Queer/Women-of-Color owned TPK Brewing to be first tabletop roleplaying game brewery in Portland
Portland, Oregon’s upcoming TPK Brewing is a majority queer and women-of-color owned brewpub that will become the first dedicated tabletop roleplaying game brewery in the country (that we know of). TPK will feature a full-time staff of professional Game Masters running tabletop roleplaying games with their own published storylines, brewing recipes, and house-brewed beer with a full kitchen. “We want to bring the revolution to roleplaying games by serving our guests original story content and thematic beer releases” says the startup in their upcoming November 1st, crowdfundr launch as part of Questember.
TPK Brewing comes from three online gaming professionals that are as passionate about craft beer and brewing as they are about OGL 5e-compatible tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs.) TPK is a Dungeons & Dragons term that stands for total party kill, referring to when every member of an adventuring party is killed.
The TPK brewpub will feature multiple gaming options around a centerpiece open hearth fire, all gaming available in private, semi-private, or public seating options. But even if you are not a gaming nerd, TPK Brewing wants to be your family-friendly neighborhood brewery and restaurant even while tempting you with a lavish cataclysmic fantasy setting where players are tasked with exploring and documenting the changed world of Val'Ruvina. And if that’s not enough, a menu of Filipino and Hawaiian dishes from a kitchen operated by the combined efforts of Hapa Howies and Barkada PDX might just pull you in.
“As far as we know we'll be the first business combining craft brewing with original ongoing gaming narratives,” says TPK co-founder Elliot Kaplan. “But, it's super important to us that the entire space is still inviting to non-gamers looking for a drink and some food. I think one of the best ways to think about it is that we're a brewpub first and foremost, but with most of the bar programming focused on tabletop roleplaying instead of karaoke, trivia, etc.”
Jessica “Jess” Hardie
Jessica “Jess” Hardie is TPK’s head brewer and co-founder. Jess comes to Oregon from San Francisco where she worked in marketing communications at a successful large game developer. That’s where she met Elliot Kaplan as a co-worker, they got into craft beer together in 2012 before they both moved to Portland independently. Jess was the inaugural recipient of the Oregon Brewers Guild’s Mashing Barriers internship program for underrepresented groups looking to get into the industry, she completed a 3 month stint at Von Ebert Brewing earlier this year and was quickly hired on at multi-medal award-winning Oregon City Brewing after that.
“We were on the same team, each running customer communications for one of the studio's games as part of a larger marketing function,” recalls Elliot. “I introduced Jess to tabletop roleplaying that same year as part of a 24-hour game I ran for charity, we started homebrewing together in 2016 after I joined her up here in Portland.”
Elliot and Jess got into homebrewing at N. Portland’s Homebrew Exchange and Look Long Brewing, and that’s when they started thinking of it as more than a hobby. In 2018 they completed the prestigious Siebel Institute’s Concise Course on brewing and Portland State University’s Business of Craft Brewing program. In 2020, Elliot helped their employer take the gaming company public and was rewarded with capital as a longtime senior employee, those funds allowed them to expand their vision for TPK Brewing and purchase a building at 5051 SE Hawthorne Boulevard where they plan to open the brewpub in 2023.
Elliot Kaplan
“I got into making beer because I wanted to make beer for my tabletop gaming friends,” says Jess. At first they would get together in-person and select beers that paired up well with whatever game they were playing. Then she decided to take it to the next level and actually homebrew beers inspired by the characters and setting. “When you are playing a group roleplaying game you are creating a shared story together and beer just cements that. Seeing someone's face light up when you create a beer for their character is such a trip. For me it just made sense as an experience.”
In 2021 Elliot and Jess started looking for a third partner in the brewery, they needed someone with skills in game design and writing storylines for TTRPGs that could split the work-load and bring a creative vision. A friend and local artist working on TPK’s graphics recommended The League of Ultimate Questing podcaster Dana Ebert, who proved a perfect fit to become an equal partner in the brewery. Dana is a published tabletop adventure writer for Dungeons & Dragon’s offshoot Paizo, a busy voice actor, and a professional Dungeon Master, who happens to work as a marketing analyst by day. Dana’s skillset matched up with what Jess and Elliot were looking for in a third partner who will serve as the creative director. But it was the company's principles that really sold Dana on the project.
Dana Ebert
“We have very similar core values, and that’s what made me feel good about working together,” says Dana, who is an openly bisexual and transgender Filipino-American. “When you are publishing a show, or producing a podcast, running a bar or restaurant, that’s an opportunity to be inclusive and give people chances that they might not have in other places. Very often I am the only woman, and it’s a shame. And it’s not just women, but other marginalized groups.”
“It gets disheartening being the only one,” agrees Jess, “If you are talking about beer, or gaming, or RPG’s in general, it is hard to get into the industry, even as a hobby. It’s not really a person of color or women centric universe. So when we are talking about our passions or the hurdles we have went through, our passion is always bringing people into a welcoming space and sharing that passion, and bringing other communities into it who aren’t historically a part of it.”
Dana, Jess and Elliot share a passion for diversity and creating welcome spaces. Both beer and gaming inspire their own fervent fandoms, and both can be insular and difficult to get into if you don’t fit the type. Oregon’s beer scene is diverse; from the colors of wild berry foraged spontaneously fermented sours and cascadian dark ales, to a brewery in a 100+ year old church and a taphouse in a hop field. It’s not nearly as diverse behind-the-scenes with the people that keep it running in key ownership and creative roles where you can find shockingly few women, people of color, or anyone non-white male. TPK Brewing wants to be inclusive to everyone and see’s beer and gaming as a way to bring cultures and people together.
“I’m really interested in human interaction on a face-to-face level, I interact with millions of players but I know maybe 10 of them by name, but I wanted to shift that ratio for me personally and beer highlights that experience pretty well” adds co-owner Elliot Kaplan.
Personal identity is baked into the TPK Brewing concept from the start; in a recent interview with Roar Cat Reads, Dana Ebert recounted her High School experience as a gamer who could only express her queer identity by playing as a female character called Mavis, revealing “the best part about playing her, the part I wouldn’t admit back then, was that during our sessions, everyone at the table referred to me in-character and used she/her pronouns.”
For Jess Hardie, creating roleplaying characters inspired her beers and her own sense of creative identity which will be expressed in the beers she makes at TPK. As an example, Dana recounts a story where she was describing a settlement called Briar’s End in TPK’s forthcoming level 1 gaming storyline to Jess for inspiration.
“I described it to Jess as something is sucking the life out of the earth in this region and all crops grow bitter and desiccated so the people who live in Briar’s End don’t tend to eat fresh produce, they can their food and heavily spice things by preserving them. So Jess wrote a recipe for a spiced cherry stout that really has these fruit notes. Sometimes it’s more of a vibe, but the seasonal rotating beers will match the storylines,” says Dana, noting that sometimes beers might be created to be drank at specific moments in the game.
Jess says the regular TPK beers will be pub favorites like lagers, IPA’s, and classic European-styles, as well as those from her Mexican heritage, but the custom gaming characters and their motivations will inspire her seasonal lineup. For example, she says “Based on the season I am thinking of rotational beers, like take this character Ashbringer, kind of the villain of the story, what is her motivations and what did she do to the world and how can I make that into a beer that personifies her that players can experience while meeting her in the game? Like maybe I want to put layers of cinnamon because it’s like wood and kind of bitter because she burnt everything in the world, lets do some coffee back on that, maybe some hot cocoa in there too.”
The role play gaming part of the business works like this: TPK will launch multiple gaming options and spaces for non-gamers and private gatherings for others, or lead by in-house Game Master experts available by registration on their website. For newbies and the die-curious there will be classes and small groups for exploring some of the most popular roleplaying rulesets so you can get a feel for the hobby. These will be structured to either get you up to speed to then join TPK’s original recurring campaign The Leyfarer's Chronicle, or to play your ruleset of choice with your own group. This could be anything from a one session adventure to a recurring long-running game of your choice. The story campaigns will change per season like a serialized fantasy television series, or seasonal beer releases that reflect the climate and tastes of their fans.
TPK Brewing will open at 5051 SE Hawthorne Blvd. in the current location of Tabor Bread
TPK Brewing will be moving into the current home of beloved small local business Tabor Bread at 5051 SE Hawthorne Blvd, extending the building and the front roofline for mezzanine space and production centered on a 7bbl brewhouse from Bridgetown Brew Houses. The transition of businesses is amicable, as Tabor Bread will move nearby to a space on SE Belmont that accommodates their desire to become a full service cafe/bakery with an environment conducive to their busy production schedule.
“We had long admired the aesthetic and location of the Tabor Bread building, a whimsical bakery nestled in a neighborhood right at the base of Mt. Tabor. We were cautiously optimistic when it came on the market, and then ecstatic once we heard it was because they were moving into a new space that better matched their future plans,” says Elliott, who purchased the building through a separate LLC in early 2022 and has been working with EMA Architecture for renovations once Tabor Bread moves out in mid-December.
Tabor Bread’s open hearth oven. Photo credit Portland Sampler
TPK will slightly redecorate with dark woods, metal and oak barrel decor that nods to gaming culture without being overt. Customers will enjoy a classic pub-style space while cozying up near an open flame hearth that functioned as Tabor Bread’s original brick oven.
“The hearth was a huge selling point for us,” says Elliot about selecting the space. “We're planning to leave that front room largely unchanged and are working with Hapa Barkada to utilize the fire as part of the restaurant they'll be running out the brewery's kitchen.”
Melvin Trinidad (of BarkadaPDX) and Kiaha Kurek (of Hapa Howies)
Hapa Barkada is a new concept from the combined talents of chef/owners Kiaha Kurek of NW Portland Hawaiian food truck Hapa Howie’s, and Melvin Trinidad of Filipino pop-up Barkada PDX who you may have seen or tried at Culmination Brewing or Aimsir Distilling ongoing pop-ups. Together they will be sharing the space with TPK Brewing and operating their first brick-and-mortar kitchen to offer a full menu of items from both of their cultures. Hapa Barkada will operate independently as a sub-lease with their own menu and counter service, but work together with TPK to provide food for the brewpub and collaborate on special beers and pairings.
TPK Brewing is proud to be a featured partner for Crowdfundr's first Questember launching on November 1st. As one of the only breweries with a dedicated games publishing branch, TPK is centering their crowdfunding around the release of a prequel adventure book The Blooms That Feed on Fire, setting the stage for the roleplaying adventure players can expect when the brewery opens its doors. There will be some great rewards, including a brewers dinners, a lifetime gaming membership, designing your own custom character, and even a private brew day with Jess.
TPK is currently in the permitting process with the City of Portland. They aim to open their doors as the first tabletop gaming brewpub in the city Spring 2023. Learn more and join the adventure at https://crowdfundr.com/tpkbrewing.
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