One of the newest breweries in the Pacific Northwest, Douglas Lager embodies the confluence of locally harvested ingredients and a regional demand for classic lager beer. The arrival of Douglas into the greater Oregon market harkens the return of a traditional approach to lager that dominated the landscape until the early 1990’s: beer from the Pacific Northwest made for the Pacific Northwest.
The story of Douglas Lager begins with it’s co-founder by Chris Smith. Arriving in Seattle from Arizona in 2008, Smith, at the time a professional cook, took on the hobby of homebrewing, ultimately leading to the opening of Lowercase Brewing in 2014, located in the South Park neighborhood.
Not long after, while still operating a 3 barrel brewhouse, now head brewer and co-founder of Douglas John Marti joined Smith in the Lowercase endeavor. Marti too came into brewing beer through the homebrew world, though prior to Lowercase he spent five years working in the wine industry as a certified sommelier. In time, Marti took the reigns as head brewer with Smith focusing more on the business and overall production side of the operation.
In 2016 Lowercase Brewing opened it’s Georgetown neighborhood and also moved into a larger production space housing a 15bbl brewhouse just next door to their smaller original space in South Park. Within three years, Lowercase was producing in excess of 500 barrels a year, winning Mid-Sized Brewery of the year at the Washington Beer Awards.
Also of note, their first attempt at a lager-focused brand was born in Seattle-Lite, a short-lived off-shoot in 2018 that featured 4 different beers packaged in the distinctive classic 12oz stubby bottles from the heyday of lager in the 70’s. This was a tall task for the already bootstrapped duo as an attempt to find footing in the already saturated light lager category required a larger throughput of production to compete.
While the onset of covid in 2020 hit most breweries hard, Lowercase’s pivot was particularly difficult. Prior to the pandemic, Lowercase was almost exclusively a draft-only operation, with the exception of crowlers they’d fill and sell fresh at local farmers markets. In addition to the necessity of beginning to package their beer in 16oz cans, it was also punctuated by John moving out of his apartment and into a 99 sq ft space in the brewhouse for a few years to save money.
During covid, Chris and John were able to procure a classic bottling line by way of Fish Brewing in Olympia, Washington. Moved from Olympia to Tacoma, piece by piece, in 15 stressful trips, the now 73 year old machine also once bottled and/or labelled beer at the Rainier, Olympia, and Heidelberg breweries, a fitting history for what was to come.
Just over two years ago, Lowercase was forced to shut down their Georgetown taproom as the area saw a marked decline in traffic as people rarely left their own neighborhoods in Seattle following the pandemic. It also enabled Smith and Marti to focus on their new project in Douglas Lager, which began in 2023.
As with their ethos at Lowercase, the approach to Douglas is about being understated, hence the acquisition of a bottling line for the occasional drops of 12oz brown bottles which will be coming soon. It’s a beer they created to enjoy with friends – uncomplicated, easy drinking, refreshing, but also clearing a higher bar of quality.
Douglas Lager sources it’s grain from Linc Malt in the Spokane Valley, specifically featuring their Baroness Pilsner malt (“dynamic pilsner with classic grassiness and a nuanced warm hay aroma”) and excluding the adjunct grains often found in mass produced industrial lagers. As for the hops, they’re utilizing Lórien hops, sourced via Oregon-based Indie Hops. Lastly, Douglas Lager is fermented on Imperial Yeast’s Pilgrimage yeast strain, originally sourced from Andechs in Bavaria.
Today Douglas Lager is contract brewed on a 60bbl brewhouse at Talking Cedar Brewing in Rochester, Washington, located on The Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation. The Douglas base of operations and bottling line are located further north in the city of Tacoma. Presently Douglas Lager is available in 16oz six-packs of cans and 1/2bbl kegs, distributed in Oregon by us here at Day One, except for the north coast counties where it’s distributed by Fort George Distribution.
Be sure to stay tuned for future events, limited releases of 12oz bottles, and a steady supply of Douglas Lager!
Content for this article was sourced from the following sites: Douglas Lager, Grit & Grain Podcast: Lowercase Brewing, Beervana Blog, New School Beer, Eater Seattle, and Talking Cedar.
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