Watts Brewing Company - From Bees to Brews!

Tucked into the verdant heart of Woodinville, Washington—a region known for its winemakers and lush farmland—Watts Brewing Company is quietly creating some of the Pacific Northwest’s most flavorful and thoughtfully crafted beers. Behind this operation is Evan Watts, Owner and Brewer, whose journey from a family legacy of bee farming to the helm of a small, independent brewery is anything but ordinary. Watts Brewing isn’t just about great beer—it’s about heritage, sustainability, and a brewing philosophy rooted in both precision and passion. Inspired by a beekeeping business started over half a century ago by Evan’s father, Roger Watts, the brewery carries the spirit of pollination into everything it does: nurturing connections between land, people, and product. The influence of the family’s work with solitary bees, like the industrious leafcutter and mason bees, runs deep—from the company’s logo to the names of its beers. What began as a nano-brewery has grown steadily through grit and experimentation, evolving into a thriving taproom and production brewery. Yet, the ethos remains the same: brew beer that simply tastes great, with nuance, character, and an unmistakable sense of place. In this Delivery Rank’s interview, we sit down with Evan to talk beer, bees, and the story behind one of Washington’s most unique breweries.

Your family’s history with solitary bees is a big part of your identity. How did that legacy shape your decision to start a brewery, and how does it continue to influence your work today?

Just a bit of backstory real quick—my grandpa started raising leafcutter bees nearly 60 years ago in Eastern Oregon. Today, my dad runs that business, raising both leafcutter and mason bees.

Where our family comes from, there isn’t a lot of money—just small farms in Eastern Oregon. So the amount of work my family has put in over the decades to build what we have today is enormous. It’s what made it possible to take a chance on starting something new, something capital-intensive like this business. Taking that kind of risk was no small thing.

Honestly, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing today without the foundation my family built through hard work, sacrifice, and persistence.

Now, when it comes to the bees themselves, there isn’t a direct overlap between raising leafcutter bees and brewing beer—but there’s definitely a shared mindset. Both require a scientific and biological approach. The experience of managing an agricultural process like beekeeping actually helps quite a bit when transitioning into brewing.

Raising bees is, in many ways, like caring for brewer’s yeast. You try to give them the optimal conditions based on the best science available and your personal experience. Then you observe the results, make adjustments, and apply those learnings to the next season—or in the case of brewing, the next batch of beer. It’s a continual process of learning, experimenting, and improving to produce the best product possible.

Watts Brewing started as a nano-brewery and evolved into a full taproom. Looking back, what were some pivotal moments that defined your journey from homebrew hobbyist to business owner?

I started out as a homebrewer, and the decision to scale things up into a nano-brewery—that was my version of business school. I wanted to learn how to run a business, and I also wanted to learn how to brew on a production scale. I figured the best way to do that was by doing it. I read a ton of books, but at a certain point, I knew it was time to take the next step. And since I was doing something I loved—making beer and sharing it with people—it just made sense.

That’s what led me to open the nano-brewery. I ran it for a couple of years and learned everything I could at that scale. Each step forward in the business brought new responsibilities, new lessons, and a completely different day-to-day life. So after gaining what I could from the nano phase, it was time to level up.

In late 2019, I decided it was time to put up or shut up. If we were really going to make this brewery a full-scale business, we had to go all in. I quit my day job in January 2020. We bought some equipment, lined up a space, and were just about to sign a lease when COVID hit. That brought everything to a screeching halt.

Thankfully, we had some friends brewing in Seattle who stepped in and said, "Our brewery is running slow right now. We've got a canning line—why don’t you come brew your beer here and use our equipment?" That offer was a game-changer. It allowed us to get our beer out into the world during the pandemic, building some brand recognition and growing our customer base even without our own facility.

Then in the summer of 2023, things really started to take shape. Another brewery here in Woodinville was shutting down, and we found out they were selling all their equipment. Taking over a turnkey brewery was an incredible opportunity. The cost of installing brewing equipment and building out a space from scratch is astronomical, so being able to step into a facility that was already set up saved us a lot of time and money.

We remodeled the taproom and got to work. I found out the space would be available in June 2023—just one week before our first child was due. My wife and I got a handshake deal, went off to have the baby, and came back to finalize the paperwork shortly after.

We officially closed the deal on September 1st and had our grand opening on the last day of the month. It was a whirlwind—an incredibly fast turnaround—but we worked hard to pull everything together in time to open our doors to the public.

Since then, the past year and a half has been all about refining and growing. We’ve been focused on improving both our beer and our taproom experience. We’ve hosted private events, live music, beer release parties—you name it. It’s been a crazy ride, but an incredibly rewarding one.

Your beers are known for balancing old-world brewing traditions with American craft swagger. Can you walk us through how you approach recipe development to capture both those worlds?

If you look at the typical American approach to brewing, it often goes one of two ways: either drown the beer in hops or use a long list of ingredients to add layers upon layers of flavors and additives to make it stand out. Our approach is a little different.

We take more of an old-world philosophy—starting with the basics: hops, barley, water, and yeast. The goal is to make the best beer we can using just those fundamental ingredients. Now, of course, unlike centuries ago when brewers had only one or two types of malt or hops to work with, today we have access to ingredients from all over the world. That gives us an incredible palette to work with.

So rather than overcomplicating things, we prefer to carefully select one or two varieties of malt and hops to create a unique combination of flavors—something that will evoke an emotional response from the drinker.

With traditional ingredients, we aim to create something that looks good, tastes great, and above all, is enjoyable. After all, if it’s not tasty, what are we even doing?

Even though we keep our recipes relatively simple, we still aim for layered flavor experiences. Ideally, we want you to be able to pick out about three primary flavor notes—something you can engage with, dissect, and appreciate. We don’t want to be boring. We also don’t want to overwhelm your palate. If you can’t identify what’s going on in the glass, it becomes muddled and confusing.

So we aim for a level of complexity that’s intentional—something you can explore and enjoy without needing a flavor map.

The final piece we always look for in our beer is a sense of identity. Something that adds to the conversation. Something creative. Not “unique” in the sense of reinventing the wheel—we’re still making beer, not creating a brand-new beverage category—but unique within the context of what’s familiar. How do we make a beer that stands out while still feeling grounded and recognizable?

One great example of this is a beer where we combined English-style pale malt, German malted rye, Mount Hood hops grown in Oregon, and a German ale yeast. We’re picking and choosing elements from across the brewing world and combining them in a way that feels traditional—but when you try it, you might think, “I don’t think I’ve ever had a beer quite like this before.”

And that’s the magic. Creating beers that feel familiar yet new—flavorful, thoughtful, and memorable.

Craft beer often emphasizes community. How have you seen your taproom shape or support the Woodinville community—and vice versa?

Our brewery taproom, just across the border, is meant to be a place where people can come together. That’s really the heart of it. It’s not just about having a beer—it’s about creating a space where people feel comfortable, welcome, and part of a community.

What I love about craft brewery taprooms is how informal they are. We’re here in Woodinville, right in the middle of wine country. There are plenty of upscale, polished wine tasting rooms around here—and if that’s the kind of experience you’re looking for, that’s great. But a brewery taproom is different. It’s relaxed. It’s unpretentious. It’s a place anyone can walk into and feel like they belong.

That’s exactly what we’re aiming for: a space that’s open and inviting to everyone.

In terms of how we’ve helped shape our local community—it’s really been as simple as offering a place where people can be themselves. And, in turn, the community has helped shape us. A community is defined by the people who make it up, and we see that every day in our taproom. People bring their energy, their stories, their feedback, and their excitement.

For example, we love doing beer release parties with live music, and over time we’ve been able to learn what types of events people really connect with. You can see it in the turnout, the conversations, the repeat faces.

One especially fun event this year was a mashup party we held in early May. Cinco de Mayo fell on a Monday, so we hosted a "May the Fourth / Cinco de Mayo" celebration the Sunday before. We had a taco truck, a live brass band playing Star Wars music, and we released our Mexican Lager. It was such a unique, creative party—and the response from the community was incredible.

We’ve also got an event space here at the taproom, which means we host a lot of private parties—birthdays, anniversaries, company gatherings. It’s been great to see people using the space to celebrate and connect.

At the end of the day, we want our brewery to be a community hub—whatever that looks like for the people who walk through our doors. So come hang out, grab a beer, and make yourself at home.

What do you wish more people understood about solitary bees, and how do you use your platform as a brewer to educate or inspire curiosity about them?

I think the first thing to know is that most people, before they walk into a brewery, don’t even know about solitary bees. When you think of a bee, you probably picture one with a sting, making honey, with a queen bee ruling the hive. But that’s not true for most species of bees. In fact, about 90% of bee species are solitary bees, meaning the females build and care for their own nests independently.

There’s a lot of diversity among bees, and it’s not all about honey production. More importantly, these solitary bees play a critical role in pollination, which is essential for our food supply. Many crops we rely on for food need pollination to produce fruit, whether from honey bees or other types of pollinators.

Here in the Northwest, apples, pears, and cherries depend on both honey bees and mason bees for pollination. In Eastern Washington, a lot of the alfalfa seed production relies on leaf cutter bees.

When people hear about the issues facing honey bees, it’s important to understand that they’re just one part of a much bigger ecological picture. Honey bees are often an indicator of broader environmental changes that impact ecosystems—and ultimately affect our food supply.

It’s not just honey bees that matter. Mason bees and leaf cutter bees are actually better pollinators for many crops than honey bees. These solitary bees act as a barometer for wider trends in ecology, especially in the American West, but probably globally as well.

If you want to get involved in helping mason bees and leaf cutter bees, it’s a great time of year. By the end of May, mason bee season is wrapping up, but leaf cutter bee season is just beginning. People can actually rent solitary bees to help pollinate their own gardens. This gives you a chance to host these important pollinators, learn about their life cycles, support local ecosystems, and improve the pollination in your garden—all while helping increase the population of solitary bees.

To read more about Watts Brewing Company, please visit https://wattsbrewingcompany.com/