Out of the 14 Oregon breweries that won medals at the recent Great American Beer Festival one in particular stood out - a Silver medal for Crowing Hen Brewing of Carlton, Oregon. This pandemic born new brewery just got started in March of 2021 in an area less than an hour from Portland but off the beaten path and radar of most of the beer industry… until now.

Crowing Hen co-owner/brewer Ryan Rhea and his wife Michelle entered this years GABF competition on a whim, just so that they could say they did and give Ryan an excuse to get out of town to Denver for a few days.

“I never thought our our name would show on the winners list next to breweries we idolized for so many years. For our brewery only being open for 5 months now, its amazing!,” says Rhea.

The beer that won was Crowing Hen French Prairie Saison, a deceptively simple beer that is a good barometer for what to expect from the brewery.

“Our secret is all of our beers are simple,” says Rhea. “Our saison is the same. 2-row and white wheat made up the grain bill, Crystal hops, pink peppercorns and a French saison yeast.” And that’s pretty much it, they don’t even bother to tap into the glycol to control temperature during fermentation, instead they just let the yeast do it’s thing as it rises up to nearly 85 degrees in the fermenter naturally.

Although Crowing Hen is technically a farmhouse brewery that just won a medal for a saison, farmhouse beers are not their focus. Ryan and Michelle Rhea moved to Oregon from San Jose, California about 5 years ago seeking a quieter life to raise a family. Opening a family friendly brewery on a hop farm had been a dream since shortly after Michelle’s father introduced Ryan to homebrewing in 2005. Michelle had grown up homebrewing with her father Paul, and that new mutual connection lead to them all making the move to Oregon where Paul often helps out in the brewhouse.

The Rhea’s purchased a 67 acre farm where they could live and take on small scale farming operations with a brewery and taproom attached. They had no real farming experience, but felt connected to the DIY lifestyle that is as challenging as it is rewarding. The family is learning and adapting while the kids get to grow up on a farm where life lessons are plentiful, and Rhea gets to walk to work across his own property to the crowing of the hens (actually chickens as he later learned) in the front yard.

“Sometimes, it is hard to work where you live. There is always something that we need to or should be doing. It is so easy to walk down to grab something and disappear for a few hours in a project,” he says. One of those big projects is hop farming on the property. Between the 1/4 mile gravel driveway from Abbey road to the Crowing Hen taproom is a young 1 acre pilot yard of hops that they plan to expand to 15. The focus is on classic old school hop varieties: Cascade, Centennial, Crystal, Comet, Mt. Hood, Triumph and Chinook. They want to use as much of the estate grown hops as they can in their own beers, and then to pelletize and sell the hops that they don’t use. The remaining farm land can be used to grow other ingredients that end up in their beers, similar to the late great Agrarian Ales of Coburg, Oregon. “How cool would it be to have small blocks of stone fruits, cherries, grapes and even grain grown right here on the farm” remarks Rhea.

The estate grown ingredients have proven difficult to start with, to say the least. “This year was really tough for us. The yields were down due to the hit we took during the heat dome. Luckily we had a couple of varieties that did much better than others.” More positively, Crowing Hen was able to run a 50 year old Wolf harvester again for the first time this harvest. “This was the first year that we were able to produce a 100% estate fresh hop beer.”

Crowing Hen Brewing is well worth a visit when in the Newberg/McMinnville area, a quiet drive down Abbey Road is earmarked by a hand painted wood sign indicating where to turn off, you can see a budding hop farm and the large red barn next to the family home in the distance. The unsuspecting exterior opens into a surprisingly bright, open and modern taproom with brewhouse prominently on display.

On our visit there were 9 housemade beers on tap, most brewed in a clean and straighforward manner that fans of uncomplicated beer will appreciate. The styles are fairly wide, starting off with the lightest beer a pleasantly traditional 4% abv Berliner Weisse that was free of fruit or syrups. From there it ranges from the approachable McKenzie Pale Ale which shows off a brand new Willamette Valley grown hop variety called McKenzie, to a 7.8% Double IPA with Citra, Cascade and Ekuanot hops. Hazy beers are not ignored, though brewed with a level of restraint rarely seen in major markets. And neither are hoppy lagers, the Hoppy Day Pils IPA is 7% and hopped with Chinook, Citra and Mosaic.

Rhea likes to focus on the water as the base of every beer, he begins by stripping everything out of the water and then rebuiilding the profile based on the specific style of each brew. Crowing Hen brews on a 5bbl steam powered brewhouse from Portland Kettle Works with a 3 vessel brewhouse, 4 fermenters, 1 brite tank, and 1 horizontal lagering tank. He keeps the new system polished and on display behind the taproom bar, and is proud of the clear piping and to the chain disks that show to the public how the grain works it’s way from the mill room to the grist.

All the beers can be enjoyed indoors at a bar stool or barrel table, but would be best taken out back to one of the most gorgeous and quiet patios in the valley. This extensive, partially covered by awning, and part grassy park like setting is filled with distanced tables, lawn games and a view down to an extended tree line, a small irrigation lake and pond on the property with a tiny boat house. The taproom is a popular attraction with locals who have heard about their casual but clean atmosphere and beers, and the place fills up after work and for family outings on the weekends.

Rhea makes just enough beer for the tasting room, and uses a two head can filler to stock their cooler with 16oz cans to go. So far they have had slow but steady success even through the pandemic but hope that with their heavy new Silver medal from the Great American Beer Festival more people will hear about Crowing Hen and make the visit. They are considering testing out some local distribution to restaurants in Coburg and Newberg, but have no huge aspirations of expansion. Afterall, they came to the Willamette Valley to get away and live a quieter life with the hens, kids, and hops.

Crowing Hen Brewery

10282 NE Abbey Rd. Carlton, OR 97111
Tel: 971-501-8584
https://www.crowinghen.com/

Tasting Room Hours:

Thursday 3 - 7pm

Friday      3 - 7pm

Saturday  11 - 7pm

Sunday     11 - 5pm