Internal Brewsletter - August 13th, 2025
General
Employee Provision
A weekly special served at the Pub, the idea of which comes primarily from Block 15 employees.
We’re always looking for more submissions, so send in those ideas!
This Week’s Releases
Block Station 97.15 // 8.25%
Description: Don’t touch that dial! Coming up we’ve got a special collaboration with our longtime friends and supporters at Belmont Station ft. funky diesel, punchy cannabis, snappy citrus, and beachy tropicals all in one imperial IPA masterpiece. Stay tuned to 97.15 KHOP FM
Key Takeaway: Brewed with our long-time friends and supporters at Belmont Station, who opened in 1997, this beer bursts with citrus, pineapple, and tropical fruit aroma. It celebrates the artistry and community that defines Pacific Northwest beer culture.
Tasting Notes: Guava • Orange Zest • Friendship
Format: Draft & Cans
Series: Synergy
Beer Style: Imperial IPA
Imperial IPAs (often called Double IPAs) feature a more robust profile of malts and hops. Significant factors that set Imperial IPAs apart from regular IPAs are their alcohol content and bitterness levels. An Imperial IPA can range from 7.5%-10% ABV. Due to the increased malt load it takes to create the additional alcohol, more hops are required to balance out the beer and keep the malt in check. An Imperial IPA should be intensely hoppy, medium-light to medium-bodied, and have balanced hop characteristics. There can be Imperial versions of virtually any IPA style or sub-style.
Upcoming Releases
*This list is subject to change based on the production schedule. Please keep that in mind!
Buzzworks // West Coast IPA
Series: Synergy
Releases: August 22nd
Format: Draft & Cans
Description: A precision-crafted collaboration blending our passion with Chris King's legendary attention to detail. Simcoe, Citra, and Eclipse hops impart bright citrus and stone fruit notes, complemented by a crisp malt backbone, for a modern West Coast IPA experience.
Jasa Juice // Hazy IPA
Series: Pub Life
Releases: August 22nd
Format: Draft Only
Description: We brewed this hazy IPA featuring a Comet/Strata/Cashmere dryhop for our dear friend, valued outside salesman, and Mr. Universe participation trophy winner Brandyn Jasa and his wonderful bride, Alexa. Be patient, Alexa, he's worth it.
Crowler/Package Sale for Sippin’ Sunday
20% off all packaged beer to-go, $5 Crowlers, and $10 Growler fills all-day Sunday of a specific beer.
This week’s beer is:
Both: Group Ride
Beer Education
4:00 pm Every Other Thursday @ the Pub
The next Happy Hour is Thursday, 8/7.
Join us every other Thursday in the Game Room at the Pub to taste through beers, discuss our beers, brewing, or any other related topics you have questions about. This is a casual session, and anyone is welcome to attend. If you have an interesting bottle of beer you would like to taste/share with the group, bring it in. Your first beer is on us if you attend.
Beer 101: Upcoming: Fresh-hop crazedaze
By Garrison Schmidt, Head Brewer
One of the many reasons we’re fortunate to be brewing in the Willamette Valley is our proximity to world-class hops. Each fall, when hops are harvested, breweries scrape and claw to be the first to the fields to bring home some just-picked, un-kilned, fresh hops. From there, the race is on to produce a great beer brewed with this ultra-perishable produce.
Brewing with fresh hops produces a unique sensory experience. When hops are harvested, they are generally kiln-dried in order to improve their shelf life, make them less liable to rot and mold, and decrease their weight for packing and shipping. When we brew with fresh hops, they retain volatile aromatic compounds lost during kilning. This results in a more vibrant, grassy, and intensely floral character that’s often described as “green”. The fresh hops contribute brighter, more nuanced flavors with herbal and sometimes vegetal notes that can't be replicated with dried hops, while also providing a softer, less bitter hop character despite often using larger quantities. This creates beers with a more immediate, field-fresh hop presence that captures the essence of the hop harvest in a way that showcases the raw, unprocessed nature of our favorite beer ingredient.
This year, we are bringing back Static Shatter and Sticky Hands, Fresh Hop, which both use fresh hops that have been flash-frozen with a dousing of liquid Nitrogen and beaten until the trichomes responsible for many hop aromatics are released. This process, known as shattering, allows us to use them as a dry hop, lending mainly aroma and less spicy fresh hop flavor.
We are also working on a collaboration brew with The BeerMongers in Portland. We brewed an Abbey-style Belgian Pale Ale (think Orval), fermented it in our open coolship downtown, added Brettanomyces, and will be dry-hopping it with Oregon-grown Hallertau hops, grown in my hometown, Silverton, OR. Fun Fact: even though it is spending time in our coolship, it won’t be sour like our wild beers, because it was pitched with Abbey Ale yeast at the beginning of fermentation. Adding efficient brewing yeasts keeps wort from souring because they out-compete wild yeasts, and use up the majority of the sugar fuel before wild guys like Lactobacillus and Pediococcus can get their feet under themselves enough to produce acid.
Our last fresh hop brew will be a pair of smaller batches brewed side by side at the pub in cooperation with Oregon State and well-known beer writer Jeff Alworth. He is the Author of The Beer Bible, considered one of the most comprehensive books on beer styles and brewing traditions from around the world. He is also the author of Beervana, a blog that is considered one of the most respected voices in beer journalism. For these beers, we will be brewing two identical IPAs, but one with fresh hops and one with the same hops but kilned that morning. It will be an intensive sensory study to help determine the actual difference between fresh and kilned hops, and it is an experiment the community is taking very seriously. We are humbled to be a part of it. It shows the level of trust that two pillars of the Brewing Science community have in our brewing ability and chops, and it is truly an honor to play such a crucial role.
Keep your eyes out for more info coming on release windows.
Get your gloves on, it’s almost harvest.
Marketing Updates
By Holly Amlin, Marketing & Creative Manager
Events
Summer Music Series Continues Through August 27th
At the Tap Room every Wednesday from 6 - 8 pm. Check out the upcoming bands here: https://block15.com/summer-music-series
From the Executive Chef
By Sarah Farey, Executive Chef
Starting this Friday 8/15, fish & fries will now prompt if the guests would like slaw or not! We see a lot get thrown away untouched, so this will help us to limit our food waste!
Bakery
Notes from Lindsey Henriksen, Bakery Manager
Pub Updates
By Kira Sciarrotta, General Manager
As we finish up our run with Dunham Cellars Rosé we will transition into a more fall leaning rosé by Wild Roots. It has slightly more body and is a little bit more bold than the Dunham rosé. Once we sell through our current offering, give it a try!
✨Positivity reminder!✨ I know it’s been a scorching few days and we may all be left feeling exhausted, but remember that we are each other’s team. Lead and conduct yourself with positivity towards one another always! Go the extra mile and make sure it’s known how stoked we all are to spend each and every day with each other. Not only does it make the job more fun, but it’s an expectation that we all treat each other with respect and kindness always!
Tap Room Updates
Make sure that when somebody is returning a keg, we are always logging the return on the keg return form on the walk in with their first and last name, the size of keg they returned, and a contact phone number. All kegs must be logged to ensure that folks get their deposit back. The only keg you do not need to log is a corni keg– these are people’s personal kegs.
Caves Updates
By Aidan Welch, General Manager
High Fives
Zach! - For being an absolute machine in the Warehouse! Thanks for locking that down and huckin kegs all over the place!
Trinna - Trinna always does a great job and is fun to work with every shift! Thanks for helping out so much.
The Whole Prep Crew! - Prep has been busting their booties lately getting new special items out and working through busy weekends you guys are killing it and we see how hard you all have been working! Keep it up!
If you have kudos or kind words you want to share about your co-worker anonymously in the Brewsletter, use the button below!
Staff Section
Please welcome the following folks to the team:
Devon Vantusko - Distro
Joey Krieter - Cook
Sam Toledo - Cook
Cris Castillo - Dishwasher
Julia Wren - Prep Cook
Megan Cox - Host
Parker Kuehl - Host
Riley Cooper - Server
Other staff news:
Ryan & Myles, welcome to the brewery!
Congrats to Ben for accepting the lead line cook position at the pub!
Charitable Programs
Dine Out! for The Whiteside Theatre Foundation - August 19th all day
Both of our locations will be hosting a Dine Out event next week. A portion of the day’s food sales from the Pub and Tap Room will be donated to the Whiteside Theatre. Please mention this to our customers who visit us on Tuesday!
💵 What will the donation go towards?
Our donation will support their current projects to install an ADA accessible restroom on the ground floor, fund ongoing theater maintenance, and repaint and relight the marquee.
🏫 About the Whiteside Theatre Foundation
They support a multi-purpose entertainment and events venue in the historic Whiteside Theater that enhances the economic vitality and cultural diversity of Downtown Corvallis for the benefit of the entire community.
