12 Oregon Brewers You Should Be Following on Instagram
Feed your Social media addiction and educate the algorithm by following these 12 Oregon craft brewers on their instagrams.
Social media and tech entrepreneurs behind these platforms have changed society and our scrolling habits for the worst. Yet apps like Instagram have become an integral platform for creating community and opportunities for creatives and small businesses like craft breweries to find their voices and connect. Instead of following a bunch of celebrities, politicians, and corporate accounts, lets connect with some of the individual Oregon brewers behind your favorite beers and future discoveries. These are just 12 of the many Oregon brewers from Astoria to Bend that keep us engaged on Instagram by following their feeds.
Christie Richards // @satansselfie // Fort George Brewery
When she’s not taking ethereal photos of beer, felines, and nature, Christie Richards is Fort George Brewing’s “ghost with the most” in the brew house. Her dark, gloomy, but often colorful and magical photos evoke a fantasy quality of the Oregon coast and the art meets science realm of brewing. Follow along on Instagram and you will be treated to sun dappled previews of new Fort George beers, intimate bathroom selfies, and spooky occult inspired imagery.
Gracie Nelson // @themadhatter444 // SteepleJack Brewing
The mad hatter of SteepleJack Brewing regularly posts about bikes, hikes, and beers that exemplify her everyday Pacific northwest lifestyle. Ex-Hula Hooper and fermentation enthusiast, Gracie Nelson worked at Jam cafe before getting her first job brewing at Migration Brewing Company where she quickly worked her way up to lead brewing on the pilot system brewer after displaying her passion to learn and develop the art/science/engineering of beer. In 2021 she was awarded the prestigious Glen Hay Falconer Foundation scholarship to attend the world-famous Siebel Institute in Chicago. It wasn’t long before Gracie joined SteepleJack Brewing where she now heads up the small batch brewing on the original show piece brewer at their NE Broadway brewpub. Gracie’s Instagram is full of outdoors fun from beaches to camping at brewfests
Darren Provenzano // @dpro002 // ForeLand Beer
Oregon via Vietnam brewer Darren Provenzano launched Fracture Brewing with his wife Ny during the pandemic, first as collabs at Culmination Brewing and then partnering with a local restaurant group to open their own location in 2022. The one-time passion project was a creative outlet for worldly lagers, clear contemporary hops, and with more than a pinch of Belgian and farmhouse influence. After the Fracture project ran it’s course, Darron recently picked up the reins at McMinnville, Oregon’s ForeLand Beer where he gets to put his Oregon Beer Awards silver medal to good use on cutting edge lagers, west coast and American IPA, and more than a few British-style beers like mild ales and cask bitters. Follow Provenzano and his wife’s adventures on Instagram where they regularly do foodie and travel things from Vegas to Saigon.
Morgan Houchin Clark // @hoppygurl_ // Wayfinder Beer
Former Trap Door Brewing brewer and current Wayfinder Beer brewer Morgan Houchin Clark uses her Instagram page to show off her true self “𝖠𝗅𝗅 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝖽𝖺𝗋𝗄, 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝖽𝗂𝗋𝗍𝗒, 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗌𝗍𝗋𝖺𝗇𝗀𝖾, 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝖻𝖾𝖾𝗋.” Her page is full of dark but lovely art tending towards the gothic and ornamental, gritty yet elegant designs of her extensive full body tattoos and adult fantasy and bouidiour. Beer, life, politics, and found family are integral parts of her regularly updated stories that share cutting, uplifting, and sometimes sad takes on the state of society while promoting a positive feminist message. As a young but already accomplished brewer, the craft beer is never far from the frame (just check out her “brewing” in the highlights) or in the forefront like first timer trips to Yakima’s Hop & Brew School and the Great American Beer Festival.
Justin Celmer // @bevelbeard // Bevel Beer
The central Oregon craft beer industry rivals Portland, but surprisingly few of the Bend area Brewers are active on Instagram other than Bevel Beer’s Justin Celmer. When he’s not posting about Bevel related happenings, Celmber is usually taking his followers on a years long exploration of beers paired with his own homemade mac and cheese variants. Some of the strange flavor combos include a German-inspired Mac & Cheese with bratwurst, sauerkraut, and mustard, and a playful kid friendly Kraft Mac with hot dog, bacon, Dino nuggets, red onion, bleu cheese and buffalo sauce. And as Bevel is a brewery molded after the sport of disc golf, you will get a lot of disc spinning content on the side.
Cason Wolcott // @wolcottcason // Baerlic Brewing
When she’s not brewing beer Cason Wolcott chronicles her life and adventures with husband Philip and their dogs on her Instagram account, which is now well known thanks to a tragic incident that destroyed their home in Gresham in January of 2024. During a windstorm on 1/13/2024 that knocked out power to a half a million customers a Douglas Fir tree came tumbling straight down through the middle of their home splitting it in two. Cason and Philip were only about five feet away when it settled into their kitchen. Making mainstream news headlines, the catastrophic damage is well chronicled on her Instagram page. It took about a year for their home to be repaired, but now the family is back together and posting about new beers, cocktails, the Oregon coast, and community beer events Wolcott is representing her fine Baerlic beers at such as the recent SheBrew. Bonus follow her alternative home cooking account @notplatedpretty.
Chris Archer // @arablebrewer // Arable Brewing
Family, beer, memes, and satirical politics are on the mind of the founding brewer/owner of Eugene, Oregon’s newest brewery Arable Brewing. Chris Archer is a veteran who spent 8 years in the Navy before getting into the beer industry. A former Ninkasi Brewing head brewer, Archer had 10 years of experience moving from cellar work to optimization and recipe development before he went on to start Arable Brewing with Cam and Amy Wells. Arable Brewing has already cemented itself as a locals brewery with a strong fan following for their flagship Lazy River Days Pilsner.
Jarek Szymanski // @polishbrewer // Threshold Brewing
Jarek is the beating Polish heart of Threshold Brewing and one half of the Montavilla neighborhood SE Portland brewery with wife Sara. Always on the go, Jarek is frequently seen dashing between keg deliveries and on and off the brew kettle and mingling with the community. When he’s not on the job of co-owning and operating a small craft business on the bubble, you can catch the rest of his off-duty fun like playing with the pup @pupperouno and home cooking recreations of favorite Polish foods, pizza and BBQ, as well as the R & D for many of the beers and food that shows up in their taproom from the zapiekanka eats to more obscure styles of beer and hop varieties like grodziskie and lubelski.
Kyle Krause // @twistedsnifter // pFriem Family Brewers
pFriem’s R&D Brewer and lead blender Kyle Krause may have the most fun gig in Oregon brewing. Krause heads up their Cascade Locks barrels and blending facility and gets to make the barrel-aged, clean, strong, fruited, and funky beers that us beer nerds really love. Krause is in his element, from his start in the beer industry working at The Beermongers to the early days at The Commons Brewery, to watch him scratch his creative itch while also geeking out about the biology and science of co-fermentations yields some great pics and insight into sourcing fruit and spontaneous fermentation among other things. Also you may get a preview of the cocktail program at pFriem’s upcoming Milwaukie location with drinks designed by Krause.
Aaron Brussat // @beer_stone // Claim 52 Brewing
Eugene, Oregon’s beer stone has been the voice of Willamette Valley beer for more than a decade as a member and part of the leadership of the Cascade Brewers Society homebrew club. As a well known Eugene beer veteran, Brussat worked his way from clerk at the local homebrew supply shop, to beer Steward at famed beer bar/bottleshop The Bier Stein, to former editor of The New School and Northwest Brewing News (RIP.) For the past few years Brussat brewed professionally at Plank Town Brewing in Springfield, and updated his personal beer blog https://beerstone.com/ when he had the time. With a recent move to Claim 52 Brewing, he is now heading up one of Eugene’s most popular breweries and overseeing a big move and expansion project to a new location in town. If that’s not enough, you can follow his beery and home life gardening and raising a kid and chickens on his Instagram.
Christian Ettinger // @christianettinger // Hopworks Brewery
Hopworks Brewery founder Christian Ettinger is the newly named co-chair of the Brewers Association’s Sustainability Subcommittee. As a life-long advocate for sustainable practices that are presented in all of Hopworks eco initiatives from organic ingredients to salmon-safe hops and regenerative grains, Ettinger walks the walk, or more accurately bikes it. Christian’s Portland, OR based brewpub opened in 2007 with a cycling theme, and if you follow him on Instagram you will get even more biking content from urban street crawls to beer events to off-road moto cross. Inbetween all of the outdoorsy content, there are plenty of pics of the family and the work brewery-life between collaborations and festivals.
Sam Pecoraro // @sam.pecoraro // Von Ebert Brewing
The newly elected president of the Oregon Brewers Guild and brewmasters of Von Ebert Brewing keeps a regularly updated story feed of the latest in beer from Portland and beyond. With an 11 month journey from Von Ebert’s closure of their primary brewpub in NW Portland to the extensive undertaking that has been their newly acquired homebase on N. Mississippi, you can follow the ins and outs of beer education and construction by following Sam’s account. Nerd out on the electrical conduit and pneumatic lines ran on Von Ebert’s new brewhouse, follow along on trips to the hop fields of New Zealand, and collaboration beers in California. You might even get a little insight into judging or winning a World Beer Cup or Great American Beer Festival medal.