One of Portland’s smallest breweries is opening one of the tiniest taphouses starting Friday, April 7th and Saturday, April 8th at 4400 SW Garden Home Rd. Little Hop Brewing is among the top of the class of commercial nano breweries in Oregon, frequently selling out of their prodigious production at westside farmers markets and local beer bars near their home in Multnomah Village. For the past few months the husband/wife co-owners Zak and Lisa Cate have chronicled the construction of their very own taphouse on wheels, and it has now found a home outside their future first brick-and-mortar location if everything goes to plan.

Zak Cate is a homebrewer turned pro, a former brewer at McMenamins beautiful Kalama Harbor Lodge location on the Columbia river. When Zak took the job at Kalama in 2017 he had just completed PSU’s Business of Craft Brewing program, the plan was to work at McMenamins two years and gain practical brewing experience so that he could go on and start his own thing.

“After two years things were going well with McMenamins. They let me do pretty much whatever I wanted then 2020 hit and everyone was laid off so we decided to open Little Hop Brewing,” says Zak. “I eventually was hired back by McMenamins while we were building out Little Hop and then when we got the final paperwork from the OLCC I quit which was the summer of 2021.  McMemamins is still a major supporter for us and we have the ongoing coolship collaboration program which is really fun.”

Little Hop Brewing is another one of the bright shining lights to come out of COVID-19. Though it was in the works before the pandemic, Zak and Lisa’s startup was among a new class of nano breweries that reinvigorated the movement along with Nebuleus, Duality Brewing, and Integrity Brewing, among others. Little Hop’s beers which centralize around rustic lagers, and farmhouse ales side-by-side with Oregon grown hop forward beers have been a hit at events like the Nano Beer Fest and in their primary outlet the Tigard Farmers Market. 

Unlike most nano brands, Little Hop Brewing has shown social media savvy with regular instagram updates, photos, videos, and reels. Lisa Cate has become the face of the brand and lead sales person, and essential to the packaged beer Little Hop Brewing has released in the past two year. While still holding down a day job as a pediatric nurse at Doernbecher's Children's Hospital, Lisa will be an integral part of the business going forward and pouring beer at the Little Hop House taproom whenever possible between work/life balance and parenting duties for their 10 year old daughter. To help fill the void and responsibilities, Zak’s brother Taylor Cate has bought into the business and will be running the upcoming brick-and-mortar taproom when it opens.

Little Hop Brewing quickly found that they could not keep up with customer demand on their tiny scale, and decided to start looking for ways to expand incrementally. The first small step was commissioning a custom made metal trailer base for a tiny trailer from Iron Eagle in Troutdale. From there, Zak and the Little Hop team began building out a mini-home draft beer trailer themselves. Zak’s building background started in high school, and progressed to learning welding and mechanics and he eventually went on to be a carpenter.  “I built houses, furniture and cabinetry for over 10 years,” says Zak. “Little Hop is the first time I've been able to use all my skills,  starting with restoring the 1963 Dodge D100 beer truck, to actually building the brewery and Little Hop House to brewing the beer.”

Notable features of the Little Hop House tap truck are the walk-in cooler, which they made themselves using a coolbot.  The tile and the flooring are left over from the family living room remodel they did during the pandemic. The counter is made from Zak’s childhood kitchen table and if you look hard you can see where their daughter carved the year and her name into the side of the table. 

“The tap handles I turned myself, first time using a lathe, that I borrowed from a friend.  I welded shutters to make it go with the modern farmhouse look and be nicer than putting bars on the windows (for security) and had them powder coated black. The sign we will mount on the house, I also welded and then had powder coated black. I built the serving window out of an old $12 window,” says Zak.

After starting on the Little Hop tap truck another opportunity to open a brick-and-mortar presented itself. Zak and Lisa were caught between following through with the truck as a business model, or selling it and banking on a permanent space. Ultimately they decided to pursue both, and pivot along the way if they needed to. They found a space at 4400 SW Garden Home Rd. to open the truck temporarily starting April 7th and 8th, 2023, and pending permits the permanent space in an adjacent business suite.

“It was originally the first neighborhood grocery store from 1940. It’s just outside of Multnomah village. Planted PDX is a pretty rad vegan food cart that’s just outside our unit,” says Zak. The truck will kickoff a series of summer pop-ups that they hope to continue every Saturday until they can open the interior taphouse space. “The patio is an awesome little beer garden area and there is now a fire pit that is similar to Crux Fermentation Project’s old one. We will be putting the trailer in the parking spot closest to Planted PDX so our carts will make a little L shape around the patio area- it will add to the cozy vibe.  We are running with the unconfirmed phrase "tiniest tap house in Portland, with the tiniest beer garden.”

To brew enough beer to sustain the little hop truck for Spring and Summer, Zak took the entire winter off to build the truck and then begin brewing inventory in the new year. That meant they had to stop selling beer at local beer bars and farmers markets. The pop-up in April is a grand reopening of sorts, a trial run that they hope will be the start of great things to come.

At the opening there will be a fresh batch of their ‘Little Hop Lager’ (American lager) and a Mosaic Hop Terpene cold IPA.  Fans of even more specialty styles will be stoked to try their first year barrel aged barleywine, and Little Hop’s second batch of their Coolship ongoing spontaneous fermentation project with McMenamins that is flavored with rose hips and dry hopped with citra. Beers in the works include a Vienna-style lager with coffee from Ace Run Coffee Roasters, and a pinot noir barrel fermented lager. They may fill a guest tap or two with cider or other alternative beverages.

The Little Hop House will launch as a pop-up on April 7th and 8th, their landlord is holding off approving their proposed weekly schedule that would run every Saturday, to see how it goes on the inaugural launch. If you support small family businesses, then you will want to be there to help assure their continued success and an ongoing schedule that will see them open every Saturday.

The Little Hop House Pop-Up Debut

Friday April 7th 3-8pm
Saturday April 8th 12-8pm
4400 SW Garden Home Rd. next to the Planted PDX food truck