Former Deschutes brewer headed to Crux Fermentation Project

Crux Fermentation Project hired a new head brewer: Cam O’Connor. With more than a decade of craft brewing experience, O’Connor expands the talent bandwidthat Cruz, allowing it to focus more time, imagination and energy on high-touch experimental brews such as their [BANISHED] Series of barrel-aged beers.

Crux Fermentation Project designed its 11,000-hectolitre brewery to allow for non-traditional brewing methods like decoction mashing, open fermentation, oak barrel aging, wild yeast strains and experimental hops.

O’Connor will work closely with Crux Founder and Brewmaster Larry Sidor, with whom he also worked with at Deschutes Brewery for eight years.

“Cam is extremely creative and entrepreneurial, and he has the vision and the talent to help take Crux to the next level,” Sidor said.

O’Connor began his brewing career at Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. after completing the Master Brewer Program at University of California–Davis. He then spent the next 10 years brewing for Deschutes Brewery in Bend, Ore., where one of his most notable accomplishments was developing its Fresh Squeezed IPA, Hop In The Dark Cascadian Dark Ale and opening the PDX Pub.

“I really enjoy all the beers Crux is making — their mainline beers, their barrel-aged beers, their Brewdeck Release beers,” O’Connor said, adding that [BANISHED] Better Off Red Flanders Red Ale is his current favorite Crux beer. “Crux is already pushing boundaries, and I can’t wait to push them further with stuff like wild yeast and bacteria.”

Crux Fermentation Project is located at the epicenter of Bend and at the crucial core of the brewing process. The brewery designed its 11,000-hectolitre brewery to allow for non-traditional brewing methods like decoction mashing, open fermentation, oak barrel aging, wild yeast strains and experimental hops. All of its beer is bottled and labeled by hand in small batches right at the brewery. Brewmaster Larry Sidor is always in pursuit of the next great beer, whether by reinterpreting a classic style or abandoning it altogether.