Opening in January 2020, Lumberbeard Brewing was almost immediately forced to navigate a series of unforeseen pandemic-related challenges. Now more than four years later, the brewery has responded with new endeavors.
Lumberbeard was founded by Bret and Hannah Gordon, who moved from Southern California to Spokane in 2018 “We wanted to be somewhere near family, which kind of narrowed down the options to California, Spokane and Denver,” he says. Soon Bret, who had obtained a Professional Certificate in Brewing from the University of California San Diego and worked at a few breweries, decided to open up his own space.
“We decided on Spokane just because of the affordability of housing and opportunity — Denver has a million breweries, so does California, and at the time, Spokane did not have nearly as many,” he says, “It’s kind of blown up in the years leading to and since we’ve opened.”
Lumberbeard brews various styles of beers, most notably their IPAs, as well as sours, lagers and barrel-aged options. Due to the pandemic, the company shifted to begin distributing to retailers throughout Spokane, as well as in Seattle and Idaho.
In October 2023, Lumberbeard opened a kitchen, serving a variety of scratch-made items, including wings, sandwiches and more. Since then, they open at 11:30am, just in tim
e for lunch.
They frequently partner with other breweries in town to help foster a vibrant beer scene in Spokane. And Lumberbeard works with local farms, including LINC Malt, to supply the hops, malts and grains used in their beers.
“I think it’s made a difference certainly in the quality of beer but also the story of our beer,” says Hannah of working with local farms. “We have an opportunity to make really good beer with local ingredients, which is what Bret’s really good at.”
