A Brewer, A Wine Maker and a Distiller Walk Into A Bar…
The West Coast has long been a powerhouse in the post-Prohibition wine and beer movements. The McMenamin brothers’ empire is a testament to that fact. With 24 breweries, it’s in the top 50 of craft beer producers in the country. There are also two distilleries and a winery in the company. In one location—Edgefield in Troutdale, OR—all three live side by side. It’s where brewer Jeffrey Cooley, distillery manager Clark McCool and Davis Palmer, the winemaker, show up each day to put their skills into action and engage in friendly competition to get their beverage into customers’ glasses.
“I wouldn’t say that any one of our three production areas is superior. They each have aspects which make them unique. We are all closely intertwined and work together toward a common goal of quality and experimentation,” says Palmer, who worked as a McMenamins brewer until 2000, when he pitched in on the grape harvest and was immediately hooked on wine. “Not to sound like a lush, but there is nothing better than a cold beer after a hard day of work, a glass of wine with a good meal and a dram of whiskey to end an evening.”
Cooley cites the “community support” he gets from the wine and whiskey sides of the business. All three help one another out with work when needed (the washes for their whiskies come from the brew house) and one man’s, er, trash … well … “We have unprecedented access to both spirit barrels and wine barrels for aging beers,” Cooley says. Score one for the beer drinkers!
If you were to draw an operational model, picture a triangle with the distillery at the top and winery and brewery at each bottom corner, McCool says. The arrows of flow would point in each direction and every which way in between.
“This tangled web produces hints of all three departments in our products,” McCool says. “Distillers’ fortification brandy in the winery port program; used whiskey, rum and brandy cooperage in the new barrel-aged beer program in the brewery, cool stuff.”
For those who know all three beverages, it is no secret that while beer can be turned around in a few weeks, and wine in a few months, good whiskey can take years. McCool worked on the wine side of things as far back as 1993. He switched to spirits in 2008, and it’s been a slow and steady climb since.
“Some of the barrels perhaps stay with you your entire career, never leaving the nest,” he observes. “So you are constantly reminded of where you have been, and always looking forward to where you are going.”
All three agree that they wouldn’t be as successful if not for the cooperation and support they get from their counterparts. Besides, at the end of the day, they are working for the same common goal.
