Day Trip: Tonya Cornett, 10 Barrel Brewing Co.

Tonya Cornett started her brewing career in the burgeoning craft scene of mid-’90s Colorado and discovered a knack for the process-driven creativity of making beer. Her answer to the industry’s pervasive misogyny was to simply further her education and win heaps of medals for her beers, which she did as the brewmaster for Oregon’s Bend Brewing for a decade. In 2012, 10 Barrel Brewing Co. tapped Cornett to be their innovation brewmaster, and today she continues to help create the beers that go into broad production, push the envelope with small-batch experiments, and, yes, win heaps of medals. This April she won one of the most prestigious awards in beer: the Brewers Association’s Russell Schehrer Award for Innovation in Craft Brewing. She’s the third woman and the fifth Oregonian to do so.

8:30 A.M.

Innovation is a three-person team. I start the day getting the cellarman lined up with projects, and I check all our current fermentations. If we’re prepping for competition, brewing starts two months out. Once final beers are in kegs, we precisely dial in the carbonation, and hand bottle everything. We enter several competitions each year. I know it’s not important to every brewery, but we like to. When I first started brewing, no one told me that there were very few women in the industry. It wasn’t until much later that I realized I was an anomaly at the time.

To be taken seriously, I had to have a brewing education and I had to be really good at what I did, and still I was overlooked as a serious brewer. I felt I had something to prove. The easiest way for me to do this was to win medals because that’s the one time your beer is judged solely on its merit—no one knows where it’s from or who made it. For me, that was important. And it really changed how other brewers looked at me.

10 A.M.

When I’m brewing, it encompasses the whole day. But I do have another brewer on my team, so often he’ll brew. We make 10-barrel batches, which is 20 kegs. We still use the brewery’s original, namesake equipment—it’s been ridden hard but works for us. Some months we are putting upwards of 10 new beers on tap. The two Bend pubs serve as the testing ground for new brews. My goal is to create beers that are thought-provoking, technically sound, and offer something for everyone.

Our team also has its own label called tiny Haus sold through our Bend pubs. We package about five times a year, including award winners as well as beers that push the boundaries of what people even consider beer. Although, it’s hard to say what’s weird anymore in the beer world. Recently, I made one inspired by the dish that every aunt brings to family gatherings—the layered banana pudding. It’s a wheat beer brewed with a little bit of cream cheese, bananas, and Nilla wafers.

1 P.M.

We meet with marketing about the beer styles they want to move to full production. My goal is to have three to five options ready to go live. This year, I have two new ones coming into production for the Crush series, which I’ve been developing since I started at 10 Barrel. They are highly fruited kettle sours, and we’re adding two new flavors: white peach and huckleberry. We also meet about the next tiny Haus beers and connect with the graphic artists on our team. This series is a collaboration between the two departments. It gives them a chance to do labels that are not the typical 10 Barrel style. Having the flexibility to throw anything on a label that’s cool really gives them a creative outlet. And for us, I think it helps get our beers in more people’s hands.

3 P.M.

Ingredient procurement takes a considerable amount of time. I sample 14 different honeys to find one that works for a honey sour. I’m also workshopping a fruited hazy with pineapple, guava, and hemp terpenes, which are tricky because they’re so concentrated, but I finally found a good supplier. It’s hard to be constantly creative. I get really inspired by desserts because I tend to like those kinds of beers. I also judge a lot of competitions and get inspired by other people’s beers, whether it’s a unique flavor combination or maybe a fruit I’ve never seen used before. It helps to keep up with the latest trends—I always learn something new that can be applied to past or future beers.

5 P.M.

Right now we have four different beers that we’re blending, which is also a passion of mine and requires a lot of patience. Just before I wrap the day, I’ll give everything a taste. These beers often have ingredients that need delicate balance and are not as easy to pull off as one might think. I tend to be more emotionally involved in these. But the days of proving myself to other people are in large part over; now I work to constantly up the ante on myself and allow my momentum to work for me.