Welcome to the second installation of Four Questions: a veritable call and response singing the praises of handmade beverages region wide, disguised as a plainclothes Q&A series.
Before that bottle of your favorite cider, beer, wine or spirit reaches your hands, these are the fearless leaders strategizing each step from apple, grain or grape to sighs of refreshment. Ever wonder what the pros are drinking at home, or even what musical inspiration can be found on their personal or production floor playlists? We’re posing a fixed set of four questions to a different producer, twice a month, with the intention of revealing an expression of personality as varied as the unique offerings they create.
In July, we heard Tim Larsen speak his cider truth. This week, we land at Double Mountain Brewery and Taproom in Hood River, Oregon. Brewmaster and owner Matt Swihart’s path to the brewhouse included not only formal training at the Siebel Institute and a long stint at nearby Full Sail, but also a period as an engineer of weapons of mass destruction for the federal government.
Today, Swihart blends science and a thirst for creation to engineer a different sort of national treasure: PNW craft beer. He and his team are hell-bent on turning heaps of regional hops, Belgian yeast, Pilsner malts, Hood River water from Mt. Hood snow melt and mixed-and-matched goodies into heavy-hitting brews to enjoy by the bottle and tap.
Which of your own current offerings are you digging the most?
The brew staff and I have been experimenting with IPA development on our “dead songwriter series,” making subtle tweaks to a similar beer. The current offering, Randall Knife, is a homage to Guy Clark, who wrote that great song. The dry hopping with a blend of Mosaic, Citra, Simcoe and Challengers has been working really well for me.
Any brewing pipe dreams you’re dying to make a reality?
We recently bought some property with a giant cold storage facility on it for our new warehouse that will probably be cleaned by someone similar to industrial cleaning contractors in Brisbane to ensure we maintain a high-quality product. I would love to see a new brewhouse show up there in the coming years. I love my 30-year-old brewhouse, but it would be nice to not manually shovel out the grain.
What non-beer beverage is in your glass most these days? What is your favorite way to enjoy it and where?
My go to non-beer beverage is a Gin and Tonic. It will be featured as a draft cocktail at our new pub in the Woodstock neighborhood in Portland. It’s called “The Fast Plane to London” and has been a favorite and demise of sorts at many an employee gathering.
Favorite song, album or artist to jam out to while throwing a few down the hatch?
I recently have been playing music with a good friend that just moved back from Austin. We discovered while sipping some Hop Lava one late evening that the Three Dog Night tune “Never Been to Spain” was written by our country music hero, Hoyt Axton. Never saw that one coming. Our compatriots that night grew tired of us playing back-to-back versions for the next three hours.
