Video: New Beers from Ninkasi, Widmer

On Thursday January 19, 2012, two of Oregon’s biggest craft breweries held events to celebrate new beer releases.

Ninkasi Brewing of Eugene, in conjunction with Stone Brewing (Escondido, CA) and The Alchemist Pub (Waterbury, VT) debuted the draught premiere of More Brown Than Black IPA at Bridgetown Beerhouse. The beer, as previously mentioned, is a benefit to help raise funds and awareness for the business community of Waterbury, VT that suffered devastating effects from Hurricane Irene. The Alchemist Pub was not spared by this tragedy and plans are currently in the works to get the brewpub up and running as soon as possible. The beer brewed for this collaboration is a Cascadian Dark Ale/Black IPA with a bold hops profile and a minimal dark malt roastiness. Bridgetown Beerhouse founder Mike Waite was on hand to showcase the newly remodeled bottleshop and pub that now features a handful of rotating craft beer taps.

Just down the street, Widmer Bros Brewing hosted an intimate media preview tasting for two of their newest releases. Co-founder Rob Widmer was on hand to discuss their first ever beer, Widmer Alt as well as the two newest aforementioned bottle and draught released brews. W’12 is the latest in Widmer’s annual W Series in which brewers are given free reign to create a style outside of the box. This year’s beer is a Dark Saison is a sweeter than dry Belgian-style ale. In addition, Widmer brewmaster Joe Casey, a 16-year employee of Widmer who oversees operations at all five of Widmer’s facilities, was in attendance to address the crowd about the W ’12 as well as the latest Rotator IPA release, a tea-spiced beer brewed collaboratively with the San Diego homebrew society known as QUAFF. Widmer lead brewer Doug Rehberg was also amongst the folks in attendance and was available to answer questions.