In Memoriam of Art Larrance (1944-2024) founder of Oregon Brewers Festival, Portland Brewing, Cascade Brewing, & architect of Oregon’s Brewpub Bill

May 27, 2024 Ezra Johnson-Greenough

Oregon craft beer pioneer and industry icon Art Larrance has passed away.

Without Art Larrance, we wouldn’t be living in the craft beer mecca we call beervana. He is responsible for not only pioneering the beer festival model that still exists today, but also helping create American Sour beers, and basically legalizing what we call brewpubs today. His significance and impact cannot be overstated, even though he would tell you he was just at the right place at the right time.

In 1986 Art Larrance opened Portland Brewing Co., one of the first breweries in Oregon. It wouldn’t have been possible if he and the other six architects of the 1985 Oregon Brewpub Bill hadn’t help craft and push through the law that legalized on-premise consumption at breweries just a year earlier. A few years later, Larrance co-founded the Oregon Brewers Festival in 1988, it quickly became the largest beer festival in the country adding tens of millions to the local economy every year from up to 50k visitors. Through the OBF Larrance introduced small breweries from across the country to the PNW, and helped launch brands and influence tastes of beer fans and Brewers worldwide. By 1998 he was at it again, opening Cascade Brewing and basically creating the American version of fruited lambics with brewmaster Ron Gansberg.

Art Larrance was an Oregon native, born February 26th, 1944. He awoke in the early hours on May 26th 2024, complaining of chest pains. His longtime partner told him to sit up as she called an ambulance, but he passed away from a heart attack at 80 years old. Art leaves behind two children, Tim and Alissa, plus five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Alissa was awoken Saturday morning by a police officer at her door.. She was shocked, as Art had maintained his health, working in his garden and staying out and about, only giving up his favorite pastime of baseball a few years back. Anyone who knew him knew he was still just as invested in the industry even partially retired.

Before he was a brewer, Art was a baseball player. Art attended Hillsboro High School in Oregon, where he was the varsity catcher for three years under the tutelage of two hall of fame coaches, Ad Rutschman and Chuck Bafaro. During that time, “Hilhi” won two league championships. As a busy sophomore, Art also made time to earn his Eagle Scout badge In April 1959, attaining the rank in the minimum number of years. During Art’s senior year, he had the honor of playing in the State-Metro All Star Series and the Hillsboro team was named State Co-champion in a rained-out game in 1962.

Art Larrance (left) and longtime Oregonian beer writer John Foyston (right) at the 2018 Oregon Brewers Festival guild gathering

Art went on to Linfield College where he played for Roy Helser. The Wildcats won their league championship all four years he played, and his senior year, they were the 1966 NAIA National Champions. Art has received the Linfield College Alumni of the Year Award, given to an alum or community member who has shown dedication not only to Linfield, but also in a particular field of endeavor. Art has served as the past president and active member of the Old Timers Baseball Association of Portland.

Portland’s reputation as Brewvana wouldn’t exist without brewpubs, and we have a handful of people to thank for that, including Art. He, along with Fred Bowman, Brian and Mike McMenamin, Fred Eckhardt, Dick Ponzi, and Kurt and Rob Widmer initiated brewpub legislation in Oregon in 1985, making it legal for a brewery to sell its beer on premise, an act that had been banned in Oregon since Prohibition.

Art got into homebrewing in the early 70’s with his high school friend Fred Bowman. In 1986, Art and Fred opened Portland Brewing Co.. At first it was a part-time job for Larrance, with Bowman the full-time brewer. At first the brewery only had 22 accounts they self-distributed to. Then they picked up contract brewing for a Scottish Ale from early Yakima, Washington pioneers Bert Grant’s Brewing, and expanded it up to about 45 accounts.

As Larrance tells it, when he and Fred Bowman joined Widmer, McMenamins and Bridgeport in opening craft breweries, it wasn't with any aspirations to compete with the big guys. Larrance wanted to carve out a small piece at the bottom. But it turned out, the piece they carved out for themselves would come out of the top, and be bigger than they ever imagined.

In 1988, Art was an active partner in organizing the Oregon Brewers Festival and is now the sole owner of the long-running and beloved event, hosting the 33rd OBF in 2022 after taking 2 years off due to the pandemic. It’s back this year as a curated pavilion at the Rose Festival City Fair on weekends May 24-27, May 31 - June 2, and June 7-9th 2024. In it’s heyday, the festival attracted around 50,000 beer lovers from all over the world, making it the biggest beer fest in the country. The festival model Wich began with free entry, and low-cost mug and drink tokens in exchange for pours, established the standard brewfest model that most events still use today. An economic survey estimated the Oregon Brewers Festival’s effect on the local economy at approximately $20 million annually. The Oregon Brewers Festival has received the 2000 Gene Leo Rose City Award and the 2012 Tourism and Hospitality Industry President’s Award.

John Foyston presents Art Larrance (right) with a portrait of the Oregon beer pioneer

It’s exploded,” Art Larrance told the New School of the craft beer industry in a 2020 interview. “I remember when they used to say there were 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 thousand, I don’t know what the number is right now, but all of this has created a real likeness for beer. I go back to some of the early markings for me to help make the decision to get into this, and one early early time when Fred and I were building and I was out in Hillsboro getting some gas and I had a little sticker on the side of the car that said ‘Portland Ale’ and there was a guy getting gas in the next bay over and he said ‘You make beer?’ and I said ‘well we’re trying to start a brewery in Portland’ and he said ‘oh that’s good, let me tell you something soon, you make good beer people will drink it’ and I said oh okay.

Art Larrance

After Bert Grant decided he wanted to retake control of his Yakima, Washington brand and brew it there, Portland Brewing pivoted, creating a Scottish Ale that was later rebranded as MacTarnahan’s in honor of investor Robert Malcolm "Mac" MacTarnahan. Years later Mac o would later take control of the company after buying it out of debt, and sell it to Pyramid Breweries in 2004, who would then rebrand it as MacTarnahan’s.

Though Portland Brewing was a pioneer, outside interests other than Larrance's prevailed when he was essentially fired from the company by stock holders in 1994. With real estate to his name and the already hugely successful Oregon Brewers Festival up and running, Larrance wasn't initially sure that he wanted to open another brewery. But he did know that if he did, it would have to be without stockholders and major investors to be beholden to. Art got a real estate license, sold his house in NW Portland, and moved to the SW hills. He used some of that money to purchase land in 1985 that would take three years to become Raccoon Lodge & Brew Pub and Cascade Brewing at 7424 SW Beaverton Hillsdale Hwy in Portland. After dragging his feet for a few months, Larrance was able to purchase the property to open Raccoon Lodge/Cascade Brewing for $185K in 1995. It took him nearly 4 years of burning money before it was able to open in 1998 and another 8 years to achieve notoriety and find identity as an early pioneer of northwest sour ales.

Raccoon Lodge was mostly a neighborhood brewpub and beer garden that self-distributed to local bars. But in 2005, Art and his brewmaster Ron Gansberg realized that here in the Northwest, in order to stand out amongst the plethora of breweries, they needed to push the envelope and develop a niche. They were growing tired of the “hops arms race” of ever hoppier beers and desired to instead make beers that offered an intense sensory experience other than hops.

They worked with the raw materials and supplies available in the region: an abundant supply of wine barrels from the wine region, and great local fruit. This was the beginning of an aging and blending program that would lead to countless awards and an entire new style of beer––the Northwest Sour Ale.

I am deeply saddened by the sudden passing of Art Larrance,” said Ron Gansberg, Cascade Brewing’s legendary brewmaster and creator of the modern American Sour. “My heart goes out to all of his family. In reflection, my sadness was made softer by the memory of Art and I tapping the live barrel at the Cascade Barrel House. It was a special anniversary ale made more special by the House staff having over-pressurized the barrel. We stood manfully before the bulging barrel, Art with the mallet and I with beer tap in hand. Our first stroke was too soft and beer gushed out in all directions. Art's next blow hit the mark and the tap was driven deep, sealing off further disaster. We looked up with beery bleary eyes at the laughing faces of guests and staff. We linked arms over each other's shoulders and laughed with them. What a thrill it was at that moment to feel being a part of the brewing community. I know that being a part of the beer culture and contributing back was what motivated Art through the forty-plus years of his brewing career. To Art Larrance, abiding beer Steward...Servus!

Ron Gansberg

In late 2010, Art opened the Cascade Brewing Barrel House in SE Portland, the nation’s first “House of Sour,” where more than 1,500 French oak and Kentucky Bourbon barrels were filled with wheats, blondes, quads, reds, browns and porters that are aged and blended into magical elixirs. The beers crackled with acidic notes and woody tannins that blur stylistic lines. Cascade Brewing’s Northwest Sour Ales have won awards, garnered rave reviews from the media (Oprah Magazine, New York Times, Fox News, Chicago Tribune, to name a few) and attracted legions of sour beer lovers all over the world.

In 2012, Art was honored to be named Restaurateur of the Year by the Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association for his successful operation of the Raccoon Lodge and Cascade Brewing. In 2013, Art was recognized by the Brewers Association as “an individual whose inspiration, enthusiasm and support have contributed to the development of North American craft brewing movement.”

In 2015, Cascade Brewing relocated all of its barrel aging, blending and packaging to a facility located at 6770 SW 111 th Ave., Beaverton, OR 97008. The 23,000 sq. ft. building serves as Cascade’s distribution center from which all regional, national and international sales are shipped. The bulk of this facility has been committed to a climate-controlled hall wherein all packaging, blending and aging occur. The hall houses nine oak foudres ranging from 50 to 65 hectoliters, as well as up to 2,000 oak barrels and puncheons. A second, non-conditioned hall is used for barrel and keg cleaning, as well as fruit processing and storage. The Blending House does not have a taproom, nor is it open to the public.

I knew Art from the OBF and Cascade Brewing,” says Preston Weesner, owner of the Holiday Ale Festival and past GM of both Cascade Brewing Barrel House and the Oregon Brewers Festival. “A fateful trip to the Munich Oktoberfest was the spark to start a festival that had not been done here before, which would focus on the new and growing craft beer scene here. Later the idea to not chase or engage in the hop wars and instead focus on a unique style that was to be the birth of barrel aged sour beers here in the NW. Always quick with a story, usually of baseball or the other early beer pioneers. Always willing to have a beer and talk shop, with a bowl of peanuts preferably. The work he and the other beer pioneers did at the start of what we know as craft beer paved the road for all of us here today. His legacy lives on, he will be missed, but not forgotten. Raise a pint tonight and with friends later when you consider how great the beer scene here in Oregon is.

Preston Weesner

In November 2017, the original Raccoon Lodge and Brew Pub was renamed The Lodge at Cascade Brewing. When asked why the name changed, Art explained, “We want to emphasize who we are andwhat we have been for 20 years, which is Cascade Brewing. Our company has undergone a rebrandin this year, changing our logo and our beer labels. Renaming the restaurant is the final step of the rebrand.”

In February 2020, Cascade Brewing announced new management for The Lodge at Cascade Brewing. As for Art, he sold Cascade Brewing in April 2020 to a local group of brewers including Ramie Mount, a regular at the barrel house who had gotten to know Art.

I first met Art sometime in 2017-2018 at the Raccoon Lodge in Beaverton,” recalls current Cascade Brewing co-owner Ramie Mount. “Prior to that, I had frequented the Barrel House, my first experience being a fruit fest week – I think I visited 4 times in one week alone. Cascade Brewing was (and still is) my favorite brewery, hands down, to the point where I found myself frequenting there or the Barrel House week over week.” “His smile and laughter were infectious in a group and his storytelling was unmatched. He had a story for every occasion and his ability to recall names & places and paint a picture just led to instant engagement. I absolutely loved sitting down with him for a drink and listening to the stories, often laced with nuances of wisdom and experience as well. Nights would always end in laughter and a parting of ways with a firm handshake and/or pat on the back.

Ramie Mount

In 2022 Art was inducted into the Oregon Beer Awards Hall of Fame.

Memorials and tributes for Art Larrance are still pouring in. But we know the Larrance family will gather at the Oregon Brewers Festival beer garden at the Rose Festival City Fair this Saturday, June 1st, and raise a toast to Art at 2pm. All the beers will be Oregon local, come support the craft and honor Art’s legacy.