Art Larrance, 1944-2024

Art Larrance had a knack for timing. In 1985, when the idea of starting a brewery seemed at best a dubious one, he and his partner Fred Bowman established one of the first new breweries in town, Portland Brewing. It was the first step in a beer journey that would see Art co-found one of the first American beer festivals in 1988, and help launch sour ales as national trend in 2007 with Cascade Brewing. And over this Memorial Day weekend, he took his final bow, dying yesterday at 80.

In an 18-month period between 1984 and 1986, four breweries opened in the city, including Larrance’s Portland Brewing. The founders of these breweries lobbied the legislature to change the laws to allow brewpubs—which Portland took advantage of when they started selling beer in 1986. That piece of legislation helped create Portland’s unique culture around brewpubs, one that survives even in the era of food-free taprooms. That work alone would have ensured his place in Oregon’s brewing history, but Art continued to contribute to the brewing landscape, leaving a huge legacy.

Landmarks

Art and Fred brewed their first beer in January of 1986, and in fact their first three batches were contract beers for Bert Grant. The fourth batch became their early flagship, Portland Ale, and helped launch a brewery that would be, for a time, one of Oregon’s largest. The beer that would define the brewery came a bit later, MacTarnahan’s Amber Ale, and became one of the defining beers of the 1990s. The Northwest has a long history with amber ale, and MacTarnahan’s was arguably the most accomplished example. It was lean and elegant, as opposed to many of the caramelly versions of the day, more like a hoppy English bitter than an American amber. When the brewery ran into financial troubles later on, the investor for whom the beer was named took a larger stake in the company, which was called MacTarnahan’s for a time.

By then, Art, a serial entrepreneur, had left to start the Raccoon Lodge, one of the rare breweries on Portland’s West Side. A fairly standard brewpub, the Rac Lodge wasn’t especially noteworthy until head brewer Ron Gansberg started making fruited, barrel-aged sour beers under the Cascade Brewing label. This wasn’t really Art’s kind of beer, but he understood the opportunity and ran with it. Cascade became one of the leaders of the sour ale trend in the US, and a strong enough brand that Art opened a pub and blending facility on the East Side to showcase Ron’s creations.

Even though he founded two breweries, Art’s greatest contribution is probably the Oregon Brewers Festival. It started unofficially in 1987 as an add-on to a Blues Festival that debuted in Waterfront Park that July. The music fest asked Art to provide beer, and he collected kegs from local breweries, expecting a modest showing. Instead, it was a massive hit, so the next year, Art established the OBF the week following the Blues Fest. Each July thereafter, it drew massive crowds until Covid ended its run in 2020. The festival was a huge touchstone for the Oregon brewing community, and became a major tourist attraction. In its peak years in the 1990s and 2000s, the OBF would attract tens of thousands of visitors each year and became an annual ritual for many in the city.

Of his ventures, the OBF exists only in a diminished state as a part of the Portland Rose Festival. Art sold Cascade Brewing in 2020, and Portland Brewing closed in 2021. Art was an entrepreneur more than a brewer, however, and his talent lay more in starting new ventures than nurturing and preserving established ones. His legacy, like many of the founders of this era, was in his the businesses he started. They were landmarks that helped create the state’s robust beer culture, and Oregon would have looked different without Art Larrance.

Rest in peace—