Today’s news brought us yet another ranking. Oregon placed 5 breweries in the top 50 breweries in the country according to the Brewer’s Association – Widmer (known as Craft Brewers Alliance); Deschuttes Brewing; Full Sail Brewing; Rogue Brewing and finally Bridgeport Brewing. This list is based on 2008 beer sales volume. I’m so glad the list is from all over the state and includes one completely employee owned brewery – Full Sail. All of these brewers make great beer and support local brewing efforts – Rogue has its own Hop farm.
One thing I should note. The news broke via the Portland Business Journal whose headline was “Oregon places 4 breweries on list of ….” As you can see, I point out 5. The original list from the Brewer’s Alliance has Craft Brewers Alliance in Woodenville, Wa, instead of Portland. If you go to their site, you will see they state they are headquartered in Portland. The Portland Business Journal just repeated what they read and didn’t realize that CBA is a result of Widmer and Red Hook merging. I will give them the benefit of the doubt here.
Now for the question of the hour – or should it be questions? How many of the top 50 breweries have you had a beer from? How many have you actually visited? Me? I’ve sampled from 29 of the list and visited 7.
Another list was also published- top 50 Craft Brewers – defined as producing less than 2 million barrels. Oregon placed 5 breweries on the list, replacing Widmer from above with McMennamins.
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I think I’m at either 45 or 46 on the checklist – can’t remember what the Utah Brewers Cooperative actually makes.
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