Goals and Metrics. We talk a lot about measurable goals these days at Iron Horse as we have quickly adapted and shape shifted into a brewery that will potentially will ourselves into the near future still making beer while we watch many breweries close up shop. Saying the future is bright would be giving you the elevator pitch you all expect to hear but the future is still ours for the making.
As the event coordinator and part of the marketing team there are parts of my job that are hard to measure or to define their value easily with numbers only. The thing that drew me to Iron Horse was the organization’s Organizational Purpose To Create Human Connection with Fermentation. That purpose may sound a little sappy for a group that created the tag line “you’re welcome”, but beneath our irreverence is true care for what we revere: a caring community.. We were living this purpose when we created a space for you to come drink our beer and cider where we do our work of making the beer and cider. We brought back pint nights to benefit local non-profits and you fill my inbox weekly with ideas you want to make happen. Our connection fermentation ranges from an event where you get to ride a pony and meet Santa while never leaving the brewery, to screenprinting the Pacific Lamprey on shirts that you just saw on display swimming in a tank. Then there are the everyday connections of people bellying up to the bar to shoot the shit and relax after a long day of work with whoever else is there even if they have zero in common. I don’t know how to measure the importance of that in people’s lives and I frankly don’t need a measure, it’s me working on purpose.
A goal I do care about and revere is our goal to raise $11,111.11 for FISH Foodbank at our annual St. Paddy’s .5k on Saturday March 15th.15 local businesses stepped up to sponsor this event and dozens of local orgs are volunteering to make it our biggest event of the year. Our second goal is to donate some cash money to 4 regional Food Banks that support the communities we sell our beer and cider in. How are we going to do that? A portion of all sales of Irish Death in the month of March will go to 4 different regional food banks in Washington Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. Second Harvest which serves Washington and parts of Idaho, The Idaho Food Bank, Feed the Mass which serves Oregon, and Montana Food Bank Network.
A shoutout to our fellow small businesses who helped make St. Paddy’s .5k 2025 possible. Shirtworks, The Chamberlin Team, Brown and Jackson, Devin Shannon of Country Financial, Nicole Prigge-Taylor of Coldwell Banker Central, Jerrols, The Recycle Shop, Marc Brown Architecture and Design, Knudson Lumber and Hardware, Small Batch Standard, Coastal Insurance Group, Kimberly Bonjorni of Cashmere Valley Bank, Steve Weidenbach of American Family Insurance, Kittitas Title and Escrow, and Indigo Yoga.
