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Wednesday, July 18, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Three Creeks Brewing Co. to celebrate a decade of beer
By Jim Cornelius
Editor in Chief
When your signature
product is beer, you should
know how to throw a party.
That’s just what Three Creeks
Brewing Co. is doing this
weekend, inviting the whole
Sisters community to join in
a celebration of the brewer’s
first decade in Sisters.
The event is set for
Saturday, July 21, from 2 to
8 p.m. on the expansive lawn
at the Three Creeks Brewing
Co. brewery and tasting room
in the Sisters Industrial Park
at 265 E. Barclay Dr.
“We’re going to use the
whole property here,” said
marketing manager Ashley
Woody.
There will be carnival
games, a dunk tank fea-
turing chances at Three
Creeks’ founder and owner
Wade Underwood, a 34-foot
Western obstacle bounce
house, a photo booth, food
trucks and… of course…
beer.
The renowned Central
Oregon band Larry and His
Flask will perform from 4 to
7:30 p.m.
“It’s going to be awe-
some,” Woody said. “I’m
encouraging people to treat it
like a festival.”
That means bringing out
a lawn blanket and/or low
chairs and making a day of it.
T h e c e l e b r a t i o n i s
designed to be a whole lot of
fun — but it marks a decade
of hard work, determination
and the grit to weather eco-
nomic storms.
Underwood left Phoenix,
Arizona, 12 years ago, deter-
mined to be his own boss
after working in finance for
an e-commerce firm. He’d
long been interested in craft
beer, and that’s the field he
chose. To prepare to open
a brewpub in the FivePine
campus, he apprenticed at a
local restaurant to get a taste
of the work — from bussing
tables to the kitchen. He and
his family and partners were
“all-in,” he recalled.
“If this thing doesn’t go,
we’re done,” he thought.
“We’re going to move in
with family and start over. So
— terrifying.”
The timing was a little
off, with the restaurant hir-
ing in June for a July open-
ing. Nevertheless, it worked
out — and some of those first
hires are still with the com-
pany. The brew pub was a hit
right off the bat — but in a
surprising way. Underwood’s
research with other pubs indi-
cated that 65 to 70 percent of
revenues would come from
beer sales in the pub. Because
Three Creeks Brewing Co.’ s
pub is a family destination,
PHOTO PROVIDED
Three Creeks Brewing Co. operates a brewpub on the FivePine Campus
and a brewery and tasting room in the Sisters Industrial Park.
with lots of non-drinking
kids, that equation is flipped
at the Sisters location.
Getting the restaurant
business figured out in short
order turned out to be the least
of the difficulties Underwood
and his staff faced. In October
2008, the bottom fell out of
the economy. Underwood
had a business that had a high
failure rate built in — and
now he was staring down the
barrel of the worst economic
crisis to hit the U.S. since the
Great Depression.
Fortunately, he knew how
to run lean — and, despite
economic hardship, the craft
beer world remained strong.
“We ran a lean crew and
had the support of the local
folks,” he recalled. “The craft
beer market was still doing
well, even though the econ-
omy was doing horribly.”
Three Creeks Brewing Co.
weathered the storm, even-
tually opening a dedicated
brewing facility in the Sisters
Industrial Park. It turned out
that Underwood had hit the
timing right in the industry.
“I kind of thought we were
late,” he said, noting that
there were already eight craft
breweries in Central Oregon
when Three Creeks started.
That turned out to be just
the beginning of what the
market could bear. Now there
are some 35 in operation here
and 6,000 nationwide, up
from 1,600 in 2008.
That rapid growth can
bring its own perils, serv-
ing up a strong tempta-
tion to expand too rapidly.
Underwood notes that Three
Creeks Brewing Co. has
“continued to grow, but at a
rational pace.”
Operating a restaurant
in a very seasonal tourist
economy is challenging, too,
and, like many other Sisters
businesses, Underwood finds
it challenging to hire when
workforce housing is limited.
A l l o f t h a t b r i n g s
541-588-6232
Three Creeks Brewing Co. will celebrate 10 years of beer, food and fun in
Sisters this coming weekend.
Underwood around to rec-
ognizing that success is no
fluke.
“We had a pretty good
plan coming out, but from
there… I don’t know if it’s
a surprise, but a realization:
Running a business is hard.”
Which is all the greater
reason to celebrate a 10-year
milestone that also acknowl-
edges a partnership between
the business and the greater
Sisters community.
“Getting to engage with
the community,” Underwood
reflected, “that’s what makes
this work.”
Saturday,
July 21
T h r e e C r e e ks
Production Facility
Beer
Food Trucks
Games
Music, Dunk Tanks
& MOre
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PHOTO PROVIDED
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