Made in the Northwest: Hidden Mother Brewery

July 1, 2021 2:10 PM

Derek Deis,

Posted: July 1, 2021 2:10 PM

Updated: July 1, 2021 7:03 PM

by Derek Deis

SPOKANE, Wash. — The best beers emerge from quality, local and organic ingredients.

That’s the thinking at Hidden Mother, an award-winning, experimental brewery in north central Spokane.

Mike Detar was living in the Bay Area, working at a bakery, when his homebrewing got out of control.

“It was pretty excessive. It was definitely to the point that the whole house was turning into essentially a brewery,” Detar said.

So, the Spokane native decided to come home and start a brewery here.

The name “Hidden Mother” is a reference to the blessed virgin, but also a way to market to female beer drinkers in a way that is still approachable for men.

“I basically took a statue and came up with the illustration on it with a friend of mine and he busted out all the artwork on it and we knocked it out,” Detar said.

The brewery prides itself on using all organic ingredients.

“It’s not a fashion statement,” Detar said. “It’s more, it’s the way it should be done, so we just do it that way.”

It also prides itself on being an experimental brewery.

“We are known a lot more for experimental and crazy ideas, just different pepper beers, different mushroom beer,” Detar said. “We definitely recently have been getting more known for our hop profile beers.”

Take, for instance, Hidden Mother’s pine tree saison. It starts with an actual pine tree, carved out with a chainsaw to create a luge.

The beer is then run down the tree to bring out a rich pine flavor and it even led to a sponsorship with Stihl chainsaws.

“I started using their saws and I can get through a tree in 20 minutes. It’s super fun,” Detar said.

The brewery’s creativity was validated in 2018 at the Washington Beer Awards.

“We double headed gold and silver in the experimental category with the pine tree saison and morel mushroom beer,” Detar said. “And right out of the gates, we were making a name for ourselves.”

Hidden Mother will produce 1,700 barrels of beer this year, but after recently signing with King Distributing, Detar expects to make around 3,000 barrels next year.

In the coming weeks, beer drinkers will be able to find cans of Hidden Mother beers in convenience stores and in bigger stores, like Rosauer’s and Super 1, by this fall.

In the meantime, the brewery plans to keep growing its reputation with its excellent, experimental beers. And at this rate, Hidden Mother won’t stay hidden for long.