Arlington Club in Portland, Ore., took note of the region’s love of craft beer and developed a microbrewery on-site, that has proven to be wildly popular among members.
Like many people living in Portland, Ore., Mike Legg enjoys making beer at home.
One day, Legg brought samples of his brews to work at the Arlington Club in Portland, where he is the General Manager. Even though he just intended to have the club’s head chef and several members try what he’d made, he received very positive feedback, and that got him to thinking: If this small subset of the membership enjoyed his beers, why wouldn’t others enjoy drinking them as well?
“That’s when the next step came,” says Legg. “We decided to expand on the concept and get a brewing license. We thought it would be something that was unique to the private-club setting.”
THE GOAL: Tap into the local craft beer craze while giving members and club staff at the Arlington Club the opportunity to create something unique.
THE PLAN: Set up a brewery to make house beers, first by applying for brewing licenses, then by creating special etched growlers for people who want to take some home. Members can even grow hops at home and bring the mature plants to the club to create the Drop-Off-Your-Fresh-Hop IPA. THE PAYOFF: Eighty-five percent of Arlington Club’s beer sales now come from their AC Amber and AC IPA house beers. |
It took 18 months to go through the state and federal licensing processes, but in 2012, the Arlington Club became the only private club in the country that is also certified as a microbrewery.
Outfitting the club for production was surprisingly simple, Legg reports. From a front-of-the-house standpoint, he says, nothing really changed—production was originally started with rudimentary equipment (literally, just pots and pans). Ultimately, the club developed a micro-system in the basement, with ventilation and sinks, that now brews in 10-gallon batches, using the Toledo, Ohio-based SABCO Inc.’s Brew-Magic System.
The clubhouse’s basement space is finite and wasn’t expanded in any way to accommodate the system; “we just shuffled things around,” Legg says. All told, the club’s investment in equipment has totaled $32,000. Members are welcome to check out the brewing area if they want, Legg says, but that’s not actively encouraged, because it’s “not an aesthetically attractive area.”
Drinking It All In
The finished product, however, is certainly something that Arlington Club members have become eager to check out, and clearly see as a thing of beauty. Legg and an assistant now regularly produce two beers: AC Amber, a red ale, and AC India Pale Ale. They also make special limited-edition beers to commemorate important events. In 2014, a Presidents Porter was produced for the club’s annual meeting, a Platinum Pale was made to celebrate the club’s Platinum Club designation, and a Red Lipper Red was brewed for members to take on a fishing trip.
Legg’s beers are exclusive to members, and aren’t sold outside the club. However, members who want to also enjoy them at home can pick up an etched stainless-steel growler, provided by the club, to tote some hoppy goodness back home. In the first six months that the growlers were offered, 72 were sold.
An added personal benefit for Legg is how the brewery gives him a break from the day-to-day duties of his job. “Brewing allows you to be a bit creative,” he says. That creativity may be further enhanced next year, with the anticipated arrival of another home-grown ingredient: honey from beehives that were recently installed on the clubhouse rooftop.
And Legg has come up with an inventive way for members to get involved in the process, too. The club provides hop plants and growing instructions to interested members in the spring. When growers return their mature plants in the fall, the hops are transformed into Drop-Off-Your-Fresh-Hop IPA, a wet hop beer served at the club’s annual Oktoberfest celebration. Everyone who grows hops for the club’s brewery can enjoy the beer at no charge at the event, Legg says.
The biggest indicator of success is that 85 percent of Arlington Club’s beer sales now come from beverages produced on-site. But member reactions are equally satisfying, Legg says.
“They really enjoy it, particularly those folks that are into the whole beer-brewing scene,” he says. “They get a kick out of filling their growlers, or coming in with guests and talking about the house brew.”
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