November 18, 2025 • 37 mins
Today on Brewsers, we talk to Jordan Hunt with Silver Moon Brewing in Bend, Oregon. We talk about his journey into beer, the brewing scene in Bend, Oregon, and so much more. Follow us on instagram and twitter at Brewserspod. Like, share, review, enjoy and cheers. #brewsers #brewserspod #Enjoylife #DrinkLocal #Cheers
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:20):
Welcome to Bruisers podcast about beer, coffee, booze and bruisers.
I am your host, Ray John, and today we talked
to Jordan Hunt with silver Moon Brewing in Bend, Oregon.
We talked about his journey into beer, the brewing scene
in Bend, Oregon, and so much more. This is such
a fun conversation. Jordan's doing absolutely awesome things up in Bend,
Orgon with silver Moon Brewing. I got to tell some
(00:41):
on the on this show. You will definitely hear that
and you will definitely hear more about his story. So,
without further ado, here is Jordan Hunt with silver Moon
Brewing in Bend, Oregon. I would like to welcome the
(01:02):
show Jordan Hunt with silver Moon Brewing. How you doing today, sir?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Doing great? How are you doing?
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I'm doing well, so.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Podcast, thanks for coming on here.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yeah, I mean for those listening kind of paintings the
word picture, where you at, what's going on around you.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
We're in beautiful Bend of Oregon. We like to call
it beer Town USA here because there's so many grape breweries,
great water, it makes for great beer.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
There you go. I love that. Yeah, So I'm drinking
right now. The Hazy the as Simon says, which is
the Hazy ipa, thank you again for sending me beers.
This is fantastic.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Oh I listened to a couple of the episodes and
I was like, no, you're not drinking the beer. You know.
I can talk about it all I want, but really
it's about your guys' experience, so don't want to make
sure you could try it, right.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
I mean, honestly, I've been in the wine world now
for sixteen years, and I always say, like, get it
in people's mouths. If they once they taste it, then
they can decide for themselves if they like.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
It or not.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
So yes, this, this is actually fantastic.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I was opened a candad Our Cross joint the Turping Idea.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
I have that writing up next because we're definitely gonna
I want to talk about this because this is awesome. Actually,
let's start it. Yeah, start from there, hazy all right,
the way you get finished.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Yeah, we were really early adapters of the Turf Beings
from Abstracts, the Free Gas series, which is their cannabis series.
So oh uh. There's especially likes put on music festival
every summer at our brewery for four twenty it's called
Room Music Festival, and we threw this beer for them
(02:37):
about two years ago and just really fell in love
with the turf beings. But one of the more difficult
beers I've ever had to make. It took me about
four tries to get the recipe to where I was
actually really happy with it. Really, But yeah, it's our
newest addition to our year on can so we're really
excited for it and trying to push it hard market.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
So tell people the process of this, because obviously they're
gonna be like, oh, so this is weed and alcohol
together and then you know all that stuff. So talk
to people about how this works.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
It's more like fake weed, yea. So abstracts they're amazing.
They're based out of California. What they do is they
map out all the different turpins in different cannabs strings
and so the one that we selected is Pineapple Express,
which is how you got to make Cross twint if
you ever watch the movie. Yes, And so they find
(03:31):
those same turpins and other botanicles like orange feels lavender,
and then lend them all together to perfectly match that
canvas screen, and then we add it into the beer.
Somebobers like to use a little different I like to
add it during transfer to the bright tank. I've had
really good results with that, but aroma just pops smell
(03:53):
it to me, it's like just sticking to your nose
and a jar of nugs. But then I've worked really
hard to where it's just everything nice West Coast, I PA,
that's nice, Chris, not too maulty. And then on the
back end you get kind of that dankness.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah it is. It is definitely on the nose, and
you are right, is mm, it's like a nice little
jar and then yeah, you drink it and you don't
really it's not bad. It is a little bit. Yeah,
the dankness is definitely on the back end of it.
But this, this West Coast IPA is not. I've had
(04:29):
a lot that had been like almost too dry for me,
which is interesting, but this is not, and that it
has a very good flavor on.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Do yeah, throw a little bit of venimal in there,
just to build a little bit of body boat without
overpowering that, still trying to keep it nice and then Crisp.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
What was it about the first three tries that didn't
quite work for you? Did it work for just not
for you or for like other people as well.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
The first batch was actually right before it started back
at silver Moon, and a little heavy handed on these sturpings.
It's like the only thing that you could really taste.
You have to be very light handed with them. Yeah,
like half an ounce per barrel is a good starting point.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
So.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Right, it's it's pretty missful. They were using eight ounces
in a timberill batch and it's just overpowering. And then
once I dialed that down, it was really just matching
the hops to the beer itself and the turpenes. They
were trying to go for like this really tropical beer
since this Pineapple Express, and they just didn't really melt
because you got like the really nice nose, but the
(05:36):
beer just didn't match the rouma. It's two completely different experiences, right,
So dinked up those hops a little bit, got some
strata in there, some Columbus, you know, just trying to
really make the beer match and pair well with each other.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
I could see that. No, yeah, it's very well balanced.
And yeah, definitely on the nose and then on the
back end and in the middle it's a nice nice
West Coast aber.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
I love that Oregon is for people who are for
twenty friendly. Know that Oregon before it was even legal,
had some of the best we come out of that
place as the best. I've had the best beer for
the longest time coming out of Oregon. I feel like,
other than the cold, I don't see a reason I'm
not moving there like they just had, and so much
great coffee there as well.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
That is true. I mean, especially where I am in
Bend for a high desert, so even worth three hundred
days of sunshine. Oh wow, it does get a little
cold in the winter, but it's a dry cold. I
grew up in Portland. I can't do the wet cold anymore.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Right. Well, then, okay, maybe Bend is the place I
need to be any I need to visit. First off, Yeah, oh.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
You should definitely come visit. I mean, so many great
breweries from De Shoot's ten Barrel, SunRiver Brewing Company, Bend
Brewing Company. Just there's over thirty breweries in the area
and a population of like one hundred and fifty thousand.
In the Greater Bend area.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
There's only one hundred and fifty thousand.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, there's one hundred thousand inn itself. But then once
you include like Redmand's sister sun River. It's about hundred
and fifty maybe two hundred maps.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
That's crazy, okay.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
In like thirty six or thirty eight breas, it's insane.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah, that sounds perfect to me.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, I know you have the really bad you will
not survive in the see a good beer.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Oh yeah, my tallish is a stupid high. So I
think that I'd be in a good place perfect. Well,
so let's go all the way back in time. What
is your earliest memory of beer?
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Probably camping with my dad. He drank Henry Wine blue boar,
and I would always drank a bottle Henry Whinet root beer.
And my dad is playing his mamblin around the campfire.
I reached back behind the log to grab my root beer,
took a giant swig of his beer. It was the
worst thing ever tasted.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Well, that's also the worst because like you're expecting something
else and then you get beer for the first time,
and I, oh, what.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Is And then probably like my introduction to Kraft Beer.
When I was in college, there was a local bar
that I would name, but there was a smoking door
up back. I may or may not have been twenty
one yet and pretend to smoke a cigarette, walk in
with a group of people, and they had two dollars
(08:22):
Kraft beer when I week, so I'd always go there
and drink with my college friends are a little bit
older than me.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Do you remember what the craft beer was?
Speaker 2 (08:35):
I actually didn't really love beer back then, so I
was drinking like twenty first Amendment, the watermelon, wheat ale,
shock Top, all of those beers that were the kind
of beer Jason has liked to call them. And then
I think what really got me into Kraft beer was
me and my buddies love to go fishing. We drink
Twilight from the Shoots. It's a great summer ale. I
(08:58):
miss it. I whish they made it again.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Well, I mean you could make something your version of it.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yeah. I know a few people over there, so.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Okay, there you go. Yeah, she'd like, hey, you got
that recipe book around where do you keep the old recipes?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
It was a great beer while it lasted.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yeah, Well, so how did you initially get into actually
brewing and making beer stuff? Because I've seen you work
at multiple breweries and then you seem to have just
kept working your way up and then now obviously where
you are the head brew at Silver Moon. How did
you initially get into brewing to begin with?
Speaker 2 (09:35):
My dad was a homebrewer growing up, so it's always
I did a few batches when I was in college
as well. None of them are terrible, which I think
is a home brewer is a good starting point.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
I usually heard the exact opposite that first year, or
not good.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Yeah, I mean they weren't great, but they weren't terrible.
They're drinkable.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
But then studied chemical engineering in college. I wanted to
study biodiesel and late two thousand and that market kind
of just tanked. My favorite subject was distilling, and I
didn't want to go work for big oil. So I
found a local distillery here in Bend, did a six
month internship with them, and that's kind of where I
(10:19):
really fell in low fermentation. Once that was up, I
was a bartender for a little bit and wanted to
get out of that. I was getting married. My wife
had two kids from my previous marriage. I want to
get home with them, and so my buddy Jeff was
the heaburwer here at silver Moon, and I said, Hey,
can I can work for you? He said, I don't
(10:41):
have any jobs right now, but go apply the bartender
and I'll work your way into the back. So I
bartended for about three months and then very quickly became
the packaging manager.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
What was it about? What did you kind of learn
along while you were actually the kind of able to
go back a few times to because obviously home brewing
and then you know mass brewing the way you are
now is quite different. So besides just the measurements, what
all was kind of different for you? And then kind
of a oh my god.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
I like to nerd out a lot, so getting more
into like the water chemistry, that's science I have. Transformation
is really what I love to do. So if you
want to talk for six hours about water chemistry, I'm
here for it. I won't do that for you, though,
I will.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Ask some water practice, but you keep going yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Yeah, And I'm a little add so just the physicality
in hands on turning knobs. I just really fell in
love with it and turned it out. I think athlete
decent at it. So it's worked out for me.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Yeah. Well, you said earlier that good water makes good beer,
and I think you're a hundred percent right. I make
a joke that there's a city here in the metroplex
that there tap water is garbage and that's why they
have no breeries and they have one now. But it's
you know, I'm not it's okay, But what is it
about the water that you guys are getting there that
(12:15):
is so much better? And that what could Yeah, let's
start there. What what do you think it is about
the water in ben that is so good, that is
making obviously so much so many breweries and so much
fantastic beer.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Oh, all of our water comes from the Cascade Mountains, okay,
so it's all glacier milk. There's a lot of lava
rock over here too, so it just naturally gets filtered
from the lava rock. It's not too high in like
any of the minerals of which is really nice, has
like a really nice calcium level, so pretty light on
(12:51):
the calcium sulfate for a lot of our peers. Just
I mean, the water is perfectly just you know, usually
a little bit of or tossing carbonate and a little
bit of like you know, just like just a little
(13:12):
bit of a result. It's just very little a little
bit of gypsum.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Interesting, what do you think that other breweries can do
if they don't have great water source to actually make
it a better than average water source.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
A water filtration or an ro system is honestly best
just stripping it down all the way to bear nothing
and building it up to exactly what you want it
to be, right, It's a great option. I think chlorine
is probably the biggest thing you see in a lot
of beers that aren't the best quality, And it's just
(13:52):
hard when you're not starting with.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
A good foundation, right, Yeah, because there's a lot of
cities that just did they don't seem to care about,
you know, how the water is tasting, and so obviously
attack so many of the breweries as well.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, living in an Oregon, both Portland and Bend, I'm
very spoiled. I didn't realize that, like, drinking tap water
wasn't what everyone did across the country just because our
water is so good. I've never bought bottled water. Yeah,
and I traveled outside Oregon.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Yeah, the city I grew up in, Arlington, Texas, we've
had it's always known as the best tap water and
it's a fact. And so yeah, anytime I go anywhere else,
they're like, what are you doing? I was like, I'm
drinking water from the tap because I thought the same thing.
I thought all tap water. Nope, it's not not all
tap water is great. And that's so weird because I
am in Walmart's in a certain city to the west
of US and people just loading up with bottle of water.
(14:44):
I'm like, what is happening with the water out here?
With people just gonna keep loading up all this water.
But again, in some cities just don't care.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
A lot of the bottled water actually comes from this
area outside of Bend, outside of the river. There's a
lot of water companies out here that ship across well,
specifically the US, but a couple of international as well.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Interesting. I try not to drink too much of the
bottle water just because all the all the stuff in
the plastic and it's just it's it's not that great.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
My guilty pleasure is sparkling water. So you have like
some pole or something. I just love carbonation.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Okay, did you so you use jel like soda?
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Oh yeah, but I'm there's for me, like, try not
to drink too much, so the carbonate water like scratches
that hitch rather than something too sugary.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Right now, that's smart.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Because then we do have a house made of beer
here that I call live a crack, But I usually
have like a half glass of every day.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Oh just a half glass.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
There's a lot of sugar in there.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Oh okay, that's fair. Yeah, just get your fixed and
then you're good.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
I make it. I know how much sugar is in it.
It's probably a good thing. They're our customers, don't know.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
I mean, that might be why some of them come back,
because a lot like I know a lot of people
that my mom for sure loves the sweet wine still
and I'm like, I'm trying to get you off of this,
and it's it's not working. Somebodys need that sweet stuff
in their life.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
My wife says I ruined whine for her. She doesn't
drink any beer at all. Okay, but when I met her,
she's only drinking sweet whites like rosees. And now she's
can only drink like big old calves and tease.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Her as good her palette open up. That's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Yeah, it hurts my wallet a little bit, but that's
you have a lot of good wine up.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah. Well that's so. That's what's also great about Oregon.
So much great wine up. There.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Maybe just got back from Walla Walla last weekend.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
We would you'll pick up.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
We went to Let's McDaniel's. Got a bottles to off
from them. I used to actually bruin Wallow and so
did a couple of our favorite miners. Wrote got a
couple of bottles from them. They actually have an amazing
I think it's called south Side White. H are Southern White.
They're Northern wine and Southern white, and we just love
(17:16):
the Southern white nice.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
So will she visit breweries and actually try beer?
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Now? She'll sometimes try a sour and that's about it.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
I do I do that. I think that now is
the gateway to getting a lot of ladies in the
in the brewing if they're not already into it. Yeah,
sours there is where it's at because they're still great beer.
They just also pack a lot of flavor.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
I love sours too. Yeah. If you know who Tanya
Cornett is, Uh, she's local here and she's kind of
the sour queen of the world, and so we're very
lucky to have her in our community. I've learned a
law from her.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Okay, what was her name again?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
A Tanya Cornette.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
She was.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Master head of innovation at ten Barrel and then now
if she opened up agree with three other people from
ten Barrel or former ten Barrel and up Liquids. They
won five medals at GABS. They're they're killing it. They
just opened up six months ago. WHOA, yeah, they're killing it.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
I love that. Well, I'm definitely reaching out to him now. Well,
so I mean, what did you So you kind of
hopped around with your different breweries. What was it that
you We're kind of looking for at everyone and what
did you what do you think you learned the most
from working at each one?
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Well, packaging is a great place to start in brewing.
I don't think anyone wants to live in packaging their
entire career. So I had a really great opportunity to
go to Sunder for Brewing. Their packaging manager left and
they kind of needed someone to help train up the
next guy. And then they promised to teach me pork production.
(18:58):
So that's where I learned like recipe development wherett he
was the rerector of Brune Operations, probably my biggest mentor,
took me under his wing, taught me so much and
I'm so grateful to have him and COVID was a
rough time for everyone, I think, yeah, And I actually
(19:19):
went into pharmaceutical research for about a year, learned that
was not for me. I had a friend who actually
worked with at Center Heer. He went up to h
outside hood A River and he was the GM of
that place is a windery brewen sidary, and he told
(19:41):
me he couldn't drink a single beer that was on
tap for the shift beer and needed me to come
fix it. So I was very happy to go up
there get my first head green job. I'm very thankful
for my wife and kids because they sacrificed a lot
for me to go pursue my dreams. Yea, and I
was there for about three years, and it's a very
(20:04):
small scale system. We were doing about one hundred and
forty barrels of beer by the time I left the year,
one hundred barrels a cider, and like three hundred gallons
of teeny tiny But also learn how to excited and
when while I was there, so that was fun and exciting. Yeah,
and that's really where I got to like hone in
(20:25):
my recipe development and just try different things. I was
home brewing on my weekends just for fun. So I
could try different combinations during pretty much every weekend, drink
you know, three or four pints of it and dump
the rest of the batch down the dream just so
I could threw something else and try it. Geez, try
to get some friends over to frink the beer. But whatever,
(20:48):
you know, when I'm doing you know, five de teng
gallons every weekend, it's only so many friends that I have.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
They're like, oh, GREATY made more beer.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yeah, Like here's a growler, here's a growler. Everyone gets
a growlery. And then I had the opportunity over in
Wallah Walla, which was a very interesting for reas only
there for about nine months. I was a very high
end steakhouse that happened to have a breed attached to it,
and the business they brought me into one again fixed
(21:17):
bear quality and then to really to help grow them
and make them profitable. We get about fifty growth in
the nine months I was there, which is great. The
business model just wasn't really feasible with the steakhouse model
for the brewer itself. Yeah, So an opportunity came to
come back to Silver Moon and be home with my
(21:39):
family all the time. I jumped on it.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Yeah, well, yeah, I bet how far as I drive
to walla wall.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
It's about four and a half hours, But I have
an electric vehicle, and so it took me about another
hour to hour and a half on top of that,
so it's about five and a half to six hours.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Was you wouldn't do that every day?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
No? I had an apartment up there, so okay, I
was gonna say every other weekend.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Oh that's tough.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
There's you know, the mountains. There is an entire month
where it just didn't even come home because the roads
were closed.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, and so.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
That was definitely tough, but very happy to be wearing.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Yeah, that's awesome. Well, and I mean this brewer has
been around for since twenty so twenty five years this year,
which is huge for any brewery. How was it being
coming back and then now, obviously you know in the
position you are.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
It's kind of crazy how much it changed from when
I started to now. Yeah, back then, we were kind
of we like to lovely joke where like the local
die far that all the locals came to. I would
see the same seven eight people every single afternoon sitting
on the corner of the bar. Yeah, it was great,
(22:58):
But we did a remodel was that twenty sixteen, I
believe ate a little bit nicer. Put in an outdoor
patio which is just grown. They invested a lot of
over COVID about the building next to us, and now
we actually have three music venues on site door stages,
(23:19):
one outdoor stage, and shut down our kitchen in twenty
twenty one put in a food truck lots. So yeah,
it's like huge changes. You probably wouldn't even recognize that.
We have one of the coolest music murals with two
hundred different artists painted on the side of the building.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
We would sometimes do live music on the weekends and
concerts usually one or two and now we have live
music five nights a week in my comedy three Bluegrass
every Monday for locals nights, so that's when we need
to go do when we had done here.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
How do the kids like it?
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Oh? They love it here. Yeah, it's super fun where
the very community oriented. We have a Bingo program which
is raised over two million dollars for nonprofits. Oh not
program is bingo every Sunday morning. The kids love to
come to that dusty host It is absolutely amazing and
(24:25):
does a great job, makes it fun. There's dance parties,
it's it's an experience, like it's not your regular bigo.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yes, that's so cool. Oh there's another reason I need
to get there.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Well, so besides the ones the breweries that you worked at,
who are some other breweries that kind of really helped
you out along the way when it came to like
just kind of bouncing ideas off of or just questions
or just anything in general.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Oh, like I said, Tanya of Liquid, she's been fundamental
in how are you used for here? She's been absolutely
amazing and kind of questions. She's always there to help.
Also from Ten Barrel former Ten Barrel. Sean Kelso's actually
my neighbor. So when I was very first starting to
(25:13):
work on recipe development, I would very lovely go take
him a six packet here and say, hey, what do
you think of this? And he's usually very very kind
and maybe want to check this out? And then I'd
be like, why just pick his brain for half an
hour and he was very gracious with his time. Ale
(25:35):
Song matt Over there has been super nice to me.
When I was in Hood River, the people at Freeme
were amazing. Did some lab tests for me, tested some
cakes to make sure the purge is right because there's
some oxidation issues when I first started. And that's what
I love about the Brian community over here. Everyone's super helpful.
(25:58):
If you're ever out of an ingredient, you know, no
matter who be falls they have it, they're going to
lend it to you.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Yeah, if you have.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
A problem, somebody's going to have an answer for you.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
I've heard that at every brewer I've talked to, they've
had the exact same response. Like everybody, whatever community they're
in or whatever city they're in, everybody's there to help
everybody else. It's not a lobster pot where everyone's trying
to pull each other down. Everyone's literally trying to raise
everybody up. So that, you know, because obviously right now
we're also seeing unfortunately in the whole alcohol community where
(26:31):
a lot of craft breweries are not quite making it
or they're not making it to five ten years, let
alone twenty five years. And then you also have so
many that you know, this new generation they're saying is
not drinking as much according to whatever study you look at,
but you know, it's still a thing that people will
still no matter what age are still going out and drinking,
(26:52):
so it's like which study do you really look at?
But it's also at the end of the day, it's like,
really what you're providing, Like you like what y'all have
done where you've expanded your space to make it even
you can have more events where people come check out
your brewery even if they don't drink beer, They're going
to check out this, Like you said, open my comedy
or bingo or whatever concert or the four to twenty
(27:14):
festival you guys have. So it's like what you're doing
with your business also doesn't really at the end of
the day, Yes, you have to have good beer to
keep people there and keep people wanting to come back there,
but also why else would they come to your brewery
besides just your beer.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
I think it's really important to do toase beer economy too,
to separate yourself. So we really lean into the events.
When I well, they asked me to send them a
resume and ask them to send me a job description
so for a job offer, see what I was getting
(27:50):
myself into. And during my interview, I said, you guys
are really really great at events. I want the beer
quality to match the events. That we put on because
no one really thought of us as a brewery at
the time, but everyone knew was for the concerts. So
we've had every clear lesson Jake Bowling for soup, Soldier Boy.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Bowlings for soups, or from our Texas right up here. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Yeah, they're awesome, super nice guys.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
But they're also like I think Q magazine over in
England had nineteen eighty four is like one of the
greatest songs ever written. I was like, okay, sure, yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
I mean it reminds me of like middle school.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
And high school, but yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah, So yeah, really, you know, leaning into that and
being open to other beverages. We were the first account
in Situ, Oregon to have a teach Ce beverage on draft.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
We don't make it, but it's made locally here in
town by another company. And I have a nineteen and
twenty two year old, So I understand the kids not
drinking as much as they used to, but I feel
like now that you know, especially them being in high
school during COVID, they're starting to want that social interaction again. So,
(29:12):
you know, brilliant with the bear industry I think is cyclical.
So right now, I think we're towards the bottom of it,
and I'm hoping that it comes back up soon. Yeah,
so we'll see if I'm right.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
I don't think you're wrong. I didn't think of the
aspect of the fact that, yes, a lot of these kids,
well especially high school kids graduated during COVID or went
through a lot of the high school during COVID. So yes,
getting that back out there and socializing again is definitely
something is I think it's just needed in general as
much as phone and technology. I love talking to you
(29:44):
right now because I'm in Ford, Texas and you're in Bend, Oregon.
But at the same time, like we need to be
off our phones. We need to actually have conversations with people,
we need to actually interact with people, and like, so
I think we're trying to find that that fine balance
that I really do hope that we are going to
get back up on that upswing. Just because I don't
see craft breweries going away, I don't see brewers in
(30:05):
general going away. There's just again, everybody's got to find
their own nation to have people come out to you guys,
or have people come out to you to check out
what you're doing I think right now.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
It's also really important for US burries to like stick
together and share our resources to make sure that we
all survive. We contract threw with Migration Brewin out of Portland. Oh,
obviously fantastic for all of our cans. We shut down
our production facility about three years ago, so we should
have the pup system here now. But you know, working
(30:39):
with them has been really great. We have a couple
of other partnerships in the works, both beer and no beer.
Just sharing resources, you know, just making sure that everyone
can succeed.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
I love that. So I have a segment on the show.
I caught the five count. It's just five random questions.
Number one, what are you nerding out on right now?
Speaker 2 (31:04):
I'm a big soccer nerd, and we just got done
with the high school soccer season. Okay, it's my twenty
thirty year refereing soccer.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Oh you referee soccer? Wow?
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yeah, so you just got done with state playoffs. And
then my beloved Portland Timbers just got knocked out of
the playoffs last night.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
I'm always listening to the Rain podcasts. So those are
the two things that I just pretty much of a wasten.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
The ring now I love it. I actually I only
know about the timbers because another podcast I listened to
Knowledge Fight shout out to those guys, they're actually coming
to Portland, and I think his one of the Jordan's
wife got him some or no, somebody sent them some
Portland timber stuff. And so because they mentioned that last
time they were out there, they went to a game
(31:51):
and they loved it.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
So yeah, So I don't know if you'll be able
to see this on the web cam, but in my
wedding ring it says RC the idea. On one side,
Rose City till I die. On the other side it
says cykt am I saying Cynthia says Cynthia till I
die because one time I told her I loved her
as much as I love the timbers, and she said,
(32:12):
from anyone else, that's an insult from music compliment, so
she put it inside my way.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
I love that I told a girl one time, I
will never love you as much as I love her.
Wrestling and Shock of Shocks we are not together. Speaking
of which, right in the number two, if you worry
pro wrestler or MMA fighter, what would your name be?
Speaker 2 (32:35):
I think I'm gonna use one of the lines from
the Timbers Army. It be no pity. Okay, there's no
pity in the Rose City perfect.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Uh. Speaking of music, like we were talking earlier, what
music were you listening to when you were a kid
versus now?
Speaker 2 (32:57):
My dad played a lot of digress, so I listened
to a lot of grass growing up, a lot of jazz.
My grandpa's actually the A and E writer for the Oregonian,
so would take me to the Portland Philharmonics all the time.
So I was always surrounded by music. And then in
my twenties as a professional country dance instructor, so I
listened to a lot of country I Am and now,
(33:22):
and then listening to the nineties a lot some alternative.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yeah, I love that number four. Who are? What inspires you?
Speaker 2 (33:33):
I think different aspects of my life. My dad's definitely
inspired me to the person I am, my sense of humor.
He always had one liners that lived by, be good.
If you can't be could be careful? Is it worth it?
I always had aligned for something. My mom more or
(33:53):
less rasist on our early My dad had moved out
of state when I was a kid, even though I
was still very close with it. But being a single mom,
working social work, very strong woman, and then definitely my wife.
She's forced me to grow up and challenges me every day,
which I'm very appreciative.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
I love that. Yeah, shout out to the single moms
out there. And number five, who or what would you
tell your seventeen year old self?
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Chase your dreams and don't have regrets. There's a singing
I heard one time that you should never regret anything
because that's what got you in place you right now. Yes,
so just really going to look at the situation right
now and what can you do to improve it or
(34:43):
enjoy it, but don't dwell in the past.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Love that. Yeah, you're right. I think I heard that
quote today too, like don't yeah, don't regret anything because
it led you to where you are right now now.
If people want to find out more about you, visit
the brewery, buy silver Moon beer, come to the event.
How can they do all the things?
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Go to our website Silvermanbrain dot com. We're also on Facebook, Instagram,
probably some of the newer social medias that I don't
use because I'm too old for them.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
I get it when my.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Kids used TikTok. I have think I'm on there quite yet.
Oh and then you can find me on Instagram or
LinkedIn Jordan the Brewer if I'm always happy to answer
questions for anyone in the community or anyone want to
learn more about Bear other bruths having questions.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Love it, Jordan, Thank you so much for your time again.
Thank you for the beer. This Bear is fantastic. I
am definitely coming up to Bend, Oregon. There's no way
I'm not going to, especially with that many breweries. I
might have to spend a whole month, maybe do one
to day.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Who even knows, But there's the bend Ale Trail. You
should look it up as almost all the breweries in town.
And then if you complete it, you get a stamp
at each brewery. You get a prize at the end,
and it will be no One. We will do another podcast.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Yeah, we will in person before and after because I'm
getting that challenge accepted. Thank you so much for Jordan
for being on the show again. If you are in
the Bend, Oregon area, definitely check out Silver Moon Brewing
(36:24):
and apparently check out all the other breweries that are
in the area too, because from what he said, it
seems like a Paradise with less than two hundred thousand
people and that many breweries. I definitely gotta go visit myself,
so definitely make sure to follow them on social media,
and make sure to follow us on social media at
bruisers Pod that is b R E W S C
R S p O D on the Instagram, the threads
and the Twitter. If you want to send us an email,
(36:47):
it is bruispod at gmail dot com. If you want
to follow me directly, it is Rody John. That is
R O D I E j O N on the
Twitter and an untapped in case you want to find
out what I'm drinking, maybe we canna have a beer together.
If you want to follow me on the threads or
the Instagram, it is a fit sure wordy John, So
untill next time, make sure to enjoy life, drink local
and cheers.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Three two
Welcome to Bruisers podcast about beer, coffee, booze and bruisers.
I am your host, Ray John, and today we talked
to Jordan Hunt with silver Moon Brewing in Bend, Oregon.
We talked about his journey into beer, the brewing scene
in Bend, Oregon, and so much more. This is such
a fun conversation. Jordan's doing absolutely awesome things up in Bend,
Orgon with silver Moon Brewing. I got to tell some
(00:41):
on the on this show. You will definitely hear that
and you will definitely hear more about his story. So,
without further ado, here is Jordan Hunt with silver Moon
Brewing in Bend, Oregon. I would like to welcome the
(01:02):
show Jordan Hunt with silver Moon Brewing. How you doing today, sir?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Doing great? How are you doing?
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I'm doing well, so.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Podcast, thanks for coming on here.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yeah, I mean for those listening kind of paintings the
word picture, where you at, what's going on around you.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
We're in beautiful Bend of Oregon. We like to call
it beer Town USA here because there's so many grape breweries,
great water, it makes for great beer.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
There you go. I love that. Yeah, So I'm drinking
right now. The Hazy the as Simon says, which is
the Hazy ipa, thank you again for sending me beers.
This is fantastic.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Oh I listened to a couple of the episodes and
I was like, no, you're not drinking the beer. You know.
I can talk about it all I want, but really
it's about your guys' experience, so don't want to make
sure you could try it, right.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
I mean, honestly, I've been in the wine world now
for sixteen years, and I always say, like, get it
in people's mouths. If they once they taste it, then
they can decide for themselves if they like.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
It or not.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
So yes, this, this is actually fantastic.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I was opened a candad Our Cross joint the Turping Idea.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
I have that writing up next because we're definitely gonna
I want to talk about this because this is awesome. Actually,
let's start it. Yeah, start from there, hazy all right,
the way you get finished.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Yeah, we were really early adapters of the Turf Beings
from Abstracts, the Free Gas series, which is their cannabis series.
So oh uh. There's especially likes put on music festival
every summer at our brewery for four twenty it's called
Room Music Festival, and we threw this beer for them
(02:37):
about two years ago and just really fell in love
with the turf beings. But one of the more difficult
beers I've ever had to make. It took me about
four tries to get the recipe to where I was
actually really happy with it. Really, But yeah, it's our
newest addition to our year on can so we're really
excited for it and trying to push it hard market.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
So tell people the process of this, because obviously they're
gonna be like, oh, so this is weed and alcohol
together and then you know all that stuff. So talk
to people about how this works.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
It's more like fake weed, yea. So abstracts they're amazing.
They're based out of California. What they do is they
map out all the different turpins in different cannabs strings
and so the one that we selected is Pineapple Express,
which is how you got to make Cross twint if
you ever watch the movie. Yes, And so they find
(03:31):
those same turpins and other botanicles like orange feels lavender,
and then lend them all together to perfectly match that
canvas screen, and then we add it into the beer.
Somebobers like to use a little different I like to
add it during transfer to the bright tank. I've had
really good results with that, but aroma just pops smell
(03:53):
it to me, it's like just sticking to your nose
and a jar of nugs. But then I've worked really
hard to where it's just everything nice West Coast, I PA,
that's nice, Chris, not too maulty. And then on the
back end you get kind of that dankness.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah it is. It is definitely on the nose, and
you are right, is mm, it's like a nice little
jar and then yeah, you drink it and you don't
really it's not bad. It is a little bit. Yeah,
the dankness is definitely on the back end of it.
But this, this West Coast IPA is not. I've had
(04:29):
a lot that had been like almost too dry for me,
which is interesting, but this is not, and that it
has a very good flavor on.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Do yeah, throw a little bit of venimal in there,
just to build a little bit of body boat without
overpowering that, still trying to keep it nice and then Crisp.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
What was it about the first three tries that didn't
quite work for you? Did it work for just not
for you or for like other people as well.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
The first batch was actually right before it started back
at silver Moon, and a little heavy handed on these sturpings.
It's like the only thing that you could really taste.
You have to be very light handed with them. Yeah,
like half an ounce per barrel is a good starting point.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
So.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Right, it's it's pretty missful. They were using eight ounces
in a timberill batch and it's just overpowering. And then
once I dialed that down, it was really just matching
the hops to the beer itself and the turpenes. They
were trying to go for like this really tropical beer
since this Pineapple Express, and they just didn't really melt
because you got like the really nice nose, but the
(05:36):
beer just didn't match the rouma. It's two completely different experiences, right,
So dinked up those hops a little bit, got some
strata in there, some Columbus, you know, just trying to
really make the beer match and pair well with each other.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
I could see that. No, yeah, it's very well balanced.
And yeah, definitely on the nose and then on the
back end and in the middle it's a nice nice
West Coast aber.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
I love that Oregon is for people who are for
twenty friendly. Know that Oregon before it was even legal,
had some of the best we come out of that
place as the best. I've had the best beer for
the longest time coming out of Oregon. I feel like,
other than the cold, I don't see a reason I'm
not moving there like they just had, and so much
great coffee there as well.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
That is true. I mean, especially where I am in
Bend for a high desert, so even worth three hundred
days of sunshine. Oh wow, it does get a little
cold in the winter, but it's a dry cold. I
grew up in Portland. I can't do the wet cold anymore.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Right. Well, then, okay, maybe Bend is the place I
need to be any I need to visit. First off, Yeah, oh.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
You should definitely come visit. I mean, so many great
breweries from De Shoot's ten Barrel, SunRiver Brewing Company, Bend
Brewing Company. Just there's over thirty breweries in the area
and a population of like one hundred and fifty thousand.
In the Greater Bend area.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
There's only one hundred and fifty thousand.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, there's one hundred thousand inn itself. But then once
you include like Redmand's sister sun River. It's about hundred
and fifty maybe two hundred maps.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
That's crazy, okay.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
In like thirty six or thirty eight breas, it's insane.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah, that sounds perfect to me.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, I know you have the really bad you will
not survive in the see a good beer.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Oh yeah, my tallish is a stupid high. So I
think that I'd be in a good place perfect. Well,
so let's go all the way back in time. What
is your earliest memory of beer?
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Probably camping with my dad. He drank Henry Wine blue boar,
and I would always drank a bottle Henry Whinet root beer.
And my dad is playing his mamblin around the campfire.
I reached back behind the log to grab my root beer,
took a giant swig of his beer. It was the
worst thing ever tasted.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Well, that's also the worst because like you're expecting something
else and then you get beer for the first time,
and I, oh, what.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Is And then probably like my introduction to Kraft Beer.
When I was in college, there was a local bar
that I would name, but there was a smoking door
up back. I may or may not have been twenty
one yet and pretend to smoke a cigarette, walk in
with a group of people, and they had two dollars
(08:22):
Kraft beer when I week, so I'd always go there
and drink with my college friends are a little bit
older than me.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Do you remember what the craft beer was?
Speaker 2 (08:35):
I actually didn't really love beer back then, so I
was drinking like twenty first Amendment, the watermelon, wheat ale,
shock Top, all of those beers that were the kind
of beer Jason has liked to call them. And then
I think what really got me into Kraft beer was
me and my buddies love to go fishing. We drink
Twilight from the Shoots. It's a great summer ale. I
(08:58):
miss it. I whish they made it again.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Well, I mean you could make something your version of it.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yeah. I know a few people over there, so.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Okay, there you go. Yeah, she'd like, hey, you got
that recipe book around where do you keep the old recipes?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
It was a great beer while it lasted.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yeah, Well, so how did you initially get into actually
brewing and making beer stuff? Because I've seen you work
at multiple breweries and then you seem to have just
kept working your way up and then now obviously where
you are the head brew at Silver Moon. How did
you initially get into brewing to begin with?
Speaker 2 (09:35):
My dad was a homebrewer growing up, so it's always
I did a few batches when I was in college
as well. None of them are terrible, which I think
is a home brewer is a good starting point.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
I usually heard the exact opposite that first year, or
not good.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Yeah, I mean they weren't great, but they weren't terrible.
They're drinkable.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
But then studied chemical engineering in college. I wanted to
study biodiesel and late two thousand and that market kind
of just tanked. My favorite subject was distilling, and I
didn't want to go work for big oil. So I
found a local distillery here in Bend, did a six
month internship with them, and that's kind of where I
(10:19):
really fell in low fermentation. Once that was up, I
was a bartender for a little bit and wanted to
get out of that. I was getting married. My wife
had two kids from my previous marriage. I want to
get home with them, and so my buddy Jeff was
the heaburwer here at silver Moon, and I said, Hey,
can I can work for you? He said, I don't
(10:41):
have any jobs right now, but go apply the bartender
and I'll work your way into the back. So I
bartended for about three months and then very quickly became
the packaging manager.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
What was it about? What did you kind of learn
along while you were actually the kind of able to
go back a few times to because obviously home brewing
and then you know mass brewing the way you are
now is quite different. So besides just the measurements, what
all was kind of different for you? And then kind
of a oh my god.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
I like to nerd out a lot, so getting more
into like the water chemistry, that's science I have. Transformation
is really what I love to do. So if you
want to talk for six hours about water chemistry, I'm
here for it. I won't do that for you, though,
I will.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Ask some water practice, but you keep going yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Yeah, And I'm a little add so just the physicality
in hands on turning knobs. I just really fell in
love with it and turned it out. I think athlete
decent at it. So it's worked out for me.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Yeah. Well, you said earlier that good water makes good beer,
and I think you're a hundred percent right. I make
a joke that there's a city here in the metroplex
that there tap water is garbage and that's why they
have no breeries and they have one now. But it's
you know, I'm not it's okay, But what is it
about the water that you guys are getting there that
(12:15):
is so much better? And that what could Yeah, let's
start there. What what do you think it is about
the water in ben that is so good, that is
making obviously so much so many breweries and so much
fantastic beer.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Oh, all of our water comes from the Cascade Mountains, okay,
so it's all glacier milk. There's a lot of lava
rock over here too, so it just naturally gets filtered
from the lava rock. It's not too high in like
any of the minerals of which is really nice, has
like a really nice calcium level, so pretty light on
(12:51):
the calcium sulfate for a lot of our peers. Just
I mean, the water is perfectly just you know, usually
a little bit of or tossing carbonate and a little
bit of like you know, just like just a little
(13:12):
bit of a result. It's just very little a little
bit of gypsum.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Interesting, what do you think that other breweries can do
if they don't have great water source to actually make
it a better than average water source.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
A water filtration or an ro system is honestly best
just stripping it down all the way to bear nothing
and building it up to exactly what you want it
to be, right, It's a great option. I think chlorine
is probably the biggest thing you see in a lot
of beers that aren't the best quality, And it's just
(13:52):
hard when you're not starting with.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
A good foundation, right, Yeah, because there's a lot of
cities that just did they don't seem to care about,
you know, how the water is tasting, and so obviously
attack so many of the breweries as well.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, living in an Oregon, both Portland and Bend, I'm
very spoiled. I didn't realize that, like, drinking tap water
wasn't what everyone did across the country just because our
water is so good. I've never bought bottled water. Yeah,
and I traveled outside Oregon.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Yeah, the city I grew up in, Arlington, Texas, we've
had it's always known as the best tap water and
it's a fact. And so yeah, anytime I go anywhere else,
they're like, what are you doing? I was like, I'm
drinking water from the tap because I thought the same thing.
I thought all tap water. Nope, it's not not all
tap water is great. And that's so weird because I
am in Walmart's in a certain city to the west
of US and people just loading up with bottle of water.
(14:44):
I'm like, what is happening with the water out here?
With people just gonna keep loading up all this water.
But again, in some cities just don't care.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
A lot of the bottled water actually comes from this
area outside of Bend, outside of the river. There's a
lot of water companies out here that ship across well,
specifically the US, but a couple of international as well.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Interesting. I try not to drink too much of the
bottle water just because all the all the stuff in
the plastic and it's just it's it's not that great.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
My guilty pleasure is sparkling water. So you have like
some pole or something. I just love carbonation.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Okay, did you so you use jel like soda?
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Oh yeah, but I'm there's for me, like, try not
to drink too much, so the carbonate water like scratches
that hitch rather than something too sugary.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Right now, that's smart.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Because then we do have a house made of beer
here that I call live a crack, But I usually
have like a half glass of every day.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Oh just a half glass.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
There's a lot of sugar in there.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Oh okay, that's fair. Yeah, just get your fixed and
then you're good.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
I make it. I know how much sugar is in it.
It's probably a good thing. They're our customers, don't know.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
I mean, that might be why some of them come back,
because a lot like I know a lot of people
that my mom for sure loves the sweet wine still
and I'm like, I'm trying to get you off of this,
and it's it's not working. Somebodys need that sweet stuff
in their life.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
My wife says I ruined whine for her. She doesn't
drink any beer at all. Okay, but when I met her,
she's only drinking sweet whites like rosees. And now she's
can only drink like big old calves and tease.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Her as good her palette open up. That's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Yeah, it hurts my wallet a little bit, but that's
you have a lot of good wine up.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah. Well that's so. That's what's also great about Oregon.
So much great wine up. There.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Maybe just got back from Walla Walla last weekend.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
We would you'll pick up.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
We went to Let's McDaniel's. Got a bottles to off
from them. I used to actually bruin Wallow and so
did a couple of our favorite miners. Wrote got a
couple of bottles from them. They actually have an amazing
I think it's called south Side White. H are Southern White.
They're Northern wine and Southern white, and we just love
(17:16):
the Southern white nice.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
So will she visit breweries and actually try beer?
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Now? She'll sometimes try a sour and that's about it.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
I do I do that. I think that now is
the gateway to getting a lot of ladies in the
in the brewing if they're not already into it. Yeah,
sours there is where it's at because they're still great beer.
They just also pack a lot of flavor.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
I love sours too. Yeah. If you know who Tanya
Cornett is, Uh, she's local here and she's kind of
the sour queen of the world, and so we're very
lucky to have her in our community. I've learned a
law from her.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Okay, what was her name again?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
A Tanya Cornette.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
She was.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Master head of innovation at ten Barrel and then now
if she opened up agree with three other people from
ten Barrel or former ten Barrel and up Liquids. They
won five medals at GABS. They're they're killing it. They
just opened up six months ago. WHOA, yeah, they're killing it.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
I love that. Well, I'm definitely reaching out to him now. Well,
so I mean, what did you So you kind of
hopped around with your different breweries. What was it that
you We're kind of looking for at everyone and what
did you what do you think you learned the most
from working at each one?
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Well, packaging is a great place to start in brewing.
I don't think anyone wants to live in packaging their
entire career. So I had a really great opportunity to
go to Sunder for Brewing. Their packaging manager left and
they kind of needed someone to help train up the
next guy. And then they promised to teach me pork production.
(18:58):
So that's where I learned like recipe development wherett he
was the rerector of Brune Operations, probably my biggest mentor,
took me under his wing, taught me so much and
I'm so grateful to have him and COVID was a
rough time for everyone, I think, yeah, And I actually
(19:19):
went into pharmaceutical research for about a year, learned that
was not for me. I had a friend who actually
worked with at Center Heer. He went up to h
outside hood A River and he was the GM of
that place is a windery brewen sidary, and he told
(19:41):
me he couldn't drink a single beer that was on
tap for the shift beer and needed me to come
fix it. So I was very happy to go up
there get my first head green job. I'm very thankful
for my wife and kids because they sacrificed a lot
for me to go pursue my dreams. Yea, and I
was there for about three years, and it's a very
(20:04):
small scale system. We were doing about one hundred and
forty barrels of beer by the time I left the year,
one hundred barrels a cider, and like three hundred gallons
of teeny tiny But also learn how to excited and
when while I was there, so that was fun and exciting. Yeah,
and that's really where I got to like hone in
(20:25):
my recipe development and just try different things. I was
home brewing on my weekends just for fun. So I
could try different combinations during pretty much every weekend, drink
you know, three or four pints of it and dump
the rest of the batch down the dream just so
I could threw something else and try it. Geez, try
to get some friends over to frink the beer. But whatever,
(20:48):
you know, when I'm doing you know, five de teng
gallons every weekend, it's only so many friends that I have.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
They're like, oh, GREATY made more beer.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yeah, Like here's a growler, here's a growler. Everyone gets
a growlery. And then I had the opportunity over in
Wallah Walla, which was a very interesting for reas only
there for about nine months. I was a very high
end steakhouse that happened to have a breed attached to it,
and the business they brought me into one again fixed
(21:17):
bear quality and then to really to help grow them
and make them profitable. We get about fifty growth in
the nine months I was there, which is great. The
business model just wasn't really feasible with the steakhouse model
for the brewer itself. Yeah, So an opportunity came to
come back to Silver Moon and be home with my
(21:39):
family all the time. I jumped on it.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Yeah, well, yeah, I bet how far as I drive
to walla wall.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
It's about four and a half hours, But I have
an electric vehicle, and so it took me about another
hour to hour and a half on top of that,
so it's about five and a half to six hours.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Was you wouldn't do that every day?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
No? I had an apartment up there, so okay, I
was gonna say every other weekend.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Oh that's tough.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
There's you know, the mountains. There is an entire month
where it just didn't even come home because the roads
were closed.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, and so.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
That was definitely tough, but very happy to be wearing.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Yeah, that's awesome. Well, and I mean this brewer has
been around for since twenty so twenty five years this year,
which is huge for any brewery. How was it being
coming back and then now, obviously you know in the
position you are.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
It's kind of crazy how much it changed from when
I started to now. Yeah, back then, we were kind
of we like to lovely joke where like the local
die far that all the locals came to. I would
see the same seven eight people every single afternoon sitting
on the corner of the bar. Yeah, it was great,
(22:58):
But we did a remodel was that twenty sixteen, I
believe ate a little bit nicer. Put in an outdoor
patio which is just grown. They invested a lot of
over COVID about the building next to us, and now
we actually have three music venues on site door stages,
(23:19):
one outdoor stage, and shut down our kitchen in twenty
twenty one put in a food truck lots. So yeah,
it's like huge changes. You probably wouldn't even recognize that.
We have one of the coolest music murals with two
hundred different artists painted on the side of the building.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
We would sometimes do live music on the weekends and
concerts usually one or two and now we have live
music five nights a week in my comedy three Bluegrass
every Monday for locals nights, so that's when we need
to go do when we had done here.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
How do the kids like it?
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Oh? They love it here. Yeah, it's super fun where
the very community oriented. We have a Bingo program which
is raised over two million dollars for nonprofits. Oh not
program is bingo every Sunday morning. The kids love to
come to that dusty host It is absolutely amazing and
(24:25):
does a great job, makes it fun. There's dance parties,
it's it's an experience, like it's not your regular bigo.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yes, that's so cool. Oh there's another reason I need
to get there.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Well, so besides the ones the breweries that you worked at,
who are some other breweries that kind of really helped
you out along the way when it came to like
just kind of bouncing ideas off of or just questions
or just anything in general.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Oh, like I said, Tanya of Liquid, she's been fundamental
in how are you used for here? She's been absolutely
amazing and kind of questions. She's always there to help.
Also from Ten Barrel former Ten Barrel. Sean Kelso's actually
my neighbor. So when I was very first starting to
(25:13):
work on recipe development, I would very lovely go take
him a six packet here and say, hey, what do
you think of this? And he's usually very very kind
and maybe want to check this out? And then I'd
be like, why just pick his brain for half an
hour and he was very gracious with his time. Ale
(25:35):
Song matt Over there has been super nice to me.
When I was in Hood River, the people at Freeme
were amazing. Did some lab tests for me, tested some
cakes to make sure the purge is right because there's
some oxidation issues when I first started. And that's what
I love about the Brian community over here. Everyone's super helpful.
(25:58):
If you're ever out of an ingredient, you know, no
matter who be falls they have it, they're going to
lend it to you.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Yeah, if you have.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
A problem, somebody's going to have an answer for you.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
I've heard that at every brewer I've talked to, they've
had the exact same response. Like everybody, whatever community they're
in or whatever city they're in, everybody's there to help
everybody else. It's not a lobster pot where everyone's trying
to pull each other down. Everyone's literally trying to raise
everybody up. So that, you know, because obviously right now
we're also seeing unfortunately in the whole alcohol community where
(26:31):
a lot of craft breweries are not quite making it
or they're not making it to five ten years, let
alone twenty five years. And then you also have so
many that you know, this new generation they're saying is
not drinking as much according to whatever study you look at,
but you know, it's still a thing that people will
still no matter what age are still going out and drinking,
(26:52):
so it's like which study do you really look at?
But it's also at the end of the day, it's like,
really what you're providing, Like you like what y'all have
done where you've expanded your space to make it even
you can have more events where people come check out
your brewery even if they don't drink beer, They're going
to check out this, Like you said, open my comedy
or bingo or whatever concert or the four to twenty
(27:14):
festival you guys have. So it's like what you're doing
with your business also doesn't really at the end of
the day, Yes, you have to have good beer to
keep people there and keep people wanting to come back there,
but also why else would they come to your brewery
besides just your beer.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
I think it's really important to do toase beer economy too,
to separate yourself. So we really lean into the events.
When I well, they asked me to send them a
resume and ask them to send me a job description
so for a job offer, see what I was getting
(27:50):
myself into. And during my interview, I said, you guys
are really really great at events. I want the beer
quality to match the events. That we put on because
no one really thought of us as a brewery at
the time, but everyone knew was for the concerts. So
we've had every clear lesson Jake Bowling for soup, Soldier Boy.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Bowlings for soups, or from our Texas right up here. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Yeah, they're awesome, super nice guys.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
But they're also like I think Q magazine over in
England had nineteen eighty four is like one of the
greatest songs ever written. I was like, okay, sure, yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
I mean it reminds me of like middle school.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
And high school, but yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah, So yeah, really, you know, leaning into that and
being open to other beverages. We were the first account
in Situ, Oregon to have a teach Ce beverage on draft.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
We don't make it, but it's made locally here in
town by another company. And I have a nineteen and
twenty two year old, So I understand the kids not
drinking as much as they used to, but I feel
like now that you know, especially them being in high
school during COVID, they're starting to want that social interaction again. So,
(29:12):
you know, brilliant with the bear industry I think is cyclical.
So right now, I think we're towards the bottom of it,
and I'm hoping that it comes back up soon. Yeah,
so we'll see if I'm right.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
I don't think you're wrong. I didn't think of the
aspect of the fact that, yes, a lot of these kids,
well especially high school kids graduated during COVID or went
through a lot of the high school during COVID. So yes,
getting that back out there and socializing again is definitely
something is I think it's just needed in general as
much as phone and technology. I love talking to you
(29:44):
right now because I'm in Ford, Texas and you're in Bend, Oregon.
But at the same time, like we need to be
off our phones. We need to actually have conversations with people,
we need to actually interact with people, and like, so
I think we're trying to find that that fine balance
that I really do hope that we are going to
get back up on that upswing. Just because I don't
see craft breweries going away, I don't see brewers in
(30:05):
general going away. There's just again, everybody's got to find
their own nation to have people come out to you guys,
or have people come out to you to check out
what you're doing I think right now.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
It's also really important for US burries to like stick
together and share our resources to make sure that we
all survive. We contract threw with Migration Brewin out of Portland. Oh,
obviously fantastic for all of our cans. We shut down
our production facility about three years ago, so we should
have the pup system here now. But you know, working
(30:39):
with them has been really great. We have a couple
of other partnerships in the works, both beer and no beer.
Just sharing resources, you know, just making sure that everyone
can succeed.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
I love that. So I have a segment on the show.
I caught the five count. It's just five random questions.
Number one, what are you nerding out on right now?
Speaker 2 (31:04):
I'm a big soccer nerd, and we just got done
with the high school soccer season. Okay, it's my twenty
thirty year refereing soccer.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Oh you referee soccer? Wow?
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yeah, so you just got done with state playoffs. And
then my beloved Portland Timbers just got knocked out of
the playoffs last night.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
I'm always listening to the Rain podcasts. So those are
the two things that I just pretty much of a wasten.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
The ring now I love it. I actually I only
know about the timbers because another podcast I listened to
Knowledge Fight shout out to those guys, they're actually coming
to Portland, and I think his one of the Jordan's
wife got him some or no, somebody sent them some
Portland timber stuff. And so because they mentioned that last
time they were out there, they went to a game
(31:51):
and they loved it.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
So yeah, So I don't know if you'll be able
to see this on the web cam, but in my
wedding ring it says RC the idea. On one side,
Rose City till I die. On the other side it
says cykt am I saying Cynthia says Cynthia till I
die because one time I told her I loved her
as much as I love the timbers, and she said,
(32:12):
from anyone else, that's an insult from music compliment, so
she put it inside my way.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
I love that I told a girl one time, I
will never love you as much as I love her.
Wrestling and Shock of Shocks we are not together. Speaking
of which, right in the number two, if you worry
pro wrestler or MMA fighter, what would your name be?
Speaker 2 (32:35):
I think I'm gonna use one of the lines from
the Timbers Army. It be no pity. Okay, there's no
pity in the Rose City perfect.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Uh. Speaking of music, like we were talking earlier, what
music were you listening to when you were a kid
versus now?
Speaker 2 (32:57):
My dad played a lot of digress, so I listened
to a lot of grass growing up, a lot of jazz.
My grandpa's actually the A and E writer for the Oregonian,
so would take me to the Portland Philharmonics all the time.
So I was always surrounded by music. And then in
my twenties as a professional country dance instructor, so I
listened to a lot of country I Am and now,
(33:22):
and then listening to the nineties a lot some alternative.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yeah, I love that number four. Who are? What inspires you?
Speaker 2 (33:33):
I think different aspects of my life. My dad's definitely
inspired me to the person I am, my sense of humor.
He always had one liners that lived by, be good.
If you can't be could be careful? Is it worth it?
I always had aligned for something. My mom more or
(33:53):
less rasist on our early My dad had moved out
of state when I was a kid, even though I
was still very close with it. But being a single mom,
working social work, very strong woman, and then definitely my wife.
She's forced me to grow up and challenges me every day,
which I'm very appreciative.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
I love that. Yeah, shout out to the single moms
out there. And number five, who or what would you
tell your seventeen year old self?
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Chase your dreams and don't have regrets. There's a singing
I heard one time that you should never regret anything
because that's what got you in place you right now. Yes,
so just really going to look at the situation right
now and what can you do to improve it or
(34:43):
enjoy it, but don't dwell in the past.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Love that. Yeah, you're right. I think I heard that
quote today too, like don't yeah, don't regret anything because
it led you to where you are right now now.
If people want to find out more about you, visit
the brewery, buy silver Moon beer, come to the event.
How can they do all the things?
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Go to our website Silvermanbrain dot com. We're also on Facebook, Instagram,
probably some of the newer social medias that I don't
use because I'm too old for them.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
I get it when my.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Kids used TikTok. I have think I'm on there quite yet.
Oh and then you can find me on Instagram or
LinkedIn Jordan the Brewer if I'm always happy to answer
questions for anyone in the community or anyone want to
learn more about Bear other bruths having questions.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Love it, Jordan, Thank you so much for your time again.
Thank you for the beer. This Bear is fantastic. I
am definitely coming up to Bend, Oregon. There's no way
I'm not going to, especially with that many breweries. I
might have to spend a whole month, maybe do one
to day.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Who even knows, But there's the bend Ale Trail. You
should look it up as almost all the breweries in town.
And then if you complete it, you get a stamp
at each brewery. You get a prize at the end,
and it will be no One. We will do another podcast.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Yeah, we will in person before and after because I'm
getting that challenge accepted. Thank you so much for Jordan
for being on the show again. If you are in
the Bend, Oregon area, definitely check out Silver Moon Brewing
(36:24):
and apparently check out all the other breweries that are
in the area too, because from what he said, it
seems like a Paradise with less than two hundred thousand
people and that many breweries. I definitely gotta go visit myself,
so definitely make sure to follow them on social media,
and make sure to follow us on social media at
bruisers Pod that is b R E W S C
R S p O D on the Instagram, the threads
and the Twitter. If you want to send us an email,
(36:47):
it is bruispod at gmail dot com. If you want
to follow me directly, it is Rody John. That is
R O D I E j O N on the
Twitter and an untapped in case you want to find
out what I'm drinking, maybe we canna have a beer together.
If you want to follow me on the threads or
the Instagram, it is a fit sure wordy John, So
untill next time, make sure to enjoy life, drink local
and cheers.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Three two
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