USA, OR: Cascade Brewing Company shutters all operations – likely permanently

The “House of Sour” has poured their last Northwest Sour beer. The 25-year-old Cascade Brewing Company has officially shuttered, ceasing all operations on Monday, June 17th. A note on their website says that Cascade Brewing is temporarily closed, but it seems likely to be permanent, New School Beer reported.

Founded by the legendary Art Larrance in 1998, it started as a popular brewpub called The Raccoon Lodge and became a popular house beer brand for dive bars and restaurants all over the city before brewmaster Ron Gansberg created the “Northwest Sour.” Gansberg and Larrance arguably introduced America to sour beer and did more than anyone outside of Belgium to popularize it. Gansberg also deserves credit for helping revive and showcase fruit in beer, demonstrating an incredible acumen for pulling the most character out of real fresh fruit and sourcing only the best. They were also at the forefront of blending, thanks to Gansberg and longtime manager and head blender Preston Weesner, who traveled the world blowing people’s minds with their innovative flavor profiles and showing blending as an art unto itself.

Cascade was famed for beers like Vlad the Impaler, Glueh Krie, Bourbonic Plague (GABF gold medal winner in 2009). In 2016 The New York Times named Cascade Kriek the best sour beer in America. As recently as 2019, Forbes called Cascade “The Best Sour Beer Brewery in the Country”, and in April 2024 Cascade’s Staying Hoptimistic won a bronze at the World Beer Cup.

But the past 6 years has been tough, the competition in the market increased as did the prevalence of sour and fruited beers offered at bargain prices compared to Cascade’s expensively produced products that once seemed impossible to replicate with their time and cost intensive process.

In 2020 Art Larrance sold Cascade Brewing to Mark Becker, Ramie Mount, Brian Kovach and Greg Laird. That same year the pandemic began and Raccoon Lodge was closed for the company to focus on the Portland location the Cascade Barrel House which opened in 2010, all beer production has been happening off-site in Beaverton. The company was still supported by the Larrance family, and Art had stated that the new owners were on a payment plan that would eventually result in full ownership.

In May of 2024 Art Larrance suddenly passed away. The founder of Portland Brewing, the Oregon Brewers Festival, and Cascade Brewing died suddenly and left an indelible mark and clearly a large wake in his passing. We have now learned that the business was never majority owned by the new regime. Former managing partner Ramie Mount told us on on May 27th that, “due to a variety of WIP items, I am not formally a co-owner of Cascade Brewing on paper at this time. Manager, to some degree, might be the closest formal title.”

According to Alissa Larrance, daughter of Art Larrance, the ownership structure was unclear to them too, and behind-the-scenes dealings leave some of it still a mystery and she refers further comment or clarification to Ramie Mount.

“Art was still the owner of Cascade, the liquor license went away 10 days after his death,” says Alissa Larrance. “The family trust is not able to support Cascade - financially. There is not enough money to support it. We thought they [the new ownership group] owned it up until 3 weeks ago.”

Larrance said she would be handing all of the Cascade Barrel House staff their final paychecks on 6/18/2024. What will happen next is still a mystery to her. Ramie Mount had not responded to request for comments as of this publication.

19 June, 2024