Baerlic Brewing Q & A with founder Ben Parsons ahead of their 8th Anniversary
Portland, Oregon’s esteemed Baerlic Brewing has been the successful underdog of beervana since the beginning. Baerlic was founded in 2014 by Ben Parsons and Rik Hall in the location of the former Kettleman’s Bagels without much fanfare. But from the early days they were embraced by the likes of the legendary Jim Parker who fell in love with their Primeval Brown Ale, and were immediately recognized for their attention to detail and design as the beers just got consistently better and better and more accomplished over time.
In just the past few years Baerlic Brewing opened their second location the Barley Pod with it’s own lineup of food trucks, they moved their original taproom into a much more expansive Pie Hall, and opened a third location on NE Alberta St. During the pandemic they pivoted to a subscription club, a home delivery service, and turned the company parking lot and loading area into one of the cities best beer gardens. With the 8th anniversary nearly here, Baerlic is coming off of gold medals for their Dad Beer and Fresh Hop Bitter at the 2022 Oregon Beer Awards and a World Beer Cup bronze for Dark Thoughts Black IPA.
A lot of the current success of Baerlic must be attributed to longtime taproom manager Nikki Muir, and currently she is joined by an all star team of staff including SE taproom manager David Belcher, Barley Pod location manager Courtney Krake, Alberta taproom manager Sarah Walker, Distribution manager Nick Perry, Sales manager Eldon Farlow III, sales rep Jon Reid, and head brewer Travis Robinson.
Baerlic Brewing founders Rik Hall (left) and Ben Parsons (right)
This Saturday, June 25th marks Baerlic Brewing’s 8th Anniversary, while it may not be the round milestone number that some expect for big blowouts, but The Greatful Eighth party holds special weight as a transitional point for the brand and their amazing ability to adapt and change over the pandemic as they begin a production expansion that should see more beer to feed their many pubs and devoted fans.
Baerlic Brewing co-founder Ben Parsons joined us for a Q & A ahead of their big 8th Anniversary:
What were you and Rik doing before you started Baerlic and why did you decide to take this new brewery idea on?
Ben Parsons: Previous to Baerlic, Rik was the service manager for a local bike shop and I was a graphic designer. After 5+ years of homebrewing nearly every weekend together, and after several failed attempts to get entry level gigs or internships in local breweries, we decided to build a business plan and see if we could pencil this thing out. And in all honesty, by the time we figured out how hard opening a brewery in this city was going to be, it was too late to turn back. We had already raised capital and signed a lease, so failure wasn't an option. We were definitely pretty green when we first started out, but all the support of our friends, family and luckily having and building a really strong team are what eventually led to a healthy business.
Q: How has the brewery changed since you started, and I don’t mean in terms of locations or production, but the brand, vision, beers, culture, stuff like that?
Ben Parsons: Wow, this is a big one! What hasn't changed about the business, ha? In all reality, the best laid plans don't really mean shit when you're actually doing the thing. We spent close to 18 months prior to signing the lease writing, rewriting and re-rewriting the 'plan' and that plan pretty much went straight to the recycle bin on day one. When the rubber hits the road, you just have to go into instinct and gut feeling mode and just keep plodding one foot in front of the other. That has more or less always been our unofficial business plan: just keep moving forward and do everything we can to incrementally get better each and every day. Any gains we've made have been almost entirely organic and iterative and luckily we've been able to surround ourselves with an amazing group of people who really seem to trust us and really become invested in this whole Baerlic thing, whatever that may be at the time. I don't know for sure how we've been so fortunate with our team, but I do know that Rik and I are still very vertically integrated, so we're never been ones to shy away from any of the necessary work—even when it's not the fun work. A lead by example sort of thing. And at this point in time we have such a fucking fantastic team that what 'Baerlic' means is less and less Rik and I every day. Throw on top of that our awesome set of regulars and you begin to realize the community that we've built here over the years. To me the real Baerlic brand is thate sum collective of everyone who works here and drinks here…and that's a really fucking amazing feeling!
Q: How significant is the 8th anniversary to you, and do you think you are at a turning point with the brand coming out of the pandemic, expansions, etc. ?
Ben Parsons: 8 years is a long time. When we opened I would joke that the beer industry at the time we decided to open a brewery in 2012 was a completely different industry than when we opened in 2014. But to think of the many iterations the industry has churned out over these last 8 years is pretty mind blowing. But again, we've always found success when we tread lightly, stay nimble and keep our nose to the grindstone. When you say turning point, it makes me realize how much my headspace and our business model has changed since COVID landed over 2 years ago. For example, as I type this, I'm sitting at my desk that currently resides in our original taproom that has remained shut to the public since March of 2020 when we were shut down—although we have of course since opened our massively spacious Piehall with Ranch Pizza and most recently added a record and art kiosk called Craft Service. But there are times where I kind of daze off and stare around in this old taproom and really reflect on how far we've come. I mean we survived a fucking pandemic, that in and of itself is worth celebrating, but to think Rik and I have been building this whole Baerlic thing for over a decade is pretty surreal. Looking back it feels like a lifetime ago when we first got the keys to our original space and now we have 3 locations and 25+ amazing humans working with us. All of it has happened so organically and deliberately, but it isn't like we knew this was where we wanted to be as a business. I think our greatest asset is having a rock solid team that has allowed us to kind of go where the wind blows and where it makes sense for us to go—to carve out our own lane so to speak. And for all of that we are eternally grateful…hance the theme of the Grateful 8.
Q: What is the 1 year and 5 year plans for Baerlic Brewing going forward?
Ben Parsons: Ha, this is always a really hard question to answer, cause I have no idea where we are going. I used to have sort of a flexible vision of where things might go, but the pandemic just kind of ruined my ability to do that. In late 2019 we embarked on a rather large production expansion with a new canning line, expanded cold storage and several new to us 30 bbl fermenters and brites. That plan was of course put on indefinite hiatus when COVID landed. There's no worse feeling than 2 weeks after signing loan docs and lease agreements for this expansion a global pandemic hits and the state shuts down your most important revenue stream. Man, that was a stressful time! And in all reality, we're just now about to complete that expansion we started in 2019. It only took 2 1/2 years and more false starts and delays than I can even recall. So long story short, we're going to settle into the final phase of this expansion project for a while and see how the dust settles…then we'll see where opportunity takes us. Right now we just need the ability to make more beer, cause we're running out. So having these new tanks on line will kind of pave the way for where we can even go next.
Q: How will you be celebrating this Saturday? Can you share more on what special beers will be on tap, what the music is, what the teased expansion is about?
Ben Parsons: If anyone knows Baerlic, they know we're pretty good at throwing parties. And my headspace is that if you have the right vibe and the right group of people, then the good times just sort of have to happen. So that's what we'll try our best to do. That being said, we will definitely have some beers from the cellar—although I don't know which ones as of yet—and we'll of course have the classics like Dad Beer, Punk Rock Time IPA and Better Together IPA as well as our recent World Beer Cup win Dark Thoughts Black IPA. Plus we'll have a mix of a few different lagers like Chill Helles and Downlow Czech-Style Dark Lager and of course our yearly anniversary beer Louder, More Punk Rock Double IPA. On top of that we'll be slinging square pies from Ranch Pizza, Craft Service will be handling the tunes and we'll be doing brewery tours of our recently completed production expansion throughout the evening. And as always, we are a family friendly joint, so kiddos are allowed til 9pm.
