Fueled by Beer: More than new tanks shine at Thunder Island

“It’s a sea change moment for the community,” Park said, combined with the advent of other new businesses in town and the rising popularity of bicycling, hiking and water sports, along the area’s scenic splendor that draws so many people to Cascade Locks.

Saturday’s party is likely to pour over into the next day thanks to the town hosting 1,000-competitors in race three of the Cross Crusade Cycocloss series on Sunday. The brewery’s association with biking and hiking groups and events, including the Pacific Crest Trail Days each June, have helped define Thunder Island’s distinctive place in the Northwest brewery map. Cascade Locks is a popular biking destination and the city has the dual distinction of being the only municipality and the lowest point on the PCT.

You cannot improve on the view, but the folks behind this strikingly-scenic brewpub are gearing up to improve on the beer.

Lipps and Park installed three new insulated fermentation tanks in October, in one of two major changes in the last half of 2015. They produced a bucolic six barrels in those last few months of 2013, upping to 27 barrels in 2014.

“We will have more and better beer,” Park said.

The brewery’s changes happen largely thanks to the able hands of Perkey, hired as head brewer in June. He installed the tanks and overhead glycol cooling system (taking time to fix the dishwasher, too) in September and October.

“It’s been hard work, but we only had a short break in production,” Lipps said Oct. 15.

“In terms of volume with these tanks, just trying to keep up with our summer demand, we were pushing beers out way too early,” Perkey said. “If we’re pushing beers in these tanks and the next three as fast as we were with those (previous tanks), we can push over the bar and into Portland, and that capacity will let us do about 2,400 barrels a year.”

The pub has also just revised its menu, emphasizing pizza and club sandwiches.

“A huge component we weren’t expecting was that while people want good beer, but they also want to eat something, which makes sense,” Park said. “We’re in an interesting situation here because we basically have a couple of ovens, and we have to be creative, as our kitchen, basically an oven and a counter, pretty limited equipment.“

The expansion amounts to an extra 10-15 kegs a week, while also achieving Perkey’s goal of keeping the beer in tanks for three weeks instead of what had been 10-14 days, due to high demand.

The goal is to adequately serve pub customers, as well as meet the needs of existing tap clients, located mostly in the Gorge. Lipps said the expansion will give Thunder Island far better potential for tap handle presence “beyond just our one-offs.”

“We couldn’t afford the insulated tanks when we started out,” Lipps said. After an extensive search, they found the 15-barrel wine tanks ready for delivery from a San Diego manufacturer.

“They had in stock these really tall fermenters that not a lot of people use, but for us they were just right, with not a lot of floor space, but we have a lot of height,” Lipps said. He is both tenant and elected official with the Port of Cascade Locks, which leases the space to Thunder Island. Lipps was elected to the Port Commission in 2014.

Thunder Island will find broader distribution but the brewery is very much about its geographical place. It’s a little hard to find, but don’t tell that to the crowds who line up out the door on weekends. If you’ve never been, go to Marine Park just east of downtown, carefully proceed under the rail trestle and take an immediate left and go all the way past the campground, Port office and meeting buildings until you get to the end of the drive. The spot was mostly a working yard and storage facility until two years ago when Thunder Island moved in, squeezed in a small brewing system — one with modified Navy soup cauldrons, the third brewery to use them — with a two-table and four-bar stool pub, and began creating tasty beers. The patio, new roll-up door and expanded indoor seating came in 2014.

The upgraded system remains within the existing production area footprint, and it’s all visible from the bar area. Tall and gleaming are the new fermenters (which can double as brite tanks) and a new brite tank, supported by a glycol system installed by Perkey. He brewed the last batches in the old two-fermenter system in mid-October and by Oct. 21, the expanded system was scheduled to be ready for brewing.

Perkey plans no new beers for a while, but will focus on freshening the library of ales including Flower Power IPA, Scotch Porter, and others. With the new system in place Thunder Island will reach 300 barrels by December and 1,000 or so by summer 2016 — with more to come.

“Hiring Brian is a game changer for us,” Park said. “He brings success, and takes us to a greater production level and the artisanship and the art that goes into making it. We are still at a time and place where it is an art form and he is able to help us to advance from a little drop on the map to a real place in the beer world.”

“We started out super small and starting a business, it’s like you’re juggling: you start with three balls,” Lipps said. “But we kept growing and we had more balls juggling, four or five, and it got to where Dave and I were juggling 20 balls.” Dan Hynes, an original partner, left Thunder Island in early 2014.

“A year ago at this time, C and I were in the kitchen at the same time doing accounting, and it has grown across the board.

“The thing about Brian is he has more experience than 90 percent of people in the industry,” Lipps said. Perkey worked most recently for the Stevenson, Wash., cider start-up Jester and Judge, started at Bridgeport Brewery in 1992, worked at Full Sail, Gordon Biersch in San Diego, Maltin’s Malt, ad Wy’east Labs in Odell, and is co-founder of Hood Valley Cider (examples include Black Apple, available at restaurants and pubs in the Gorge).

Lipps added, “Brian brings quality and consistency and then on top of that, you can see behind us a bunch of equipment, and he knows it all. He has the expertise to put things together.

“I don’t know if expertise is the right word. I think it’s ... exposure.”

“Brian always figures it out,” Park said, noting the recent dishwasher breakdown. “From a small business standpoint, the best thing is he kind of ‘figures it out,‘ and from a growth perspective he bring this creativity and energy and ideas that’s really exciting for us as we’re installing this system and we’re kind of mapping out the next couple of years.”

Perkey said, “To take 25 years of doing this and parlay it into this growth opportunity that’s going on here, plus working for these two, who are super-cool. I come to work every morning and it’s like falling in love all over again. Look at where you’re at and what you get to do and the people you get work with, and then there’s beer. Jackpot.” Cider-centered of late, Perkey said, “It’s been six years since I was on a brew deck, with exception of guest brews at Gordon Biersch and Solera in Parkdale,” where he collaborated with brewmaster Jason Kahler on an English Mild.

“I love it. What’s in the tanks, it’s alive,” Perkey said. “It lives and breathes just like you or me. It has a rhythm to its life cycle, from sweet wort off the grain to fermentation to the keg, there’s a cycle, there’s a flow, so being back into that rhythm is ... I don’t know how to put words to it. It’s a beautiful thing to be a part of.”

Long-term, Park and Lipps are looking at building on WaNaPa Avenue, the main drag of Cascade Locks, whose side streets invoke the town’s river heritage (Regulator, Tahoma, Venture, Portage). They currently lease part of a Port-owned building, with seating for 20 inside (at white pine tables made by Lipps) and double that many on the patio overlooking the river and namesake Thunder Island.

The “Fueled by Beer” program and less official “Trail Magic” help attract a regular crowd of hikers and bikers coming to Cascade Locks on Pacific Crest Trail and along the Columbia River Historic Highway Trail.

In Fueled By Beer, the brewery sells pints at a reduced rate to people who come to the brewery on foot or by bicycle. With Trail Magic, you beer-it-forward to PCT hikers by purchasing tokens that go into a jar and any hiker can redeem one for a free beer. (Lipps, who is a veteran long-distance cyclist and trail guide, was elected to Port Commission in 2014, and while on the local Tourism Council, he rode herd on installation of bicycle racks around Cascade Lock, including those at the brewery. “Bike Friendly” reads the sign at the entrance, and the interior is adorned with the Fueled by Beer bulletin board and varied bicycle and hiking gear, some of it from decades long past.)

Riding from Portland is a casual-to-moderate 50-mile ride, mostly flat, the last 20 miles taking in the world-famous waterfalls along old Highway 30. In 2013, the state completed a non-motorize section of the trail from 10 miles west of Cascade Locks.

The scenery hardly stops once you reach Cascade Locks, and the brewery provides one of the best views around. Across the river are Washington’s Table Mountain, Greenleaf Peak and other gorgeous crags.

Early pub regulars trimmed the lower tree branches to open up the river and mountain panorama, which Park calls “a million dollar view.”