"Beer, especially craft beer, is an agricultural product"

We must maintain the level of agricultural health that our region is known for and strive to take the best care of our land that we possibly can.

- Garrison Schmidt, Head Brewer, Block 15

This is the third year of Cheers to the Land, and we couldn’t be more thrilled that Block 15 has been one of our partner breweries from the very beginning. 

We asked Head Brewer Garrison Schmidt and Marketing & Creative Director Kelsea De Filippis to share how Block 15 practices sustainability and how they work with farmers to create their incredible craft beers.

OAT: What is the vision and philosophy of Block 15?

Kelsea De Filippis: Block 15 aims to elevate excellence in the craft beer and beverage experience, measured by endless passion, curiosity, and drive for accessible brilliance. Our family includes our Corvallis Downtown Brewpub, South Corvallis Production Brewery, Winery, and Taproom, Caves Restaurant, and craft distribution through the Pacific NW. 

We strive to make sure we’re doing good on our part for generations of brewers to come, taking steps to ensure we’re looking at our footprint and bettering our sustainability practices all while not compromising the craft of our product. Good food and beer comes from the resources on our land and we recognize that it is our responsibility to look after this relationship with the environment.

OAT: In what ways does Block 15 integrate sustainability practices?

Head Brewer Garrison Schmidt

Garrison Schmidt & De Filippis: In the winter of 2021, we took the biggest dive into our sustainability practices and installed 98kW of Solar Panels to our Southtown facility. This is enough energy to power 40% of our production facility and Taproom Restarant. Because beer, especially lagered beer, takes a significant amount of energy to chill we were able to reduce our footprint on energy consumption. Along with that, we minimize our water consumption, use pelletized hops to reduce shipping volume and keep trucks off the road, process our liquid waste so that it's pH neutral, use our grain as feed for cattle, and have a general mindset in our brewery that we are stewards of our environment and the community.

OAT: What are the challenges and benefits of focusing on sustainability as a brewery?

Schmidt: Using less water in a brewery is always challenging. It's a water based industry, so we do the best we can and use as little water as we can while still getting the job done. I see the benefits as a long-term investment. If we take care to use as little as we can now, and are mindful of our water table and the rivers all around us, we will be able to keep brewing for generations. If we are careless now, that's not guaranteed.

OAT: What are some of your favorite Oregon-grown ingredients?

Nick Arzner, Block 15 Co-Founder

Schmidt: Hops! We have some genuinely fantastic hop farms in the Willamette Valley, and we're proud to source many of our favorite hops from right here in our neck of the woods.

OAT: Are there Oregon ingredient producers you work with to create your beers, and if so, can you tell us about them?

Schmidt: We work closely with Coleman Agriculture, Crosby Hop Farm, Indie Hops, Oregon Hophouse, Oregon Fruit Co., and many more Oregon hop farms, and they are some of the most fun, educational, and collaborative partnerships that we have been a part of.

OAT: How do you see agricultural land protection as important to the beer industry and people who love beer?

Schmidt: Beer, especially craft beer, is an agricultural product. Maintaining a healthy agricultural community is vital to our ability to keep diversity in our recipes, which keeps diversity in your tap lists. Folks enjoy drinking many different styles of beer, with varying characteristics and all of the wonderful flavors and aromas that craft beer is known for. We must maintain the level of agricultural health that our region is known for and strive to take the best care of our land that we possibly can.

OAT: How do you support local farmers through the beer making process?

Schmidt: Like many breweries, we give our spent grain and liquid organic waste to local ranchers free of charge as feed and fertilizer. As mentioned above, we also reduce our water use and neutralize our liquid waste before disposal, keeping our rivers healthy and our groundwater clean. In addition, we source ingredients that are local to us to build and maintain a relationship with the farms we have. We are lucky to have a plethora of farms surrounding us, so we utilize their products instead of sourcing out of the country.

OAT: This is Block 15’s third year participating in Cheers to the Land! What inspired you to get involved initially, and to stay involved as a collaborator?

De Filippis: We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for our farmers who produce grains/malt, and hops. We care about our beer from the ground up and that starts with the folks out in the field growing these products. Cheers to the land is a great initiative to not only raise awareness around the importance, but to also remind us of how important the whole picture is. We fully support the work OAT does to raise awareness and want clean, healthy food, water and beer for generations to come!

OAT: What message do you hope your customers will get out of your collaboration with OAT on Cheers to the Land?

De Filippis: We care where our ingredients come from and how they are handled! Brewing great beer should ALWAYS start with that. 

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You can read more about Block 15’s sustainability practices here: https://block15.com/local-and-sustainable.

And come to the Block 15 Cheers to the Land distribution showcase event at Mayfly!

Building your Business and Succession Planning Toolbox: Welcoming Dick Wittman at our fall Workshops for Producers and Service Providers

Tess Baker, our Farm and Ranch Succession Advisor, recently attended a seminar on succession planning by Dick Wittman. She describes what she learned and why OAT is hosting him for two seminars this fall.

This May I had the opportunity to attend a Train-the-Trainer workshop in Kansas City. This two-day training was designed by Dick Wittman to train agricultural consultants to assist farmers and ranchers in their business and succession planning needs, and was widely attended by service providers across the United States, Canada and even Australia! For decades Dick has been heralded as one of the leading farm and ranch consultants throughout the country. This training was a testament to why that is. Topics covered ranged from the five step process that Wittman Consulting uses to walk clients through the advising process, case study discussions involving real life client issues, tools including Wittman's own guidebook "Building Effective Farm Management Systems" and a variety of other resources to assist clients in this process.

The training was taught from the perspective of someone that clearly understands what it is like to be in production agriculture. Dick and his family own and operate a small grains and cattle operation in northern Idaho. With over 40 years of experience in the ag consulting industry, I could have listened and learned from Dick for several more days. I was clearly not alone in that, as there were several members of the workshop that had attended in the past and found the information valuable enough to attend for a second time.

I am thrilled that OAT will have the opportunity to welcome Dick to Salem in November for our Agricultural Business Succession Workshops! During this time we will spend one day focusing on training service providers to better assist their farm and ranch clients with succession and business planning needs, and one day focusing directly on producers, giving them tools to navigate a multitude of issues that can come up when working through this process in their operations. I hope to get the chance to meet many of you at these workshops, as I can confidently say that we will all walk away with more tools in our toolbox and more confidence in our ability to navigate the often tricky world of business and succession planning.

Push Pause Prior to Signing “Free” Legal Documents

By Maria Schmidlekofer, Farm Succession and Estate Planning Attorney at Schwabe

The other day, our son fixed our toilet by learning how to do so on YouTube. When he asked me if he could try, I felt a little trepidation about a newly minted adult with no experience, but then thought: Why not? We can always call a plumber if he doesn’t fix it.

With the rise of AI, it is tempting to go online to ask ChatGPT to draft a will or search Google for a free power-of-attorney form and select from the many options that pop up. You’ll get thousands of hits for free legal documents, as well as many rabbit holes to go down for free “legal advice” on how to draft legal documents. I have been asked many times to “do a quick review” of documents downloaded online.

Photo of Maria Schmidlkofer

The stakes are much higher for self-help legal advice than plumbing, though. Unlike plumbing, you will not know if it works until it is too late to call in a professional to fix it. It’s like a serious illness, when you go to a doctor, rather than seek self-help miracle cures online.

In family farm succession planning and estate planning, the stakes can be high. These decisions involve not just you, but your legacy after you’re gone. If you implement documents without legal advice, you don’t really know what you’re getting. Even more important, you do not know what you might be missing. Self-help estate planning can have unintended consequences that could be avoided.

It does not get more serious than protecting yourself financially and medically to make sure that all you have accumulated will be passed on the way you want, when you want, and how you want—without incurring unnecessary taxes or family discord.

Folks might say that “something is better than nothing.” They regard online legal documents as a short-term, quick fix, like patching a tire you know you’ll replace eventually. I disagree. After the initial panic of a quick fix before surgery or vacation, how many folks actually go back and arrange to get the proper legal documents prepared?

In my opinion, you are actually paying for the legal advice, not the document. You are engaging a trained farm-succession lawyer as your advocate to listen, comprehend your family situation, and provide legal advice about your options from a tax and family dynamic perspective to protect you and your loved ones.

I am often concerned by power-of-attorney documents and LLC operating agreements. People can download others’ forms from the Internet and have someone sign them without any thought as to the possible consequences. Granting a power of attorney is something that depends on individual circumstances. They can become active upon disability, or they might be durable, used any time after execution. It is possible that the wrong form could lead to deeding a farm away, draining bank accounts, running up credit cards, taking out loans, or a host of other problems.Before signing such documents, it is important to pause and consider with one’s lawyer the possible ramifications.

Operating agreements can also be problematic. Generic forms can inadvertently contravene a succession plan. Whether it pertains to a buyout to those to whom a departing member can sell interest, these can be vital terms to consider. In my view, an LLC operating agreement should align with estate planning documents in order to ensure that the member’s intent is fulfilled.

By the way, I haven’t told my son, but it has been a week since I started to write this article, and it looks like it’s time to call in that professional plumber.

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Questions? Interested in learning more? Contact Maria at: mschmid@schwabe.com 

This article summarizes aspects of the law and does not constitute legal advice. For legal advice for your situation, you should contact an attorney.

"Farmers and ranchers play a crucial role in feeding the world, and their efforts deserve trust, recognition and understanding."

We sat down recently with Oregon Women for Agriculture (OWA)’s current President, Sarah Puls to talk about her love of ag, vision for OWA, and what she wishes the general public understood about agriculture in Oregon.

Can you tell us about yourself and your background in ag?

Sarah Puls, President, Oregon Women for Agriculture

I grew up on a citrus farm in central California.  My family are 4th generation farmers and have a farm here in Monroe, Oregon as well as one in Orange Cove California. I came here in the summers as a kid working for our family farm and other local farms in the Willamette Valley.  

I got my undergraduate degree in Agriculture Systems Management at Cal Poly with a concentration in environmental management, moved to Oregon and ended up working in private industry as an environmental consultant on diverse projects from wetlands to brownfield clean up. I then worked in county and city government for 9 years, in environmental health and safety, ultimately focusing on drinking water. 

Now as the Preparedness Planner for the Oregon Department of Emergency Management, I am reminded daily how everything is tied together: drinking water, environmental management, public health, agriculture, food safety and emergency management.

Can you describe the mission of OWA and what inspired you to get involved?

When I took a job not directly in agriculture, I knew I wanted to stay involved and support ag.  My mother was involved in California Women in Agriculture when I was a kid so I joined my local OWA about 7 years ago. I served on the board and eventually became president of our local chapter and I am now president of the state board. 

Our mission is working together to communicate the story of today’s agriculture. To educate and inform our members and the public about the importance of agriculture to the economy and to the environment. To engage all phases of Oregon agriculture having mutual concerns, and to do everything possible to see that agricultural interests are heard and dealt with fairly and to support and encourage research that will benefit agriculture.

I am really glad that this organization exists which allows me to be involved in something that has been a part of my family heritage and culture. It is a way to provide leadership and opportunity to support and advocate for agriculture. I think someday I'll find my way back to ag in some capacity, maybe as our family farm transitions to the next generation. But for now, being part of OWA has given me the opportunity to still be involved in the agriculture industry.

What is your vision for OWA as their new president?

Oregon Women for Agriculture was organized in 1969 by Willamette Valley farm women who were concerned with regulatory issues impacting the grass seed industry.  Since that time, this all-volunteer group has broadened its scope to include nearly all facets of agriculture. One of my goals for my presidency is to help revive our membership and volunteers. We are an all-volunteer organization, and we are in need of fresh energy and ideas to keep this long-standing organization going. 

What do you wish the general public understood about agriculture and why?

Modern agriculture has made significant strides in sustainability, animal care, and food safety. Technological advancement such as precision farming, crop protection, and genetic improvements have allowed farmers to produce more food with fewer resources. Farmers and ranchers play a crucial role in feeding the world, and their efforts deserve trust, recognition and understanding.

What is your vision and/or wish for the next generation’s involvement in, or understanding of, agriculture?

There is a trust gap between farmers and consumers. Better communication of the advancements in farming and ranching can help bridge this gap. Farmers need to share their stories and explain how their practices align with societal values. 

Ag in the Classroom is a great program that OWA supports, and we do a lot of elementary education outreach around that. But I am also thinking of college-age students who are trying to figure out what they're going to do in the future. I encourage people to go into an ag communications program or just get involved in advocating for the ag industry like we do at OWA. Or they could get involved in any other organizations with similar goals like their local Farm Bureau, Oregon Women in Timber, and Oregon Cattlewomen's Association. A lot of us have the same goals around communication about these issues and advocating for the industry in general. 

You don’t have to be in agriculture in Oregon to be a member of OWA. Everyone eats. If you like food, or you want to understand better how the ag industry works, consider getting involved.

So that would be one of my main visions for the next generation is to be more involved in these organizations, be willing to step up and be a leader or a participant and help communicate the story of agriculture in Oregon.

Oregon Women for Agriculture has eight chapters across Oregon: Central Oregon, Columbia Gorge, Eastern Oregon, Linn-Benton, Lane, Marion- Clackamas, Yamhill, and Polk that support Oregon agriculture in numerous ways: from providing crop identification signs, to advocating at the state and federal levels, to a youth grant program supporting ag-related projects, and much more. Visit their website to read about all of their programs.

Interested in getting involved in Oregon Women for Agriculture? Reach out to us via email at  info@owaonline.org. You can also find us on facebook and instagram.

From the Barn to the Kitchen Table: Encouraging an Owner’s Succession Planning Shift

“Oregon’s current farm owners have a lifetime of accumulated wisdom and assets. The full succession and estate plan is their opportunity to make a difference for their future family, their community, their industry, or any other cause they value.” - Sherri Noxel, PhD

Sherri Noxel, PhD

Generally, 90% of family business owners want the business to stay in the family for the next generation. Yet, typically, no more than 35% of these owners have a documented plan for this transition. I deeply wish these statistics were different for Oregon farmers and ranchers, but they’re not. As a community, we can support farmers and ranchers and close this gap between intention and action. 

Many farm owners talk about their succession “in the barn but not at the kitchen table.” This observation signals that owners are making farming decisions with a continuity intention in mind, but they haven’t done the more difficult work of structuring the farm operation, preparing the documents and preparing the family.

Educating owners about succession planning, family dynamics, tax strategies or legal structures is important and helpful but not sufficient. The increasing number of workshops, webinars, podcasts, case studies, guidebooks, checklists and online resources aren’t relevant until farmers are personally and mentally ready to plan.

The work right now is to coach, nudge, support and inspire for change in their mindset. Farm advisors in Oregon are focusing on helping owners shift from a conceptual, and verbal plan to a tangible, and documented plan. One estate planning attorney describes this need to shift in thinking from “if I die” to “when I die.”

It’s understandable why so many owners resist succession planning given the forces that work against change in business. Employees, suppliers, buyers and advisors will not initiate changes in their beneficial working relationships with an owner. Especially if they sense tension for the owner around this topic. Successors feel stressed about the future but don’t want to appear self-serving if they ask about the plans for the farm’s future ownership.

Farm owners realize the potential need for a change in transport vendors, pest management plans, or equipment upgrades, but a change in ownership and/or leadership is seismic. Overdue conversations about retirement, departure, control and mortality make the topics more difficult to address. The circumstances surrounding our farms have changed such that the higher farm values are getting more attention from nonfarm heirs. High-value farms sold or gifted to the next generation require careful planning. Less time for the farm transfer means fewer planning options. On top of everything else, noted economist Dr. Dave Kohl recommends that farm owners be prepared to spend 1% of their total asset or equity base to fund transition planning.

As a community, we can create the space for an owner to step back from these pressures and first acknowledge and accept that planning is needed. Let’s shift the focus from how they will transition the farm to first understanding why they will transition the farm.

Oregon’s current farm owners have a lifetime of accumulated wisdom and assets. The full succession and estate plan is their opportunity to make a difference for their future family, their community, their industry, or any other cause they value. Identifying what is most important to their personal legacy becomes the planning incentive. Overcoming the challenges and stress of succession planning demands a deeply compelling reward. Let’s help these farmers get energized by the farm future that can happen because they are planning. 

Answering the question why comes first. The details of how the farm transitions, with the associated conversations, legal entity formations and timelines, will follow. In fact, getting clear on the goals of the farm’s transition may make the planning more productive and reduce costs by minimizing changes along the way.

My goal, shared among Oregon’s farm advisors, is to minimize the need to serve successors who must scramble to save their farms because the plan only existed in the barn. Connecting with farm owners to understand their personal reward for the farm’s future can move planning to the kitchen table.

Interested in learning more?

• Join Sherri on Thursday, June 27th for an online class through PCC. You can register online or call 971-722-8888 and choose option 2.

• Visit our Ag Business Support page to view resources and learn about the advising options offered by OAT.

Advocating for the Oregon Agricultural Heritage Program

In 2017, the Oregon legislature established the Oregon Agricultural Heritage Program (OAHP) to protect agricultural land around the state through working land easements, conservation management planning, succession planning education, and technical assistance. $5 million was allocated to the program in 2022 (which in turn brought in over $6 million in federal matching dollars). This has provided great benefits to Oregon farmers and ranchers who wish to protect their land and pass it onto the next generation. 

Over the past year, OAT joined partners including Coalition of Oregon Land Trusts (COLT), Deschutes Land Trust, and Oregon farmers and ranchers to advocate for increased funding for this important program. This February, our Land Program Associate Tara Olson teamed with COLT in Salem during the short session to meet with legislators and share the importance of OAHP to Oregon’s communities, economies, and landscapes. As a result of this work, 5.8 million was allocated for OAHP in 2024! 

Learning through Osmosis

Tara’s Experience

It just so happens that advocating for OAHP was my first time engaging with legislators at the state capitol. I was nervous at first but, as OAT Executive Director Nellie McAdams shared with me, “It’s ok, you’ll learn through osmosis.”

What was at first an intimidating concept turned out to be an eye-opening experience on the legislative process and the people that take part in it. 

1. Not only politicians are allowed in the capitol building. After a quick security check at the front doors, you can see where the action happens. The halls of the capitol are always busy, whether you’re on the first floor near the hearing rooms, or on the upper floors where legislators have their offices. It turns out that you can knock on your legislator’s door, and if their schedule allows, you can meet with them then and there. 

2. Legislators are friendly people with curious questions. Although I came prepared to the capitol with my talking points, nervously flipping through pages of notes, I was pleasantly surprised at how conversational many of the meetings with legislators were. They asked great questions that would help them better understand our issue and their ability to support it. It helped that the team I was with at the capitol had already built ongoing, long-term relationships with many of these legislators, just by continuing to show up and advocate for important issues (like land use). 

3. Legislative staffers are just as important allies as legislators themselves. By nature of the job, legislative staffers have more time to meet with you, both at the capitol and on informational tours. When I was meeting with legislative staffers, I noticed how engaged they were in our conversations, and how they made sure they could communicate our message back to their legislator. I even began to recognize some staffers, who had attended our farm tours to learn about OAHP on behalf of their legislator. 

So, if you’re hesitant to start engaging, know that advocacy work is not as scary as it seems. We invite you to engage alongside us as we continue to advocate for increased OAHP funding in the coming years.

• Reach out and engage with your legislators as a constituent to advocate in support of farms, ranches, and agricultural land. You can reach out to them at any time to start building a relationship.

• Watch for action alerts. These include specific actions that you can take in support of ag land protection and usually have a short turnaround. Sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and/or LinkedIn to receive alerts.

And since government and foundation grants rarely fund advocacy work, your donations are essential to supporting our advocacy efforts - consider donating to OAT today to amplify this important work!

Alesong Brewing & Blending

When you live in a state like Oregon, or one of the many states around us, you've got a bounty of things from grain to hops to fruit and other ingredients that are used in beer. And, when you can go pick it up or get a smaller shipment from close by, and truly know the farmer, those things are great, but if we don't support and protect that ag land, we're going to be forced to get it from somewhere else and not from our home.

-Matt Van Wyk, Alesong Brewing & Blending

Alesong Brewing & Blending creates barrel-aged beers

Communications Manager Sal Lopez spoke with Matt Van Wyk  of Alesong Brewing and Blending who shared some of the inspiration for Alesong’s barrel-aged beers as well as some of the local ingredients they use that infuse the beer with an Oregon flavor.

SL - What is the vision of Alesong? What inspired you to create it?

MVW – The mission of Alesong is to elevate the way beer is perceived and experienced. We are inspired by farmhouse beers of Belgium and also the Lambic ale tradition, which is typically blends of one-, two- and three-year-old beer. We don't have a lot of beer that's aged for three years, because we're not a Lambic brewery. But our beer probably stays in barrel for at least a year in most cases. It takes a while to make, age, and then bottle condition the beer. Finally, we blend different beers because we believe the sum of the parts is greater than the individual components that make it up. Like a song, the beer is our art and the interpretation is yours.

Alesong founders Matt Van Wyk, Doug Coombs and Brian Coombs

SL - What are some of the Oregon-grown ingredients you like to use in Alesong’s beer? 

MVW - We've been working with a few different places lately, namely Skagit Valley Malting, up in Washington, who's not malting anymore. But they had some malt that was grown in Oregon at Goschie Farms. We also have a place locally in Junction City called Camus Country Mill. They're the Hunton family Farm. Most of it isn't malted (germinated, dried, and roasted); it's either raw grains or flaked products. But with farmhouse beers, we can use a lot of those ingredients to put some of that local grain in there. And we use some imported ingredients too, but we try to get as much locally as we can. 

We also use a lot of fruit for our fruited sour beers. We'll get cherries from the Hood River Valley. Just next door to us is King Estate Winery. They're one of the largest wineries in the state and they have a huge biodynamic farm that grows a lot of different fruits. We've used raspberries from them, blueberries, plums, and we also use their grapes in our beer. 

SL - Is there any producer you work with where you say, “Hey, we'd like to make this type of beer” - how do you work with them to get the product you want to use?

MVW - I mention King Estate and other fruit producers around the state because we can go to them and say, “We’d like this ingredient at this ripeness level.” But if you just order from somewhere and they say, “Okay, I'll get you a pallet of peaches”, for example, a lot of times you're working with fruit that some of it is ripe, some of it is not, and you are waiting to process it to put it into beer, because it's not all ripe at the same time. And because we can work with our neighbors next door, and we have a good relationship with the grower, we can go talk to them. 

In fact, we recently made a Flemish red ale with raspberries. King Estate harvested the raspberries only when they were at their peak ripeness and put them in the freezer for us. They were ripening at different times throughout that harvest season. We just grabbed them all after they were frozen. And so instead of getting some raspberries that are tart and some of them are sweet and juicy, we got them all at the same ripeness and put them into beer at the same time. It made a big difference on the outcome of the beer. So, I think that local touch with the farmer is huge.  It really shows in the quality of the beer in the end. You can make good beer in many different ways. But when you can get your ingredients at their best, that's key for us.

SL - How do you see agricultural land protection as important to the beer industry and people who love beer? 

Alesong Brewing & Blending in Eugene, Oregon

MVW - It is huge for us. It’s getting so hard, in every manufacturing business right now, with the economy the way it is, the price of raw materials is going up. And that goes for agricultural products as well. And so the farther you have to get those ingredients from, the more you're going to pay shipping and other costs. There are some great malts in the UK and in Germany, and of course we can get hops from over there. And we have distributors to sell us that stuff. But the costs keep rising and rising and rising. 

When you live in a state like Oregon, or one of the many states around us, you've got a bounty of things from grain to hops to fruit and other ingredients that are used in beer. And, when you can go pick it up or get a smaller shipment from close by, and truly know the farmer, those things are great, but if we don't support and protect that ag land, we're going to be forced to get it from somewhere else and not from our home.

So I think the first step is to make sure these farmers, a) have the land and, b) have a customer to be able to grow those things for. And that's good for us, and it's good for the consumers drinking our beer too.

Alesong’s Cheers to the Land beer is a tart farmhouse ale with Oregon grown Rhubarb. They are hosting a Cheers to the Land beer release party on Monday, October 9. Come out and celebrate this wonderful collaboration beer and Oregon agriculture!