Von Ebert Brings Lager Love to the Forefront
Since transitioning from the Fat Heads brand in 2018, Von Ebert Brewing has emerged as one of Portland’s most respected breweries with a diverse roster of IPAs, wild ales, stouts, and everything else in between. But there is one style of beer that the brewery – which has taprooms in the Pearl District and at the Glendoveer golf course – has been quietly making their primary focus: lager. Though Von Ebert has kept a handful of lagers on their taplist since opening, they have been mostly overlooked compared to their award-winning IPAs and wild ales.
Like most breweries, the pandemic forced Von Ebert to expand their canned offerings and suddenly it seemed like they were dropping a seemingly constant flow of lagers that balance innovation and tradition. They may have brewed them regularly before, but packaging and distributing their lagers has put Von Ebert in front of more beer drinkers than ever before and the timing couldn’t be better.
In the craft beer scene, lager is having a moment. This could be a sort of rebuttal to the over-the-top, palette-blasting pastry stouts, hazy IPAs and combustible puree bombs that lure in casual beer drinkers and pay the bills for many breweries. In contrast to those beers, lagers offer a beer flavor that feels pure, drinkable, and perhaps most importantly, adult. Just like the food scene has seen more care and respect for quality ingredients, the same can be said for lagers, and many breweries are elevating the beer using top notch ingredients that offer a rebuke to the mass-produced piss water most people associate with the style. In Oregon, breweries like Wayfinder and Heater Allen have championed lagers, while breweries like Chuckanut in Washington have garnered enough awards to put the Pacific Northwest on the map. Whatever it may be that has led to this renewed respect and adoration for the style, everyone can agree that there has never been a better time to be a lager lover.
For Von Ebert Head Brewer Sam Pecoraro and Lead Brewer and Blender at Glendoveer Jason Hansen, lager breweries in the Northwest served as a major inspiration for the careful and passionate approach that they now take.
“I was living in Ohio at the time. This was about twelve years ago, and I'd never heard of an all lager craft brewery before and a brewery popped up outside Portland, Oregon called Heater Allen and they were just making all lagers. I hadn't really considered that that was a possibility back then. I traded for some beer and got them out to Ohio, tasted it, and I think that was kind of my aha moment,” says Pecoraro, who also cites pFriem as another brewery that showed him the lager light. “pFriem showed that you could stick to having a pilsner as a flagship and being really successful.”
Jason Hansen, who previously brewed at Bellingham, Washington’s Garden Path Fermentation, cites Chuckanut as a major inspiration in their focus on the “sort of precision and just the minute variables that go into making German style lagers.”
Von Ebert may not get as much hype as the aforementioned breweries, but anyone who has been paying close attention to their lineup of beers can tell you that they have quietly become one of the more impressive lager breweries in the Northwest even though this has been a focus since day one.
“We really set out to have a large portion of our portfolio be lagers. But I think, honestly, a lot of people didn't really notice until we started putting everything in the package. Just being on draft in-house doesn't really get you the recognition or people don't recognize it, I guess,” says Pecoraro.
Hansen also points out that the first beer they brewed at Von Ebert Glendoveer was a German pilsner, which came out of the desire of the brewers. “Everybody just loves drinking lager and they're really interesting beers for us to make and drink.”
While their takes on traditional styles like French and Italian pilsners, Vienna lager and German pilsner are all impeccably faithful and worth seeking out, the brewery has placed equal focus on exploring fresh takes on the style. They may not have “officially” brewed edgier takes on the style like cold IPA, but Von Ebert has been consistently taking their lagers into new territory. You can see this in their exceptional Moteuka pils, dry-hopped with Southern Hemisphere hops, and their American pilsner series, which finds the brewers using modern hops that may be more associated with West Coast and hazy IPAs to create something that tastes totally different.
“Since lagers are typically pretty clean, base beers, you kind of get to really know these new hops in different ways,” says Hansen.
They have also taken a card from brewing their award-winning IPAs and applied it to lagers, and the American series crosses over with dry-hopping techniques and other hop-forward processes. Pecoraro plans to take things even farther. “I think the big one for me is taking a lot of newer hop products and incorporating them into these beers, like co2 extract, Lupomax or cryo T 45 pellets, and trying to figure out how those work in these beers and how we can take advantage of those new technologies.”
All of this bodes well for not just fans of Von Ebert, but also for those of us savoring this lager-centric moment in craft beer when we are seeing a huge output of drinkable, moreish beers from breweries who are equally focused on tradition and innovation. Fans of Von Ebert’s IPAs and wild ales also don’t need to worry about a complete takeover of lagers happening anytime soon as Pecoraro and Hansen assure us that those beers are still an important part of their roster. But with a regular offering of several traditional and modern lagers, not to mention a slightly more affordable price point than breweries like Wayfinder and Chuckanut, it may be this style that truly puts Von Ebert on the map. Beer drinkers have clearly been responding well, as the brewery just announced plans for expansion (link to new school article). This may be because a lager tends to be the biggest testament to the strength of a brewery. Jansen sums this up: “If every brewery in this town and in this country can make a great, I think that's a win for everyone. That's a win for consumers that’s a win for brewers.”
