Zoiglhaus Brewing celebrates 10th Anniversary while gearing up for new brewery and food hall
Outer southeast Portland’s Zoiglhaus Brewing is celebrating their first decade as part of a centuries-old Zoigl tradition. Named for the six-pointed Zoigl star—a historic brewer’s symbol that once signaled which homes were open to the public and where brewers would share wort from their community brew house. Zoiglhaus Brewing still participates in this annual tradition, and the brewpub has evolved to become a hub for fostering new businesses from global micro restaurants and kitchens to new beer brands attempting to get their start in a challenging market.
As Zoiglhaus Brewing celebrate their 10th Anniversary on Saturday, November 8th, we are looking back on how the brewery beat the odds, rewrote the business plan, and planning a new location.
For Zoiglhaus Brewing owners Alan Taylor and Chad Rennaker the third time was the charm. Taylor, a German trained brewer from Widmer Brothers Brewing, initially teamed-up with Rennaker on Pints Brewing in northwest Portland’s old Town neighborhood. While Pints Brewing had a good run attempting to balance daytime coffee service for office workers and serve a happy hour crowd in the gritty area of town near the train station it always struggled to maintain consistent business and closed and reopened multiple times after rebranding to Ascendant Beer Co. The next was Ponderosa Brewing in New Mexico, a brewpub that Rennaker and Alan Taylor opened in 2014 that continues to inform their business moves today. Zoiglhaus Brewing was born shortly thereafter, opening in 2015 in a neighborhood then derisively referred to as Felony Flats.
PDC bets on a brewpub to help revitalize a neighborhood
Prosper Portland and the city of Portland’s development commission loaned middle-eastern bakery Ararat a total of $653,000 to relocate from NE MLK blvd. to the Lents neighborhood at 5716 SE 92nd Ave. The Ararat Restaurant, Bakery & Grocery opened in 2009 and closed just 2 years later in 2011 after the city forced them out after the business stopped making loan payments. All in the city invested as much as $3 million into the project and only received about $10 back according to reports at the time. The lost funds would become a write-off funded by the taxpayers. By this time the city had already invested close to $100 million into revitalizing the Lents neighborhood from 1998 to 2014 as part of the Urban Renewal program.
It would have been easy to give up on the large 2-floor and sub-basement building and hope a developer came along, but the local government controversially decided to go all in offering $1 million for a new brewpub concept called Zoiglhaus to move in while hoping they would eventually pay $450,000 of the loan back.
An early photo from Zoiglhaus Brewing shortly after opening in the fall of 2015
Jesse Cornett, the chair of the Lents Neighborhood Association, told the Portland Tribune that the use of taxpayer money to attempt to seed a brewery in the area was worth the cost, “When the same tools don’t always work they’re looking for new ones now and this new brew pub is a potential new catalyst for the neighborhood,” Cornett said.
Zoiglhaus Brewing opened in September 2015, a bright and extremely family-friendly brewpub that was equal parts Laurelwood Brewing and German-beer hall in the vein of Widmer Brothers Gasthaus. The colors were pale cream, red, and Oktoberfest baby blue, features included a banquet room, booths, a centerpiece horseshoe bar, a kids play area, and a reading nook next to the brewery stocked with brewing literature.
Accolades followed: 2017 Great American Beer Festival Gold for the Zoigl-Pils, and at the Oregon Beer Awards earning a Gold medal for Zoigl-Hell in the Light German and European Lagers category (2021) and a Gold for the Zoigl-Weiss in Belgian Beers, German Wheat Beers, and Traditional Brett Beers (2024). They also won a gold medal for their Oktoberfresh in the Fresh Hop category and a bronze for their Fresh Hop Kölsch medaling three years in a row at the Oregon Beer Awards fresh hop competition.
But the pub itself wasn’t an instant success. The Lents neighborhood was once burdened by crime, lower income housing, and proximity to the highway that brought traffic, noise, and smog. Initially serving a full pub menu of German gastropub staples, the menu was scaled back and settled into more of a happy hour business and focus on packaging and distribution. But Taylor and Rennaker knew the potential was there for a successful pub with Portland’s growth inevitably pushing further to the east with refreshed roads, new housing and community organizations.
Zoiglhaus co-owner Chad Rennaker learned from success he had turning a derelict motel on Route 66 in Albuquerque, New Mexico into a beautiful new motel with food pods and a second taproom for their Ponderosa Brewing Company. He had taken a handful of the rooms and turned them into mini-restaurants with room for a few guests, and additional outdoor dining space and tables in the taproom.
“When COVID hit, Chad conceptualized a revamping of the Zoiglhaus property,” says Taylor. Based on the concept in Albuquerque, he added 3 small indoor food pods to the space, which was renamed The Zed after buying the property and expanding into the space next door.”
In 2021 the scaled back Zoiglhaus brewpub underwent a major remodel, transitioning from restaurant to a food hall called ‘The Zed’ and the brewery as the anchor drinks provider. The kids area was removed, the space was repainted charcoal grays and blacks By this time the Zoiglhaus brewery headed up by Taylor had become the go-to production brewery in town for contract brewing and launching small-independent ghost brands without the big bucks to open their own locations. Over the years Zoiglhaus helped launch successful brands like Ferment Brewing, Pono Brewing, Oak Union Brewing, Cerveceria Norte, Ascendant Beer, Hood River Brewing, and Spinning Wheels Brewing Project to name just a few.
The Zed was a hit. Initially with four new food stalls with their own micro kitchens replacing banquet rooms and extraneous space on the sides of the main level it brought in a new energy and fresh start for new startup businesses in a similar fashion to they had already been doing with beer brands. The Zed expanded into previously unused parts of the building, making room for a cocktail lounge called The Zephyr, an upstairs ballroom called The Zenith, and an enclosed pavilion area to host the Lents farmers market and even more food stalls bringing the total up to 9 options. The busy food hall is now home to kitchens serving a wide variety of worldly cuisine including Venezuelan, Thai, Cuban, Mexican, Nepalese, Turkish, Hawaiian, Indian, and a few German dishes in a nod to Zoiglhaus history.
While many craft breweries are scaling back or closing, Zoiglhaus has found a two pronged business model that is growing.
Zoiglhaus spent much of 2024 readying a major production expansion adding a new 35 bbl brew house acquired from the defunct Fish Tale Ales out of Olympia, Washington. This is an addition to their original and still operating 3-vessel 10 barrel brewhouse with an annual output of 5,000 barrels. With three additional 60-barrel tanks installed and one of the very few new grain silos permitted in city limits, this will allow for up to 30,000 barrels a year or capacity. And on-site in the basement they have a five-head Wild Goose canning line for packaging their own beers and contract brews.
Spotlight Brewing Company
The future is bright for Zoiglhaus Brewing, so bright in fact that they are expanding the concept of The Zed into a new brewery and food hall in the Hollywood neighborhood called: Spotlight Brewing Company.
“Our vision is to anchor the neighborhood with a brewpub/indoor food hall as well as to work with not-for-profits to spotlight the work they do for the community,” says Taylor on the upcoming Spotlight Brewing.
The location is the former Pono Brewing Brew Labs, ironically a brand that Zoiglhaus Brewing helped launch before they struck out on their own brick-and-mortar which opened in September 2022 and closed in June 2023. The building at 1728 NE 40th Ave has a long history dating back to Old World Brewing Company, then the original Laurelwood Brewing, followed by Columbia River Brewing, and eventually Pono.
Spotlight Brewing will have 9 food hall options just like The Zed. The space is expanding outside of the original restaurant and into spaces where a couple of prior tenants exited in the same building. They also will fire back up the 7-bbl single-infusion brew house to make exclusive house brews and small batch brews for Zoiglhaus contract brewing partners.
“Leaning into Portland's love of food trucks/pods/food in general, it should be more of a magnet for anyone looking for a bite or a drink before heading over to the Hollywood Theater or to meet with family and friends in the neighborhood,” says Taylor. “We hope that we can continue to brew great beer and create another community of restaurateurs to be successful for many years.”
Zoiglhaus Brewing 10th Anniversary Celebration
Saturday, November 8th, 2025 at The Zed
5716 SE 92nd Ave • Portland, OR 97266
BEER:
Zoiglhaus-Ecliptic “Head to Barrel Head”
tasting of a collaboration Imperial Porter before and after a year of aging in Bourbon Barrels.
Black Forest
Dark lager with cherry puree, cocoa nibs, chocolate malts and a dash of lactose.
A selection of our Zoigl Partners
KEG TAPPING/CONTESTS:
Zoigl Pils, 5 pm
Stein Holding Contest following keg tapping
Speed eating pretzel following stein holding
MUSIC:
Mark in the Dark spins vinyl 3-5 pm and 6-9 pm
FAMILY FRIENDLY:
Face Painting from 12-3 pm
Oregon Humane Society’s Mobile Cuddle Crew 12-1 pm with puppies & kittens (Donations welcome)
RAFFLE:
Buy a Stein, get a ticket.
Prizes include t-shirt, hat, and “hang with the Brewmaster during a brew day.”
FOOD SPECIALS:
The return of some original Zoiglhaus menu items!
Goulash
Spätzle
Bier Cheese Soup