Two Culmination Brewers Leaving to Make Ruse Brewing an Independent Operation

Devin Benware and Shaun Kalis hope to be in operation before the end of 2017.

Kerns' Culmination Brewing has always been an interesting experiment, putting together five brewers working in close collaboration on a proliferation of beers coming out in small batches under brewmaster and owner Tomas Sluiter.

But two of those brewers plan to go their own way this year.

Devin Benware and Shaun Kalis will depart later this year to make Ruse Brewing an independent brewery in southeast Portland. They say they're close to signing a lease on a 6,000 square foot space along the MAX orange line in Brooklyn, near Southeast 17th Avenue and Holgate Boulevard.

They plan to host live music in the space, which they hope to have up and running by the end of 2017 if lease negotiations work out.

This had always been in the works for Kalis, who'd been brewing his Ruse beers on the system at Culmination while also making Culmination's brews, including an IPA blind-voted among the best in Portland, a saison called Architect and a burgundy-barrel-aged Multibeast farmhouse.

But while working closely together at Culmination, Kalis and Benware—who'd already been considering starting his own brewery in his home state of Vermont—realized it might make sense to partner on the brewery here in Portland. 

"We were talking a lot while we were working," Kalis says, "And we realized that what we wanted lined up."

The pair will continue making late-hopped IPAs with a focus on saisons and "boutique beers," Kalis says, with a sturdy barrel-aging program. But he also says the system they're looking at would be able to put out about 5,000 barrels a year at full capacity, which would place it near the production of breweries like Buoy and Base Camp.

Both brewers will stay on at Culmination until they make their move, and will continue to make Ruse in the Culmination space during that span as well, including a barleywine Ruse is putting together for Belmont Station's 20th anniversary this April.

"We want to make sure Culmination is set up really well," Kalis says, "because they're losing two of their brewers. They've been nothing but awesome. Tom was really excited for us."

"I feel like a proud father. To have two former assistants become my employees then open up their own place is what Culmination is all about," Sluiter tells WW. "I look forward to many great beers from those guys."

Ruse's most recent brew is Vernacular IPA, a New-England style hazy made with all Australian hops. It's currently on tap at Culmination.

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