In your glass, it's a cold, golden cloud. In your mouth, it is a summery buzz, laced with lemon.
In your bottle, it's ... well, we're still waiting to see what it's like in the bottle.
The first bottling of Widmer Brothers Hefeweizen will be the biggest event in the short history of the Northwest craft brewing industry.
Bottled Widmer has the potential to expand quickly the market for craft-brewed beers, even as it nudges some weaker competitors out of the market. When the first bottled Widmer Hefeweizen arrives on grocery store shelves in May, it will reshape the regional brewscape.
"This is going to be fun," says Kurt Widmer.
He says it through clenched teeth, because the Widmer Brothers brewery on North Russell Street is in a bind this winter. It can't brew enough beer to meet demand, so it has been forced to cut back all the alts, bocks and berry beers just to keep enough Hefeweizen flowing into the spring.
Kurt and his brother, Rob Widmer, have slowed the brewery's sales off the loading dock to a trickle. They even have stopped letting employees take home their customary 2-liter bottles of beer at shift end.
"We have taken some painful measures," Kurt Widmer conceded.
But when the new, $20 million brewery and bottling plant opens, stand back. All the financial, mechanical and technical horsepower that went into the project will be unleashed to brew a variety of draught and bottled beers.
Especially Hefeweizen.
New arrivals to this part of the world may not yet understand the beervana culture that has emerged. Portland was the first and biggest hotbed of microbrewing, a term the original brewers such as Widmer, Full Sail, Bridgeport and Portland now eschew in favor of "craft brewing."
The receptive climate for the beers in this region started something that made even the biggest brewers take notice. That's why today you see so many stock offerings and joint ventures involving regional breweries.
The primary liquid that fueled beervana was Hefeweizen, particularly the cloudy, unfiltered brand popularized by Widmer. The Widmers don't particularly care to think of it as an entry-level craft beer, but in fact it is. Ask any Oregonian who's introduced a newcomer to a microbrew.
The Hefeweizen that's familiar around here is a Northwest variant of the Bavarian style of a wheat-based beer. The Widmers created it more or less by chance 11 years ago when Carl Simpson, the manager of the Dublin Pub, asked them to make a cask-conditioned type of beer that could be served cold.
"We decided to sneak some out of the bottom of the tank without filtering it," said Kurt. "We did it just for him."
Simpson, who still manages the Dublin Pub, though it has since relocated to the westside, said those first Hefeweizens "took off like lightning."
"We sold it in a 23-ounce glass," said Simpson. "We started using the lemon with it. It was the college-age kids who really liked it."
Even after 11 years, said Simpson, "I've never seen anyone not like it."
Most popular microbrew
From the Dublin Pub to other taverns in the region, Widmer Hefeweizen quickly became the most popular microbrew on tap. It spawned imitations, though nobody has quite matched the original in terms of the heavy suspension of yeast and cool, bready flavor.
But while the Widmers were satisfied to push their beers through the taps of pubs and restaurants, other brewers moved quickly into the bottling game. Adding bottled product is a big step for a small brewer, because it's expensive and harder to get it just right. Such brewers as Seattle's Pyramid and Portland's Nor'Wester have pushed bottled wheat beers onto the store shelves ahead of Widmer. That gives them an initial advantage in the retail channel. But they hear Widmer's footsteps.
"When I started the brewery, I used to tell people that one-third of my body weight was Widmer Hefeweizen," said Nor'Wester President Jim Bernau, whose company went public last month. "I was inspired by Widmer to make a Hefeweizen."
Bernau said he fully expects to feel the effects of Widmer's entry into the bottled beer category. But he said he expects Widmer ultimately to expand sales for everybody.
"I think Nor'Wester and Pyramid are going to feel it resoundingly on day one," insisted Jerome Chicvara, co-founder of Hood River's Full Sail Brewing Co. Full Sail doesn't brew a Hefeweizen, partly it seems out of respect for Widmer's role in inventing the type.
"I think that Kurt Widmer's American rendition of a German style pioneered an entirely new beer style in the United States. Everything else is a copy," said Chicvara. By bottling Widmer Hefeweizen, "he's trying to regain his position as an innovator."
Portland loves Hefeweizen
One distributor says that more than half of all the craft beers sold in Oregon are Hefeweizens. And the biggest chunk of those are Widmer's - all on tap. That's why the introduction of Widmer Hefeweizen in the bottle is going to make a big difference in the industry.
Even Seattle's Redhook, every bit a microbrewing pioneer in its own right, is racing to get its new bottled Hefeweizen on the shelves. Paul Shipman, Redhook's founder and president, said it's just coincidence that his Hefeweizen will be introduced at about the same time as Widmer's.
"The people of Oregon are going to be very lucky to have so many choices in the Hefeweizen category," said Shipman, "but that's not surprising since the people in Oregon are the biggest Hefeweizen consumers probably in the world."
Even so, said distributor Ed Maletis of Columbia Distributing, retail shoppers who buy bottled Hefeweizens don't seem particularly faithful to any brand. But that will change in May, he thinks.
"Once the Widmer bottles come out, I think you're going to get more brand loyalty in that category," Maletis said. "Ten or 11 years of brand equity will now be available in grocery stores.
"It's going to be huge."
Mike Francis' column appears on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. He can be reached at The Oregonian, 1320 S.W. Broadway, Portland, Ore. 97201, by phone at (503)221-8542, by fax at (503)294-4079, or by e-mail at mfrancis@ortel.org. Copyright 1996, Oregonian Publishing Co.
