Bottle Shares Build Community

I tend to find that the greatest moments in life are rarely captured on camera and best recounted by words. This coming from someone who’s these days more likely expressing themselves with a phone camera than converting thoughts into written word.

It’s true, I used to do this whole writing thing more often. Instead, I choose to spend my free time supporting local breweries, taprooms, and the specialty brands I work with at Day One Distribution. On any given day you’ll find me all over town, sharing what could be considered the bleeding edge of craft beer culture in Portland via the short form media of instagram.

My day-to-day energy is predominantly absorbed by overseeing operations and marketing at Day One. I came to be in their employ as a result of becoming friends with co-owner and founder Robby Roda over the course of countless bottle shares at The BeerMongers.

The extraordinary bond I’ve found with my boss and co-workers is imbued with the very reason why bottle shares came into existence to begin with: the sharing of what you’ve created with your peers in a social setting.

Yes, the concept of bottle shares harkens back to the late-70’s (and earlier, no doubt) when home brewers shared their creations with fellow home brewers to get useful, real-time feedback. This tradition of sharing growlers and manually capped bottles has now evolved into the craft beer cultural lexicon it’s become… the bottle share. (And yes, cans are okay too).

I’ve been participating in these shares since 2015, the same year the Craft Brewers Conference last landed in Portland. In retrospect, it seems like Oregon, at that time, was still catching up to the trends happening in California and Colorado.

In short, at that time, Oregon was not exactly making clean West Coast IPAs, nor was it the Lager powerhouse it’s since become. Instead there was a lot of experimentation going on, namely with wild, sour and/or mixed-culture ales, often found in 750ml bottles.

The energy surrounding craft beer in Portland seemed to be peaking as mixed fermentation beers were about to hit their apex (see The Commons Brewery and Logsdon Farmhouse Ales) and India Pale Ales were finally beginning to permeate grocery shelves, which were too often stocked with Seattle-based breweries, mass-produced industrial beer, and brands from outside the state.

As a huge n00b in the Portland beer scene at the time, the bottle shares at BeerMongers were a lighthouse guiding me away from the rocky shoals of what was my reality to that point: generic craft beer offerings.

That bridge from grocery pablum to quality bottle shop beer came as a result of the events Mongers hosted during CBC 2015. A few months later a friend invited me to the Wednesday share (which still happens weekly) and at one point I hadn’t miss one for about 80ish weeks in a row.

I was drawn in by the camaraderie, the new and unusual flavors, meeting new people, and the adventure of it all.

I’ve heard so many folks talk about feeling uncomfortable or ostracized by bottle shares – maybe because it’s generally a bunch of white dudes standing around in an inward facing circle, hovering over a bunch of foreign and/or exclusive beers.

There’s no doubt, in my mind, that this is why most people perceive bottle shares to be an exclusive pastime, though in my experience, those I usually share with do our best to make these gatherings anything but exclusive.

Those who truly care about and wish to educate others about beer participate in these bottle shares not only because they love beer, as well as the stories and people behind them, but also because they love the community it engenders.

Tonight’s event at Living Häus Beer, happening from 5 to 9pm, should be no different as it’s the first time I’ll be hosting a public bottle share.

The whole idea surrounding this share is to bring back those pre-covid vibes of gathering with friends and people we’ve never met, to offer a classic concept of sharing beer for those who’ve never participated before, and to continue educating ourselves about never before tasted things – breaking down our own perceived barriers about what beer is and what it can be.

I sincerely hope you can join us tonight at Living Häus to expand our collective horizons and to create new narratives best expressed by words alone, in real time, together.

Here are a few tips and some guidance regarding how bottle shares work, what to bring and not to bring, and what to expect:

• Please bring only one or two bottles. Living Haus has a number of bottles to share and as happens at most shares, inevitably too many bottles get opened that aren’t finished.
• Start at the bar register. When arriving at a bottle share in a retail location, we recommend buying at least one beer from the host business and to tip well – tipping acts as substitute for a corkage fee.
• Open or Chill? If you’re one of the first to arrive and your beer is cold, feel free to request it to be opened by an employee behind the bar – please don’t open bottles or cans yourself. If you’re a bit later or not quite ready to open yours, you can ask to have it chilled in the cooler. If you do, don’t forget to request it to be opened before you leave or don’t forget to take it with you before you go!
• Format: Some like to provide a guided or one-by-one share that you’ll often encounter with a food pairing, where one bottle is opened at a time and the next isn’t generally opened until everyone gets a pour. Tonight’s format will be more of an open, buffet-style format. Once your bottle or can is opened, there will be a designated table to place it on and folks can pour each offering as they go. A large amount of glassware will be made available, encouraging all to use a fresh glass for each pour.
• What To Bring: any sealed glass bottle or aluminum can that’s something you’d like to drink and share with others. Whether it’s from your cellar or fridge, just packaged last week or is 10+ years old, anything you find unique, exciting, and fun is fair game. The most common styles found at a Portland bottle share are generally Wild Ales, Imperial Stouts, Barleywines, Lambic or Lambic-inspired styles, and barrel-aged beers.
• What Not to Bring: as requested by the establishment hosting, please do not bring home brew to the share. Unless you’re a regular share-goer who’s been doing this for a while, please leave home brew at home. Also, growlers should not be brought and canned/still sealed crowlers should be fine. Lastly, if you’re not sure what to bring to the share, your best option is to visit one of the many bottle shops in town to find something unique, instead of something in the beer aisle of a grocery store.
• Food: Living Häus will be offering the standard Monday & Tuesday fare from Pan Con Queso which are the square Abuelita pizzas. There are also an abundance of food options around the neighborhood (Afuri, Hat Yai, Hit The Spot, Lo’s Burgers at Creepy’s, Taqueria Portland, etc.) to check out before or after the share.
• Music: we’ll also have a wide variety of funk, soul, and jazz spinning all evening courtesy of DJ Provoke.