Eugene weekly., January 29, 2015, Page 35, Image 35

ELK HORN BREWERY'S
DEEP INN CIDER
ELK HORN BREWERY'S
BREWMASTER SAM SCOGGIN
PREPARES TO BARREL AGE A
NEW CIDER
PHOTOS BY TODD COOPER
ELK HORN BREWERY
Stephen and Colleen Sheehan want you to know that
Elk Horn Brewery is up and running, they now have a suite
of housemade ciders and beers on tap and, no, they are
definitely not a corporation.
“I feel like sometimes people look at us like we’re
some kind of corporate infrastructure that came to Eugene
when actually, no, we were a food cart,” explains Colleen
Sheehan, co-owner of Elk Horn. “We scrapped and hustled
and made this with our bare hands.”
“We’re the little guy for sure,” Stephen Sheehan adds.
Veterans of Eugene cuisine with their food cart Delacata,
the wife-and-husband team opened Elk Horn Brewery in
August, serving other local brews because they didn’t yet
have official approval to make beer and cider.
Elk Horn held its grand opening on Jan. 20, and the
Sheehans say they’re excited to show Eugene what their
restaurant and brewery is all about.
With its neon-green logo and visible location on
Broadway and Hilyard near the UO campus, the restaurant
occupies an old Carl’s Jr. building, although you’d never
know it after the remodel. The inside, with a roomy, split-
level design, is an explosion of taxidermy: Mounted elk
heads, antler light fixtures and posed bobcats fit the bill for
Elk Horn’s theme of “Wild Oregon.”
And so does the menu. The food still reflects Delacata’s
“Southern meets Northwest fusion” motto — savory
hushpuppies, the most amazing chicken and waffles you’ve
ever had, tasty desserts — but the expanded resources of a
restaurant and brewery have allowed the Sheehans to broaden
their scope, tapping into everything Oregon has to offer. And
when it comes to cider, the Sheehans are full of ideas.
The 11 percent ABV dry cider is heady and sharp,
pairing deliciously with crawfish pasta, and the blackberry
cider brings gusts of summer-tinged flavors with each sip.
Elk Horn’s organic cider apples come from Hood River in
northern Oregon.
The Sheehans say that they’re the only ones in town
who have a Randall system, a filter that infuses a base
cider or beer with a flavor of the brewer’s choosing. For
example, Stephen Sheehan says, “We could stuff that filter
with cranberries and cinnamon, and then run the cider
through it to create a cranberry cider.”
Colleen Sheehan says they plan to launch a botanical
cider series in the spring. “We really want to incorporate
everything you can find or forage in Oregon, from yarrow
to nasturtium to honeysuckle,” she says.
Stephen Sheehan adds that he’d like to experiment
with wild yeast ciders, drawing from the yeast that grows
naturally on the skin of the apple.
The Sheehans and their brewmaster, Sam Scoggin, are
headed to the Kona Brewers Festival in Hawaii this March,
and later this year, they’re planning on adding wildflower
honey mead to their list of fermented delights.
You can’t get Elk Horn’s brews in bottles yet, but that’s
because they’re flying out of the taps in the restaurant.
“We’ll distribute, but right now we can’t keep up with the
volume we’re selling in-house,” Stephen Sheehan says. “We
have at least two or three businesses a week calling to get
our cider on tap. But we’ve got to be able to sell it here first!”
2 TOWNS CIDERHOUSE
It only makes sense that a ciderhouse employing a
high percentage of redheads would produce a hard cider
called Ginga Ninja. “We decided we really needed to come
up with a cider that was representative of the gingers at
2 Towns, and that’s kind of what got the idea started,”
explains 2 Towns CEO Lee Larsen.
Hard apple cider with fresh-pressed ginger juice is
only one of the creative combinations that flows from 2
Towns’ tap. Since EW first chatted with 2 Towns in 2013,
the ciderhouse has grown, experimenting with alternative
flavors while expanding its offerings to other states.
“2014 was a really exciting year for us,” Larsen says. The
ciderhouse expanded its production facility, added seven
new employees and nurtured its estate orchard in Corvallis,
getting it ready for its first major harvest this year.
2 Towns released Ginga Ninja as a seasonal cider, but
Larsen says the gingery and refreshing drink will soon be
available year-round, due to its popularity. Other seasonals
include Cherried Away, a crisp, tart beverage, Made
Marion, sweet and fruity, and Rhubarbarian, a quirky mix
of sharp rhubarb and delicious apple.
And then there are 2 Towns’ limited releases, which
give the cider makers a chance to explore their creativity.
“One of the really cool things about living here in
Oregon and the Pacific Northwest in general is the insane
diversity of super high-quality produce,” Larsen says, and
that diversity inspires the cider makers to try new things.
“In our pursuit to push the bounds of cider, every single
person here is always coming up with ideas.”
Larsen says 2 Towns keeps a bulletin board where
anyone on staff can pin their ideas for new cider
combinations and flavors. Such openness spawned limited
releases of Cot in the Act, an apricot cider with tasty citrus,
and Cidre Muscato, yummy, sweet and wine-like with the
addition of muscat grapes.
“We created the limited-release line so that we could
experiment,” Larsen says. “The craft beer mentality that
exists in Oregon is so strong, and people always want to try
new things, so limited releases allow us to do that but at the
same time rotate different flavors through.”
Up next in the limited-release lineup is Bourbon Honey
Special Sauce, a hard cider made with Oregon honey and
aged in bourbon barrels — look for it sometime this March.
Larsen says that the 2 Towns Ciderhouse Tap Room,
located just outside of Corvallis off OR-34, recently
underwent an expansion, with 14 house ciders on tap,
foosball tables and live music on the weekends. The tap
room isn’t big on food but offers cheese plates, meat plates,
bread and hummus.
For a few years, 2 Towns has considered adding a
taphouse in Eugene, since the name “2 Towns” refers
to Corvallis and Eugene. “It’s been a high priority for a
while, and we’re still looking for possibilities down there,”
Larsen says. “We haven’t found that right spot yet, but it’s
still something we’re thinking about.”
And just because 2 Towns is expanding, Larsen says,
doesn’t mean the ciderhouse is headed for mass produced
commercialism. “Our intention is to continue to advance
the craft and, a lot of times, having more people, ideas
and equipment can really help that evolution rather than
hinder.” ■
WildCraft Cider Works is located at 390 Lincoln St. and is open 4 pm to 11
pm Tuesday through Thursday and 3 pm to midnight Friday through Saturday.
Elk Horn Brewery is located at 686 E. Broadway Street and is open 11 am to
10 pm Tuesday through Thursday, 11 am to 11 pm Friday and Saturday and 9
am to 9 pm Sunday.
2 Towns Ciderhouse is located at 33930 SE Eastgate Circle in Corvallis and is
open noon to 6 pm Tuesday through Wednesday, noon to 8 pm Thursday through
Saturday and noon to 5 pm Sunday.
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