Keep Beer Weird: The Unipiper Teams up with Portland Brewing Co. to Support Local Weird
Portland Brewing and the Unipiper join forces to celebrate Portland’s weird with a collaborative beer, the Unipiper Hazy IPA.
The Unipiper with his Hazy IPA from Portland Brewing Co.
Just about everything I know about Portland I learned from Chuck Palahniuk’s travel guide Fugitives and Refugees. I’ve never been there, but I know when I finally have a chance to visit, I may not be strong enough to leave it behind. The city has a vibrant culture of weird, and now the Portland Brewing Co. has joined forces with one of the city’s most beloved street performers to celebrate it.
Portland is home to the world’s smallest park (just two feet in diameter and dedicated on St. Patrick’s Day, 1976, as “the only leprechaun colony west of Ireland,”), the shanghai tunnels, the Pecularium museum of the “freakybuttrue,” a vegan strip club, the internet’s premier “cat rapper” Moshow, and countless other artists, performers, and landmarks.
One of the most well known is the Unipiper, a man who rides around Portland on his unicycle playing flame-throwing bagpipes while dressed as Darth Vader, Bigfoot, and other famous characters.
From the Unipiper’s website:
The origin of The Unipiper is shrouded in mystery, but reportedly stems from an incident with local-resident Brian Kidd involving a bite from a radioactive unicycle incurred while playing the bagpipes, granting him the power to make people smile. Ever since, he has roamed the streets of Portland, protecting its citizens from all that is normal and standing up to those that would seek to silence the weird.
Kidd, the mild-mannered alter ego behind the Unipiper’s many masks, has teamed up with Portland Brewing Co. to create the first in a series of “Keep Portland Weird” collaborative brews intended to highlight each collaborator’s contribution to the city’s weird culture.
The result is the Unipiper Hazy IPA, a “smooth and juicy” 6.2% ABV beer with a tangerine citrus and fruit “pop” that, according to Portland Brewing, is “perfect for a couple pints while light enough to not weigh you down on your unicycle ride to goat-yoga class.”
But there’s more to this beer than drunken unicycling. Proceeds will help launch the Unipiper’s new nonprofit that is dedicated to finding and supporting the weird people and places of Portland.
“The Unipiper Hazy IPA is not just another beer though! That would be too normal!” Kidd says. “It also signals the beginning of a new era in Portland’s ever evolving weirdness – the founding of Weird Portland United, a charitable effort that has been a dream of mine for years. Thanks to the seed donation from Portland Brewing, Weird Portland United will help create a weirder tomorrow where everyone is inspired to contribute to the city’s now famous culture of weird.”
And this is why the events of last night are a little hazy.
Unipiper Hazy IPA is now available throughout the Portland region in limited edition 22oz bottles silk screened with an illustration by local artist Beth Kerschen as well as 6-packs of 12oz cans.
Find it here.
