Loowit to hold bash for 7th anniversary

One of Vancouver’s oldest breweries, Loowit Brewing Company, is turning 7 years old.

Loowit is hosting a party today to celebrate its anniversary at its taphouse, 507 Columbia St., with the release of three new beers. One is an IPA dedicated to its anniversary called Seven Deadly Trends that uses a blend of all the current IPA trends, co-founder Devon Bray said. The party lasts from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.

For one of the city’s oldest breweries to be 7, shows the Vancouver brewery scene is still relatively young — especially compared with Portland, a city that lost its oldest brewery, Bridgeport, in February after 35 years.

But Loowit’s year-over-year growth in revenue is a sign the Vancouver brewing industry is going strong. And a continuing influx of new Vancouver breweries shows more signs of growth.

Loowit is one of 14 breweries in Vancouver. Soon that number will be 15 with the opening of a Barlow’s brewery and taphouse near the intersection of Mill Plain Boulevard and Southeast Park Crest Avenue.

In 2012, Loowit opened up in its current spot with three beers on tap and about the same number of competitors brewing in the city. In its first year, Loowit co-founders Bray and Thomas Poffenroth brewed 300 barrels of beer for kegs. This year, the company expects to make 2,200 barrels of beer, Bray said, and cans are shipped to much of Washington and Oregon.

“It’s all over the place,” Bray said.

Bray started brewing beer in 2003 “as a fun hobby,” he said.

“Then we realized that people enjoyed our beer and it seemed like an opportunity for us to start our own brewery and try working for ourselves,” Bray said. “The initial idea behind Loowit was that we could keep people on our side of the river for a good beer rather than having to go to Portland all the time.”

Despite its growth, Loowit has seen its share of troubles.

In 2015, Loowit’s flagship beer, once called Shadow Ninja IPA, fell under threat of a trademark violation. A brewery in Ashville, N.C., claimed to have the patent of all beers that use “ninja” in their names, so Loowit then changed the beer’s name to Shadow Shinobi. The response of the Vancouver brewery made an impression on its customers.

In 2017, Loowit hired Vancouver artist Kyle Shold to write and illustrate a comic book to recount the copyright rigmarole.

Shold will make an appearance at the brewery’s anniversary party from 3 to 5 p.m. to sign posters and host a live digital art demo.

In addition to releasing the anniversary IPA, Loowit is releasing a mint-cream stout called Mint Condition and a canned version of its Russian imperial stout called Shimmergloom that won a bronze medal at the 2018 Great American Beer Festival in the “other strong beer” category.

This story was updated to correctly state the name of the Russian imperial stout.