Crafting Creative Brews

A brewer finds creative freedom crafting unique beers using sustainable practices

STORY AND PHOTOS BY JAKE PARRISH

(above) Eric Jorgenson, left, is the only brewer at North Fork Brewery, where he brews dynamic, unique beers year-round. He tries to source as many local ingredients as he can, such as the barley pictured at right.

The yeasty, musty smell of milled barley thickens the air of a concrete-floored room. A milling machine is crushing barley, churning it over and over, before spitting it out into two floor-to-ceiling stainless steel containers. Eric Jorgenson grabs another fifty-pound bag of the grain and dumps it into the milling machine; just the right amount for tomorrow’s batch of Berliner Weisse beer.

“All this stuff is local,” Jorgenson says. “That’s partially what makes it taste so good.”

Jorgenson has brewed at North Fork Brewery, located on Mt. Baker Highway, for the past 15 years. He is currently the only brewer crafting beer for both the brewery and the restaurant.

“I started home brewing before I was legally able to drink,” Jorgenson says, laughing. “I got into it because I was really into baking, and I’ve always been fascinated by yeast.”

North Fork uses a number of sustainable practices in its brewery and gathers almost all the ingredients for its brews from local, organic sources. = The used grain and hops from brewing are then given to cattle farmers in Acme, Washington to be fed to livestock.

All of the large brewing equipment in the brewery, such as the holding tanks and milling machine, is secondhand, Jorgenson says. Most of the metal tanks used to hold fermenting beer are more than 50 years old.

“They’re old as hell,” Jorgenson says. “They get the job done though.”

Jorgenson is known for his unique sour beers. The beers are stored in old whiskey barrels from a Seattle distillery, as well as in red-wine barrels from Mt. Baker Vineyards. Some of these sour beers sit in the barrels for two to three years, Jorgenson says. Sour beers differ from regular beers because bacteria and wild yeast strains are added during the fermentation process in order to produce lactic acid, making it bitter.

“That’s your acidity, your sourness in the taste of the beer,” Jorgenson says. “You’re using a plethora of bacteria cultures and wild yeast to create these delicate lactic flavors.”

In addition to recycling old brewing equipment and using locally-sourced ingredients, North Fork uses 40 solar panels that generate most of the electricity for the restaurant and brewery.

Sandy and Vicky Savage own the North Fork Restaurant and Brewery, and give Jorgenson creative freedom over what he brews, something Jorgenson uses to create his unique beers.

This experimentation first came around when Jorgenson introduced Sandy to a batch of sour beer three years ago.

“Sandy goes, ‘Holy crap, what is this? You need to go get some wine barrels,’” Jorgenson says. “So that day I went to Mt. Baker Vineyards and got some, and after that it was on.”

Jorgenson’s experimentation is fueled by his passion for learning, he says. He always tries to take input from the people who drink beer.

Jorgenson is grateful for the freedom he has with his job, and for the sustainable practices he is a part of, he says. When it comes down to it, it’s all about the pursuit of that perfect brew.