After receiving several hundred emails concerning the rumors of a Union Beer Co. article I will now formally address them. Yes, Union Beer Co. is having a write up in the upcoming March 2009 issue of Draft Magazine, a nationally published magazine celebrating beer and beer culture. I have been in contact with Editor-in-Chief Erika Rietz and she gave me permission to post a preview of the 25,000 word piece on this here blog. “It is perhaps the greatest of the beer blogs,” she exclaimed, “I would be honored to have the article previewed on the site. I am so very jealous of your literary skills.” I would like to express my gratitude to Mrs. Rietz for allowing me to post this excerpt from her magazine. So, without further a due, a sneak preview for those of you who cannot wait another month.
Prodigy Men or Prodigal Sons?
Inside the World of Two of Americas Hottest Young Brewers
By Kimberly Kaye
It is late Friday evening in the Nob Hill neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. I sit uncomfortably on a couch watching two grown men dance around in a state of ecstasy wearing shiny, silver suits and Brandon Roy sneakers (of which I was constantly reminded of throughout the night). A mid-90s hip-hop song by the name of “More Money More Problems” is blaring from the speaker, loud enough that I can barely hear the two men screaming, “Throw your Rollies in the sky! Wave them side to side!” at each other. As the song winds down the two high five and one of them takes a seat next to me.
“Did you know Brandon Roy can breath underwater?” he asks.
The two grown men are Peter Stephens and Evan Trapp, co-founders of one the most promising breweries in America, Union Beer Co. After all of the write-ups on the magic and genius of the Union Beer Co. brews, I expected the two founders to be somewhat like the Leonardo DiCaprio portrayal of Howard Hughes in the movie “The Aviator,” in which the troubled eccentric genius Hughes is constantly pushing the presumed boundaries of aviation while battling his inner demons. Instead, the brewers appear somewhat like another cinematic figure portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio: Arnie in “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.”
The night had begun innocent enough. We first met up at a Laurelwood Brewpub near their house to try a new Black IPA. Trapp had been raving about this seasonal beer on tap.
“You know, they plagiarized this Black IPA,” claimed Stephens. “It was our idea, and than Laurelwood plagiarized it.”
Either Stephens was blatantly lying or he did not understand what the word “plagiarize” meant. I lean towards the latter since the next day he described a slam-dunk by their beloved Brandon Roy as “plagiarizing (the opponent’s) face.”
The conversation soon turned towards the exploding microbrew scene occurring in their hometown. The two seemed appreciative of many of their elder brewers, but would only get seriously passionate about a brewery when they disliked them.
“Pyramid? Are you (explicit deleted) kidding me?” Stephens fumed. “Pyramid? I mean, Pyramid? You’ve got to be (explicit deleted) me!”
Not surprisingly, they especially expressed their disdain for Roots Brewing. The two companies have spared continuously in the media recently, leading to what some are calling a “Beer War.”
“Is it a Beer War?” Asked Trapp. “You are (explicit deleted) right it’s a mother (explicit deleted) Beer War! Can you believe those clowns had the gall to say we don’t care about our carbon footprint?! Of course we care about our carbon footprint! And, just like our brewery, we want it to be the biggest and the baddest carbon footprint all of carbon footprints!”
While somewhat ridiculous, this statement does hold up much merit. Trapp had recently trademarked the slogan: “Union Beer Co.: The Sasquatch of the Carbon Footprint World.”
“Roots is so lame,” Stephens chimed in as he began to fake a Jamaican accent, “Roots-a Brewing, mon. ‘Ey, mon! I got-a ‘da dreadlocks, mon. No woman no cry, mon!” I questioned Stephens if he thought the Jamaican accent was a tad racist. "Of course not, those (explicit deleted)-holes are both white!"
After Laurelwood we headed down towards the great Willamette River and found ourselves at the herald Deschutes Brewpub tasting their epic, The Abyss, recently named to last months Top 25 Beer List by our editors. I made the dreaded mistake of mentioning this to Stephens and Trapp.
“And we aren’t on the (explicit deleted) list?”
I informed them that the tastings for the list had been completed several weeks prior to Union Beer Co.’s public opening. We had not even heard of the company yet, let alone taste their beer.
“Well, go back a revise the (explicit deleted) list! You stupid (explicit deleted)!”
This verbal attack was soon followed by Stephens emphatically firing me in front of the entire bar. I informed him I was not a part of his company but it was no use. The patrons cheered and Trapp got them to do a rousing chant of “Bran-don-Roy! M-V-P!” I suggested we go to another, quieter pub to talk beer.
"McFadden's it is!"
While McFadden's was not quite what I had in mind, the lively conversation on brewing I had wanted finally came to life. The next day, both Stephens and Trapp claimed not remembering going to McFadden's, but that night they delivered some of the most memorable speeches on brewing I had ever heard. It was a night I will never forget, and, undoubtedly, will go down as one of the most historic nights in the history of brewing...
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