Bend, Oregon’s Worthy Brewing Company announced plans for its upcoming year—or issued a mission statement, depending on how you look at it. The primary message is that Worthy will not (ever) be brewing hard seltzers and will stick to beer; at the same time, the brewery will be releasing new low-calorie hazy IPAs in its “Easy Day” series, featuring fruited hazies with only 97 calories and 3.4% alcohol by volume.

Here’s the full press release:

Worthy Brewing Announces it Will Not Be Concocting Un-crafty Hard, Soft or Lame Seltzers

Worthy Brewing announced today it is a craft brewery, will always be a craft brewery and therefor will not be peddling hard, soft or truly lame seltzers or any other sweetened fizzy beer-flavored waters, ever.

“We launched Worthy in 2012 with a mission,” said Dustin Keller, Worthy’s Master Brewer. “Our mission was to brew the full spectrum of tasty full-flavored beers using local, fresh and natural ingredients. We will remain true to that mission.”

To that point, despite the pandemic-related closures of bars and subsequent drop in demand for draft beers, Worthy continues to explore new and natural flavors using it’s 5-barrel pilot brew “Heart & Soul” system.

“Our Heart and Soul small batch program remains vibrant,” said Kellner. “We’ve got a classic Vienna lager in the tank as well as a pleasantly pungent Mountain style IPA, where East coast hazy meets West coast IPA with Norwegian Kveik yeast doing the heavy lifting.”

“Next up is a smoky Dortmunder lager that utilizes local Mecca Grade pilsner malt, which was malted during the Lionshead fire this summer – real smoke flavor! – plus we added lemon zest sea salt because why not, 2020 has been a crazy year. This Winter we will focus on small batch barrel aged beers, beginning with a bourbon barrel aged imperial Porter and continuing with a variety of wine and spirit barrel aged offerings.”

“And we’re continuing our intrepid exploration of the Hazys: big, small, juicy, fruity, we’ll brew ‘em all,” Kellner continued. “Our game plan is to brew a new beer every week for 2021 as part of our ‘First Sip Friday’ launches, available on draft at the pubs and to-go in 16oz aluminum crowlers.”

Worthy’s Heart and Soul small batch beers are available at two locations: at the mothership brewery on the Eastside of Bend, as well as downtown at it’s Taps & Tacos satellite pub. Both venues are open from Wednesday to Sunday, from noon to 8 pm. Worthy has invested in a brand-spanking-new crowler seamer machine so you can take home your favorite Heart and Soul series brews in a 16 oz can. There’s plenty of outdoor seating and standing around the firepit and heaters at both locations.

“The craft beer campaign arose in response to the market domination by a few massive beer companies, who spun out virtually the same insipid yellow fizzy water,” said Kellner. “Our mission has always been to explore as many beer styles as we can, and even create a few new ones. Whatever the style, we’re going to brew it with natural ingredients sourced locally and served fresh with a Worthy twist.”

In response to the recent demand for hard seltzers, as well as high flavor hazy IPAs, Worthy is preparing to resurrect the Easy Day name in order to launch an Easy Day low calorie, low alcohol, fruited hazy series. The alcohol content will dip under 4% and the calories under 100, without the use of any extracts or artificial flavors. The first two Easy Day packaged hazy IPAs will be grapefruit and tangerine.

Worthy continues to package it’s flagship Strata IPA, Worthy NW IPA, Lights Out Stout, Sol Power Pilsner, TenMile Dry Hopped Lager and Secret Spot Pacific Pale, among other seasonals. Despite the economic pressures posed by the pandemic, Worthy has no plans to concoct any artificially flavored fizzies and hawk them under the guise of a dummy corporate affiliate.

There are definitely some interesting beers on the horizon, though I do find the proactive message against hard seltzers curious (it does make for an eye-catching lede, I suppose). The smokey-malt Dortmunder should be an interesting beer to taste, and it makes me wonder how much (all? some?) of the Mecca Grade Pelton malt (the company’s pilsner analogue) has been infused with wildfire smoke.