Initially consisting only of Dylan Goldsmith and Suzanne Moodhe, we have grown up a little and now are proud to boast the arrival of two assistant brewers, Eric Brurud and Brian White, who also double as Brew cart servers. Their skills in the brewery can be tasted at all three of our beer buses. They will even chat with you about working at the brewery and coming up with new and interesting ales. Welcome Brian and Eric!

Once the scourge of our backyard (and kitchen, and basement, and garage, and...), our now eight barrel brewing system is large enough to support us yet small enough to still allow for play and experimentation.

Nearly all of our waste becomes animal feed or compost, or is recycled. Our beers are proudly packaged in reusable containers (and homebrewers seem to delight in not returning the dollar deposit bottles!) Our base malt is local and organic, and our other ingredients are organically grown whenever we can source them locally; we prefer to use locally grown ingredients rather than shipping in organic ones from thousands of miles away.

In the past five years, Captured by Porches Brewing Company has grown from a community homebrewer's club into a family-owned brewing company whose finely crafted beer is currently distributed in both Columbia and Multnomah counties. The time has passed quickly but one distinct factor has emerged - that we have learned more about who we are - as people and as a company. We proudly reside among Oregon's smaller craft breweries and we appreciate the commitment to excellence that these breweries offer the beer community. In our position as the definitive "underdog" in the Portland beer scene, we have learned to compete with larger micro breweries by consistently producing excellent products made with local and organic ingredients. We strive continuously to minimize our negative effect on the environment, both in our personal lives and in our production methods. Almost all of the waste generated by our brewing process is either eaten by animals, re-used, or recycled. Plus, we are the only NW brewing company at this time (that we know of) that is using only returnable bottles to distribute our product in.

With the kind and generous support of our families, and an incredible amount of donated labor from friends, we have opened our own wholesale production brewspace in St. Helens, Oregon. We have chosen this town as the perfect spot for our family's brewery because it is close to our home in Scappoose, Oregon, and while consciously cutting down on gasoline consumption we will also be giving St. Helens its very own brewery! We are proud of this decision and hope that you will come visit us in St. Helens. Our brewery is located on Cowlitz Street, in the heart of the historic area of St. Helens. We are proud to open our brewery alongside a great variety of restaurants with delicious fare as well as specialty and antique shops with fun and interesting items for sale. For families, there is a wonderful little park to play in on the waterfront, an ice cream shop and movies at the local theatre. There are festivals and events on the historic waterfront in the summer - so please check it out if you come to check us out!

Our goal is to continue serving the greater Portland area but expand to include Columbia County and beyond... By this I mean to say we would like to share our creations with pubs, bars and restaurants on the Oregon and Washington Coasts. How do we plan to do this? Slowly and carefully. One thing we have learned in the past few years is patience. Sometimes, in order to do something right, one has to be patient and take one step at a time.

So, be sure to look for us and ASK for us in your local bar, pub or restaurant. Look for our bottles of fine ales in your local store. Call us to donate kegs to your event, charity or organization. We will consider all requests.

Captured by Porches Brewing Company is here to stay. We promise to always do our best by creating only the finest in craft ales and we appreciate you and your business.

Captured by Porches: A Story of the Little Brewery that Could

Dylan Goldsmith discovered he had a passion for brewing beer while living in Portland, Oregon as a part-time worker and student. He discovered the joy of brewing through his love of cooking, baking, inventing new recipes and figuring things out. Brewing beer was just a natural step in the progression of learning for him.

The first beer that he brewed was an IPA. The second batch was good enough to encourage him to continue. As his pallet expanded, he tried out new styles: Amber, Porter, Stout. He continued reading and re-reading Charlie Papazian's New Complete Joy of Homebrewing, and soon progressed to all-grain mashes in order to brew styles impossible with extract: HefeWeizen, Oatmeal Stout, Roggenbier (Rye), Belgian Wit. Dylan's approach to brewing is a culmination of his fascination with chemistry, his enjoyment of cooking, and his OCD-like need to improve.

When he found pieces of large stainless equipment at garage sales or craigslist, he bought them and either used them for his homebrews or stored them for future use. Five gallon batches brewed alone evolved into fifteen and twenty gallon batches brewed with friends, and in the garage a 75 gallon stainless dishwashing machine shell and two 40 gallon kettles gathered dust and waited.

In early 2007, Dylan sent out a bulletin asking to rent someone's garage for homebrewing purposes. The most interesting response came from Clinton Street Brewing, who needed a brewer.

Dylan took out the larger, unused equipment from the garage and began merging it with the existing brewing setup at Clinton Street. Within a few months, he was producing at Clinton Street.

By April 2007, he was making more beer than he could sell at Clinton Street proper and began to distribute his beer out into Portland's beer-drinking community through Blue Dog Distributing Company, a small, local distributor. In November of 2007, Blue Dog closed its doors and its two employees joined forces with Maletis Beverage Distributing, encouraging Michael Atkins/Clinton Street Brewing to follow them and join up with Maletis.

All the while, Dylan still had his dream of having his own brewing company. In mid-December of 2007, on a crazy whim, Dylan and Suzanne moved out of their home and into a gas station that they dreamed would become their own brewery. Sleeping in a short bus in the garage of the gas station, showering at the YMCA and doing their laundry at the local Laundromat, Dylan, Suzanne and family spent two months freezing their butts off in this space, all the while paying rent and fixing it up. Finally, two months later, they were able to afford to move into a small duplex in Scappoose, Oregon while continuing to pay rent on the future brewery space/revamped gas station.

After paying $800 a month on this space for 7 months (yikes!), it became clear to both Dylan and Suzanne that the City of Portland and ODOT were going to make the process of opening a brewery very difficult and very expensive. Unable and unwilling to meet all of these conditions, the couple decided to set their sights on St. Helens which was much closer to their home in Scappoose. In their search for a new brewery space, they found many interesting buildings with affordable leases in the area known as "Historic St. Helens".

To make a long story short, Dylan and Suzanne found their place in St. Helens down by the waterfront. The warehouse that Captured by Porches leases is about 2000+ square feet and has a storefront attached to it where we hope to entertain friends, potential accounts and the cyclocross team Tireless Velo that we are so proud to be sponsoring this year. Thanks to the support of friends and family, artists, designers, contractors and workers that have helped us along the way, Captured by Porches Brewing Company has accomplished its first year as its very own microbrewery.

Here's to the future!

ABOUT PECKERS
Articles and photography: Suzanne Moodhe

Bequeathed the rather unfortunate yet appropriate name, "Peckers", this amazing little 'pest' bird has changed our family's life.

In early May 2008, as we stood in the backyard of our Scappoose duplex, we heard what sounded like hysterical screaming. After a short while, we realized the sounds were being made by a bird, a mother Starling, fighting to keep a Scrub Jay from taking one of her babies from the nest. She didn't succeed, and we stood in the silence that followed with knots in our stomachs, wondering what would happen next. Dylan was the first to see it - the Scrub Jay clutching and pecking at a tiny hairless baby bird robbed from the nest. He ran to the branch, scared the Jay away, leaving the baby bird stuck in the branches. He was tiny and frail, badly injured by the jay, and nearly dead. Dylan took him from the branches, cleaned his cuts and put him into a bowl lined with a soft towel.

Not knowing how to care for such a young bird, I went online and found a great website for injured/orphaned Starlings - starlingtalk.com - with information on diet and many other interesting things. We made a 'nest' for him under a warm lamp next to my bed, and for the next two weeks, I administered a dropper-full of food every 15 minutes - a mixture of ground-up cat food, eggs, avian vitamins and applesauce - to the voraciously hungry little creature, who would lift his weak head and squeak at me every time I came to give him food. I worried and fussed over him constantly, as did my 9 year old son, Desmond. After a few weeks, little pin feathers started forming all over him, and he was able to stand on his own. His inner strength amazed all of us - he had overcome an attack that nearly killed him, and was rapidly growing into a... bird. I don't know how much time passed before he was taking baths and flying around the house, but it seemed like only a few days.

Misreading the information supplied on the website, I took him outside one day and he flew up into a tree. I was scared but I thought - isn't this what a bird is supposed to do? I was later informed by the members of the website that I had done the unthinkable - I had let an imprinted bird out into the wild. I was told that I had made a grave mistake, and that he would certainly become a predator's next meal. I was told that I must bring him inside and keep him in a cage - only to let him fly around the house - but I couldn't bring myself to do it. My family and I agreed that he should live the life he wanted to live - and if he died in the process, well, at least he would die happily.

Soon it was impossible to get him into the house! The tree in our backyard was where Peckers preferred to stay. He would sit out there, singing in the trees. Gradually he ventured from this tree, eventually leaving the yard completely - I can only assume to be with his mother and family - but he always came back. By this time, I would just put the food outside in a bowl along with a water dish.

When Peckers was about two months old, our landlord came to us and said, "Want to live out in the country on 2 acres with a creek running through your back yard?" Well, yeah, of course - I mean, who wouldn't? The one thing that gave me pause was Peckers. The new house was about 2.5 miles away, and he had already found his place in this little area. I was actually sick with fear in the weeks before the move. He really did feel like a member of our family - a huge responsibility that we had taken on. I was sure that this move would be the end of Peckers.

It wasn't. Two days after we moved, I opened up the window in our new house and let him out. I think I was crying, sure that he would get lost, and end up eaten by a Jay or a Hawk. Two days went by with no sign of Peckers. I was positive he was out in some field starving to death, or worse - after all, we had been his sole providers of food since he was born. I kept the window open just in case... On the third day - he came back! I had no idea where he had even gone but he was back - and he was hungry!

This continued for the next month - gone for a day or two but always returning, and now he had a little place in our kitchen where he loved to roost. One day near the end of the summer, I took him outside to hunt for crickets in the late afternoon. He followed Dylan and I around, eating crickets he spied and those we found for him too. All of a sudden he took to the air, landed briefly on my head, then flew off straight in the direction of our old house. Dylan and I watched in awe as we realized Peckers had been spending the nights with his family back at our old place all along.

It was the most incredible realization. This bird knew where he had come from, and how to bridge the distance between his two worlds. He came back to us every day because we had raised him, and left us every night to be with other Starlings he knew at our old duplex. He now comes and goes every day - he will be here tomorrow, sitting on his perch in the kitchen and singing along to New Wave music playing on the computer radio. He will get here between 11am and 1pm, and will leave by 4:30pm. I will take him outside, say goodbye to him and watch him fly from my hand off in the direction of our old house...

We don't know what will become of Peckers, as Starlings can live up to 15 years. We do know that he is living the life he wants to live and that we are fortunate enough to be part of it in this moment. When I think of his strength, courage and loyalty, I think of our family - of everything we have been through in the last couple of years working to start a brewery from scratch with little money but a great amount of courage and strength. Yes, we know that Peckers is a Starling - infamous, renegade, outcast - but we can't escape our admiration of his perseverance, and this is why he has become not only our brewery mascot but a beloved and respected member of our family.

January 2009 Update

I was worried about how Peckers would survive our latest harsh weather run - a three week snow/ice blanket with temperatures fluctuating constantly. Peckers showed up early on the harshest of snow days and hung out with us til late afternoons. I could tell that he was eating well with the other birds - however, he seemed to like the reassurance. Now, on the other side of the storm, as Peckers gets closer to his/her very first breeding season, we notice funny behaviours.

Peckers is part of a flock of Starlings now - and it seems that he may have been responsible for their coming here, as they disperse and seem to fly in the same direction that he does every day. They show up in the morning (with our bird) and then they leave every afternoon (also with our bird). In the afternoon, when Peckers is preparing to leave, he sits on the ledge of the window and listens - then he makes a series of squawks, ruffles his feathers, listens and finally bursts from the ledge. On a couple of occasions I have actually watched him burst forward and join the Starlings headed north mid flight. He just locates them and then he joins them. I can't shake the feeling that they are waiting for him before they leave. The reason for this is simple. This last summer, Peckers first summer, he would leave us and head north toward his old home. He was always alone - and there was no indication of any other Starlings hanging around in trees near our home - okay, maybe one or two but certainly not a flock. But now, looking up directly through the window where I work on the computer, I can see them flocked up in the tallest tree near our home, and as I said, every day by late afternoon, they are gone and Peckers goes with them.

Yesterday he didn't come, and today he came for one hour. I think that Peckers is going to find a mate and when he/she does, we will move on to the next stage of our life with a mostly-wild bird. Until then, all we can do is watch... and wait.

May 2009 Update

Gathering from what I can glean about his situation, Peckers is a male. Around March Peckers started behaving strangely. At first, it seemed as though the flock of starlings that he appeared to have brought with him from the older neighborhood, had disappeared - moved on. He would come to the house around 1pm and then around 3:30 he would fly to the window, look around, squawk, wait... squawk some more... then fly back inside. He seemed greatly confused and troubled. By 7pm there would be other starlings finally up in the tree (much later than before) and he would finally leave and roost with them. I assume that his mate was in that bunch. This happened for about 3 days then finally, Peckers altered his situation with us greatly. He would fly in, get what food he could, as fast as he could, then fly out.

He has continued this behavior since. Only twice has he stayed long enough to let me give him some lovins. The interesting thing is that he seems to be doing his job. I found him gathering straw from a little flower basket outside the window where he flies in to the house. He seems to be working really hard to keep his lady (and kids?) in the nest happy. He doesn't stay, sit on his perch and sing. Not anymore. I miss him but feel like a proud mother would... "My boy is out there providing for his family!" Weird maybe, but that is how I feel. It helps cut down on the ole' empty nest feeling that creeps in every now and again...