10 Barrel Brewing's New Portland Brewer, Whitney Burnside
10 Barrel Brewing's new Portland Brewer Whitney Burnside will head up operations for the upcoming Northwest Portland PDX brewpub location in the Pearl District. We could not be more excited for Whitney, a personal friend who is going to unleash some exciting new beers. Meanwhile, the brewpub inches closer to opening with a few new updates.
Back in April, 10 Barrel revealed its plans for a new Portland brewpub on the heels of Fat Head's Brewing (which opens today) just 3 blocks away from where the new 10 Barrel will be. Originally the Portland brewpub had plans to be open by mid-summer 2014, but there have obviously been delays.
Whitney Burnside and Darron Welch (center) at the 2014 Great American Beer Festival with medals
Whitney Burnside is a 27 year old professional brewer from Issaquah, Washington, with a short but impressive career in brewing. As a 6 year old, Whitney recounted being intrigued with beer after smelling the sweet malts on her dad's breath after a swig of Henry Weinhard's Private Reserve. She began brewing her own beer while attending Culinary School at Johnson and Wales University in Denver in 2008. The following year she started an internship at Laurelwood Brewpub, working under Chad Kennedy. From there, Whitney became an assistant brewer at Upright Brewing before moving to Seattle to brew for Elysian Brewing. The last few years she has been at Pelican Brewery and has recently been doing the company's R & D brewing, for which she won a Bronze medal at the 2014 Great American Beer Festival for "Poire," a Belgian-style fruit beer with pears.
Details on the new Portland 10 Barrel location have been scarce until a recent reveal of building plans that show a new rooftop beer garden on top of the previous Mellow Mushroom building.
Future home of 10 Barrel PDX currently
The 10 Barrel PDX pub as it will look upon completion
A few new details are that the Portland pub will have a 20bbl direct fire brewhouse fabricated at Portland-based Metalcraft Fabrication. That system is finished and awaiting install which is expected to happen in late December, along with four 20bbl fermenters and six serving tanks. 10 Barrel is wisely looking for a creative new brewer, so Whitney won't be bothered with brewing the standard lineup like Apocalypse IPA but can create brand new beers while the flagships will be brought in from Bend.
Whitney Alta Burnside is a very creative brewer, obsessed with all kinds of fermentation, from bread and cheese making to beer. She hopes to brew a lot of Belgian styles in addition to West Coast American beers and will try to make space to have a regular lager in rotation. 10 Barrel Portland will have roughly 9 draft lines for in-house beers brewed by Whitney, in addition to the standards. Picking Whitney's brain, she revealed some of her beer ideas, like a Biere de Garde brewed with coconut sugar, rye, Szechuan peppercorns, and a Farmhouse yeast. Another may be a saison with ginger and hibiscus. There may possibly be a whole Willy Wonka inspired series, including a Blueberry Wit, a fruit that she has not had right in a beer. Whitney is excited about a new take on an IPA she wants to call "Fruity Pebbles" that will use all juicy fruity hops and the "Forbidden Fruit" yeast strain to accentuate fruit flavors, with no actual fruit being harmed. Smoked Vienna Lagers, Mushroom Stout, Belgian Imperial Stout, and an Irish Red collaboration with Pelican's Darron Welch are all strong possibilities.
10 Barrel Brewing Portland hopes to now open in late January 2015 at NW 14th and Flanders.
Whitney and I at APEX a couple years back.
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