler produced beer.
“It’s a ton of work. It’s way easier to load a pallet into the back of a semi and wave goodbye as a distributor sells it,” Coombs said “But this is way more gratifying.”
Maintaining this club has insulated Alesong from trends that offset sales, like the rising popularity of seltzers and non-alcoholic beer. It’s also cultivated a stable group of fans who can appreciate having a cold beer on Alesong’s patio at the top of the hill. Coombs is satisfied with its size, with no plans to expand their production.
“If we could take over the world, we totally would! But by the nature of this style of beer, it’s a niche of a niche,” Coombs said.
While world domination isn’t at the forefront of its business plan, international expansion does remain in the cards.
This year, Alesong has seen success in the Brewers Association International Export Development Program. They shipped 750 cases of their imperial stout, Rhino Suit, to Sweden. Coombs said that exporting products is something he would like to continue in the future.
