Page 26 - Beverage MasterAprMay 2021
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Craft Brewery
Craft Brewery
with their eyes clearly looking upward at the stars. addition, they occasionally offer astronomy triv-ia
via their social media channels.
“In hindsight, there is no better name than
Ecliptic, as this ties into our seasonal beer and food Pairing Food and Beer
we make here at our brewery and restaurant, as According to the Seasons
we go around the sun on planet earth,” Harris says.
While pairing Oregon’s wines with locally sourced
Signature and Seasonal Beers food has always been considered standard practice
in the Portland dining scene, beer tends to be treat-
Ecliptic’s beer names represent more of a mar- ed as a stand-alone beverage.
keting decision than coordinating a release fol-
low-ing the seasons. For example, during the 2017 “Portland is such a foodie town, and yet there was
solar eclipse, they got some national press for no brewery that was taking food seriously,” Harris
hosting eclipse-themed events and releasing their says.
Chromosphere Blonde Ale. This special release
eclipse beer was made using Amarillo and Cascade From Ecliptic’s inception, Harris wanted to create
Hops and had a citrus nose and flavors with a light a brewpub that could be on the list of Port-land’s
yellow color that resembled the summer sun. 100 best restaurants. Their menu continues to play
off Ecliptic’s name, emphasizing sea-sonal ingredi-
For the 2019 Oregon Brewers Festival, they ents and beers.
brewed LIGO Key Lime Gose. This beer, named
after the world’s largest gravitational wave obser- They continue to host occasional food and beer
vatory, featured Ecliptic’s house lactobacillus strain pairings, such as the Cosmic Brunch, held as part
and key lime purée. During this festival, Ecliptic was of their “5 Beers for 5 Years” series, commemo-
selected as the host for the 13th an-nual Oregon rating the brewery’s fifth trip around the sun. At
Brewer’s Brunch and Parade, and LIGO Key Lime this brunch, held on February 3, 2019, Harris and
Gose was the first official keg tapped at this event. Brooklyn Brewery’s Brewmaster, Garrett Oli-ver,
OBF was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the released their Tangerine Farmhouse Ale collabo-
Covid 19 pandemic, with plans to resume the festi- ration along with a five-course meal and several
val July 27-30, 2022. beers from each brewery. They gave away signed
bottles of the collaboration beer to each attend-
Their other Cosmic Collaborations included Blood ee. Other similar collaborative dinners include
of Jupiter, a Belgian-style Tripel. They teamed Firestone Walker Brewing Company (Hazy Double
with Umpqua Valley’s TeSóAria Winery, with the IPA), Breakside Brewery (Nectarine Sour Ale), Bell’s
base beer brewed by Ecliptic, and then aged in Brewery (Juicy IPA) and Russian River Brewing
Sangiovese wine barrels furnished by TeSóAria. Company (Belgian-Style Hoppy Golden Ale).
Customer demand for IPAs has led to their sig- Working at Ecliptic Brewing
nature Ecliptic Starburst IPA, as well as Vega IPA
and Phaser Hazy IPA. However, Harris’ creativity Harris’s history and reputation in the beer indus-
includes brewing darker beers and sour beers, try enabled him to bring on employees like sales
which are appearing in greater frequency on their manager Erin Grey Kemplin. She met Harris when
taproom menu. she was the on-premise rep for Full Sail’s distribu-
tor. During that time, she got to know Harris.
Most patrons frequent Ecliptic for the craft beers
and space vibe. However, for those bent toward “I was able to not only drink John’s creations but
astronomy, Ecliptic hosts occasional star gazing also get to know him as a friend,” Kemplin says.
events on their patio for amateur astronomers. After Ecliptic opened, she frequented the brewery
Their menu also describes the meaning behind nearly every week. “When he decided to build out
names like Capella (a bright star in the constel- a sales department and came to me about the role,
la-tion Auriga), Phobos (the Martian moon that I knew the answer had to be yes.”
circles the red planet), and Oort (the mysterious
re-gion of our solar system that breeds comets). In She stays at Ecliptic due to the delicious beer, the
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