Blog Unit Numero Uno

Getting to know you

Well for those of you folks that have never done a brewery tour with me, I thought I’d take a little time to introduce myself and our beer. The full tour is still worth doing, as there is usually beer on the tour, and candy bars too - heaven knows there’s enough Nut Rolls in the brewery - but here I go getting side-tracked. You’ll probably see me getting side-tracked a lot if you come back and read more of these.

Anyhoot, I was born and raised in Clark County Washington. As a matter of fact I still live in the house I grew up in, so it’s safe to say that I’m pretty sentimental - although my wife just thinks my nostalgia is more of a hoarding instinct. I guess time will tell. There I go again…I’ll get back on track.

So I got into beer by studying history. I’m a bit of a history nerd, mostly American Revolution, but as far as the beer goes, I started writing all my big papers on German immigration and their work in the brewing industry. This was mostly because I was trying to come up with a paper idea, and I started thinking about what kind of beer my grandfather drank - it was Pabst and Weinhardt’s Private Reserve if you’re wondering.

All that to say, once I scratched the surface of the history of beer I was hooked. It was amazing to read about the passion these German brewers had for their craft, not to mention the thrist that North America had for their offerings. So I wanted to try my hand at it. Pretty soon my lovely wife and I were brewing 5 gallon batches of pales ales in our garage, and my hobby soon became an obsession.

After I finished my history program at Washington State University in Vancouver (GO COUGS), I soon realized that I should’ve gotten an education degree if I wanted to teach. At that point I could’ve gone back to school, but what I did instead was try and find something in the brewing industry. If you’re looking for a brewing gig, you’ll realize real fast that these jobs are hard to come by. You need a lot of experience and great network of industry peers to even be looked at for these jobs, and I had neither. BUT, I was willing to wash kegs and do virtually anything else to cut my teeth and progress in the industry.

So that’s what I did. I got a job at a teensy-tiny brewery in Portland, called Philadelphia’s (at the time - now 13 Virtues). I made cheese steaks 4 days a week, and I got to work in the brewery once a week. While not glorious, I did get a firm foundation for what it took to be a brewer, and more than that I met people in the industry. Meeting brewers and other folks in the industry was by far the biggest single thing that made me want to be a brewer. You’ll never meet a nicer, more collaborative group of people anywhere. And I think this goes doubly so for Portland brewers.

From Philly’s I soon moved to Astoria Brewing Company (aka The Wet Dog Cafe). Funny side note - the ringer I had on my cell phone at the time I worked in Astoria was seagulls cawing. I always thought my phone was ringing. I was a dummy. I also commuted to Astoria - so there you go. Anyway. At Astoria I learned a lot by reading, talking to other brewers, and trying stuff. Sometimes I succeeded, but mostly I learned a lot about what not to do. I celebrate a lot of those early failures, as they all taught me how to steer clear of snags and provided me a much clearer path to success in the future.

Soon thereafter I got the opportunity to work under Van Havig at Rock Bottom in Portland, Oregon. Van and the Rock Bottom system taught me how to be a brewer. Without either, I still would’ve kept at it, but the education that I received at RB in Portland was the luckiest break I ever got. I stayed at RB for a few years and then they offered me a gig to take over a shop in Bellvue, WA. This is where the homebody in me put the brakes on. I didn’t want to leave my comfy confines (SIDE note - I love alliteration - you’ll see a lot of it if you come back to read more of these things) of Clark County, so I didn’t take the job and my time at RB soon needed to end.

I found a few landing spots after RB, first off Walking Man Brewing over in Stevenson, WA. Bob Craig is the founder of Walking Man, and he’s a delight. He taught me a lot about finding happiness. Bob never wanted to create a massive brewing company that dominated a region or regions. Bob created a very successful brewpub and made the beers he wanted to. No pretense with Bob, he had a vision and he didn’t let anyone sway him from what he wanted to accomplish. He’s ornery as the day is long, but he kept it simple.

Portland Brewing Company followed Walking Man - I know I bounced around a lot right? My stint at Portland Brewing was short, as a fellow brewer gave me a heads up about Old Town Brewing on MLK in Portland. I moved over to Old Town and found a lot of freedom in the beers that I could make, and also in creating a name for a new brand. The opportunity was terrific and we succeeded in getting Old Town a name for itself in fairly short order.

However, the commute to Portland, and the addition to our family of a son - made me think a lot about long term goals for myself. Ultimately, it was a choice about family and a need to see my own vision come to fruition that made me leave Old Town and try a brewery of my own. Clark County was the only place I would think about putting a brewery, and the search began. Funny thing was, all the big warehouse spaces in the county were taken up by marijuana grows at the time, so we had to look really hard to find a comfy spot.

Where we found our home was in Washougal - at the gateway to the Columbia River Gorge (and if you don’t know - now you know). From the get go we knew that this was the spot. Immediately after seeing the property we went to the City of Washougal, where I told the city planner that we “want to create a production brewery and a small community taproom.” “Oh, like Gigantic!” was her response. Her understanding of our vision, and the response from the greater community only solidified further our decision that the Shoug was home.

Well that seems like a good point to stop what was supposed to be the getting to know you part of the tour - turned out to be a tidbit more than just that, but who cares, right? Just thought of this, but if you get yourself a six pack of Kascadia and crank some Neil Diamond while you read this - that’ll get you closer to what the real tour is like.

PS also if you’re curious to know where the front picture for this blog unit came from - it’s from Mr Steven Shomler’s Portland Beer Podcast - if you’re not sick of me yet, you can listen to our podcast here: