North Portland's woodlawn neighborhood is getting a new brewery and bottle shop opening in the former space of Hi-Wheel Fizzy Wine which closed last year. Mutantis Brewery and Bottle Shop wants to be the first 100% dedicated gluten-free taproom and bottle shop in the world and comes from the multi-award winning brewmaster and co-founder of Seattle's Ghostfish Brewing Company.

Mutantis is billed as Oregon's 5th dedicated gluten-free brewery and 1st dedicated gluten-free bottle shop. Owner/brewer Jason “Igliashon” Yerger envisions it as a destination location where the gluten intolerant can find the world's best selection of gluten-free beers under one roof.

There are hundreds of gluten-free or gluten-reduced beer brands in the country. But according to bestglutenfreebeers.com there are only 12 completely dedicated gluten-free breweries in the United States, and Oregon already has 4 of them.

Jason “Igliashon” Yerger was a young 25 year-old homebrewer in the bay area when he discovered he had become allergic to his own beers.

"I got a good solid 3-4 years drinking beer and falling in love with craft beer before the doctor told me I'd never be able to have it again," says Yerger.

Rather than give up on his newfound passion, Yerger dived head first into brewing with alternative grains like sorghum rather than wheat and barley. He started a popular homebrewing blog called "Brewing Beyond Barley" while still living in the bay area, and it was his writing there and on other homebrewing forums that caught the attention of two Seattle businessmen. A few unsolicited emails later and Yerger moved to Washington in 2013 to become the 3rd partner and head brewer at Ghostfish Brewing Company before they opened to the public 2 years later.

Jason “Igliashon” Yerger

In their first year Ghostfish Brewing won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival for their Watchstander Stout and a bronze medal for Grapefruit IPA. The following year the Grapefruit IPA won another bronze and the year after that their Meteor Show Blonde Ale claimed a silver. This immediately cemented them as the new gluten-free brewery to watch, and signaled to many in the industry that the category had came a long way towards respectability.

"I was fortunate enough to get to try a lot of great beers to develop an idea of what good beer should taste like," says Yerger, who doesn't drink more than a sip of full barley beer at risk of him being in complete misery the next day.

"It's been kind of a never ending quest since then to get gluten-free beer up to the level that I know craft beer is at."

The gluten-free beer category has exploded since 2011 when Groundbreaker Brewing became the first completely gluten-free dedicated brewery in the U.S. In the past decade, gluten-free beer went from being unheard of to barely drinkable, to mainstream hit, and to present day quality standards that put many on par with the best craft breweries.

painting the new Mutantis taproom

Mutantis Brewery & Bottle Shop at the beginning of the build out

Mutantis Brewery taproom is nearly finished and ready to open

Even as a self-described hophead who won acclaim for mainstream popular beer styles, Yerger has long been eager to focus on beer styles that he says are under represented in the gluten-free brewing world. Those types of beers include sours, barrel-aged beers, gruits, and other recipes using herbs and spices and even classic British-styles like Old Stock Ale and ESB.

Even before being diagnosed as a Celiac, Yerger was interested in exploring herbs and unhopped beers and he quickly found his barley-free homebrews were even better suited to the styles.

Since Yerger can not drink more than a sip of mainstream ales and lagers, Yerger relies on his memories, style guidelines and descriptions when creating gluten-free beers based on existing styles. The process starts with a mastery of evaluation and recipe translation away from barley, and is not the least reliant on soliciting feedback from non-Celiac beer drinkers.

The successes of Ghostfish Brewing also informs the business strategy that Yerger will take with Mutantis. Sick of taxing long weekends on the packaging line while he was at Ghostfish, Yerger hopes to create a community driven space that focuses on his own draft beers and selling bottles and cans of his fellow brewers gluten-free beers.

"Rather than get out in the marketplace and compete with these established breweries for shelf space, we just make more shelf space ourselves and kind of bring everyone into one roof," says Yerger, who is already close friends with many of the like minded operations and regularly collaborates with Bierly Brewing.

New gluten-free breweries are popping up all over the country and adding to the competitive nature of even this small niche of the industry. But the demand for gluten-free beer is still growing with Oregon becoming it's epicenter. In Portland alone there is Groundbreaker and Moonshrimp Brewing, an hour out of town the city of McMinnville has both Evasion Brewing and Bierly Brewing.

"Because there are so many other gluten-free breweries here it's sort of like reaching a critical mass in terms of being the gluten-free brewing mecca of the world. It sort of frees me up instead of trying to be all things to all people," says Yerger.

Mutantis will position themselves as sort of a curator "the Switzerland of the scene" and hopes to become a spot for like minded drinkers to flock to locally and from out of town.

Sharing a building with their neighbors Tamale Boy will be a huge asset to Mutantis; much of the food menu is already gluten-free and they share a large outdoor patio. The space that was formerly occupied by the also gluten-free Hi Wheel Fizzy Wine Co. is a perfect fit and Mutantis will keep the bar in place and much of the outdoor furniture.

Mutantis Brewery & Bottle Shop is well into the build-out of their space with tanks on-site and a custom 5bbl brewery from Portland's Method Fabrication awaiting install. With the pandemic slowing permits, government affairs and contractors, it's unclear when brewing operations will begin but it could be as soon as late this summer of 2020. In the meantime, Yerger may open the bottle shop portion of Mutantis or even outdoor seating if he decides it would be safe enough to do so.

Follow Mutantis Brewery & Bottle Shop's progress on facebook or their website here. Look for the pub and bottle shop to open soon at 6719 NE 18th Ave. Portland, OR 97211