West Coast Grocery Brewing is closing after 4 years

On July 26th 2022 exactly 4 years to the date since West Coast Grocery brewing company celebrated their grand opening at 1403 SE Stark in Portland, Oregon we announce their impending closure. On August 31st the brewpub will close for good joining other recently defunct Oregon brands like Vagabond Brewing. After a 2+ renovation, it will reopen under new ownership as Grand Fir Brewing from Whitney Burnside and Doug Adams.

The embattled brewpub was one of our most anticipated new openings of both 2017 and then again in 2018 after over a year of construction delays. Owner Charlie Hyde even chronicled that difficult opening process in not one, but two different guest articles for the New School.

Charlie Hyde was a homebrewer and beer geek, eager to start his own business back then. He had just graduated with an MBA in entrepreneurship and began looking for a brand identity. At first he planned to call it Bodega Beer, inspired by his family history owning and operating a successful northwest produce empire called West Coast Grocery, and the latter is the name they eventually settled on.

antique shopping carts as art installation by Allison Hyde in West Coast Grocery’s Portland brewpub

“My great-great grandfather started the company in 1891 and it only recently closed its doors in 1985, a year before I was born,” said Hyde about the original family grocer company in his column for the New School in 2018. “In my grandpa’s hay day we had warehouses ranging from Seattle to Salem, supplying the entire northwest with everything from beer, to apples and furs. At one point WCGCo. was actually the largest employer in Washington State, crazy right? I take incredible pride in the Northwest and the companies that helped us get to where we are today, so I’m humbled to be able to revive the brand and our craft beer division. Yea, our name is a little weird. But so is Portland right?”

Finding the right space was key, he looked at districts with no other breweries around, with lower rents and older buildings. But when he came upon the opportunity to go in at the corner of SE 14th and Stark he felt it was the right fit. A remnant of old Portland that once contained art studios and offices was being deconstructed to the shell and rebuilt as a modern and glassy work and retail space with beautiful storefronts. Hyde knew he would have more competition in the neighborhood, but the lower upfront costs and seismic upgrades built into the improvements sold him on the location. But after nearly a year delay in just the start of construction, he had some regrets as the financial toll of sitting in a holding pattern added up.

West Coast Grocery taproom mural art by Martha Rich

Even though he had a homebrewing background, Hyde knew he didn’t have the experience or bandwidth to brew the beers himself. He wanted someone who was up and coming with a lot of talent and a hunger for greatness. Breakside brewmaster Ben Edmunds introduced him to Steve Balzer, a Seibel brewing institute graduate who was at the time the brewmaster for Laurelwood Brewing. But the more than 10 month delay just to start the buildout for WCGco proved to be even more costly as Balzer received an opportunity to brew in Hawaii that he just couldn’t pass up, and departed Portland before the brewery could open.

That’s when Hyde found Deschutes Brewery Portland Public House brewer Owen Woods, he was young but also experienced. Woods started strong out of the gate when WCG opened in July 2018. The kitchen was humming at WCG, the food was great, bodega vibes and a curious contingent of the neighborhood was stopping in to check out the hottest new brewery in town. Woods first fresh hop beer was awarded a gold medal at the Oregon Beer Awards Fresh Hop competition, and moral at the brewery was high until an incident of alleged sexual harassment went viral on instagram and derailed the brand just as it was beginning to take off.

WCG bartender and server Sarah de Noyo publicly accused brewer Owen Woods of sexual harassment after an after hours incident at the brewery in which he asked to see her breasts. This lead to Woods being suspended, but de Noyo accused the brewery of a cover up and not taking the incident serious enough to fire him after they had so recently built up such a positive buzz for his beers. A few days later as the social media firestorm exploded on instagram, Woods was fired, but it didn’t quell the uproar.

In attempt to take the discussion outside of the toxic vitriol that social media can become, the New School invited both Charlie Hyde and Sara de Noyo to share their sides of the story. In that article (which you can read here) both sides were contentious, but about a week after the interviews were published something changed. Announcing on her (since deleted) instagram account, de Noyo said in part “From here on out, @westcoastgrocerycompany and I are on the same team. My goal in coming forward this entire time was accountability, and we have gotten that and more. Charlie from WCGco and I will be working together to bring awareness to the culture that allowed this to happen, the misogyny within the industry, and how to prevent things like this from ever happening again.”

A series of fundraisers for awareness organizations and open and frank discussions within the beer industry followed.

To some, West Coast Grocery made amends and moved on trying to be a better business. To others, the stain on the reputation was never going to go away. It’s hard to argue that they didn’t try, with various fundraisers and charity events and no other incidents or accusations thereafter that we know of. As one leading woman brewer in the industry put it “if anything their initial missteps and lessons learned pushed the guild and other folks to create resources and be more aware of why HR and employee safety are important.”

West Coast Grocery’s reputation for quality beer never faltered, when brewer Christian Engstrom took the helm he brought years of mastery from his time as a lead brewer for Bridgeport Brewing. On a recent visit the beers were sharp and to style, and his commitment to the quality come through in each and every West Coast Grocery beer up to today.

West Coast Grocery will close their business at the end of August and you can enjoy their beer, ambiance, and eats up until then as they close out the taps. It’s not the last life this space will see, the brewery and taproom will blossom into a new creative endeavor with a fresh start under new ownership and a different brand.