Brewed by Gnomes & Faeries old world kitchen and brewery opens on southeast Hawthorne
Brewed by Gnomes owner Shay Hosseinion on the steps of his new restaurant Gnome & Faerie
When the gnomes speak, it’s best to listen. Since he started brewing under the fitting name Brewed By Gnomes nearly a decade ago, Shay Hosseinion has listened to what the gnomes tell him to do. Now, those gnomes have guided him to take his nano, somewhat nomadic brewing operation to the next level with the newly opened Gnome & Faerie on Portland’s bustling Hawthorne Boulevard. Described by the gnome-obsessed brewer (more on that later) as an old World Restaurant and Botanical Taproom, the gorgeous old Victorian home that previously housed Tarboush Lebanese Bistro is an ideal space for Hosseinion to showcase his elixir-inspired beers, cocktails, and non-alcoholic beverages alongside a menu of drinking snacks that fuses his Persian heritage with wife Eva’s Czech roots and the culinary prowess of chef José Sabas.
Gnome & Faerie held its soft opening in April of this year and has since been operating on a somewhat low-key basis as Hosseinion gets his brewing operation dialed in and chef Sabas refines the menu. Visitors during the last few months may have found one or two Brewed By Gnomes beers available alongside several guest taps. On Saturday, July 11th, the business will hold its grand opening party, complete with a new beer release and a costume party. And yes, dressing as a gnome or a fairy is highly recommended.
For roughly 15 years, Hosseinion has been brewing his own beer and kombucha. Sometimes he has done this with others, including putting in time as an intern at the Commons Brewery working under people like Sean Burke. This was where he fell in love with saison and farmhouse beers, and may have discovered what became both a passion and a career in working with plants.
“Even though I did the traditional [brewing] training, whenever I made beer for myself, it always had herbs in it. There was a beer called Fleur de Fern [at the Commons]. It was a dark farmhouse ale, and it had lavender in it [with hibiscus and chamomile]. They were doing their own botanical experiments even though their flagship was just the urban farmhouse ale. As a homage to them, I'm using that yeast in my first beer,” says Hosseinion, who managed to hold onto the Commons yeast and is brewing his own dark farmhouse ale with it.
He put in time brewing at Max’s Fano Creek Brew Pub (now Cooper Mountain Ale Works) and devoted himself to studying the craft. Starting his own project known as Brewed By Gnomes over a decade ago allowed him to combine his creative approach and obsessive focus on plants and herbs with brewing while also leaning into his lifelong love of gnomes. His “gnome ales” continued to evolve as he brewed beers like a honeysuckle hazy IPA and a linden flower unfiltered lager.
“Whenever I made my first homebrew beer in 2011, for some reason, it was a no-brainer. I was like, which herbs am I gonna put in it? So I was kind of thinking already, and I put some fennel, and I think I made a fennel and a rose hip blond ale,” he says. “The botanical aspect really stuck with me.”
While Brewed By Gnomes has been a fairly low-key affair in the last several years, with beers occasionally appearing on tap at a handful of local bars and Hosseinion even hosting a pop-up at Tabor Bread (when it was located in what is now TPK Brewing), it has mostly flown under the radar. This may be partially due to the fact that Hosseinion doesn’t have his own facility and these days brews intermittently out of Leikem Brewing, but also due to the fact that Hosseinion’s day job is working as a doctor out of the same house that is now home to his taproom. Yet, through it all, Hosseinion felt like there was enough interest in his weirdly delicious brews to go all-in on a taproom where he can provide Portland with a regular destination to drink them.
By his own account, he says the “gnomes made us hibernate until it was ready to launch.” This meant waiting out the lease for the restaurant tenant while operating his medical practice Elderflower Medicine out of the upper floor of the building and working as a pediatric and adult health practitioner specializing in, you guessed it, holistic medicine, herbal remedies, and elixirs. For Hosseinion, his chosen profession as an herbal family doctor directly informs and inspires his work as a brewer and, now, his second profession as a restaurateur. He sees similarities between the way he doses herbs for ailments and how he uses them to craft a flavor profile for a beer. This is especially visible in the menu of cocktails and non-alcoholic elixirs, including his kombucha made with honey instead of sugar and featuring rose petals and hops, and the “Faerie Baddie Potion” made using dry cider, port wine, and cherry tarragon cardamom shrub.
When it comes to the beer, Hosseinion has no plans to install a full-on brewery in the current space and aims to continue brewing out of Leikem. This is where things get interesting. “I'm going to brew there, and then I've got two tanks; one tank is in the basement here, and it's gonna be kind of like a mobile tank I can either use as a fermentation tank or a bright tank. It's like kind of fermenting it, rolling it into the walk-in cooler, and then have it become a bright tank and just serve right off of it,” he says, noting that he plans to drive the tanks from Leikem’s brewhouse back to Gnome & Faerie.
With his beers, Hosseinion aims to strike the balance between weird and approachable. Even classic styles that contain herbal additions can be enjoyed by less adventurous beer drinkers, or at least that is the goal. In the past, this has meant beers like a cherry blossom pilsner, elderflower elderberry IPA, lemon balm infusions, and mugwort and cardamom dark ales. Hosseinion is especially excited to release “For The Love of Orange,” a barrel-aged spiced ale brewed with fresh strawberries and cardamom, similar to a tart farmhouse ale, as well as a herb-laden dunkel.
Much of the magic that Gnome & Faerie aims to cultivate centers around their culinary program helmed by José Sabas, a talented chef who has studied in places like Berlin, put in time at Los Angeles’ supremely hip brunch spot SQRL, and worked at acclaimed Portland spots like G-Love as well as the short-lived but highly underrated wine and tweaked-out tapas bar Grape Ape. Hosseinion originally envisioned Gnome & Faerie as hosting chef residencies that would change after a certain length of time, but after meeting Sabas, he decided he would bring him on as the main fit after they bonded over a love of the kind of old-world European food Hosseinion enjoyed while visiting the Czech Republic.
“Monday we talked, Tuesday we agreed. Wednesday he made the menu. Thursday, he prepped, Friday, we opened,” he says.
The menu at Gnome & Faerie is aimed at being on the snackier side, with dishes well-suited for sharing and crafted to be complementary to beers and elixirs. Each offering fuses Hosseinion’s Persian background, Eva’s Czech roots, and chef Sabas’ love for both local, seasonal ingredients and old-world cuisine. Initially, he thought he might be able to execute the menu on his own, but Sabas helped him dial it in and get it to a place that is both delicious and works remarkably well with the beverage menu.
“I was like, Eva's Czech, she'll make goulash. I'm Persian, I'll make Persian kebabs. I was like, we'll make Persian kebabs and goulash. as the food. Worst case scenario, we'll get a cook to execute the simple menu. I told that to Jose; he's like, ‘the concept is interesting. I like the idea of leaning into your cultural background and then making it Northwest style, seasonal, sort of like farm to table,’” he says.
This concept shines on dishes like burrata served over luscious apricot butter and seasoned with dried black lime and walnut dukkah, or a refreshing little gem salad with the unexpected addition of crunchy hakurei turnips, sweep snap peas, and a tahini-based dressing, or a hearty sausage dish featuring kielbasa over a bed of plump and flavor-packed barlotti beans and fennel that is a fun riff on dishes like currywurst. The dessert is a major standout as the chef offers his take on the Persian saffron rice pudding known as Sholeh by serving the electrifying yellow dish with hazelnuts, fermented strawberries, and mint leaves to make for an immensely satisfying and not cloyingly sweet finisher.
Hosseinion can often be seen walking around the taproom in his signature pointy red hat that is not unlike what many of us associate with the stereotypical white-bearded gnome that adorns lawns and gardens. The space at Gnome & Faerie is painted in a vibrant yellow and is decorated with fantastical art that serves as a homage to gnome love as well as the fairies that sometimes come into these worlds. There is a gorgeous art piece by his wife that evokes picturesque nature, and even the name is something of a nod to their relationship. If you look around, you will spot little gnome doors tucked in the space’s corners. Gnome & Faerie is also ramping up events, playing host to Timba dancing and providing a space for a group turning fluffy wool into mushrooms, berries, bugs, creatures, and gaming.
Once his operation is fully up and running with a regular brew schedule, Hosseinion hopes to have around six to eight taps of Brewed By Gnomes beer available at all times. For now, he is keeping his day job and is sticking to the weekend-only hours of being open, but that could change in the future. Nonetheless, Gnome & Faerie makes a fascinating addition to the Portland beer and food scene with offerings that go well beyond tradition. For Hosseinion, that has always been the point. When the gnomes speak, he listens.
Gnome & Faerie, 3257 SE Hawthorne Blvd Portland, OR 97214
Friday – Sunday 4pm – 9pm
