Region & History

Why is Portland called "Beervana"? The nickname hinges on a law. Until 1985, brewpubs were illegal in Oregon because, since Prohibition, the production and on-site sale of alcohol had to remain separate. A brewpub is a pub that brews its own beer and serves it right there.

The state's House of Representatives passed the "Brewpub Bill" (HB 2284) unanimously, and Governor Vic Atiyeh signed it on July 13, 1985. Among those who had pushed for it were brothers Kurt and Robert Widmer, brothers Mike and Brian McMenamin, Dick and Nancy Ponzi of BridgePort, and the future founders of Portland Brewing.

Two breweries were already up and running by then. BridgePort opened in November 1984, back then still under the name Columbia River Brewing, while Widmer Brothers started operations in March 1985. Portland Brewing joined in 1986 as the city's third craft brewery. In 1988, Deschutes Brewery opened as a brewpub in Bend, roughly 250 kilometers to the southeast.

The scene has grown since then, though it has also shrunk in some places. In 2007, Redhook and Widmer Brothers announced their merger into the Craft Brewers Alliance, renamed Craft Brew Alliance in 2012. BridgePort had belonged to Texas-based Gambrinus since 1996; in February 2019 the brewery stopped brewing, and the brewpub closed on March 10, 2019.

There's no protected designation of origin for Oregon beer the way there is for Kölsch, and names like IPA or Pale Ale are unrestricted. In the US, "craft" is a term defined by the Brewers Association trade group: small means no more than 6 million barrels a year, roughly 7 million hectoliters, and independent means less than 25 percent owned by a company outside the craft scene.