Oregon Brewers Thought Small and It Was Start of Something Big : Entrepreneurs: Brothers make their own suds at a chain of cozy brew pubs. They have no need or desire to compete with giants of the industry.

The McMenamin brothers don’t have the Midas touch, they have the beermeister touch. Everything they lay their hands on turns into a pub.

A theater, a century-old country home, a church and even a poor farm have all become pubs.

Now the McMenamins have 24 taverns across Oregon, including 10 of the brew pub variety: old-fashioned establishments where customers order beer brewed right on site, and can even ask for a jar of suds to take home.

“We don’t know of any company that has more pubs or brew pubs,” Mike McMenamin said, looking over the grounds of the old Multnomah County poor farm. He is turning the property into a rural resort offering beer, food, wine, movies, live music and more beer.

Jeff Mendel, a spokesman for the Institute for Brewing Studies in Boulder, Colo., said there are 130 brew pubs across the country, sating beer lovers’ thirst for homemade brew in a cozy barroom setting. About 25 to 40 new ones open each year.

And while the pubs can’t compete with the Busches and Buds--they don’t even try--they have developed loyal followings among those who savor the taste of unusual brews.

“People are finally getting keyed into fresh beer, quality beer,” Mendel said. “Beer wasn’t made to be bottled and set on a shelf. If it’s ready to be drunk, it should be drunk.”

The McMenamin brothers have twice as many brew pubs as any other company, Mendel said. The privately held firm had 1990 sales of $10 million, and is on track to increase sales by 20% to 30% this year, said head brewer Keith Mackie.

He said the company expects to sell 589,000 gallons of its own beer this year. McMenamin taverns also sell beer from other Oregon micro-breweries, domestic varieties such as Henry Weinhard, Budweiser and Miller, and a sprinkling of foreign brews.

The brothers will not reveal their profits.

“We don’t drive fancy cars,” said Brian McMenamin. “We believe in a very casual environment. Beer is not pretentious. We put our profits back in the business.”

Much of the money is being plowed into Edgefield Manor, once a self-sustaining poor farm with a meatpacking plant, power station, large rooming house and infirmary.

The brothers bought the property for $560,000 and are investing another $2.5 million to transform the farm and its 80-year-old buildings. Now the meatpacking plant is a brewery, the power station is a pub with a movie theater, the infirmary is a winery and the rooming house is being converted to a 100-room lodge, to open in 1993.

“It will be a place to escape from the rat race, a place to relax for a weekend,” Brian McMenamin said. “There will be no Jazzercise classes or jogging seminars. It will be a kick-back deal.”

The establishment is one of several for Brian, 33, and Mike McMenamin, 40, who built their business by cashing in on a 6-year-old Oregon law that allows small breweries to sell their product on site and at a second location.

Mike McMenamin opened his first tavern in 1974, a blue-collar establishment in Portland’s Produce Row--a warehouse area where merchants sell produce wholesale.

He and his brother bought or acquired a share in several more bars around Portland by the time the law took effect. Those pubs were known for having dozens of beers on tap.

“Beer is not like wine,” Brian McMenamin said. “It doesn’t age well and some of the stuff we were importing from Europe just wasn’t holding up. So it was natural for us to want to brew the beer ourselves and serve it in our own pubs.”

The brothers began producing beers such as Terminator Stout, a dark, heavy English-style brew, and Ruby Tuesday, a light, raspberry-flavored beer.

They also began to combine their love of beer with their love of historic structures.

They purchased a 125-year-old farmhouse in Hillsboro, 15 miles west of Portland, and turned it into the Cornelius Pass Roadhouse.

An old Portland church, once used as a union hall, was turned into the Mission Theatre & Pub, featuring second-run movies, beer and munchies.

The brothers turned an old cinema into a pub and movie house, removing the walls that had split up the former Bagdad Theatre.

But they say they have no immediate plans to expand outside Oregon, which along with Washington and Northern California is something of a hotbed for brew pubs. The company’s breweries are geared toward small production of quality beer, and that’s the way they intend to keep it.

“We make what are called natural ales,” Mackie said. “They are nonfiltered and not pasteurized. Therefore, there’s yeast in our beer and it has to be handled properly. You can’t shake it and it can’t sit for long periods at room temperatures.”

Besides, the brothers say money is not the driving force for the company.

“Our first priority is to let our employees improve,” said Mike McMenamin, whose company promotes solely from within. That means people who started out as bartenders have ended up as pub managers entitled to a share of the profits.

“We want to learn a lot and have a good time,” Mike McMenamin said. “Fun is the name of the game, not money.”