KYLE MATTHIAS

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Kyle was born and raised in St. Louis, MO and brings over 9 years of brewing knowledge and experience to Sandy Valley. His journey to becoming a brewer unexpectedly began while he was pursuing his Doctorate of Nutritional Biology at UC-Davis. While there, he decided to take a brewing course in his spare time, and this changed everything. Kyle then dropped out of his doctorate program, moved back home to St. Louis, and poured everything into brewing.

 

His brewing career started as he simultaneously volunteered at Charleville, Morgan Street, and Modern to get his foot in the door. From this, he landed his first brewing gigs at Morgan Street and then Modern. In 2016, Kyle decided he wanted to further his brewing education and so headed back to Davis to complete the Master Brewers Program.

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While attending the Master Brewers Program, Kyle interviewed for an internship at Deschutes Brewing as it had always been a dream of his to live in the Pacific Northwest. As the program ended, Kyle was driving through Kansas on his way back home when he received a call in which he was told he did not get the internship, but instead Deschutes wanted to offer him a job as a Production Brewer. This was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.

 

Kyle and his wife, Kirsten, essentially turned the car around and moved to Bend in the following months. After nearly 2 years in production, Kyle was promoted to lead research and development at Deschutes as the Assistant Brewmaster of the Pilot Plant. While in this role, Kyle designed many award-winning beers that were scaled nationally including Fresh Haze, Neon Daydream, Symphonic Chronic, Squeezy Rider, and Lil’ Squeezy to name a few. While some of Kyle’s beers went on to become bigger brands, some more experimental brews were only ever served across the bar in the tasting room. His experience in this role ignited an endless pursuit of knowledge on the intricacies of beer and desire to challenge traditional beliefs of what beer can be; all while maintaining a focus on the quality required by a large production brewery.

 

Kyle and his wife returned to St. Louis in 2021 where they welcomed their twin boys, Brooks and Brody, into the world. When not at the brewery you can find Kyle taking care of his boys, out hiking with his pups Millie and Snowy, pulling up a barstool at other local breweries, or at home spinning some vinyl and reading a good book.