Ultra Rare Unless You're There

Beers That Seldom Leave the Brewery.

- Brian Yaeger

Beer educator and Beer Judge Certification Program master judge Bill Schneller isn’t at Widmer Brothers Brewing for the Soursop Hefeweizen or Wit Noir IPA. ose are sexy yet ephemeral one-off s from Widmer’s 10-barrel innovation brewery. He’s here for a pint of Widmer Alt, the altbier that launched this Portland, Oregon, brewery in 1984.

“As Doug will tell you, I love Alt so much that every time I go to the Widmer Brothers Pub, it’s generally all I drink,” says Schneller. “I wish they’d bottle it, but there would be about six of us in the market who bought it.”

Doug Rehberg, Widmer’s senior director of brewing and quality, explains why the company brewpub is the place to go to enjoy a pint of Widmer Alt, if not the only place. The 80's gave rise to Widmer’s juggernaut American-style Hefeweizen, and Drop Top Amber has been the brewery’s second-best seller since the 90's. And nowadays people evidently want IPA's, sour beers and whatever is new. Widmer bottled the Alt in the late 90's as Springfest, but within a few years, Rehberg says, it was “mothballed.” As for pulling the plug on distributing Alt, Rehberg notes, “We didn’t make that decision so much as that’s what happened.” Widmer was originally self-distributed, but once distribution was sold to Maletis Beverage, sales of Widmer Alt “dropped off .”

As such, the sole place you’re guaranteed to fi nd Widmer Alt is at the Widmer Brothers Pub—rare is the off -premises account that scores a keg. In this era where production breweries distribute beer farther and farther from home, some produce beers only (or predominantly) found at the source.

SAME AS IT EVER WAS