BOARDMAN — Ordnance Brewing’s first beer, brewed on Halloween 2014, was called Goat Stroker.

In the nine years since, the brewery’s Boardman location at 405 N. Olson Road (it has a taproom in Wilsonville, as well) has expanded its menu to 20 varieties, spanning India pale ales, lagers, stouts and barrel-aged brews. The taproom, just beside the brewing machinery, consistently has 14 beers on tap.

But the room went dry during the pandemic, shortly after managing partner Craig Coleman announced its June 23, 2020, closure on Facebook. Although the brewery kept running, the taproom didn’t reopen until Feb. 24 of this year. Now back in action, Ordnance has resumed hosting events, such as its trivia night March 15.

Brewer Kodi Foden, who’s worked at Ordnance for more than a year, spoke about the lengthy process of turning grain into beer. First, it’s ground, mashed and lautered — a process he said stems from the original German era of brewing.

“Then we will boil it so we can extract more sugars from that wort and there we’ll add various things like hops,” he said. “We’ll add extra sugars if you need it. We’re also getting rid of any unwanted microorganisms that might be present such as wild yeasts or salmonella, that’s present in grain or any types of microorganisms that you don’t want, specifically in food, it’s boiling to get rid of all the impurities.”

Once the boiling process is finished, Foden said, the wort is transferred to a fermentation vessel to be dosed with yeast.

“Once you dose the yeast it’s pretty much just a waiting game, waiting for the yeast to eat up all of the sugars and ferment into ethanol and carbon dioxide,” he said. “Where then, at that point, you’ll have beer.”

Foden described how particular beers get their flavor notes, using varieties of yeast, hops and malts.

“If you have a darker malt, you’re going to have more of like chocolaty caramel toasted notes. Versus, if you have these lighter malts such as pale ale malts or Pilsner malts, you get more of this bread-like cracker taste,” he said. “For your IPAs, where you have these fruity variations like the citrusy smells, tropical fruit smells, a lot of these tastes and smells are acquired from the different types of hops you use.”

He said particular yeasts can also contribute flavor. For instance, using yeast for hefeweizen will give banana-like notes if it sits long enough.

“Oftentimes, we’ll experiment with other core beers as well giving them different spices or different hops to get a range of different flavors,” he said.

According to Foden, Ordnance’s core beers are types that are brewed regularly, such as their Mexican Lager, Bloops — a blueberry wheat ale — and Canopy Shaker, a juicy IPA with citrusy and tropical notes.

Foden said while the brewery is only selling beer on tap and in kegs, Ordnance eventually will return to canning and bottling its product for patrons.

Ordnance Brewing Tasting Room is located at 405 N. Olson Road, Boardman, OR.