Welcome back to another installment of the Oregon Brewery Running Series Podcast; Inspiring Oregonians to Get Active, Have Fun, and Give Back. We host family-friendly, 5K fun runs that start and end at some of Oregon’s best breweries.
In today’s show, I’m talking with one of the co-owners of StormBreaker Brewing, Dan Malech. StormBreaker Brewing is on Mississippi Ave in North Portland, and soon, will be opening a second location in the spring of 2018 in St. John’s. In my interview with Dan, you’ll get to learn a little bit about how he got into the word of craft beer, the origins of StormBreaker, how he became a runner (and the year he ran too many half marathons), a few of his favorite beers, as well as the low down on their new location and a few other new things their team is looking forward to in 2018.
We’re going to be hosting another 5k fun run at StormBreaker on March 3, 2018, as the final run in our winter series. Join us with promo code StormBreaker5 to get $5 off your registration. Or, if you’d like to run for FREE, listen to the episode and find the free promo code!
About Dan Malech
I met up with Dan on a busy Thursday evening at the brewery. He and his co-owner Rob, were hard at work when I arrived. If you’re there before about 5 pm, you’ll often see them huddled over laptops and papers strew about at one of the tables in the back. I guess that’s the “office.”
Dan is a fun guy. I don’t remember exactly when we met, but he’s the kind of person you feel like you’ve known for forever. There is a friendly intensity about him; maybe because Dan hails from New York. He migrated to Portland via Denver and Atlanta. He didn’t want to come to Portland, but now that he’s here, he loves it.
He became interested in home brewing when he lived in Atlanta. He told me that he got into it because,
I wanted to make it and then share it with people. [people would say], ‘Where did you get this?’ I made it like come on over and drink it like we don’t have to go to the store, like I did this with my bare hands and that’s what I really like. I like building things like creating things and this is just something else that that kind of fell into that.
He and his co-owner Rob started StormBreaker when Rob’s old brewery suddenly became available, so they bought it! There’s a funny story about Dan’s initial reaction to Rob’s proposal.
Dan is also a runner. After suffering from playing sports where you run, stop, jump and do other stuff that hurts your Achilles tendon, he turned to running as a way to get healthy and stay active. In 2016, Dan ran 13 half marathons but got a little burned out, and now just tries to run when he can. He’s super busy, with the new location opening (sometime spring of 2018), hosting remarkable events at StromBreaker, and creating movies with his kids.
Things We Mentioned
- Dollar For Portland
- Brian Grant Foundation
- BrewStillery (Feb 17, 2018)
- Our 5k fun run (March 3, 2018)
- Rob Lutz
- StormBreaker Beer
- Days of Thunder
- Beer Quest 2018 – A beer fest running scavenger hunt as part of PDX Beer Week. Details are coming soon)!
ABOUT US
The Oregon Brewery Running Series is about inspiring Oregonians to Get Active, Have Fun, and Give Back. We host family-friendly, 5K fun runs that start and end at some of Oregon’s best breweries. Register for our next run here! Our theme music, the Oregon Song, is written and performed by James Hoffman.
