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Shay Hossienion was a Waldorf school dropout.
“I was too young and wild,” he says, nursing a dry-hopped kombucha inside the cafe and brewhouse he opened with his spouse, acupuncturist Eva Hossienion, this April. “It played too much into my nature.”
But the fantastical creatures introduced by the imagination-prioritizing school lingered in his subconscious. When he finished a beer-brewing internship at The Commons Brewery—a brief departure from his medical career—Hossienion started his own label under the name Brewed by Gnomes. And when he and Eva decided to open their own taproom and cafe in the Victorian below their holistic medical practice, they decided to name it Gnome & Faerie (3257 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-482-8059, brewedbygnomes.com).
Here, beers and kombuchas brewed with yarrow and mugwort are served in goblets. The food menu blends Czech and Persian flavors, a nod to Eva’s and Shay’s heritages, respectively. Czech klobusek (better known as kielbasa) is paired with borlotti beans and tomatoes. Iranian desserts like sholeh, a fragrant rice pudding made with cardamom and rosewater, get stewed strawberries and roasted hazelnuts.
The space attracts crowds of crafters dressed as fairies for felting or bracelet making, and the couple clears tables from the dining room for salsa nights. “We wanted to create a space that feels good in the body,” Eva says.
In the near future, the couple plans to host a plant and spirit meditation event where visitors will meditate over hawthorn berries that will eventually go into their next beer. “We can’t legally say these beers are medicinal, but I can know myself that it’s good for you,” Shay, the MD, says. “It contains a human spirit that dovetails back into the space.”
See the rest of Willamette Week’s Best of Portland 2026 here!
