Trap Door Brewing will close its flagship Uptown Vancouver taproom at 2315 Main Street on September 30, and Vice Beer Co. will take over the lease the very next day, with plans to open its own doors there on October 7. The switch marks a new chapter for one of the most visible taproom spaces in the Uptown Village business district, but it is a handoff, not a shutdown — Trap Door isn't disappearing, it's consolidating elsewhere in Clark County.
Vice Beer co-owner Michael Perozzo confirmed the transition dates after initial reports of the move began circulating, according to New School Beer + Cider. The new location will give Vice Beer three spots across Vancouver, adding the Uptown space to its East Vancouver headquarters and its downtown micro-taproom.
A Politically Charged Backdrop
The ownership change comes weeks after Trap Door's Uptown taproom hosted a political campaign event that drew intense local scrutiny. On August 6, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared at the taproom alongside 3rd Congressional District candidate John Braun, introduced by Trap Door owner Bryan Shull, and the event prompted calls for a customer boycott, as reported by Beervana Blog.
Despite the timing, Vice Beer says the business deal behind the move predates the controversy. The outlet reports that lease negotiations for the Main Street space actually began on August 2, four days before the Speaker's visit, a detail that complicates any assumption that the political backlash alone drove Trap Door out of the building. The Washington Beer Blog, in reporting written by Kendall Jones, says it does not know whether the events at Trap Door played any role in the ownership change, and notes the publication had already heard rumors of a possible shakeup at the Uptown location before the announcement went public.
Trap Door's Roots and Its Next Move
Trap Door Brewing first opened at 2315 Main Street in October 2015, after founder Bryan Shull left a 25-year career in renewable energy engineering to start the brewery, a shift that earned the venue a Startup of the Year nod from local business media not long after opening, according to the Vancouver Business Journal. The brewery later expanded outside Vancouver in August 2022, acquiring a 6,500-square-foot facility in downtown Washougal that had previously housed Amnesia Brewing and Logsdon Farmhouse Ales, per The Washington Beer Blog's earlier coverage — and per the Washington Beer Blog's more recent reporting, Trap Door will retain that Washougal brewery and taproom even after leaving Main Street.
Shull is now pushing forward with a much larger project: Prairie View Station, a planned 42,000-square-foot taproom and food cart pod in Brush Prairie set to open in 2027 on land purchased from the Fort Vancouver Regional Library District, a joint venture with partner Jim West detailed by New School Beer + Cider. The Washington Beer Blog reports that Shull is advancing those Brush Prairie plans while also running for a seat on the Clark County Council, having announced his candidacy in April; that election will take place in November. Each Trap Door location, including the Uptown site, Washougal, and the coming Brush Prairie taproom, is structured as its own independent business entity, per the same outlet.
Vice Beer's Rapid Rise
Vice Beer launched in 2022 in East Vancouver, founded by Michael and Bria Perozzo along with Cameron Johnson, building its identity around 1980s and 1990s pop-culture nostalgia and a partnership with food vendor El Viejon Taquería, according to New School Beer + Cider's earlier reporting. The brewery opened its second location in July 2023, a 24-seat micro-taproom called A Little Vice at 805 Main Street in downtown Vancouver, set inside the former office of Perozzo's marketing agency and running 12 rotating draft taps.
Momentum has kept building since. In May, Vice Beer hired head brewer Phil Pesheck, who won the national 2020 Alpha King Challenge for the country's hoppiest beer while brewing at Seattle's Burke-Gilman Brewing and who joined Vice after helping launch Howzit Brewing in Hawaii, per The Washington Beer Blog. Before locking down the Uptown space, Vice Beer had already added a permanent all-weather patio to its East Vancouver headquarters and secured an official licensing partnership with Atari to produce retro gaming-themed craft beers, a collaboration that lines up neatly with the brand's retro branding, according to New School Beer + Cider.
With Vice Beer set to open its third Vancouver location on October 7, and Trap Door doubling down on Washougal and its ambitious Brush Prairie project, Main Street's Uptown corridor is set for a fresh face without losing an old one — Trap Door is simply putting down roots elsewhere in Clark County.
