Beer Guide 2013 Widmer Brothers Brewing started in 1984, when six breweries controlled 90 percent of the American beer market. With the help of family, including their father, Ray, brothers Kurt and Rob Widmer op   More

Food & Drink On May 16, the three Portland breweries which make gluten-free beer—Widmer Bros., Deschutes, and Harvester—stood shoulder to shoulder as Mayor Sam Adams declared it Gluten Free Beer Day.Such innocent times!A new ruling is complicating things in the burgeoning gluten-free beer market. Eight days after the celebration, the Treasury Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (known as the "TTB") handed ...   More

Food & Drink It’s the Oregon Brewers Guild’s job to disseminate information about its member breweries to you, the drinking public. There’s no better way to start spreading the brews than by inviting you, the drinking public, to sample their wares—most of them free and fresh. Saturday marks the 3rd Annual Zwickelmania. A zwickel is a special valve, oftentimes resembling a metal, coiled pig-tail, that allows ...   More

News Not all the news is glum these days. The 31st annual Shamrock Run this Sunday is experiencing an 18 percent jump this year in participants with more than 19,000 expected to attend. And race officials say the increase comes on top of last year's 45 percent jump. Run coordinator Steve Hamilton has been involved in the event since its beginning and attributes the “burst of growth” ...   More

News Updated with more info: It's really happening! Tomorrow, Friday, May 1, Burgerville will start serving local wine and beer at its Salmon Creek location in Vancouver. That's right—order a Widmer Hefeweizen to go with your pepper bacon cheeseburger. Genius! (We've got a call in to Burgerville to find out when Portland might start getting some sudsy action too). According to the Burgerville ...   More

News The Widmer Brothers are not the only businessmen in Portland criticizing a rule from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that will require costly upgrades to Portland's drinking-water system. Some of the city's commercial launderers -- the businesses that clean the tablecloths, napkins, hotel-room sheets, uniforms, bath towels and bar towels that Portlanders and their visitors use daily ...   More

News A years-long battle with the feds [PDF] over Portland's drinking water crosses another threshold next week as City Council considers how it will respond to the totally sexy-sounding "Long Term 2 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule" from the Environmental Protection Agency. First, some background: Last year, the U.S. District Court of Appeals rejected a plea from Portland leaders to deem parts ...   More