Nick Nelson set out to be a teacher, not a brewer.
The Seaside native had an education degree from Oregon State University under his belt and was a substitute high school teacher when his accidental beer career began.
It was the summer of 2020, and he was merely looking to make a few bucks between teaching gigs. He got a job “rolling kegs around” at Sisu Brewing, tucked inside Seaside’s historic Times Theatre.
They also taught him how to brew, which is why, when the head brewer left a couple of months later, Nelson was asked to fill the void.
He proved to be a quick learner. Over the past four years, he and fellow brewer Nick Richardson have elevated Sisu’s taplist with a range of exceptional brews, anchored by crisp lagers.
Nelson, who lives in Astoria, married his longtime girlfriend earlier this year. Making his life even sweeter, the company that owns Sisu (a Finnish word meaning grit and resilience) recently announced an expansion into Astoria, with a planned second brewery and brewpub.
We recently sat down with him for a wide-ranging Q/A.
Q: What was it like growing up in Seaside?
A: The community is tremendous. Just the small-town feel. Everybody knows everybody to some extent. It’s cool knowing you have a group of people that are going to support you, help out along the way.
It’s the community and the culture and kind of the pace. I take it pretty easy most of the time. If I go to Portland for the weekend, I’m ready to come home after Day 2.
Q: Were you always going to be a teacher?
A: That was definitely the plan. The day I graduated from high school that was the path I put myself on. I was going to be a high school social studies teacher and coach.
There’s the cliché about molding minds or whatever. That was part of it. Also, being a positive role model for those who sit in front of you is very rewarding. I had a great time doing it.
Q: And then you took that fateful job at Sisu. What made you do it?
A: I had a buddy who was working there, and it was going to be a great summer job. Just rolling kegs around and hanging out. … I thought I was going to go back to teaching at the start of the school year.
I didn’t really know much about this brewery. It popped up at a time [2018] when I was in college, so I had only been here once or twice before I started working.
As soon as I got here, I saw the vision. I thought, oh, it’s very cool what they’re doing. I’d like to kind of learn about it.And when they gave me the opportunity to do this as a profession, I thought about it for a couple of days, and I was like, why not?
Q: Was that a little scary?
A: It was, yeah, because I knew very, very little. They placed a lot of trust in me to learn on the fly, and I trusted them a lot to teach me as I was going. So, I’m very grateful.
My first batch on the big system worked. It was a Moxie Cream Ale.
I’m still trying to learn the process behind things. I’m not the technical guy that knows all the microbiology and stuff that’s going on, but I understand what makes certain things occur. I always make the comparison to cooking. You can go to culinary school and learn all that stuff, or you can be an awesome home cook. All of our grandmas who are awesome cooks didn’t go to culinary school. They’re just awesome at what they do. Trial and error, tweaking recipes ….
That’s really the most fun part of this job. The new recipes.
Q: I like how you talk about recipes and compare beer-making to cooking. Where does that come from?
A: My family has a pretty extensive culinary background. My grandparents had restaurants, my dad has had restaurants forever.
Growing up, I was always introduced to interesting foods. Probably not the same foods that every other kid eats, which is nice because I’ve never been afraid of anything. … I always had an interest in combining ingredients and flavors.
I don’t know if it’s in my blood or what, but I became very interested in cooking. As soon as I left to go to college, I was already cooking. It’s kind of a fun thing, a passion.
Q: What’s your favorite beer style?
A: I love crisp, clean sessionable beers. I go through phases where I very much appreciate IPAs and dark beers and so on, but if I want to sit down and have two or three beers, I want it to be something light that isn’t going to put me on my ass at the end of the day.
I do believe the beer world has kind of come back to lighter beers. Hopefully, we’ve staked our claim in the ground that we are [focused on] lagers, and we’re going to produce a wide variety of them. Red, black, fruited, American, Mexican – we kind of run the gamut.
Q: Sisu may be one of the most space-starved breweries in Oregon, yet you brew a lot of lagers that require extra tank space and time. Your Honey Orange Lager is your No. 1 seller.
A: Yeah, it’s a juggle. It’s planning months in advance that come June we’re going to need this much Honey Orange or this much Mexican Lager. For the most part, the longer they sit, the more clear and crisp they’re going to get – until a certain point.
But it is tough because those lager tanks get jammed in the summer. … It’s just time and tank, which we enjoy, but it does come bite us in the ass sometimes in the summer. We’re getting better at it, though.
Q: Sisu is owned by the Utti family, which has an array of successful business ventures in the Seaside area. How has that relationship worked out?
A: They’re awesome. Mark [Utti] is an awesome dude. He’s always there to help. He’s very supportive, especially in our creative process.
I’m always bugging him for ideas: ‘Okay, what do you want us to do next?’ He says, ‘Whatever you want; whatever you want.’
He’s very supportive, kind of letting our journey go. Until we make something he loves and it can never go away. [Chuckles].
Q: He could have put a nanobrewery in the theater, but he aimed higher.
A: That’s kind of Mark’s thing. If he’s going to do something, he’s going to do it right. And he’s going to put as much effort into it as he can.
Q: Sisu actually owns a canning line but you discovered you can’t use it in the theater. I suppose you’ll have plenty of room for that at the new building in Astoria. Barrel-aging, too.
A: That’s right. It’s always been a carrot they’ve dangled out in front of me. You know, one day we’re going to get there.
I’m very excited for the journey we’re going to go on. We’ll fit in very well up there [in Astoria]. We’ll resonate with the people. Each of the breweries kind of have their own style, and they all do things differently. Certainly, a rising tide lifts all ships.
This is something Mark wanted to do, and he’s excited about it. And we’re excited, too.
We’re not envisioning being a Fort George. We don’t want to be in the 35,000-barrel range. If that becomes what it is, great, but we’re not setting out to do that.
There are a lot of breweries that have probably expanded too fast, when they haven’t dialed in who they are quite yet. I think we have a pretty good idea of what we are. We’re always trying to improve or innovate a little bit, but I feel confident in the core beers, our best-sellers.
Q: Sisu seems to be gradually raising its profile. The brewery helped revive the Pouring at the Coast beer festival earlier this year. How did that happen?
A: The city approached us and asked if we wanted to try and run with it. We said ‘absolutely.’ We like a challenge.
I was in charge of getting the breweries down here, so that was a logistical nightmare. A scary process to deal with. But having a new venue by the dock was a huge improvement. We got all of the local breweries to participate.
Festivals are fun and a cool piece of the brewery culture. I love to be a part of them.
Q: What’s the best part of being a brewer?
A: The creativity. Kind of going back to the culinary background that I have. Also, the community piece.
We’re a public house. A public house has an importance in historical context. You know, a place of meeting and sharing ideas over a pint or two. Creating community like that is rewarding.
Q: You work with a brewer also named Nick. Is that ever confusing?
A: [Laughs] It actually makes life a lot easier for everybody not named Nick. They can just yell ‘Nick!’ and know that one of us is going to come running.
