Our Story - Beer, Games, and Love

The 100 Pint Test.

Jason’s original homebrew system made 50 liters at a time. So every beer he made, him and his friends had to drink 100 pints of before the keg was ready to refill. As much as he loves all style of beers, you don’t want to drink 100 high alcohol, big heavy beers. So Jason started to brew lighter beers designed for sessions of drinking and hanging out with your friends. Low to medium alcohol, and easy to approach. In time, people started to tell him that he should consider making his beers professionally, but he knew that the market in Portland was too saturated with small breweries.

Garage Days

In 2009, our head brewer Jason moved into a new house in Portland Oregon and converted the garage into a gaming and homebrew room that was a private bar for his friends and neighbors. He started naming all of the beers he made for his friends after the games that they played while the beer boiled.

The Original Game Room

Nerds Making Beer From Day 1

Why Finland?

Its always love, right? In 2013, Jason met 8-Bit’s CEO Elina. They fell in love and when Jason came to visit Helsinki for the first time, he noticed that Finnish people were just starting to get into IPA (And paying 8 euros a pint for them) and there weren’t many breweries here. And after a year of long distance relationship where they managed to spend 1/4 of their time together, Jason was out of money and vacation days, so it was either move in together, or not see each other for 6 months. So Jason quit his job and moved to Finland to follow love and make easy to drink nerd themed beer.

First Date - Beer Festival

Its called foreshadowing…

Gypsy Roots

It took Jason a couple years to get settled in and business partners. In 2016 8-Bit made its first batch of beer using Olarin Panimo’s extra tank space. And the company was founded by Jason, Mikko, and Valtteri. The very first batch of 8-Bit Brewing’s Razident Evil Raspberry Pilsner debuted at the Helsinki Beer Festival on Jason’s 36th birthday. So Jason and the beer share a birhtday. We brewed at Olarin Panimo for 9 months till they grew so fast they didn’t have extra space and then we moved to United Gypsies Brewery in Lojha where we made our beer for a year while our first location in Konala was being built.

The First Batch

Helsinki Beer Festival 2016

Our Own Brewery!

In January of 2018, our first facility opened in Konala Helsinki. It was a 200sq meter warehouse that Jason remodeled himself from out of a rundown mechanic’s shop. Our plan from the beginning was to always stay true to that old garage in the US. Our brewery should spiritually still be our game room and fun space for our friends, customers, and community to visit. We built a commercial brewery that was also our shrine to nerd culture and all the things we love.

Building the Konala Brewery

Game Room 2

Big Transitions

Turns out running a brewery is super super hard. Our start went anything but smoothly, with us having problems with our equipment, our location, and just about everything else under the sun. By 2020, we had fixed all the issues and fought off going under half a dozen times. Mikko and Valtteri had both left their positions, and so Jason’s wife Elina stepped in as CEO and our friend Mikael joined the team. Around this time, we found out our lease could not be renewed in Konala and we had to find a new home.

Guess my favorite color…

Our Current Home

We moved to Keran Hallit in Espoo in 2020 where we are still at today. Keran Hallit is the old S Group central shipping warehouse and has been converted into a cultural space for sports, art, startups, and beer. We have build a small brewery collective here that we call Keran Panimokylä. In this one address you can find us as well as our friends and neighbors Tired Uncle Brewing and Masis Brewery. Our new facility built by Jason, Elina, and Mikael is a labor of love and still another continuation of the philosophy stated 15 years in an American garage. We have added space for boxing and private theater, and a karaoke space, and an art gallery, and we host companies and groups from all over. Of course we brew beer, but we also have drawing and painting nights. We build cosplay. We sing and play music. We stay up to the late hours having deep conversations with new and old friends. This current form of 8-Bit Brewing is something we are very proud of. Please come and see it sometime. We welcome guests to come in and see our space when they visit our brewery shop as we are proud to be a very unique brewery.

Cheers

Our Current Home

Music with Friends

Game Room 3