Dan Engler was sick of his job, and Ben Engler needed one.

Ben, who had been laid off from Weyerhaeuser, proposed to his uncle, a burned-out lawyer and a longtime homebrewer, that they open a brewery.

Well, Dan says he told his nephew, “if you can wrangle the money, I’m in.”

Ben wrangled, and on Memorial Day weekend 2011, the first beer of North Portland’s Occidental Brewing was brewed. The two opened the brewery and taproom “on a shoestring,” Dan says, converting a large space in the St. Johns neighborhood that over the decades had housed Portland Woolen Mills, a toy company warehouse and a Columbia Sportswear operation.

As with any tightly financed startup, the pair knew they were taking on some risk. They jumped anyway.

“I think I was young enough and stupid enough to go for it,” Dan says. “I kept my day job for the first five months or so, but pretty soon we were selling enough beer that I was comfortable enough to quit and just do this full time.”

But they didn’t just take on the usual risks of starting up a brewery. Beyond the typical challenges, they chose to make German-style lagers in a town that for a decade had been in a full-on, more-is-better hops war that big IPAs dominated.

“I figured if I was into these kinds of beers there must have been enough other people that would be, too,” Dan says. “Also, at that time, this was before the most recent boom in craft brewing, there weren’t nearly as many breweries around, even eight years ago.”

Dan had been homebrewing since his high school days in Missoula, Montana, gravitating toward German styles. But he and his nephew weren’t sure what kinds of beers they would focus on when they started planning Occidental.

“As we got closer we thought, ‘Well, we better decide what we want to do,’” Dan says. “So we were like, ‘Well, let’s see what happens if we do mostly German styles.’ … It stuck.

“There were other brewers in town who were like, ‘Good luck with that. We tried that.’ But I think our timing was right. And I think people were ready for a lineup that wasn’t so hop-forward.”

Their timing happened to be at the forefront of a resurgence in the popularity of lagers, which adorn far more tap lists today than they did even five years ago, a development that helped Occidental grow.

The brewery, which brewed 3,000 barrels in 2018 and is on track to brew about 3,500 this year, has distribution throughout Oregon and southwest Washington, and reaches some points beyond. Last year near Reno, Nevada, Occidental opened a satellite brewery and taproom that Ben is now overseeing. The brewery operation there, which took over High Sierra Brewing, distributes in the Reno area and Las Vegas.

Early on, the Englers brought in brewer Sam Carroll, who now runs the St. Johns brewhouse, overseeing Occidental’s array of German styles. Those include the year-round Hefeweizen, Altbier, Pilsner, Dunkel and Kolsch, as well as seasonal classics such as its Festbier, Maibock and Lucubrator doppelbock.

The taproom serves no food, but in 2016 Occidental teamed with David Gluth of Urban German Grill, a popular food cart, to open the Wursthaus across the parking lot. At the end of last year, Occidental, wanting to keep focused on the brewery, sold its stake in the German-fare restaurant to Gluth. But the Wursthaus remains a popular destination and pairing for Occidental patrons, and especially for the brewery’s annual Oktoberfest celebration, which Occidental just threw for the ninth time.

Like many of its competitors, Occidental feels the pressure from the surge of Portland breweries the past few years.

“It’s weird because Portland’s brewing scene has always been very collegial,” Dan says. “And I wouldn’t say that that has changed necessarily, but you do feel a little more competition. Definitely shelf space and handles and stuff -- it’s a tighter squeeze for us.”

But he also says the biggest threat isn’t necessarily other craft brewers. Rather, it’s the increasing popularity of hard seltzers.

“That is something that I think is a bigger fear among brewers is this move toward these boring flavorless beverages, getting away from flavor,” Dan says. “I mean, that was kind of the whole point of the craft beer boom was, they wanted something that tasted like something. Now we’re kind of coming back around.”

He and Carroll recently changed things up a bit and brewed a Mexican-style lager, Cerveza Clara. And they did a Japanese rice lager collaboration with Widmer last year. Not that anyone should expect them to bend so far as to brew an IPA anytime soon.

“I’ve been shooting my mouth off for eight years about how I’ll never make an IPA, so I better not start now,” Dan says. “I figure I’ll leave that to every other brewery.”

But continuing to evolve is definitely in order.

“The market’s changing, so people have to be a little more flexible than they used to be,” he says. “We’ll see where the wind takes us. But I think we’ve got enough of a customer base that is into what we do that we can keep on keeping on.”

Portland Breweries Series: Occidental Brewing Posted by The Oregonian on Friday, October 4, 2019

Occidental sampler

Why go: For well-crafted, traditional German-style lagers in a setting near Cathedral Park and a great view of the St. Johns Bridge.

What to drink: The Festbier, has run out this year, but look for it at Oktoberfest next year. The Bohemian-style Pilsner is crisp and classic, and the Hefeweizen is slightly fruity with banana and clove notes.

What to eat: Venture across and bring takeout back to the taproom from the Urban German Wursthaus, picking your favorite wurst sausage, schnitzel or spaetzle.

Details: 6635 N. Baltimore Ave., #102; 503-719-7102; 4-9 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, 3-9 p.m. Friday, 2-9 p.m. Saturday, noon-7 p.m. Sunday; no minors, “well-behaved” dogs OK on the patio; 12 Occidental taps, cider in cans; occidentalbrewing.com

-- Andre Meunier

Check out Andre’s Occidental beer reviews on Untappd, where he’s andremeunier13, and follow him on Instagram, where he’s @oregonianbeerguy.

More beer coverage: