Grand Fir Brewing owners Whitney Burnside, Doug Adams, introduce new brewer Jake Watt
Cassidy MackRife, Jake Watt, and Whitney Burnside
Grand Fir Brewing wasn’t necessarily looking for a new lead brewer and Trap Door Brewing head brewer Jake Watt wasn’t looking for a new gig. That all changed suddenly on August 6th when Trap Door owner and county council candidate Bryan Shull hosted a right wing political party at the Vancouver, Washington based brewery unbeknownst to the staff. Jake Watt took to social media to express his opposition, hinting that his tenure at Trap Door may be coming to a sudden end.
“I saw the unfortunate news, Jake’s post, and I thought that’s super shitty I can’t imagine what that whole team and Jake is going through. So I reached out to him and said, ‘I don’t know if this is appropriate or not, I’m not sure what your next plan is, but we’d be over the moon to have an opportunity to sit down with you and chat,'“ says Grand Fir Brewing co-founder/brewmaster Whitney Burnside. “Things are getting busier and busier here, and it was honestly perfect timing. He has really made a mark in this industry. He is really well known for his beers, but for his personality and who he is. And I am really excited to see what the next chapter is for Grand Fir with this team of 3 brewers.”
Jake Watt after winning a gold medal in the Fresh Hop category at the 2024 GABF
Jake Watt is an accomplished brewer who came out of the cellar at Buoy Beer to become the head Brewer and multi-Great American Beer Festival gold medal winner at Trap Door Brewing. In 2025, Watt and team racked up Washington Beer Awards gold medals in the hoppy lager and double IPA categories for Day Beer, and Juiced Up, respectively. Over the past few years, Watt has become known as an industry champion and major contender in the friendly West Coast IPA competitions that have developed between California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington with his back-to-back ‘24-’25 GABF gold medals for Fresher than Fresh - Fresh Hop IPA.
“The timing is super crazy and the stars aligning,” says Jake Watt. “I never thought I would leave Trap Door, I have another 25-30 years left of my working life where I hope to get to retire some day. Did I think Trap Door would be around for 30 years, probably not, but there was no thought of leaving ever because we built it and we were excited to keep it going. But my wife was like ‘yeah, you should probably take that job.”
People have been excited to hear where Watt is headed, and for many landing at Grand Fir Brewing is an ideal outcome. Jake lives in Portland despite his tenure and commute to brewing in Washington, and recently purchased a house with his wife Kira.
“I’m like ‘maybe I will get a bike’” says Jake about his newly nearby work at Grand Fir.
“Like a true Portlander” excaims Doug Adams, one half of Grand Fir Brewing’s 2 founders along with his wife Whitney Burnside.
Doug Adams and Whitney Burnside
Grand Fir Brewing added an additional tank room for fermentation space a little over a year ago and has been slowly ramping up production. Still, the brewpub-style brewery cannot meet demand for off-premise wholesale of draft and can’t make enough to regularly can their beers even for the taproom. And yet, Grand Fir continues to enter regional, national, and international competitions bringing back serious medals each time that make their beer even more hyped and in-demand.
“With our expansion of tanks, our brand is also expanding, we are always pushing further and trying to get better every day,” says Whitney Burnside. “We are so proud of what we have created so far at Grand Fir and we are turning 4 in November. We are trying to crank out as much beer as possible, and we’ve got something in the works….”
Jake Watt was at the helm of Trap Door Brewing overseeing not only the big medal wins, but also the expansion from a single Vancouver, WA location producing 800 barrels of beer a year, to a production brewery in Washougal making 2k barrels a year.
“Trying to run an entire marketing and sales thing even though I wasn’t going out in doing sales, its really difficult to do the off floor and on the floor stuff at the same time as good as you want it to be,” says Jake on the big years of growth at Trap Door. “People don’t realize you might be sitting there not doing anything but you are thinking about the next move…what’s this recipe…what’s this this, what’s this that. When you are on the floor you are like ‘I want to do that but I need to CIP this tank because if its not clean for tomorrow then we literally cant make the beer’ so giving her [Whitney Burnside] more time to step into that role more and feel confident in me and Cassidy who has been here for 3+ years now. I am going to learn a lot from both of them to figure out how to accomplish what we want in the next phase of Grand Fir.”
Grand Fir has already established a very high bar after less then 4 years, winning brewery of the year (501-1000 barrels) at the 2024 Great American Beer Festival, and 3 silver medals at this year’s international World Beer Cup. The next challenge is to keep growing incrementally and not just keep the quality up, but get even better.
“We are always pushing to be better, always improving on our craft, and that requires another body that can jam and expand with us,” says Whitney. “I was really looking for that person that had that breadth of knowledge, but that creativity, that skill, and when this opportunity came up I was like that is exactly who I was looking for.”
With Jake in the brewhouse with assistant brewer Cassidy Mackrife, it will let the team focus on the beers and Whitney can turn more attention to the business side and more family time with her and Doug’s daughter.
Doug Adams adds to that, “God its great! Obviously adding a salary to a small business is always a little bit scary. But it doesn’t take a genius to do some math and be like ‘this is what we gotta do.’ Whitney and I have always tried to make things as simple as possible and its certainly time, we are super excited. I am excited to see her more often.”
“As a business owner I have to have some eyes on other things that are not going to be with my boots on. Right now I am fully on the floor, so that will be really nice to be able to do more administrative,” adds Whitney.
“I think it's fair to say that we opened up a very hard business in a very hard time and place when we did in 2022. We were just really thoughtful about growth because a wrong decision here or there in this climate could kill you, so we were just really thoughtful and patient and waited until it was time. Its fun to see that process pay off,” adds Doug Adams. “There will be a lot more Grand Fir beer on the market - more cans! I can promise you that.”
Jake Watt and Whitney Burnside are aligned on many things. They share similar taste in hop varieties, in flavor profiles and beer styles, and hope to work together to establish a new dynamic that will see them winning even more awards in the future as they both have a highly competitive spirit and desire to compete on the highest level in beer competitions. At the GABF awards on October 11th there is a rare opportunity that could see Jake Watt on-stage accepting awards for Trap Door and Grand Fir.
“I will add a little bit for Whitney because she is not going to give herself the credit,” interjects Doug Adams. “You guys are talking strictly as brewers, and Whitney is also one of the sole owners of this company. So aside from just the beer work she is constantly working on being an owner of the entire company. Its a lot from HR to insurance and cash flow and all that. I always remind her that when its award time too, just know that you are not only running the brewery, we have no partners here it is just us. There is a lot of good with that and a lot of stress as well, there is no one to call to say we need more cash in the bank for quarter 3 or quarter 4. Its entirely just us and we are talking about expansion.”
“We are going to learn from each other. Its going to be great,” says Whitney. “I am at a point in my career and as a business owner at Grand Fir where taking this to the next chapter means that I am not passing the baton, I am sharing the baton, I am sharing the helm. I am really excited to create some of the best beer in Oregon.”
“Obviously she has a really high standard here and deservedly so,” says Jake. “I think I am good at making beer and executing, and I can also do all this other stuff I have learned over the years, but being in a position to support and execute their vision is something that is really going to refresh me and fix some of the burnout I have been seeing. Its like just execute this vision and do it to the best we can possibly do it, and that is really exciting for me.”
“I am just thrilled,” adds Whitney. “We talked about this in the interviews, about building a solid team. I think that we are too that point where we can have that and have that team and bounce things off of each other and create some magic. I am really excited to not be the only person creating the beers here. I am very excited to showcase what these guys have up their sleeves.”
Jake Watt officially starts at Grand Fir Brewing on August 28th during their annual hop selection.
“I don’t know if its any better, I get to listen to her and the team talk about what they are looking for in the hops and try to come up with a shared language. Then the rest of the year I will know exactly what we saw on the table and be able to figure it out. Its kind of perfect,” says Jake.
“It is perfect, I think its a really fun way to kickoff this new chapter to have your first official day in Yakima rubbing hops!” adds Whitney in closing.
