Kurt and Rob Widmer

Cloudy Beer
and Table Tents:
Kurt and Rob Widmer
by Brian Libby
Photos Provided by Widmer
At an urban crossroads bustling with Portland’s past and future,
the Widmer Brothers headquarters, Gasthaus Pub, and the brewery reside on North Russell, a spot they’ve occupied since 1984.
Nearby, rusty freight trains sit idle next to massive shipyards, while
the MAX light rail train runs along North Interstate just outside the
Gasthaus entrance. Up the street, the industrial landscape collides
with urban condos, hip bars, and swank eateries. Portland, a once subdued city, is now one of America’s hottest
metropolises, known for fresh, local cuisine, world-class wine, and
more craft beer than most cities in the world. Not to mention, it’s
overwhelmingly beautiful (even on rainy days). Portland’s newfound
reputation didn’t happen overnight—years of entrepreneurs, innovation, and a continued creativity have propelled Portland into the
spotlight, and Kurt and Rob Widmer, owners of Widmer Brothers
Brewing Company, have been an integral part of this revolution.
But they’re just brewers, you say. Nah, in a city that boasts more
breweries per capita than any other city in the world, the Widmer
brothers are definitely more than just brewers.
The Widmer brand is ubiquitous in Oregon, and us Northwesterners, who are deliciously spoiled by an abundance of craft beer, likely
take Widmer brews for granted. While other people were watching
Mary Lou Retton in the Olympics, voting in the Regan-versus-Mondale presidential election, or collecting Duran Duran albums, Kurt
and Rob Widmer were furiously scraping together enough money
to open Widmer Brewing. Like most start-up businesses, the brothers were tight on funds and worked at the brewery nearly 24 hours
a day, seven days a week. They’d make beer at night and deliver
kegs in the daytime.
“We never considered ourselves workaholics,” Rob says. “But if
we didn’t do it, the work wasn’t going to get done. In those days we
spent more time in boots and gloves on the beer part and not sitting
in meetings. It was a lot simpler time, but physically it was a killer.
Both of our backs where really hurting hauling kegs around.”
Two years after the brewery opened, Widmer
launched what would become its signature brew:
Hefeweizen, a traditional German wheat beer with
an American twist. At first, the famously cloudy
appearance was filtered out. But one client, Carl
Simpson, owner of Portland’s Dublin Pub, insisted
they brew him a special unfiltered Hefeweizen—it
soon became Widmer’s signature.
“It was supposed to be just for this guy,” Rob remembers. “We said, ‘Here it is, good luck.’ [Simpson] almost single-handedly made it very successful. His place served a lot of other bar managers,
and with the Hefeweizen, people had seen nothing
like this before. Carl poured it in those big pilsner
glasses, which nobody had. People had to try it,
which is a great thing about Portlanders. They’re
adventurous beer drinkers.”
“We’re doing the exact same
thing as when we started.
We’re brewing beer.”
Brothers first and brewery owners second, Rob
and Kurt Widmer shuffle into a brick-clad conference room. They fall easily into a discussion about
how much has changed, while also pointing out
how much is the same. Widmer may have been
a once-tiny craft brewery, but today, the company employs more than 150 people and produces
200,000 barrels of beer annually—though they
keep the small brewery mentality in mind.
“For the last 25 years, we’ve been growing like
crazy,” says Rob, clad in a collared cotton shirt
tucked behind a sweater. “Sometimes it feels like
the tail of the tiger. The other side of it, though,
is that we’re doing the exact same thing as when
we started. We’re brewing beer. We’ve got a lot of
whistles and bells now, but at the end of the day
it’s no different from being at home by the stove,
making beer.”
Though Widmer has been successful in marketing their brand nation-wide, volume and sales
have never been top priority. A more appropriate
barometer of success is that the company’s signature Hefeweizen brew, has twice (in 1998 and
2006) won the Gold Medal at the Great American
Beer Fest, and was also a Gold Medal winner at the
World Beer Cup in 2004 and 2008. This is a testament to Widmer’s commitment to maintaining consistent quality, thanks to Brewmaster Joe Casey,
who has been working at Widmer since 1995.
“Small microbrewers claim that none of their
batches are the same, and there’s something to be
said for that,” says Don Younger, longtime proprietor
of Portland’s Horse Brass Pub and one of the first
bar owners to serve local microbrews on draught in
the early 1980s. “But the Widmer [beers] are always
crisp and clean, which is hard to do.”
Though some people may argue otherwise, Widmer Brothers wasn’t actually the first microbrewery
in Portland. That honor goes to the Cartwright, a
short-lived outlet in Southeast Portland’s Hawthorne
district, that brewed beer in 1979. However, Widmer
Brothers and Bridgeport Brewing are generally considered second or, depending on how you define it,
the first to really establish themselves as true craft
beer brands.
“I just spent a couple hours with Kurt and Rob
yesterday going over this,” Younger says. “With
Widmer and Bridgeport, I think one had a permit
first and the other had beer first. Bridgeport took off
with English-themed ales and stouts. The Widmers
went German.”
Love of beer has always been in the Widmer family. One of the brothers’ first inspirations was their
uncle Walt. “He was first guy I knew who homebrewed beer,” Rob recalls. “As a little kid he’d flatter
me by letting me pick out beers from his cellar and
try them.” The German inspiration behind the Widmer brews came from Kurt and Rob’s mother, who
moved to the U.S. from Düsseldorf. After graduating
from the University of Oregon, Kurt spent two years
traveling in Germany. ”I have some very fond memories of being there in my 20s, drinking Bohemian
pilsner and having fun,” he says.
Shortly after he returned from Germany, Kurt
founded Widmer Brewing Company in Portland with
Rob, and they began brewing with a unique yeast
starter that was developed at the Brewing Research
Institute in Weihenstephan, Bavaria. Tapping their
German heritage was also good for business in the
early West Coast craft brewery scene.
“We looked around and there were a couple other
operational microbreweries in California and Washington,” Kurt adds. “They were all doing English
ales.” The first official beer under the Widmer brand
was an alt beer. “It’s king back in Düsseldorf,” Kurt
explains, “but it was way too bitter for people [in the
U.S.] back then. Still is probably.”
Younger has a different interpretation. “Their first
beer was a gorgeous alt,” he says, “and it became
a kind of instant legend. I ask them every time why
they don’t brew it anymore. They always tell me,
‘We’ll get around to it.’”
In the 1980s, the local beer market was dominated
by macro-brewed beers and most advertising was
done on television. Oregon’s microbrews advanced
mostly on word of mouth, but Kurt and Rob also fell
upon a stroke of luck, which helped introduce people
to their brand.
“I went around to different bars and restaurants
before we started up to see what the response might
be to a locally brewed beer,” Kurt explains. “Most
people were curious but skeptical. They said, ‘How
will my customers know I have it?’ I asked one of
them for suggestions. At that time, almost everywhere people used table tents, these big honking
ones. This guy told me, ‘Just make little discreet
table tents and even white-tablecloth restaurants will
use them.’ And it was true.”
The table tents were one catalyst for the Widmers and another landmark was when the company
began selling their beer in bottles in 1996. By then,
Widmer Hefeweizen was so popular that it was outselling Miller brands in restaurants and bars. When
the brewery opened, the brothers produced about
10 barrels of beer per week, and now they produce
nearly 500 barrels a day, with the signature wheat
beer accounting for about 70 percent of sales.
For more than a decade, the Widmer brothers
have provided a way for local homebrewers to be
recognized. Every year, they hold a home brewing
contest in conjunction with the Oregon Brew Crew
homebrewing club. The winner then gets to help
brew small batches (about 18 kegs) of their brew on
Widmer’s commercial equipment, under the name
Collaborator. “They’re like proud parents,” Rob says.
“The home brewers tend to labor in obscurity. So
when they can go to the Horse Brass or the Gasthaus and say, ‘That’s my beer,’ that gives them legitimacy. And as brewers, [Kurt and I] have always
fooled around. We pour a lot of beers that never get
beyond the pub. That’s where most of our popular
beers have started.”
Some of these popular brews include Broken Halo
India Pale Ale, Drop Top Amber Ale, Snow Plow Milk
Stout, and specialties like Winternacht, Saison Christophe, and Old Embalmer barleywine. Many of the
Widmer brews started as seasonals, with some styles
changing in character each year and others, like the
Oktoberfest, remaining virtually unchanged. Seasonal beer is the perfect fit as part of a larger movement
Oregon Craft Beer History
July is Oregon Craft Beer Month.
promoting local, organic, and seasonal ingredients,
which has become a staple of Portland cuisine.
“In the past 25 years, we’ve [noticed] people looking for better food, nicer clothing, better coffee, nicer
cars, just quality-of-life things,” Kurt says. “That’s true
everywhere to some extent, but I think we’ve been part
of that [in Portland]. We’re constantly reminded what
an anomaly Portland and Oregon are. No other state
comes remotely close to the percentage of sales of
craft beer. It’s been a fabulous place to start up and be
pioneers.”
As these middle-aged brothers inch closer to collecting Social Security checks, Widmer Brothers faces a
generational transition many companies don’t survive.
But Kurt and Rob are confident that Widmer Brothers
will long outlast the Widmer brothers.
At one point as we talk, the brothers suddenly rush
out of the conference room to catch an employee passing by. “She just lost her mom,” Rob explains, apologizing. The brothers can sympathize, having just lost their
father three weeks earlier. “He was here pretty much
from day one, and was instrumental in helping us build
and operate the brewery,” Kurt says. “Our dad continued to work here for us until just a few years ago.”
Both brothers say they still love coming to work, but
they also take time to enjoy life. In the winter, Rob hits
the ski slopes, even if he confesses to thinking about
the business while he rides the chairlifts. Kurt and his
wife travel frequently in Europe, and have an excursion
planned for later this year to South Africa, Botswana,
and Zambia.
“Continuing Widmer Brothers is important, but not
because of us,” Kurt says. “It’s because of the people
who work here. We have responsibilities to others who
drink the beer, but especially to those who make it.
When you get to a certain size, and I think we’re close
to that, it becomes self-sustaining. We’ve got people
who are way smarter than us in every aspect of the
business. “
But the brothers aren’t going away anytime soon.
“People always ask us what our goals are for the future
and it never really changes,” Rob says. “It’s not very
fancy. We just want to make the best beer we can.”
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Check out www.oregonbeer.org for details.
Long live Oregon beer!
1863 Young German immigrant, Henry Weinhard, opens
City Brewery in what is now Portland’s Pearl District.
1888 Weinhard offers to pump beer from his brewery
via fire hoses to Portland’s Skidmore Fountain. Weinhard’s offer is vetoed by civic leaders who believe people
will help themselves to beer by poking holes in the fire
hoses before the beer reaches the fountain.
1916 Prohibition begins in Oregon four years before
the rest of the country and Weinhard’s begins producing
root beer and other soft drinks to stay in business.
1933 Prohibition is repealed.
1976 Publican Don Younger opens the Horse Brass Pub
in Portland.
1978 President Jimmy Carter signs a bill legalizing
homebrewing.
1981 Winemaker Charles Coury opens Portland’s first
microbrewery, Cartwright Brewing Co; it closes soon after.
1984 Brothers Kurt and Rob Widmer establish Widmer
Brewing Company, later renamed Widmer Brothers Brew-
ing Company. Columbia River Brewing Co. is opened by the
winemaking Ponzi family, and in 1987 is renamed BridgePort
Brewing Co.
1985 Oregon legislature passes a law enabling brewers to
sell their beer directly to the public, thus the birth of brewpubs. Mike and Brian McMenamin take advantage of this
law and open their first brewpub, the Hillsdale Brewery and
Public House.
1987 One of the first breweries to market its product in
bottles, Full Sail Brewing Co., opens in Hood River.
1988 First annual Oregon Brewers Festival in Portland,
founded by Portland Brewing (now Pyramid), Widmer
Brothers Brewing, and BridgePort Brewing.
1990 With more microbreweries and brewpubs per
capita than any other city in the U.S., Portland wins the
title “America’s Microbrew Capital.”
1999 The Blitz-Weinhard Brewery closes its doors after
143 years.
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Brian Libby is a freelance writer living (and consuming the occasional lager, pale ale, or pilsner) in Portland, Oregon.
2005 Caldera Brewing Company in Ashland is the first
microbrewery in Oregon to can its beers.
2008 Three major Oregon distribution companies, Mt. Hood
Beverage Company, Columbia Distributing Company, and Gold
River Distributing merge to form CoHo Distributing.
*Some statistics obtained from the Oregon Brewers Guild.