Sean C. Morgan
A Sweet Home worship pastor is interested in converting you.
To good beer!
He wants to do it in an environment that isn’t so much about the party or like a bar but more like a family friendly coffeehouse but with beer.
To that end, Matt Cowart of Sweet Home and Scott Bruslind opened Conversion Brewing last October in Lebanon. They say they chose the name deliberately because it has many meanings to them, and in this case, the obvious is the beer-making process, converting starches in malted grains into sugar.
Cowart, a landscaping contractor for 15 years, has also converted many followers to the craft brew movement during his years in home-brewing. Among them are those who didn’t drink beer, who were won over by introducing them to what beer could and should be.
Some 80 percent of Americans don’t have choices or don’t realize they have choices with their beer, Cowart said.
Beer has been like the McDonald’s model, Bruslind said, and “now people want variety.”
Getting off the beaten path, away from the big domestic names, IPA (India pale ale) has been changing this, Cowart said. It’s a fairly consistent style. It’s going to be “hoppy and bitter,” making it a good choice for many to try craft beers and convert away from the “American lager” or “light lager,” which represents the bulk of domestic mass-produced beer.
The world has some 134 technically different styles of beer, Cowart said, and it’s that rich history and variety he wants to share with east Linn County.
This idea of conversion borrows from the concept of religious conversion.
“We wanted to convey that ‘conversion’ aspect to our products,” Cowart said.
“Plus, it’s beautiful poetry,” Bruslind said.
The name of the pub and its drinks parallel Christian themes, like “Brethren” “Genesis” or “Witness.” Each has a story behind the name. Genesis, for example, is Cowart’s first recipe. Brethren was developed and brewed by a Lebanon home brewers club, 3Bs or Baptist Brothers Brewing, with $50 per keg donated to Lacomb School to pay for transportation for school trips.
Cowart and Bruslind, both residents of Lacomb, also wanted to convert the social view of a “public house.” Rather than a bar, they ask people to imagine a coffeehouse that serves beer, in a clean, community-driven, family friendly place to enjoy quality drinks, food and conversation.
“The whole idea was we’d have a place where everyone would feel welcome,” Cowart said.
The pub brews up to three barrels, 31 gallons each, at a time, Bruslind said. The United States has some 4,200 licensed brewers.
“Two thousand five hundred to 3,000 are brew pubs,” Bruslind said. “And they will be similar to this model.”
The State of Oregon was forward-thinking when it came to brew pubs, Bruslind said. They can sell wine, and customers can buy beer to go in growlers.
What distinguishes Conversion Brewery from other similar businesses, Bruslind said, “everything we sell is something we’ve made – except the ciders. You need an orchard, and that could be in the future. Every beer is made on site.”
“We’re concerned about producing a flavorful product,” Cowart said, and the flavor profile among Conversion’s beers varies wildly, much of it based on customer requests.
He varies the ingredients to ensure that the beers taste different, he said. Yeast is one of the keys with beer. For example, yeast makes up some 30 to 60 percent of the flavor profile. Using the same species of yeast will result in 30 to 60 percent of the flavor being identical from beer to beer.
In one of the brewery’s IPAs, he doubles down on the hops to pop out a brightly flavored brew. A popular trick for customers is to mix Lemon Bliss, a soda produced by Conversion Brewing, with beer. The pub keeps two sodas on tap regularly, the Lemon Bliss all the time because of its popularity along with another fruit flavor.
“The soda’s been more popular than we thought it would be,” Cowart said. It gives the adults more options, and it gives children something to drink too.
The pub is located in the same building as Wells Fargo, two doors south of the bank, located at the intersection of Grant and Main streets.
It was built in about 1930, Bruslind said. It was a feed store, a fabric store and the Lebanon 88-cent store.
Bruslind and Cowart reused almost everything from the building during their remodel. Floor joists became the bar, and stair steps proclaim the names of the ever-changing beer lineup.
A previous resident, a no-armed mannequin, greets customers as they enter.
Cowart’s mother-in-law, Mindy Miner, who works at the pub, explained how they found the mannequin stored inside the building. One day, Cowart had it lying in front of a window. She told him it needed to be clothed.
They put clothes on it, and they change it regularly to represent the seasons or events, Miner said. The mannequin, named Nora, now has its own Facebook page and has become the mascot for the business.
Cowart began brewing his own beer 12 years ago, he said, after trying some of his wife’s uncle’s home-brewed beer.
He reads a lot of history, and he began reading about the history of beer and the styles of beer, Cowart said. He would look around for some of these beers, but there weren’t any domestically produced. In some cases, the beers just aren’t made any more at all.
So he began making his own.
“For years, I never thought about going anywhere with it,” Cowart said. He just concentrated on developing his own flavors.
“We kept on waiting for somebody else to do it,” Cowart said. They would hear rumbling about a brew pub about to go in, but they never did. Meanwhile, Cowart’s beer was getting rather popular among his friends.
“It got to the point my friends preferred to drink my beer,” he said. “I know everybody loved my beer, but it was free.”
Since opening the new shop, they still like it.
“They still come here,” he said. And now, “they pay for it.”
Bruslind, who runs a lab testing beers for small pubs, was planning to start a pub for a couple of years. He was looking into it with a neighbor, but it didn’t pan out.
Bruslind and Cowart got to know each other working together in Scouting, and they began planning a pub. They opened the business with three beers, and now they offer 11, much of it driven by customer requests.
“We said we’re just going to see what Lebanon wants to drink,” Cowart said. After opening, for example, he developed Honey Red, his take on the amber beer patrons were requesting.
The pub provides a variety of wood-fired food, Cowart said, something different from other restaurants.
It’s typical pub fare, but cooking it at 600 degrees in a wood-fired oven, the only cooking appliance in the building, makes a big difference in the food, especially with the pizza, the basic Italian recipe he’ll share with anyone, he said. “Where else can you go for a wood-fired pizza?”
The jalapeño poppers are unusual, he said. They’re not breaded or deep fried. They’re made from fresh jalapeño peppers, stuffed with cream cheese and bacon, and fire roasted.
Bruslind is married with three children, Jorian, 17; Svea 14; and Kelton, 14. His wife is a biology professor at Oregon State University and is a partner in his beer testing business.
Cowart, 34, is married to Rachelle (Miner) Cowart of Sweet Home. They have four children, Gabe, 13; Abby, 11; Josh, 10; and Zeke, 5.
Cowart grew up in Lacomb. He met his wife when he was 12 years old at the skating rink in Lebanon. They started attending youth group together. He started playing music, guitar and bass, all over the place, including Community Chapel when it was on Long Street, Sweet Home Evangelical Church and Cornerstone Fellowship.
He ultimately became worship pastor at Cornerstone, where he is primarily involved in music and drama, the artistic side of worship. There he helps direct the worship ministry, bring in new members and make sure sound is working correctly.
Given a long-running aversion to beer in some Christian circles, Cowart was a little concerned about whether he ought to open a brew pub, he said.
“I had a very involved talk with my pastor (and church leaders).”
It was a lot of conversation, but nothing too serious, he said. In reality, it shouldn’t even be an issue for Christians at all.
It wasn’t until Prohibition that it became an issue for some, he said. Before that, it wasn’t a problem. He noted that the majority of the nation’s founding fathers were Christians, and they brewed beer and distilled liquor.
Problems with alcoholism really grew out of cheap gin production, he said. Gin was faster to produce and cheaper than whiskey and more potent than beer, and realistically was the driving force behind alcoholism.