McMenamins Brewery Collection, 1983-2015

McMenamins is a family-owned chain of brewpubs, breweries, historic hotels, and theater pubs in the Pacific Northwest. It was founded by brothers Mike and Brian McMenamin, who grew up in Northeast Portland. In 2021, they operated 56 properties, with twelve hotels; dozens of breweries, pubs, and restaurants; movie theaters; spas; music venues; and a coffee roaster, winery, cidery and distillery. Many locations are rehabilitated historical buildings and at least nine are on the National Register of Historic Places. McMenamins only sells its beer in its own pubs, restaurants, hotels, and movie theaters.

Early businesses

Mike and Brian McMenamin both graduated from Oregon State University, Mike with a Political Science degree (1974) and Brian with a Business degree (1980). Mike and two college friends purchased the Produce Row Café, a bar known for all-night, high-stakes poker games, in Portland's warehouse district in 1974 and sold more than 100 types of beer. The building was built in 1951 and opened as a breakfast café for produce dockworkers in 1953; in later years, it was a barbershop. Mike and Brian bought Bogart's Joint, another Portland-area pub on 14^th and Flanders. At various points in history, many beer-related activities occurred in this building: Kurt and Rob Widmer brewed in this location, and it was later space occupied by Portland Brewing and Rogue Ales Public House. By 1980, they'd sold Produce Row, Bogart's Joint, and a third tavern, the Stockyard Café.

Mike opened a wine distributorship and Brian opened the McMenamins Pub in Hillsboro. By 1983, Mike’s distributorship had failed, and the brothers decided to try the bar business again. Rather than the smoky, male-dominated taverns common in Portland, they were inspired by the community hubs they’d seen in Europe. They bought the Fat Little Rooster tavern on Southeast Hawthorne and renamed it the Barley Mill Pub; in addition to a varied beer selection, the pub was known for Grateful Dead memorabilia and anniversary parties. The namesake “barley mill,” which can still be found onsite, was used by Chuck Coury at Cartwright Brewing Co., Portland’s first post-Prohibition brewery. It was originally a kitty litter grinder but is now used annually to grind the grain for anniversary ales.

One major event that impacted the trajectory of the beer industry in Oregon in the 1980s was legislation that married production and sales. Fred Bowman and Art Larrance (Portland Brewing), Dick and Nancy Ponzis (BridgePort Brewing) and their brewer Karl Ockert, Kurt and Rob Widmer (Widmer Brothers Brewing), and the McMenamins lobbied to legalize on-site sales. On July 13, 1985, Governor Vic Atiyeh signed Senate Bill 813, the “Brewpub Bill,” into law. It allowed brewers to make and sell beer on the same premises, key for increasing revenue and gaining new customers.

First brewpubs

The McMenamins took advantage of the new law, and by the early 1990s had opened several brewpubs, each with its own small brewing system attached. They opened the Hillsdale Brewery and Public House October 31, 1985 in the Southwest Portland neighborhood of Hillsdale. Not only was it their first brewery, it was also the first brewpub in Oregon since Prohibition. Known as “Captain Neon's Fermentation Chamber,” a nod to Mike McMenamin’s nickname, the first several batches of beer were brewed with old Tillamook dairy equipment. On October 25, 1985, Hillsdale's first brewer Ron Wolf, who had previously worked at Anchor Steam, brewed the first beer in a small copper kettle and called it "Hillsdale Ale.” It fell loosely into the “Special Bitter” classification of beer styles and was a malt extract brew. Hillsdale Ale was brewed 29 times at the Hillsdale location and 14 times at Cornelius Pass Roadhouse between 10/25/1985 and 11/28/1986. In the first year, several brewers moved through the facility and made Hillsdale Ale, including Ron Wolf (who only brewed 13 batches before leaving), Conrad Santos (who replaced Wolf as brew master), Mike McMenamin, Brian McMenamin, John Harris, Scott Barrow, and Alex Farnham (the company’s first female brewer).

In 1986, they purchased a 125-year-old farmhouse in Hillsboro, Oregon, and turned it into the Cornelius Pass Roadhouse. Later that same year, they opened the Lighthouse Brewpub in Lincoln City. The Fulton Pub and Brewery opened in Portland in June 1988 and the Highland Pub and Brewery opened in Gresham in July 1988.

Eventually, 27 breweries would operate under the McMenamins umbrella and they became a training ground for new brewers, many of whom have gone on to found breweries of their own. Alumni include John Harris (Hillsdale, Cornelius Pass Roadhouse), Jack Harris (Cornelius Pass Roadhouse, Lighthouse Brewery), Jason McAdam (Edgefield, Hillsdale, Crystal Ballroom), Alex McGaw (Fulton, Crystal Ballroom), Ben Nehrling and Kevin Lee (Edgefield, Highland, Kennedy School), and Mark Goodwin (Old Church, Crystal Ballroom).

In addition to serving beer at their brewpubs, the company also hosted festivals, concerts, and other public programming events at their properties, including Dad Watson’s Brew Fest, Edgefield Brew Fest, Highland Pub and Brewery Eurofest, Hillsdale Brew Fest, Lighthouse Brew Fest, Mid-Valley Brew Fest, and the Thompson Barley Cup.

Beer and Other Beverages

The McMenamins’ beers could be unsettling to brewing traditionalists; they used ingredients like apples, spices, and candy bars, as well as lesser used malts like Chocolate and Crystal. They introduced fruit beers to Oregon and early batches featured blackberries from the Hillsdale brewpub parking lot. Hand in hand with their experimentation, McMenamins developed three core beers that are brewed at all their breweries. Terminator Stout (1985) is a dark, English-style brew; Ruby (1986) is a light, raspberry-flavored beer; and Hammer Head (1986) is a classic Northwest Pale Ale. Ruby and Hammerhead are iconic company characters as well; artist Lyle Hehn created Ruby Witch and Hammerhead, and both are staples of murals, posters, and coasters.

Terminator Stout made its debut in 1985 at the Hillsdale Brewery & Public House as the 12^th beer brewed. Old Hammerhead, as the strong ale was first called, was brewed January 25, 1986 and was the 37^th brew and made with malt extract. John Harris, who later created Mirror Pond for Deschutes Brewery, was the first to make Hammerhead an “all-grain” beer. Harris was hired in 1987, and when they transitioned away from extract brewing, he decided to rewrite the Hammerhead recipe; besides changed the grain, he also added more hops. Ruby, originally called “Ruby Tuesday” before the food chain objected, was first brewed in 1986 and used 42 pounds of pureed Oregon raspberries.

The company made more than beer. They planted 3 acres of Pinot Gris fruit in 1990 and looked to regional vineyards for additional grapes; McMenamins Edgefield Winery was established in 1992 and began by making Rhone-style wines, including grenache and viognier. The Edgefield Winery produces 20 different white, rosé, dessert, and sparkling wines and supplies 350 tons of wine to McMenamins pubs. Also in 1992, and predating the boom by more than 20 years, McMenamins started making cider at the winery and in 2018 sold as much cider by volume as wine.

In 1995, they began experiments with distillation and made brandy under contract by Carneros Alembic, a California distillery owned by Remy-Martin. In 1997, they built their first distillery in an old root vegetable storage barn on the Edgefield property. Their most popular whiskey is Hogshead, but they make several others, including Money Puzzle, which is dry hopped with Teamaker hops (which has 0 IBUs) and is sweetened with blackberry honey harvest from hives on their property.

Historic preservation

The brothers’ love of historic structures directed business growth and community involvement, and preserving important historical buildings is integral to their business. When the McMenamins started, they couldn’t afford new construction, so they purchased old buildings, which came with stories. They employ a small staff of historians to research and document the history, and those are in turn incorporated into each property’s art, murals, menus, place names, and architectural details.

In 1987, the company opened its first theater, the Mission Theater Pub, in downtown Portland. The converted 1890s Swedish Tabernacle, a church-turned-union hall, was also the state's first theater pub. In 1991, McMenamins turned a 1927 art deco theater that was slated for demolition into a second pub and movie house. These businesses were significant and ushered in a new way to watch movies with beer and food.

In 1987, the brothers purchased Edgefield, which was built in 1911 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. They paid $560,000 and invested another $2.5 million to transform the farm's 80-year-old buildings into a multi-utility complex. Edgefield was once the Multnomah County Poor Farm, a self-sufficient facility with a meatpacking plant, power station, large rooming house, and infirmary. When the remodeled Edgefield Manor opened in 1991, the meatpacking plant was a brewery, power station a pub with a movie theater, infirmary a winery, and rooming house a 100-room hotel. There was also a meeting space, catering operation, restaurant called the Black Rabbit, herb and flower gardens, four liquor and cigar bars, distillery, golf course, and amphitheater. One of the more outstanding features of Edgefield, and something that would become the McMenamins' signature, was the extensive art installations created by local artists. Art popped up in surprising places throughout the complex (on ceilings, exposed heating pipes, eaves, fuse boxes) and showed local subjects (former residents, Northwest Indians, 19th-century brewers, the Columbia River Gorge). Within a few years, the company had a set of 12 freelance artists ready to work on new property acquisitions. Edgefield brewery is still the company's largest property.

In 1997, they purchased the Crystal Ballroom in Portland, which had been vacant for 30 years, and filled it with murals depicting the building's history, a brewpub, and a bar. The building was famous for its swaying dance floor, which sat on ball bearings. The Crystal Hotel was built in 1911 and became a dance hall and concert facility that hosted national music acts. Around the same time, they partnered with the Portland Development Commission and invested $4.5 million to remodel the Kennedy Elementary School. What was once a boarded-up building was transformed into a 35-room multi-use hotel with an onsite brewery, restaurant and four bars, a movie theater, a jazz hall, cigar bar, and soaking pool.

In 1999, the McMenamins opened McMenamins Hotel Oregon in downtown McMinnville, Oregon. The building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places and had been a hotel since its first two stories were erected in 1905; five years later, two more floors were added. In 1932, the hotel was renamed Hotel Oregon. In addition to renovating guest rooms, the McMenamins renovation added two bars and an art gallery with old photographs and new paintings that showed the history of the hotel and McMinnville.

Many property renovations followed. In 2000, they opened the Grand Lodge in Forest Grove, Oregon, which was formerly a Masonic home built in 1922. In 2001, they opened the 27 room Olympic Club Hotel and Theater, which was an expansion of the McMenamins Olympic Club Pub in downtown Centralia, Washington. The original Oxford Hotel was built in 1908 and Olympic Club was built in 1913. In 2003, they reopened the Rock Creek Tavern in Hillsboro, Oregon, which they had purchased in 1995 when the original tavern burned down. In 2016, the Anderson School in Bothell, Washington opened. The original Anderson School was built in 1931 and opened in 1936. In April of 2018, McMenamins opened their latest project, the Kalama Harbor Lodge in Kalama, Washington. Other properties include the White Eagle Saloon & Hotel in Portland, which was built in 1905; Boon’s Treasury in Salem, built in the 1860s; and Old St. Francis School in Bend, which opened in 1936.