Craft lagers and cider will share a home at Working Hands Fermentation and Slopeswell Cider in Hood River’s heights

Hood River, Oregon is getting it’s fifth brewery later this year with the opening of Working Hands Beer. The new brewing project comes from former Ferment Brewing head brewer Kasey McCullough and Slopeswell Cider Co. which will share the same space and will open an umbrella taproom called The Heights.

Like the rest of the industry, Working Hands Fermentation have adjusted their business model because of the pandemic. Switching from primarily on-premise draft to a primarily self-distributed and to-go operation with plans for a locals centric taproom that can host events as it gets safer to do so.

Working Hands will launch cans right out of the gate with End of Shift Pilsner, Freshet Helles Lager, and Big Egos IPA. Down the line there are plans for Vienna Lager, Kölsch, Dunkel, Heffeweisen, Northwest Pale Ale and of course a Hazy IPA. In the winter, McCullough looks forward to darker lagers like Baltic Porter.

An Oregon native and Oregon State University fermentation studies graduate, McCullough started off in the industry interning in the lab at Ninkasi Brewing, eventually working his way up to production. After that he finished a brewing degree at the Siebel Institute in Chicago and ended up brewing at The Pearl in San Antonio, TX.

After a few years in Texas, McCullough was missing the northwest, so he took a job at the new at the time Wild Ride Brewing in Redmond, Oregon. But after a few years in central Oregon, McCullough was looking for a brewing gig that was more in line with his personal interests, and that’s how he ended up at Ferment Brewing in Hood River, Oregon.

“I wanted an opportunity to brew beers that fit my skill set better, so I started looking for another opportunity and Ferment popped up,” says McCullough. “I jumped at that opportunity to come up to the gorge and start something that was going to have some product diversity with even the beer styles to kombucha.”

Though Ferment Brewing may be best known for their polished 2nd floor brewpub and GABF gold medal winning Pale Ale, they also developed a separate kombucha brand from 5 gallon batches to a production facility and bottling. It’s one of the accomplishments McCullough is most proud of, and if you have had Ferment Brewing’s Pilsner you may have some idea what’s in store at Working Hands Fermentation.

 “Something was always missing for me, and that was ownership and freedom to be myself as a brewer.   I saw an opportunity to realize my dream, start my own, and bring real lagers to the gorge as the feature of my brewery,” says McCullough.

Slopeswell Cider has functioned as a small gorge cidery since 2015, but found their interests aligned with McCullough as the cidery’s neighboring space became available. McCollough was familiar with the cidery from his side work consulting, and they decided a partnership would be mutually beneficial. The new operational group is now under one parent company, each operating their own DBA’s for Slopeswell and Working Hands. The partnership will allow both to diversify and share assets, like a taproom and production areas.

“We came in and completely gutted the production space, reconfigured it to minimize any crossover of production.  We didn't have to wall off the production spaces from each other, as we got an alternating premise license.  Its something that Double Mountain had done when they first launched cider,” says McCullough on the build out and installation of a brewery under a cidery’s roof.

After working through an amendment process on their licensing with the Tobacco and Tax Bureau (TTB) both brands will operate under an alternating premise license. A 4.5 bbl brewhouse and 8bbl tanks from Prospero Equipment’s Mcminnville facility is already near to becoming operational with minor electrical work still ongoing.

The small but complex brewhouse has a mash tun mixer, auto grain out, and is piped for decoction mashes and can handle intricate step mashing programs. That’s all technical speak for traditionally complex German lager brewing techniques that are not often adhered to by American brewers.

“Ken Kluse of Redwood Mechanical is a mechanical genius in this industry and has set up the glycol system to power everything in the building, and enabling me to run out of the kettle to the temps I need to properly lager.  It’s a lot of crazy cool automation for such a compact system,” says McCullough excitedly.

Slopeswell Cider and Working Hands Fermentation plan to embrace their location up the hill and off the popular tourist heavy area of downtown Hood River, and use it as an opportunity to re-imagine themselves with COVID-19. Slopeswell is already shipping their ciders via VinoShipper, and the united taproom space will be set up for touchless pickup.

The Heights Taproom will unite the the beer and cider with a kitchen leased to local food trucks. The plan is to open with a grab-and-go menu, single entrance and exit, and plenty of space to spread out. They will be open for seated service and have a new back patio with a filtered view of Mt. Adams, and they hope to use the outdoor area to host movie screenings and other community events.

“This is a pub that is in a locals neighborhood.  The waterfront and downtown were built for the tourist industry.  It's not that we don't have tourists up throughout the heights, but the environment is quite a bit different.  A lot more laid back, and that is something that we all embrace,” says McCullough.

Working Hands Fermentation is on track to begin brewing this month with their initial lagers hitting cans as early as this November. http://www.workinghandsbeer.com/