6A | WEDNESDAY, JULY 17, 2019 | COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL
Brews
from A1
Mathys said. “A lot of the
smaller breweries in the
microbrew world are still
going to be seven barrels or
more.”
After a soft opening of
two craft beers, the owners
plan on producing a total
of four of their own signa-
ture beers from the nano-
brewery.
The decision to start
brewing was largely in re-
sponse to feedback the
business was already get-
ting.
“It’s an idea that’s been
batted around for at least
five years that I know of,”
said Mathys. “Once we
started to talk about it,
people were like, ‘When?
When?’”
Besides local interest,
Mathys said travelers from
I-5 have come in expecting
to try what Cottage Grove
has to offer.
“We have people pull off
the freeway thinking we
already are a brewery,” he
said. “People really, really
care about that. They real-
ly do. They want to drink
the beer that’s made near-
est where they’re standing
right now.”
Owners of the combined
businesses of The Brewsta-
tion and Coast Fork Feed
Store have approached
the entire venture with
patience, making only in-
cremental changes when
they’ve felt the time was
right.
“Anything worth having
is worth waiting for,” said
co-owner Emily Rinck of
the upcoming nanobrew-
ery. “It’s all down to rubber
stamps at this point.”
Meanwhile, newcomer
Covered Bridge Brewing
Group is situated to enter
the scene this year on the
northeast corner of Hwy
99 and Main Street. In ad-
dition to a selection of craft
beers brewed in-house, the
business will also serve its
own locally brewed coffee.
“The premise of Covered
Bridge Brewing Group is to
give Cottage Grove a place
for everybody to sit down,
enjoy themselves, without
stress,” said co-owner Da-
vid Barclay, who specializ-
es in coffee brewing. “What
we want is to give Cottage
Grove a great place to gath-
er.”
By the numbers, it’s an
ambitious project.
The proposed seven-bar-
rel microbrewery is slated
to host 16 taps, which will
consist of seven flagship
beers and three rotating
seasonals. When licensing
comes through, it will also
include taps for two ciders,
two sodas and one for cof-
fee.
“If we can make it our-
selves, we’ll do it in-house,”
Barclay said.
The group’s beer brew-
er, Nate Sampson, and
Public Notices
The Lowest Rates in Lane County
PUBLIC MEETINGS,
TRUSTEE NOTICES,
PROBATE,
AUCTION &
FORECLOSURE
NOTICES,
AND MORE.
Published weekly in the
Cottage Grove Sentinel
and online at cgsentinel.com
S entinel
C ottage G rove
Contact: Meg Fringer
541-942-3325 x1200
mfringer@cgsentinel.com
Barclay met in 2014 and
soon after combined their
skills to create a porter
Barclay described as “out
of this world.” Confident
more of this collaboration
could be brought to their
own business, Barclay and
his wife eventually joined
with Sampson and fourth
co-owner Chrissy Chap-
man to create a vision for
the venture.
Part of the vision will
include a beer garden and
leased space for four food
trucks in the brewpub’s rear
seating area. At full steam,
the group hopes to be em-
ploying a staff of around a
dozen.
“And the great thing is,
we’re here at the gateway,”
said Barclay. “[We can]
draw people here, get them
downtown.”
This idea was a winning
pitch at this year’s Cham-
ber of Commerce Business
Challenge, an event intend-
ed to stimulate local busi-
ness growth, as the group
took first place in the con-
test.
While the group is in fi-
nancial talks and still has
construction and licensing
to complete, the owners are
hopeful they will be oper-
ating by early fall, putting
them on a similar schedule
with The Brewstation and
raising the prospect of a
craft beer explosion in Cot-
tage Grove this year.
Neither business can
claim the title of pioneer
in this territory, however.
Locals will remember the
now-defunct Hard Knocks
Brewing touted itself as
“Cottage Grove’s first and
only brewpub” for its short
life on Main Street next to
Trailhead Park.
Opened in 2014, the pub
had closed by 2016 due to a
number of factors depend-
ing on who’s being asked.
In interviews with industry
publications and on radio,
business owner Ben Price
had laid blame at the feet
of a city government which
he characterized as being
unnecessarily difficult to
work with and cited a hos-
tile local population among
business woes.
For The Brewstation,
which opened around the
same time with only guest
taps, the Cottage Grove
craft beer experiment
turned out quite different-
ly. Rinck doesn’t think of
Hard Knocks’ story as a
cautionary tale.
“Because I’m different
and this business is differ-
ent,” she said. “The com-
munity has been so sup-
portive of us that I can’t
even help but not try.”
Local Impact
Indeed,
community
feedback cited by both
upcoming breweries paint
Cottage Grove as a city ea-
ger to taste its own home-
town brew. Though both
businesses will be throwing
their hat into the brew-
ery ring around the same
time, owners from both
businesses welcome the
prospect of more than one
brewery opening up in
town.
“It would be ideal, actu-
ally,” said Rinck.
“The funny thing about
the brewing industry …
is that craft brewers want
more craft brewers,” Ma-
thys said. “That’s the odd
thing about it. It’s not like
normal American compe-
tition.”
To that point, owners
and brewers from both
businesses are not only
aware of each other’s plans,
but willingly collaborative
in their pursuits.
“They have no problems
helping each other out,”
said Mathys. “The whole
idea is to have more craft
beer. We would be delight-
ed if we got this brewery off
the ground and someone
opened a microbrewery in
Drain or Elkton.”
From a business per-
spective, a community with
more variety in its options
is ideal as it generates a big-
ger draw and appeal to a
wider consumer palate.
“And it is a symbiotic
relationship,” Rinck said,
“because the thing that’s
interesting in this style of
business — whether it be
the brewery or Covered
Bridge Brewing Group or
Estill Farms
U-pick Blueberries
2019 Season Prices
Axe and Fiddle or Jack
Sprats — is that the more
businesses that are in one
location the better business
gets.”
For craft beer enthu-
siasts, especially, it can
be noted that a variety of
choice is an alluring ingre-
dient when deciding where
to go. A town with more
than one brewery is a po-
tential magnet for such a
culture.
“It’s more of a draw,
which brings more money
to this community,” said
Rinck. “Every dollar that is
spent in this business gets
put back in the community.
And that’s huge.”
While Cottage Grove it-
self stands to gain from this
foray into brewing, there
are also positive implica-
tions for the wider region.
23 rd Annual Cottage Grove Chili Cook-Off
July 27, 2019
11am -3pm
Still Room For More Cooks
Cash Prizes to Winners
Contact Don Gould for Information 541-942-5920
Come experience our new laser
Brent Bitner, DDS
$0.99 /lb for conventional blueberries
at Drain location 6680 State Hwy 38
OEIRU86'$FHUWLÀHGRUJDQLFEOXHEHUULHV
at Elkton location 32527 State Hwy 38
DENTISTRY WITH FAMILY IN MIND
2019 Season hours 8 AM - 2 PM
7XHVGD\WKUX6XQGD\
C ALL U S T ODAY !
541-836-7612
Pricing above applies to
U-pick berries only
Call for Pricing and
Availability of Pre-Picked Flats
541.942.7934
350 E. W ASHINGTON A VENUE • C OTTAGE G ROVE
WWW.CGSMILES.COM