Grains of Passion
Brenden Greenen and His Passion for Craft Beer and Community
“It started with spitballing and joking about how fun it would be. And then it was like, well, we should actually take a look at this… maybe we should actually do this… and then, we did.” — Brendan Greenen
Step into Grains of Wrath in downtown Camas, Washington, and you’ll feel it: the welcoming atmosphere of a local small-town pub. Friends and family, many wearing Camas High School t-shirts and baseball hats, sip pints of craft beer as smiling waiters carry out burgers, brussels sprouts, and salted pretzels the size of a football. Presiding over it all is Brendan Greenen, witnessing his longtime dream come to life.
Greenen runs Grains of Wrath, which their website describes as “a small-town brewery with a big-community heart,” along with his business partner and brewer, Michael Hunsaker. Since they opened in 2018, the brewpub has become a local gathering place and a community pillar, hosting everything from local family gatherings and football pre-game get togethers to high school reunions. Grains of Wrath is also known worldwide for its beer—they’ve won over 80 national and international awards for beers like Dystopia IPA, Into the Void, and Papermaker Pale Ale.
“It’s probably one of our most popular beers,” he says about the beer they named after my actual high school mascot. “It works especially well before football games. People go crazy for it. They come in and crush a bunch of Papermakers, go to the football game, then come back afterward and close us down.”
Although I’ve been to Grains of Wrath countless times—including for my 10th high school reunion—I was only introduced to Greenen recently through my parents. My dad called me one night after having his usual: a pint of his favorite German pilsner beer and cauliflower couscous salad. “You’ve got to talk to this guy! He’s so passionate. You’ll love him.”
At first, I hesitated. The standard of On Fire is the world’s most passionate people, and I didn’t want to be too biased by choosing something in my hometown (although it felt kind of perfect since I was about to travel home for my nephew’s high school graduation). But as I got to know Greenen, I realized that while his story may not be unique, his off-the-charts passion was typical of the way in which beer brings out such passion in so many people worldwide and becomes a focal point that brings them together. I wanted to go deeper—and, in Greenen’s story, better understand one of the most universal sources of enthusiasm in the world.
“It’s a fun industry,” he says when I ask him what he loves about the pub that has become a staple of the community where I grew up. “We get to have a lot of fun with the creative side of beer and the food specials and all that kind of stuff. And just making people happy.” Providing the best atmosphere is not just about the beer or the food, he insists, but about making it a place where the community wants to be—and about how all the elements come together. “Making those pieces jive is the challenge I enjoy,” he says.
Greenen grew up around craft beer. “My dad was always drinking craft beer,” he says. “So I kind of developed a taste for it at a younger age than most.”
His favorite is called Frosthammer, a German-style Helles lager that also happens to have won several awards—including first place at the North American Beer Awards, Oregon Beer Awards, and Best of Craft Beer Awards. “It's just nice, light, crisp, clean, and easy drinking."
It’s clear he loves the complexity and taste of craft beers. But what comes through just moments into our conversation is not just that Greenen loves beer itself, but the people it brings together. Grains of Wrath is the result of a longtime dream to create a community around his passion.
So how did it all start?
“I grew up playing soccer,” he says. Not the reply I was expecting. “I didn’t really have time for much else.” Aside from school, soccer was his life. But toward the end of high school, he started to get burnt out. So he took a job at Leonardo’s Pizza, a well-known pizza spot in the area. “I thought it would be a fun place to work with my friends,” he says. And from the very beginning, he loved it. The restaurant combined all the things he was most passionate about: friends, good food, and, of course, beer.
“We created a lot of havoc there for the managers,” he says. “There were many nights when we would close down and pour beer off the taps and play beer pong until about two in the morning. We had a really cool manager.
“Well, cool at the time,” he adds, laughing. “A manager I’d be very pissed at right now as a restaurant owner.”
Although Greenen had an opportunity to play soccer in college, he never considered it a viable career path. Instead, he followed the restaurant thread, first with a job at the college dining hall and then in a food and packaging company where he managed the ink supply for all of their printing. But he lasted only a few years before deciding that being on the outskirts of the restaurant industry wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to be on the front lines—to run things his way.
Greenen was 23 when he decided to return to the area he grew up in and open his first business, Caps & Taps. He and his wife, and a couple of their friends found a location downtown Camas, “kind of on a whim. We scraped together as much as we could and just went for it and did it.”
When he tells me this, I can hardly believe it. Greenen is in his mid-thirties, just a few years younger than me. When I think back to being 23 and just out of college, there is no possible universe where I would have considered opening a restaurant. As a millennial—and I suspect this is even more true for Gen Z—the idea of starting a brick-and-mortar business feels as daunting and almost as impossible as trying to get to the moon.
But Greenen wasn’t daunted by the challenge. In fact, he credits his years playing soccer to prepare him for the hard work of getting a physical business off the ground. “Playing soccer year-round, I had a pretty good work ethic,” he says. “Going to school, then you got practice afterward. You got games on the weekend. It’s just always busy… go, go, go. I like to be busy. I deal with stress very well. It never gave me any reason to pause.” From the beginning, he trusted he could figure it out. Even more than that, he knew he had the work ethic to make it work. He let his passion guide him.
Greenen ran his first business, Caps & Taps, for five years. Still, during that time, he dreamed of something bigger. He wanted to indulge his passions even more—bringing together his love for beer, good food, and community gathering places. When his now-business partner started coming in for a pint or two, their conversations turned into dreams.
“It started with spitballing and joking about how fun it would be,” Greenen says, recalling the origins of the Grains of Wrath. “And then it was like, well, we should actually take a look at this… maybe we should actually do this… and then, we did.”
As their initial conversations turned from ideas to reality, they talked about how cool it would be to make their own beer. “We wanted to do it our own style,” he says. “We wanted to have our own brand. We wanted to do the things that we wish we could do with a brewery. It started off as a very basic idea.”
But they didn’t stop talking, and before long, the idea started to grow and expand, from a simple brewery to a place where locals could treat as their second home. Then they got really serious about it. Greenen and Hunsaker approached two other Caps & Taps patrons, Brennan Ford and Sean Parker, about investing in their dream. They believed in the idea so much they wanted to be partners instead. And when the four of them stumbled across the current space—an old auto shop in the heart of downtown Camas—they knew it would become real.
Eighteen months later, they had built the business they’d always wanted to create: a gathering place where good food, world-class beer, and a strong focus on community all came together. They also gave it a distinct brand, reminiscent of the punk rock style they all loved. They called it Grains of Wrath not as a play on the Steinbeck novel but after the Bad Religion song of the same name.
“We wanted to be doing the best we could like making the best product we could across the board and be unapologetic about who we were and what we were doing,” Greenen says. “Take it or leave it.” By any measure, they have done just that.
“We’re one of the most award-winning breweries in the Pacific Northwest,” Greenen says when I ask him about their brewing process. “The first beer we ever brewed at our very first competition—a Germany-style pilsner—won a gold medal at Washington State Beer Awards three months after we opened. That was really cool.”
But although Greenen is proud of the beer they brew (though he’s very clear about his role in the business: “I’m not a brewer,” he tells me, laughing again. “I like to drink it. I don’t like to make it.”) it’s clear that what he really loves about Grains of Wrath is the community he’s helped cultivate around it. From the beginning, Greenen and his business partners made community a priority. They sponsor the local Little League, do fundraisers for local nonprofits, and host PTA meetings.
He loves that it has become such a hub in downtown Camas, the now not-so-tiny town where I grew up. “It still has kind of that small town feel,” he says. “We’ve got so many regulars that come in now and we all know each other by name.”
It’s clear that Greenen has created the life he’s always wanted: to be surrounded by friends and good beer. And in that, Greenen is not unique. Across the world, countless people are brought together by a shared passion for beer and the sense of community it fosters. It brings people together in a way that only the deepest passions can.
Takeaways
Here is one big thing I learned this week about passion, one exercise you can do to stoke your own inner fire, and one aspect of Greenen’s intense enthusiasm that rubbed off on me — and that I now want to learn more about, too!
One Lesson: Embracing the Unique Challenges of Brick-And-Mortar Businesses
Brendan Greenen’s journey with Grains of Wrath highlights the importance of embracing the unique challenges that come with starting a brick-and-mortar business. Opening a physical establishment involves navigating numerous obstacles most of us are unfamiliar with in the digital age—from securing a location, to navigating permits, to managing daily operations. Greenen says it all comes down to how passionate you really are: “it really just boils down to, you know, do you really want it? And if you want it, then go for it.” Just be prepared for the hard work ahead.
One Exercise: Assessing Your Community Impact
If community is important to you when it comes to your passions, take some time to map out your current community engagement efforts. Identify areas where you are actively involved and areas where you could increase your participation. Ask yourself: How can my business or passion project serve the community better? What local organizations or events can I support or collaborate with? Use this exercise to brainstorm ways to deepen your community ties, similar to how Greenen and his team made Grains of Wrath a cornerstone of downtown Camas through fundraisers, sponsorships, and local networking.
One Curiosity: The Art and Science of Craft Brewing
Greenen’s story sparked my interest in the meticulous art and science of craft brewing. What does it take to come up with all these different craft beers? It didn’t take me long to appreciate just how much time and creativity goes into the process. From managing fermentation times to developing new recipes, there’s so much dedication—and passion—that goes into craft brewing. I will never look at craft beers the same ever again.