Oak Union Brewing is Oregon’s first new brand of 2023
Oak Union Brewing is set to become the first new Oregon beer brand of 2023. Previewed in New School’s Most Anticipated upcoming new breweries and taprooms of 2023 story, Oak Union received OLCC approval just yesterday to begin distributing their flagship beer Green Idol, a hoppy West Coast Pilsner dry-hopped with added strata terpenes from strata hops. An official launch party is scheduled for February 11th at Beer Store Milwaukie.
Green Idol, and their second beer a German-style helles lager called Hel's Garten, are brewed at Clackamas, Oregon’s Conspirator Beverage which is also home to Kings & Daughters and Via Beer brands. With their first beers underway, the hunt officially begins for a permanent space in the Milwaukie/Oak Grove area southeast of Portland to call home.
“We’ve been talking to Beer Store Milwaukie, Larry Clouser at Pono Brewing is eager to carry our beer, and Max over at Proper Pint has reached out,” says co-owner Jules Domingue.
“The plan is to start distributing around Milwaukie and Oak Grove then spread out to the more well-known beer bars like Loyal Legion. For stores, selling cans at some of the more well-known places like John’s Market and Belmont Station is one goal. “At some point, of course, we’ll need a third-party distributor but for right now it’s me,” he adds.
Oak Union Brewing founders Jules Domingue (left) and Trevor Lauman (right)
Domingue with co-owner and head brewer (and former high school schoolmate) Trevor Lauman, grew up in Oak Grove and attended Rex Putnam High School (as did the above-mentioned Clouser). Lauman graduated from Oregon State University’s Fermentation Science program. While at OSU he received the Columbia Distributing and Rogue Ales Jack Joyce scholarship. “ That was a defining moment. I was able to talk to industry experts and gain such a deeper knowledge of beer and the industry,” he says.
After graduation, he was immediately hired by Ancestry, at the time just entering the market, where he helped develop their beer recipes. “That was a lucky strike for me and helped me develop my skills more quickly than I would have otherwise.”
Domingue found his way into the craft beer industry in 2016 after a career in HVAC. He attended PSU, then applied at Ancestry, where he and Lauman met, moved to sales, and the beer bug really hit. “When we were at Ancestry we really wanted to do our own thing,” Domingue says. “Trevor and I then found ourselves at Zoiglhaus (where the two most recently worked) and things really started to kick into gear.”
And that now includes finding a physical location.
Finding the right space
Though they want to be as close to Oak Grove or Milwaukie as possible, there have been some challenges in finding the right kind of space to complement some of the existing establishments and new ones coming in. Downtown Milwaukie has the Beer Store (thankfully, and a savior for local beer drinkers), there’s talk of a brewery going into the soon-to-be-former Milwaukie City Hall, and of course, Breakside has its popular taproom on the other side of town.
However, it recently got a bit easier to set up shop in unincorporated Clackamas County. Lauman was instrumental at the outset of the advocacy effort that ultimately succeeded in allowing light manufacturing in “downtown” Oak Grove and the McLoughlin corridor to include places like bakeries and yes, breweries.
In 2017 when first exploring the feasibility of opening a brewpub in Oak Grove, Lauman contacted Joseph Edge, then a new board member for the Oak Grove Community Council, a community group that advises the Board of County Commissioners on local land use matters.
“Trevor provided essential technical data about brewery operations that helped us identify that the county's zoning regulations prohibited brewpubs (and bakeries) in commercial districts," says Edge, who will conclude his second term as OGCC chair in February. "We were then able to work with county planning staff to rewrite the ordinance to allow small-scale food and beverage production with a retail component in commercial zones, including Historic Downtown Oak Grove, along McLoughlin Blvd., and throughout unincorporated Clackamas County.”
The Board of County Commissioners adopted the amendments in August 2020.
"Milwaukie is one of the most underserved markets in the Portland area,” Lauman says. Milwaukie has a population of around 30,000, next-door Oak Grove has 30,000, and Gladstone has around 11,000 inhabitants. “That’s just shy of 80,000 people that have to travel to Portland or Oregon City if they want to have a craft beer made from the source,” he says.
Indeed, the brewers plan on being heavily involved in the community. Green Idol will help support the Backyard Habitat Certification Program of Clackamas County through the 1% for the Planet program. The program will receive 1% of sales. “The Columbia Land Trust was able to earmark it for residents of Clackamas County. It was as simple as asking them if I could direct funds. As it turns out … you can,” says Lauman.
label art for Oak Union Brewing’s Hel's Garten, a helles-style lager
But, back to canning. Other beers will appear on the horizon, including a West Coast IPA (Oak King IPA), Hel's Garten Helles Style Lager, and potentially a cold IPA.
“Things got real when we saw that first can come off the line. It was an exciting moment for us and we can’t wait to get it out to market. The hunt for a new space is progressing fast and we believe we’ll have our own space to call our own, open and ready to serve our beers, within the year,” adds Lauman.
Look for their cans around the Portland area and on tap at your favorite taproom soon. Better yet, attend their official launch party at the Beer Store Milwaukie on February 11th at 5 p.m.