Pour Widmer!
One of our favorite beer websites, BeerNews.org, has a detailed report on the latest beer/tragedy over at Widmer Brothers Brewing. A large quantity of the latest imperial IPA from the brewery was lost to an unfortunate power outage. BeerNews points us to various links including Jeff Alworth’s Beervana blog and the Portland Mercury. Here’s the dig:
Widmer confirms that this will be a year-round brew. It uses Nelson Sauvin hops from New Zealand. Rob Widmer disclosed the reason for dumping the beer on the Beervana blog: “The batch was stuck in the kettle for more than 8 hours. Color development continues, DMS becomes an issue and we’d miss our hop bitterness target. That and the unknown so we didn’t want to fool around.”]
(Portland, OR) – Wow, you don’t hear about a new beer in this fashion very often. Sarah Mirk of the Portland Mercury reported earlier this afternoon that there was a morning power outage in the city of Portland. Other than creating a headache for commuters, the outage left at least one other significant casualty: 7,750 gallons of beer that was in-process at Widmer Brothers. Not just any beer though.
The batch of beer that was lost is a new Imperial IPA that the Portland brewery was working on for a February 1st release. Widmer Deadlift is a heavily-hopped 9.5% ABV beer and the most expensive one that the brewery is currently making according to Co-Founder, Rob Widmer. That is 62,000 pints according to his math and a major loss for Widmer.
The Mercury notes that it wasn’t a complete loss, “According to Kurt Widmer, the ruined beer will instead be shipped off to cattle farms to be used as either feed or fertilizer. As Kurt explains, Widmer turns most of its beer by-products into cattle feed. After the sugar is extracted from barley malts and wheat malts, the grains apparently make pretty nutritious non-alcoholic cow food.”
Hats of to Widmer for handling this unforeseen and unfortunate situation with class. Once this beer hits the shelves, make sure to show your support for this great Oregon brewery!
About The Author
Angelo
Angelo grew up in Maine and is proud to call New England his original home. Cascadia is now his home. He fell in love with great beer in Oregon, Washington, and Northern California. He has been a correspondent for the Portland Tribune's Guest on Tap column, LivePDX.com, and has been featured in publications such as Beer Northwest and PDX Magazine. Angelo also has a great interest in independent music, and has been a booker and organizer for shows around the Portland under the name Pop Tomorrow! Angelo garnered much knowledge regarding beer from his experiences homebrewing, working at Belmont Station, Pyramid Brewing, Upright Brewing, By the Bottle, Beer Revolution, Olde Depot Public House, Falling Sky Brewing, Cascade Brewing, and from many many knowledgeable, passionate, and loving people along the way. It is Angelo's mission to bring "infotainment" and "edumation" to the readers of this website. If you have any questions or comments, or would like to contribute, please contact me at angelo@brewpublic.com
I can’t wait for this one!!!! I really like thier broken Halo. It has a great aroma and hop taste to it. One of my “go to’ reg IPAs.
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