One of the great things about this golden age of beer is not only the choice available on shelves and on tap, but the many, many festivals surrounding the beverage—from gatherings focused on extreme or high-ABV beers to ones solely concentrated on beers brewed with coffee or on all krieks to the every-weekend local distributor-led festivals held in parking lots to the more intimate brewery invitational festivals. There’s something for everyone.
This Saturday, August 25, in Portland, Oregon, a new kind of festival joins the collective experience. Hopworks Urban Brewery is hosting the Salmon-Safe IPA Festival where invited brewers will be pouring hops-forward beers brewed with ingredients that are certified as salmon-safe.
Salmon-safe, according to the organizers “is an ecolabel certification that works with farmers and developers to reduce watershed impacts through third-party accountability. Beers in the Salmon-Safe IPA Festival are brewed with ingredients sourced from farms committed to protecting clean water and biodiversity in Northwest agricultural watersheds, which are essential for native fish populations.”
As you’d expect, the ingredients that have received the designation are mostly hops, although there are some malts (more on that below). Growers such as Crosby Hop Farm, Loftus Ranches, Goschie Farms, Cowiche Growers, and Roy Farms all have hops from such traditional varieties as Centennial to more modern varieties such as Azacca to new experimental varieties that have been grown in Salmon-Safe conditions.
“Making beer is intensive with water, from the actual brewing process to sanitation in the brewery to all the water it takes to grow grain, hops, and other ingredients that go into beer,” says Eric Steen, of Hopworks and the organizer of the festival. “Anything a farm can do to mitigate the bad things, chemicals, that will go into the watershed is a serious win.”
The festival is doubling as the brewery’s tenth anniversary, and there’s a robust list of mostly Pacific Northwest breweries who are bringing IPAs of all stripes—from the New England–style to fruited to more traditional West Coast, all featuring some ingredients that are Salmon-Safe.
“This cause doesn’t have the public awareness that other causes have,” says Steen. “This will hopefully bring awareness [to the cause] and show there are really a lot of eco-consciousness farmers in our area and show that we are proud to be sourcing their hops because they have a similar ethos to ours.”
Currently there is only one maltster—Mainstem Malt of Walla Walla, Washington—making grain that has the certification. Varieties such as Athena Pilsner and Hard Red Light Munich are popular with those involved with the festival.
Salmon-Safe as an ecolabel now accounts for more than 95,000 acres of farm and urban lands certified in British Columbia, California, Oregon, and Washington. It’s a peer-reviewed certification and accreditation program that protects “water quality, maintains watershed health, and restores habitat.”
Of course, Steen says, Salmon-Safe ingredients “do come at a premium, so it’s possible that you’ll see a brewery charging a little more for a beer brewed with these ingredients, but these ingredients are safer for the planet, and that’s something we can inspire people to think about as they drink.”