Cascade Brewing at 20: How Portland's sour-beer house became
the gold standard
By Andre Meunier Oregonian Dec 6, 2018
(Story by Oregonian. Photo by Wildcatville.)
A little more than 20 years ago, Art Larrance took a gamble.
The craft-beer veteran and entrepreneur crunched some numbers, took a look and
thought, this might work -- barely, but it might.
And with that, Cascade Brewing was born. In short time, the
Portland brewery would become widely hailed as a pioneer of the Northwest-style
sour beer movement and a tourist destination for those coming to partake in the
city's renowned beer scene. In 2010 the brewery expanded to inner Southeast
Portland with the opening of the Cascade Brewing Barrel House.
Friday, Larrance and Cascade will celebrate the brewery's
20th anniversary with a party from 5 to 10 p.m. at its Lodge at Cascade Brewing
restaurant, once known as the Raccoon Lodge and Brewpub, on Southwest
Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway. The event is open to the public and will feature
games, raffles, food and beer.
Larrance -- a 74-year-old who is one of the pioneers of
Portland craft beer industry, co-founding Portland Brewing Co. in 1986 and the
Oregon Brewers Festival in 1988 -- and his brewing team will be on hand to
greet the public and release 750ml bottles of Bourbonic Plague, a popular
Cascade beer not bottled in seven years.
We sat down with Larrance this week and asked him about his
life, Cascade Brewing and the Portland beer culture. His answers have been
edited for brevity and clarity.
Cascade Brewing
The Den at The Lodge at Cascade Brewing, 7424 S.W.
Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway, will host the brewery's 20th anniversary
celebration Friday night. Those 21 and older are welcome in the Den for the
event, and children are welcome in the restaurant upstairs.
What was the Portland beer scene like back in the '80s, when
you and the other pioneers kicked this thing off?
"In the early days you had to go explain what a
microbrew was. People didn't talk about hops. They didn't know about hops. No
one could talk about IBUs or Cascade hops, at least the consumers couldn't.
That's one of the big things I've seen as our market has matured, is that
people's palates have matured, their vocabulary has matured. They have a much
better understanding.
"Portland Brewing was the fourth brewery to get off the
ground in Portland, after McMenamins, BridgePort, then Widmer. They all opened
up in the latter part of '84 or '85; we did our first brew on Jan. 15,
1986."
(This is a photo cutline: “Art Larrance stands in front of
Linfield College's 1966 baseball NAIA National Champions banner, which hangs at
The Lodge at Cascade Brewing. Larrance, a Linfield alumnus, was the catcher on
that team and caught the final out to win the championship -- a pop-up straight
over home plate. Photo from the Oregonian is NOT included with this article.”
However, a photo by Wildcatville is included.)
"People say, why did it take off in Oregon? One, we
have good water. Another reason are the people from back then, the intelligence
of our restaurant and tavern owners. We had to go into places and add taps,
because they only had a few taps. So, in the early days we ran a lot of beer
lines, trying to figure out how to get another keg in the cooler.
Also, I give
a lot of credit to our consumers. Oregonians like to patronize people they
know, their local people. They'll give you a chance. From what I've been told,
that's different than say on the East Coast. Oregonians want to try something
new."
Why did you start a sour house, and did you think it would
work as well as it has?
"We were looking for a way to get a niche in the
market, do something no one else was doing. I didn't want to play the hop wars,
which were just getting started. We are the kind of company that if people are
going to the right, we are going to go to the left. We're the knuckleheads who
wanted to do something different. But everyone has taste buds. When we came
along people said, "This doesn't taste like Bud." But it's not supposed
to! It's got flavor, taste and aroma. People know the difference. They can
taste the difference.
"But this is very capital intensive, as you have to
hold the beer for a year or year and a half. It's riskier, which is why you
don't see more people in it. But it's given us a chance to stand out from the
crowd, and now we sell in 40 states and 12 countries."
"I didn't expect this, though. I bought the barrel
house in '09 at the bottom of the market, and I have people come up to me now
and go, "I didn't want to say anything then, but I didn't think you were
doing the right thing." But the numbers to me said it would work, and it
pays the rent, it pays the bills, then a little more. A lot of people who come
to Portland, we're on the tourist trail, so depending on the season up to 60
percent of our business is tourist.
"But yeah, I was surprised when we really took off. It
blew me away when all that happened. ... No guts no glory, I guess."
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