Eugene’s local beer brewing scene was sparked by Cordy Jensen 35 years ago, when he opened the Steelhead Brewery in the Fifth Street Market district. At the time, it ranked locally as a sensational innovation.
Fast forward to 2024, Jensen closed the Steelhead and retired. But a little-known relic of the Steelhead operation remained in existence: Its large brewery building in west Eugene, where Jensen made the company’s beer.
But that remnant won’t be around much longer.
The 88-year-old industrial building is slated to be sold to a Eugene electrical contractor, which has plans to clear out all the beer brewing equipment and turn the place into its new headquarters, city records show.
The beer production building’s fate reflects the tricky times the craft brew industry faces amid a glut of brewpubs and craft beers.
The 1865 West 6th Avenue property, a 23,000-square-foot building on 1.5 acres, still contains idled brewing equipment, including 19 indoor brewing vats and an eye-catching outdoor two-story-tall grain silo. All are slated to be torn out under the remodel envisioned by Oregon Electric Service and Automation, city records show. The electrical company is currently headquartered elsewhere in west Eugene. The company met last month with city planning staff to review the anticipated work.
After Jensen closed the Steelhead pub in the market district, he continued to use the west Eugene brewery facility to produce some beer, records show. But that tapered off and the facility stood unused. Jensen, who has owned the west Eugene property for decades, put it up for sale with the C.W. Walker brokerage, asking price $1.6 million. The brokerage now lists a sale as pending.
Numerous closures
The Steelhead’s demise is still lamented.
“It is sad,” Katy Lenn, a Eugene resident, says of Steelhead, coupled with the shuttering of some other local beer pubs, including Hop Valley’s Eugene pub and the Elk Horn Brewery on East Broadway. Lenn and her husband used to go to a brew pub in Eugene about three times a week after work. “It is a great way to socialize,” Lenn says. These days, however, she prefers wine to beer.
She’s not alone in her drift away from beer.
On a recent day, San Diego resident Peter Milligan enjoyed a beer with his lunch at Silver Falls Brewery next to the Fifth Street Public Market. Milligan’s daughter was in town for a rowing competition. Milligan says younger adults drink little beer in comparison to his generation.
“Everyone eats, but not everyone drinks beer,” he says, looking across the street at Kennedy’s Steakhouse that took the spot once occupied by the Steelhead.
“Beer is high in calories and does not have a high alcohol percentage, so you don’t get drunk much,” says Cing Dim, a student at the University of Oregon. She prefers liquor or wine, with their higher alcohol content.
The Brewers Association, a trade group that promotes craft beers, says the number of craft breweries has soared nationwide, from fewer than 2,000 in 2010, to nearly 10,000 in 2024.
That’s created a lot of churn in the industry, with breweries closing even as new ones open.
Many Oregon residents do still like their beer. Oregon’s per capita consumption of beer in 2024 was 11th in the nation, says the Brewers Association.
Brewpub and brewery closures have become commonplace in Oregon. Over 35 Oregon breweries, cideries and taprooms closed in 2024, says New School Beer + Cider, a website that tracks the industry. That’s created real estate turbulence. The shuttered Elk Horn Brewery building stood vacant for a year before the Diamond Parking company bought it in late 2025. The building is still empty, and Diamond rents out the parking spaces.
Sitting at the Market Alley in the Fifth Street Public Market, Eugene resident Benedict McWhirter sips a beer brewed by Eugene’s McKenzie River Brewing and ruminates that local brewers must focus on quality in order to stay afloat.
“The range of beer that you find in the Pacific Northwest is unmatched,” he says.
Jensen and the owners of Oregon Electric Service and Automation did not respond to Eugene Weekly’s request for comment.
Bricks $ Mortar is a column anchored by Christian Wihtol, who worked as an editor and writer at The Register-Guard in Eugene 1990-2018, much of the time focused on real estate, economic development and business. Reach him at Christian@EugeneWeekly.com. Seira Kitagawa is a reporter with the Catalyst Journalism Project — find out more at CatalystJournalism.uoregon.edu.