Portland’s Pyramid brewing resides in NW Portland at the foothills of Forest Park. Formerly Portland Brewing, until the operation merged with Pyramid. German-born Head Brewer Tom Bleigh talked about the companies, the impact of the late Mac MacTarnahan, and the unlikely way he started in his trade. Bleigh also devulged some of his views on craft beer and Pyramid’s goal of making a consistent and well-balanced beer.
How long have you been brewing at Pyramid/MacTarnahans?TB: I have been here for five years. I also worked for six months as an apprentice.
Where are you from originally?TB: I was born in Augsburg, Germany and then I moved to California when I was three. Then I spent almost seven years in Wisconsin and I moved out here (Oregon) in 2001.
What is your first experience with brewing, and what inspired you to get into this trade?TB: It’s a convoluted story that kind of comes full circle. My first experiences and encounters with beer were in Germany. When I would go back every summer and stay with my mom’s side of the family, the German side, we always had a cista or “case of beer” that was down in the cellars. It was my job to go get the beer everyday. So when my uncles would come over, they would always drink a case at a time and they always seemed to have a lot of fun. They’d have arm wrestling competitions and it was a jovial atmosphere to the household. It was very much a part of our heritage and lineage so there was a really strong kinship there. Then there are the obvious things that happen when you get into college and you start binge drinking, but then you slowly develop a finer taste for brews. Wisconsin, I would say, is what I shaped my understanding of the craft brewing industry and my appreciation for beer. It wasn’t until I got to Wisconsin that I started to skew my perspective of beer a little bit. The Midwest is a hot bed of craft brewing. If you look at New Glarus and Capital Brewing…You have to give it some kudos, too because your macros are there…St.Louis and then you’ve got Miller and Pabst…Historically it make sense that that German lineage plays itself out in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
On a side note, the one interesting component in the way I have come into the trade: I have a master’s (degree) in fine arts, I don’t have a degree in science in any way shape or form. It was the master brewer at the time, Alan Kornhauser, when I was hired here at Portland Brewing. (He) happened to live in Wisconsin, had gone to school at Beloit, was of German heritage, and also had an art degree. If it hadn’t been for him, I don’t think they wouldn’t have taken a chance on bringing me aboard. Working as an apprentice for six months for free is what really opened the door for me here as well.
A prevalent topic for MacTarnahans is the 21st anniversary of Mac’s Amber Ale. Pyramid has come back with a new packaging look for the beer. Was the beer gone for a while?TB: It wasn’t gone. We were hoping to reintroduce Mac’s to a whole new cross section of new possible clientele—people who maybe hadn’t experienced it or who had forgotten about it. So, the best way to do that was to give it some new clothes and to repackage the existing (beer). Another issue is that Mac’s is a quality beer, it’s quaffable, it’s very drinkable and it’s very well crafted in my opinion. But I think (before) there may have been some shortcomings in the packaging elements. So we’ve finally put some packaging attached to that beer that is as good as the product itself. It’s nice to see that symbiotic relationship where they kind of match now…whereas there might’ve been a bit of a disconnect (before). There also might’ve been an overwhelming Scottish theme to the beer when it wasn’t as Scottish as maybe it appeared. It was a way of fine-tuning and getting that messaging across.
Mac’s Amber Ale won the silver medal at the 2006 GABF and as well as the gold in 1992. What do you accredit to the success of this recipe? Was there any correspondence with the previous brewers or redevelopment of the Mac’s recipe?
TB: The recipe has been established since 1992 and the only time we ever make modifications to the Mac’s recipe is for alpha change and occasionally hop suppliers. But there really hasn’t been any change to the recipe at all. One thing that I really stressed is that I didn’t want to see any alteration to that product. I wanted to see its lineage play itself through and maintain the integrity and honesty of that product. What we have done that is different is we’ve tightened the specifications of it a little bit. One of our objectives now is to make it as consistent as possible. Pyramid is very much dedicated to tightening down the specs. For example, that beer gets dry-hopped—and pretty generously—but it gets dry-hopped on the same day every single time for every single brew. Before there may have been some variation in the dry-hopping based on tank availability. We absolutely don’t allow that anymore.
Would you accredit Pyramid’s influence to this consistent approach?TB: I absolutely do. But I was the one that implemented that change but that is just because there was so much attention given to tightening the specifications and being consistent, that that was the next logical step.
Did you ever get to meet the man behind the legend, Mac MacTarnahan?TB: I got to meet Mac. He would always come by and say hello while I was a production brewer.
In 1999, Mac MacTarnahan became the first senior masters’ athlete to be inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame. He won several medals for running and wrestling. With his athletic prowess, even at such an old age, Mac touted the health benefits of his craft beers. What are your thoughts on any health benefits of craft beer? Do you think there are any?
TB: I do. But obviously, the key here is moderation. One or two beers daily, I think are actually really good for you. It calms the nerves; it’s very relaxing. Plus there’s a ton of antioxidants in beer like B12. If you’re a consumer of beer, you’ll notice very quickly if you start drinking microbrews or anything with yeast in it in particular, that your finger nails and hair start growing a lot faster. That’s a bi-product of the B12. Obviously, binge drinking or over-imbibing isn’t going to benefit you very much.
You set off Mac’s Madness in March that involved grocery store sampling, co-promotion with a local gourmet pizza restaurant. What else has been going on with Mac’s Madness?TB: Our marketing guy, John could probably answer this a little more succinctly, but we have a cross promotion with Pizzicato and they are promotion Macs. We are doing a MacTarnahans original project. We have almost ten production brewers on hand, including myself. We are instigating an ambassador's program where we actually get the brewers to go out to meet and greet at the bars and just kind of we chit chat with the providers, owners, and publicans, and reestablish our relationship to the community at large. We are just trying to be a little bit more grassroots in general.
The Crystal Weizen (Kristallweizen) is another notable beer that is only produced at Pyramid’s Portland brewery. What’s your take on the beer?TB: Well, the great thing about Pyramid in general is that it has a reputation with the hefe product and being an unfiltered company. It really is a wheat pioneer. If you take a look at the majority of the offering, they really are wheat-based and also the yeast products are unfiltered. (The Crystal Weizen) was an opportunity to provide something to the portfolio that was light, crisp, refreshing, has some trace the to German style of beer, and if you look at hefeweizen historically, our hefeweizen is an American style, but it does give it an odder shape to the German style. The same is true of Kristallweizen. It is simply filtered hefeweizen. It is a slight variation of the Pyramid hefe. It is filtered so it is clear.
What are some of your favorite brands of beer from Germany?TB: It runs the gamut. I’m a real big fan of Spaten when it’s fresh. I’ve also enjoyed König Ludwig and I don’t mind Franziskaner and I don’t mind Erdinger. But, I’m a fan of all the Southern German beers. I am also a proponent of how in Germany breweries works on a regional level. You kind of drink what is in your city. When I went back in high school to where I lived, the local beers there were Gold Ochsen (Gold Ox) Ulm Münster, and that’s all I drank. I had a strong affinity for those beers but I’m sure it’s more sentimental than anything else. If I went back and revisit that now, I’m sure my perspective on it would be skewed a little bit. They might not taste as nice and clean as I thought it was back then.
Pyramid and MacTarnahans have a state of the art bottling facility while producing beers in an Old World style. How do these two realms mesh in your eyes? Do you see any benefits or quandaries surrounding this? TB: It’s a marriage that we’ve made work, but there are some conflicts in it as you can see. What we are currently utilizing are copper kettles and lauter from Germany. Some of the limitations of copper with that it doesn’t clean as well and can also affect beer’s flavor profile by producing a slightly metallic taste at times or it can increase the color of the beer. But what’s interesting is that we’ve compared our beers with those being being made in Berkeley, and there’s hardly any variation at all. To make two beers of the same style as congruous as they are is a pretty amazing thing just because you want to keep the house stamp, house flavor. We use direct fire whereas Berkeley uses a calandria so they have a much more efficient boil. Those things really do impact beer, but if you sample them side by side, it’s really hard to differentiate the manufacturers of those two beers. We’ve done a great job of marrying those together. The equipment on the brewing end is fairly antiquated and the bottling facility is relatively state of the art in that is the best available which is Krones, which is the optimal bottling filler you can purchase. A lot of breweries will use old soda pop bottling fillers which unfortunately run really slow, don’t jet very well, and will often pick up a lot of airs. You get quick oxidation in the bottles there. We try to minimize those problems to provide the freshest product possible. You really want to invest your money on the back end, not the front.
We are also blessed with really good water here in Portland. I can’t say enough good things about Portland. Not only are we centrally located to all the ingredients we would be using, namely hops and grains, but as far as water goes, you can’t beat Portland. We hardly have to do anything at all.
There seems to be an ever-growing niche for craft brewing. Pyramid is one of the larger regional “micro” breweries. Where do you see the line being drawn between keeping your independent edge while expanding and becoming a macro brewery? Do you ever feel one day “I am making Macs” and another “I am making Pyramid”?TB: No. The only distinction that’s ever made in terms of how I decide that we brew on a given day is ale versus lager day. So it’s a yeast distinction. We do that so there’s no cross-contamination. At one point at this facility, we had five yeast strains. We’ve reduced that down to two. Reducing the number of yeast strains down to two is a plus plus on every level. There’s less chance cross-contaminations. We were maybe only one or two beers a day when we were MacTarnahans and now we are doing four or five and we might even pick it up to seven beers a day. And we’ll be doing that 24/7. Trying to optimize and increase efficiencies is key to getting a production facility to run.
The micro versus macro issue and then how we fit between those two worlds is best answered in the sense that I think our dedication is to make the best product that we can, providing a portfolio that is consistently offered, and then providing an occasional seasonal offering. And then maybe offering special offerings unique to the taproom or special releases to satiate that ongoing niche of beer enthusiast. We have a certain obligation to our products that are doing well to keep them on board and maintain that consistency and quality. But also, to compete in the marketplace, we have to continuously reevaluate what consumers want. Right now it’s extreme beers. Everybody wants an extreme beer. So you have to keep your ear to the ground and know what the pulse is. I think we do a fairly good job at doing that and are becoming more aware of that presence ant our need to cater to that somewhat. We’ll have some tap room and seasonal offerings made available probably within the next year or so. These will be pretty keen products for beer enthusiasts in general. We currently have an imperial hefeweizen on tap and hope to make that a seasonal mainstay. There are some other discussions of products that may come down the pike I’m pretty excited about. There’s been talk of maybe reintroducing the bourbon Black Watch (porter). Keep your eyes peeled come fall, we’ll let you know.
Okay, enough of this interview, it’s sampling time.
The Imperial Hefeweizen and Crystal Weizen...yum!
