When Oak Union Brewing’s Hidden Garden West Coast IPA comes out in May, it will be their first Ales for ALS™ beer. But, for Trevor Lauman, it represents a return to the program that has been a long time coming.
Trevor is the Oak Union’s co-founder and head brewer. He’s also the sole employee—the beers are brewed by Trevor’s partners at Portland’s Zoiglhaus Brewing Company from his recipes. While Oak Union is a relatively new operation, Trevor is a longtime veteran of Portland’s craft brewing scene. After getting his start as a homebrewer, he pursued a degree in fermentation science at Oregon State University. He went on to work as a brewer at popular Portland-area craft breweries, including Ancestry Brewing and Zoiglhaus, before striking out on his own at Oak Union.
A History of ALS Fundraising Through Beer
Throughout his time in the brewing industry, Trevor has been committed to finding ways to support people living with ALS through beer. The cause is deeply personal for him—he lost his father, Wayne, to the disease. Wayne lived with ALS for more than a decade, experiencing his first symptoms around 1998 and passing away in 2011.
“My dad was very athletic,” says Trevor, “He still holds a long jump record at the local high school. So, watching that slow progression, seeing him losing his body over time, was hard for our family to watch. I'd be lying if I said it didn't have a lot of trauma myself, because for a period of time I was one of his main caretakers. I'm thankful that I was able to do that, but it put a lot of mental strain on me at the time, and it's still something I think about daily.”
Wayne’s passing occurred just as Trevor was getting his start in the brewing world. He says that, since then, he’s always seen these two aspects of his life—ALS advocacy and beer—as going hand in hand. He got his start early, organizing a festival with local brewers to support ALS while he was still a student at Oregon State.
Finding Ales for ALS™
It was through his work on the festival that he came into contact with Mike Shannon, the National Director of the Ales for ALS™ program. Through Ales for ALS™, brewers around the country create a special brew using a unique hop blend, which they receive free of charge, courtesy of Yakima Chief Hops and Loftus Ranches. They then donate one dollar pint from every pint sold to support ALS research at the ALS Therapy Development Institute (ALS TDI), a nonprofit biotech company and the world’s most comprehensive drug discovery lab dedicated solely to ALS.
It would be a few more years before Trevor worked his way up to a position in the industry where he had the freedom to create his own Ales for ALS™ beer. His chance finally came at Ancestry Brewing in 2018, where he brewed a beer named Wayne’s Warriors, in tribute to his dad, to support the program. However, not long after the beer came out, Trevor found himself needing to take a break from his ALS advocacy efforts to recharge and deal with the emotional fallout of his father’s disease.
“The trauma of it all burdened me to a point where I just had to shut everything off for a while,” Trevor says. “I didn't want to do anything involved with ALS for some time.”
A New Brew—and a Return to ALS Advocacy
Now, Trevor is at his own brewery, Oak Union, which he co-founded in 2023 in his hometown of Milwaukee, OR, and is ready to bring his second Ales for ALS™ brewing project to fruition—Hidden Garden. The beer is set to debut on Thursday, May 1st with a release party at Beer Store Milwaukie, a local taproom and craft beer shop.
Hidden Garden is a West Coast IPA brewed with the Ales for ALS™ hop blend. In another, subtle nod to Wayne, the alcohol percentage is 6.9%, a tribute to his beloved 1969 Chevy Camaro, which currently lives in Trevor’s garage. The can art also features an image of roses, representing the flowers that Wayne would propagate in the family’s backyard greenhouse.
Providing Hope and Inspiration Through Beer
Trevor says that the progress being made in ALS research by institutions like ALS TDI inspired him to make this beer and get back to fundraising.. He sees it as a way to give hope to others facing the disease.
“Hope is what gives people and families a reason to keep fighting,” Trevor says. “While we were living it, I was always looking for articles about any sort of new research about something that might be able to alleviate my dad’s symptoms. Right now, there’s so much progress being made. I feel like now, more than ever, getting money into the hands of researchers is imperative.”
However, this is not the only factor that motivated Trevor to return to ALS fundraising. In the time since he brewed his previous Ales for ALS™ beer, he’s also become a father himself. He says that he hopes to set an example for his own children about the importance of working to make the world a better place.
“I want to show my children that it should be at the core of their personality to want to help others,” he says. “Not just help your family, but help your community as well. They're six and three years old. It’s something where I'm trying to manage my own emotions while also trying to manage how they should see the world.”
A release party for Hidden Garden, Oak Union’s Ales for ALS™ beer, will take place at the Beer Store Milwaukie in Milwaukie, OR, starting May 1st, 2025. The beer will also be available at select locations throughout the Portland area.
To learn more about Oak Union Brewing, click here.
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