as told to Megan Oliver | photos by Brian Pasko

I gave a friend creative license to craft a label for Boring Brewing Company and I couldn’t be happier with the result. The illustrated yawn brings a humor to the brand that matches the attitude of the community toward our chuckle-inducing name.

Boring residents have embraced the irony of their town moniker—which was actually the surname of an early resident. In 2012, Boring joined with Dull, Scotland to create the annual state holiday “Boring and Dull Day” on August 9. The irony lies in the fact that Boring is actually a great place to live.

My wife and I have been in the area for nearly two decades, first in neighboring Damascus and now on our former Christmas tree farm in Boring, twenty miles from downtown Portland and thirty-three miles from Mt. Hood.

I have worked in radiology imaging centers in the Portland metro area for thirty years. I was also a home brewer for nearly as long. In 2010, I read an article about a brewery in Bend that was able to get licensed in a home basement. Seeing the craft beer industry growth, and realizing that eastern Clackamas County only had three breweries (none of which were in Boring), I decided to look into it.

I released my first commercial beer in January 2013. At first, my wife would go to eight to ten bars a day to try to get our beer on board. We had early success, but quickly found that tap space is at a premium. It was difficult to stay on a consistent rotation, so we found a distributor that was willing to take on a small brewery. We are now distributed in more than ten counties.

Boring is on one of two eastbound routes to Mt. Hood, so we get the weekend corridor traffic. The town is primarily a nursery and landscaping hub, but also is home to many thriving businesses. For example, Boring’s Vanport Manufacturing Inc. was a pioneer in exporting metric lumber to Japan. Focusing on the relationship with Dull, Scotland as well as the recent addition of Bland, Australia, is sure to bring more tourists to our unincorporated community, making it a destination.

The Springwater Trail is a tourism draw. Much of the trail is paved, including two miles of fresh pavement leading up to Boring. Bikers and runners can follow the twenty-one-mile-long trail all the way from downtown Portland to Boring beer taps. This town is anything but a yawn, and I hope people drink it in, one beer at a time.