Minor Matters Books

RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987
RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987
RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987
RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987
RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987
RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987
RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987
RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987
RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987
RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987
RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987
RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987
RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987 RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987 RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987 RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987 RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987 RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987 RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987 RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987 RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987 RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987 RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987 RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987

RUNNING WILD: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987

$65.00

THANK YOU, CO-PUBLISHERS!!! We are moving forward!!!

Anticipated release fall 2026

Based on the documentary Rainier: A Beer Odyssey by Isaac Olsen, Justin Peterson, and Robby Peterson

Essays by Kathleen Cain and John Keister

9.5 x 10.75 inches; approximately 150 color and black and white images; 144 pages; hardcover. $65.00 + $9.95 domestic shipping

Rainier: A Beer Odyssey is an acclaimed documentary romp through the 1970s–1980s culture of the Northwest, featuring the brilliant minds and eyes behind the Rainier Beer campaigns of that period.

The defining tropes of those advertisements are also hallmarks of a region in transition. Logging and fishing industries were bumping up against tribal rights and environmentalism. Seattle, the city that launched the nation’s first farmers market and promoted the Space Age of the 21st century, was reckoning with a depressed economy triggered by Boeing’s massive layoffs, and the social shifts bolstered by newly-legislated civil liberties throughout the nation.

Amidst all of that was a quiet unifying force, the hyper-local Rainier, “every person’s” beer, produced in Seattle with hops from Eastern Washington's Yakima Valley.

The documentary film on which the book is based goes behind the scenes on iconic ad campaigns, exploring the genius, humor, and resourcefulness of a small team of creative people who tapped into their region’s quirky spirit of place. Generating unforgettable language, sounds, and imagery, their ads lodged themselves into the psyche of a broad audience that decades later can still belt out “Rainier Beer” to the cadence of a motorcycle changing gears. 

Running Wild: The Rainier Beer Campaigns 1974–1987 is drawn from the 2024 film Rainier: A Beer Odyssey, and includes select advertisements, imagery, and behind-the-scenes concept material, while also exploring the film’s origins as a five-year labor of friendship and mutual interest between its creators—Isaac Olsen, Justin Peterson, and Robby Peterson.
 

BIOS

Rainier: A Beer Odyssey was conceived, developed, produced and is independently distributed by Isaac Olsen and the Peterson Brothers. Select footage used in the film is housed by the Washington State Historical Society (WSHS). The film continues to be viewed by thousands of people in independent theatres since its Seattle International Film Festival premiere in 2024. For more information or to attend a forthcoming screening, please visit: www.rainierbeermovie.com 

Isaac Olsen (b. 1986, and lives in, Tacoma) is a self-taught filmmaker and documentarian. His emphasis on visual storytelling and extensive experience wrangling every imaginable form of archival media uniquely prepared him for Rainier: A Beer Odyssey, the ultimate collage-style film.  

Olsen’s previous documentaries— Walk Don’t Run: The Story of The Ventures (2022), Semi-Iconic: The Ballad of Dick Rossetti (2017), and Strictly Sacred: The Story of Girl Trouble (2014)—have all explored the intersections of art and commerce.

Robby and Justin Peterson (both b. 1981, and live in, Tacoma) have spent most of their lives working side by side. Raised in a family of collectors, the brothers developed an early love for garage sales, thrift stores, and Northwest history. This last interest is visible in every project they’ve developed.

In the early 2000s, they began filming music videos for local bands, which led to projects with Pacific Northwest legends including Buck Ormsby of The Fabulous Wailers, and Don Wilson of The Ventures. Their documentary-style film work has taken them across the U.S. and to Japan.

In 2012, they built their first bar and restaurant, Peterson Bros. 1111, in the Hilltop neighborhood of Tacoma. They opened The Valley, which includes live music, in downtown Tacoma in 2014, and Peaks and Pints in the Proctor neighborhood in 2016. Peterson Bros. 1111 is a key character in the origin story of Rainier: A Beer Odyssey.