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Marcus Reed knows the law. He also knows beer.

So when the Portland law firm of Cosgrave Vergeer Kester decided to create a blog to serve its growing clients in the brewing industry, firm attorney Reed was the perfect choice to spearhead the project.

A hobby home beer brewer, Reed has formed a solid portion of his legal practice around the beverage. His client list currently includes about 20 Pacific Northwest breweries.

“When I first came to Cosgrave, I told them I wanted to start a brewery practice,” Reed said. “I definitely speak the language.”

Reed started learning beer-speak back when he was in college in Ohio, where he grew up. He and a friend from high school wandered into a store that sold kits to brew beer at home.

That first brewing experience was a little like baking brownies, Reed said. Add the ingredients in the kit, follow the directions, and the end result was what Reed recalls being a decent Irish red brew.

“A part of that memory is probably the pride of creation,” he said.

He took a hiatus from home brewing as he finished college. Then he moved to Oregon, where he not only began law school at the University of Oregon, but also made friends with a group of guys who shared his interest both in drinking beer and brewing it.

For a short time, the group considered opening an official brewery. They bought some equipment and even decided to start a Facebook page.

“It came to a stop with trying to come up with a name (for our brewery),” Reed said. “And then basically we all had kids and decided we’d better keep our day jobs.”

Reed and his friends have since settled into a comfortable place brewing occasional batches of beer for themselves and their families, calling their home-based venture the Hollow Earth Brewing Company. But the experience of flirting with brewing as an actual business venture convinced Reed that he could carve a niche for his law practice.

Breweries have unique legal needs, Reed said. A brewery is a manufacturer, a retailer and a wholesaler all rolled into one business entity. Breweries also tend to lean toward the creative when it comes to funding start-up operations.

“A lot of people who start breweries don’t start with a lot of capital,” Reed said. “They have to find ways to raise it. They’ve become very savvy at it: Kickstarter campaigns, finding people to loan them money. The industry is so prevalent (in Oregon), you get banks that actually have people specializing in (providing loans for breweries).”

When it came to turning his knowledge about beer into a blog for his law firm, there were several approaches he could have tapped. Plenty of law firms have blogs, but they usually tend to be filled with legal advice about starting and running a business.

Knowing that brewers are rarely a staid, traditional lot, Reed decided to kick off his version of a blog with content that was as unique and entrepreneurial as his brewery clients. One post announced that a new venture called Baerlic Brewing has opened its doors in Southeast Portland. Another digs into the history and resurgence of beer growlers.

“Currently, a lot of pieces are about products,” Reed said. “We have a review of beers, a story of a new brewery. We try to be very client-centric, to provide a service to our clients.”

As the blog gains both readers and contributors, Reed would like to add posts that will expand the blog into a “cross-marketing platform.”

“The intention is that the blog be 鈥� a resource so that my clients and other breweries can go there and find more information about service providers in this town that are tailored to the brewing industry,” Reed said.

When he’s ready to make that expansion to the blog, he’ll know where to turn for information. Reed is a member, and co-founder, of the Beverage Industry Networking Group, whose members come from a wide range of disciplines that provide services breweries need.

“It’s a standard networking group format, one person per discipline: one CPA, one attorney, a malt provider, an electrician, a plumber,” Reed said. “There’s incredible energy because everyone is so passionate about the industry. A new brewery owner could walk into one of these meetings and find everything they need.”