WWU alumni brew connection

During his last quarter at Western Washington University, Jason Harper wrote a business plan for a brewery in an entrepreneurship class. That business plan looks a lot like the business he and his wife Kim Harper run today, 15 years later.

“I was home brewing at the time, and I really enjoyed the aspect of inviting my friends over to share it. That was the fun part for me,” Jason Harper said. “So, I wrote the original business plan, and I was telling everyone as I was graduating that I was going to start a brewery.”

Jason and Kim Harper have been together since high school, attended Western side by side, married, started a family, and became founders and co-owners of Stemma Brewing Co. in 2019.  

Family and connection are integral to Stemma’s mission. Stemma is actually the Latin word for a written genealogy or family tree.

“One thing I tell our team at every staff meeting is that ultimately what our goal is, and what we’re selling, is connection,” said Jason Harper. “We do that through a pint, but that’s not really our product. Our product is connection.” 

This summer, that connection led back to WWU when Stemma brewed a small batch of Golden Ale to help commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Harpers’ alma mater, WWU’s College of Business and Economics.  

Kim Harper graduated in 2010 followed by Jason Harper in 2011, both with a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in finance and minors in accounting.  

The idea for the Golden Ale was set in motion by CBE’s Associate Dean Steve Smith.

“When I reached out to Jason about brewing a Golden Ale for our 50th, his response was simply, ‘That sounds fun. I’m in!’” Smith said. “Everyone at Stemma was wonderful to work with, and together we created a fabulous beer that celebrates CBE’s 50 years and the connections that have grown from our college.”

On the side of the can is a toast to CBE and the words, “crafted by WWU alumni brewers.”  

The brewer of the CBE Golden Ale is Duncan Kunkel-Patterson, ’10, B.A., economics/environmental studies.  

Other WWU alumni have been a part of the Stemma family over the years. Some of them are commemorated by life-sized caricature cutouts perched on high shelves overlooking the Moore Street taproom. The caricatures were created by another WWU alum, Alex Powell, ’17, B.A., visual journalism, for Stemma’s Staff Series beers.

Sophie Apple was a junior in the Bachelor of Fine Arts Design program at WWU when she was invited to design the can label earlier this year.    

“Working with Stemma was an honor and a milestone, as this is the first beer can label I have made,” said Apple. “I pitched two concepts to CBE and Jason from Stemma. They picked one that I brought onto the computer, where I spent lots of time and consideration for the shape, feel, color palette, texture, and overall composition. I presented it to the client, and it got the thumbs up!”  

Her visual style is a good match with Stemma’s branding, which is why Professor of Design Brittany Schade suggested Apple for the project.  

It’s not the first time Stemma has collaborated with WWU’s Design program. In past years, Schade hosted a competitive ‘Design Wars: Stemma Beer Label Challenge’ where students in her senior class individually design and pitch a beer can for Stemma’s WWU Student Designer Series.

“The Harpers have been an incredible team to work with. Jason and Kim run a carefully managed enterprise,” said MBA instructor Aric Mayer. “Our students have been enriched by the balance between both strategy and finance they brought to the projects.”

The first MBA student capstone project was with Stemma’s Super Squeeze, which Jason Harper describes as a carbonated hard juice drink that started kind of as a spoof just for the Sunnyland Garden Party, the neighborhood’s annual pub crawl.

“People enjoyed it, and that first batch wasn’t even all that great. And then it went away,” he said. “The next week I received more phone calls than I’ve ever received. And people were like, ‘Hey, is your Super Squeeze still on?’”

The message was clear that the market wanted it back, but they needed to rethink their pricing strategy. Even though it was initially more expensive to brew, Stemma made some adjustments based on the MBA students’ research and recommendations, and now it’s their most popular, most profitable, and most asked-about product.

In 2024, WWU MBA students helped the brewery with expansion plans when Stemma purchased the Twin Sisters Brewing property on Carolina Street where, in 2025, the Harpers opened Stemma West, their second location.

“The projects we have worked on with the Harpers for Stemma have provided a rewarding experience for our students, yielding real-world value in their culminating MBA experience and providing a point of differentiation as candidates in their career search,” said MBA instructor Lucas Senger. 

Jason Harper’s dad was an entrepreneur and owned two automotive shops, so when he wrote the brewery business plan in college, he knew what he was getting into.  

“It was called the Fan Belt Brewery at the time, but overall, the business plan was pretty close to what we have now,” he said. “The competitive analysis changed in the eight years between then and when we opened, but the concept of permanent food trucks, the taproom, and the size is the same.”

Back when the Harpers first started eying the brewery business, Bellingham didn’t have the breweries per capita (yes, that’s a thing; Bellingham was ranked 17th by C+R Research in 2019) that it has today. In 2011, there was Boundary Bay Brewery and Chuckanut Brewery, and Kulshan Brewing Company was getting ready to open. 

Ultimately, after befriending the manager of Kulshan, the Harpers realized they didn’t have the experience or finances to go into business yet. So, they put the business idea on hold. Jason Harper got a job at a local distributing company, starting with beer sales and working his way up the ranks while Kim Harper worked in investments at a bank.

But the dream didn’t go away.

Jason Harper kept pursuing the craft of brewing through the Cicerone Certification Program, which prepares and tests four levels of beer expertise. The first level covers fundamentals and baseline knowledge — Stemma has all their servers go through that level of training today. It progresses exponentially up to level four, which certifies encyclopedic knowledge and mastery of beer, as well as exceptional tasting abilities.  

As a Level 3 Advanced Cicerone, Jason Harper is one of only a few in Washington state and about 200 worldwide. The rigorous certification combines an online written exam with a full-day in-person tasting panel that tests the palate.  

“I was the kid drinking Black Butte Porters in the college dorms and wanting to talk about flavor profiles,” Jason Harper said. “It’s definitely what I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I think 21-year-old me would be pretty excited about what I’m doing now.”