Oh, hello!
We're Gavin and Giselle Lord, and we make fun beer to drink.
We named our brewery after Gavin's generous, adventurous and glamorous grandmother, Hetty Alice Frink, and we seek to honor her with every pint. We live in Portland with our tiny human and huge dog.
Gavin Lord, Founder & Brew Master
Gavin has worked in the craft brewing industry for over thirteen years. And while he began humbly; homebrewing and volunteering to clean kegs, he rose quickly through the ranks to receive many of the industry’s highest honors. In 2011, he attended the prestigious UC Davis Master Brewers Program and passed the infamous Institute of Brewing and Distilling’s Diploma in Brewing Examination (joining just 32% of worldwide examinees in doing so). Immediately after graduation he joined Dan Peterson (who would later start Ferment Brewing Company) and Josh Pfriem (who would later start pFriem Family Brewers) at Full Sail Brewing Company as a shift Brewer. There he was responsible for all aspects of production on a unique and challenging 250BBL system. In 2014, he joined Josh at his new start up brewery, pFriem. With Gavin as Head Brewer, the brewery would grow from a 1500BBL, draft only operation with three production employees, to a regional powerhouse producing 36,000BBL over 150 unique SKUs including draft, bottles and cans, and employing over 30 production personnel. Over the course of his seven-year tenure, pFriem became known for an unrelenting commitment to quality, earning the coveted Mid-sized Brewery of the year award from the Great American Beer Festival, Large Brewery of the year at the Oregon Beer Awards and Best Brewery of all time by Beer Connoisseur Magazine, among hundreds of individual beer honors. In 2021 Lord left pFriem to bring his vision and expertise to Hetty Alice Beer.
Hetty Alice >>
Hetty Alice is named in honor of Gavin’s maternal Grandmother. Hetty was born in a “dugout” (an earthen floored dwelling) in Oklahoma in 1928. Her mother, Odessa, had married at thirteen to a man more than twice her age, and later, after mother and children relocated to California, Hetty would recall that her only memory of her father was him chasing her through the house with a broom. And yet in the face of this hardship, and the many that followed throughout her life, Hetty was overwhelmingly optimistic, kind, welcoming, crafty and generous. She was the kind of person to set an extra place at the table “just in case.”
Late in life, when she was having difficulties with pain and mobility due to arthritis and ailing health, the doctor asked if she’d been feeling depressed. Hetty looked him square in the eye and replied “I’ve never been depressed a day in my life.” Hetty Alice Beers seeks to honor Hetty and her sunny outlook by welcoming an ever-widening audience into the craft beer space. We use the world’s best ingredients to produce ales and lagers of the highest quality, and we have a great time doing it.
