Vertigo Brewers Mike Kinion (left) and Mike Haines (right)

Brewpublic was invited to visit Vertigo Brewing of Hillsboro, Oregon, a brewery who has just started to get its sea legs in the Northwest market. Founded by friends Mike Haines and Mike Kinion, the brewery is a quaint one-barrel installation situated in an industrial park off Cornelius Pass Road in Hillsboro, not far from McMenamins Roadhouse Brewery. The two Mikes live in Hillsboro and met at their current day jobs at Intel where Haines has worked for the past 28 years and Kinion for the past 25. “This is what we love to do” said Kinion about brewing. He added: “We used to spend a lot of money at (Beaverton’s) U-Brew before deciding it would make more sense to do this on our own.” A few years and several homebrews later, the two had honed their skills and won an array of competitions for their work including a silver medal in the National Homebrewers Competition for their Altbier. In May of 2008 Vertigo leased their current home. It wasn’t until October of 2008 that they were granted a license to start selling their beer.