Winter 2010

Clockwise from left: McMenamins, one of the first in craft
brewing, puts as much taste in its renovated properties as its
beers. Cascade Brewery brewmaster Ron Gansberg squeezes fruit
into a barrel for Raccoon Lodge. Oregon is the second largest hop
producer in the U.S. behind Washington. Pelican Brewery opened
doors to beach-goers of Pacific City in 1996.
written by Bob Woodward
with Laurel Bennett
Regarding the Henrys: The German Brewers
Oregon’s brewing fairy tale begins a long time ago in the loose confederation
of states now known as Germany. Henry Saxer, a German
immigrant, was first to the trade in the Oregon Territory, establishing
Liberty Brewery in Portland in 1852. But it was his successor,
Henry Weinhard, who would become the icon of Oregon beer for
the next hundred years.
The same year that Saxer opened Liberty Brewery, the 22-year-old
Weinhard, had just arrived in America by way of Ellis Island. Had
the French been precisely 34 years more punctual in their gifting of
the Statue of Liberty, the young German
might have envisioned a bottle of Henry
Weinhard’s beer, instead of a torch, atop
Lady Luck’s outstretched arm.
Born in the Kingdom of Württemberg
and apprenticed to the brewing trade
in Stuttgart, Weinhard, in 1852, emigrated
into America’s political foreplay
of the Civil War. New York City was no
civilized environment in which to ply his
brewing skills. Weinhard began brewing
his way westward, refining his craft
along the way—first in Philadelphia, then
Cleveland and finally out to Fort Vancouver,
Washington.
The Pacific Northwest must have appeared
to Weinhard as a missive sent
from an all-knowing all-loving, all-brewing
deity. Farmers were already growing
hops in the verdant valleys of the Oregon
Territory, and a thirsty throng of hearty
dock workers, lumbermen and laborers lived in nearby Portland,
where the only brewer in town was fellow German, Henry Saxer.
Weinhard crossed the Columbia to Portland in 1855 and partnered
with George Bottler to have a go at competing with Saxer.
Historical accounts say that Weinhard was disappointed with the
growth of the operations and retreated to the Columbia Brewery at
Fort Vancouver.
Shortly thereafter, Weinhard returned to Portland with more cash
“What Widmer and
BridgePort and the rest
brought to the scene
was that most blessed of
all benedictions: fresh
ale, brewed right there
right now. Overnight,
Portland became the
beer city in America.”
jonathan nicholas,
former Oregonian columnist
and a bolder strategy—to buy out his former partner and Saxer to
become the local monopoly on beer. Bold plans begat bold results.
Soon Weinhard was exporting beer to Asia and across the States. By
1875, his production had grown to more than 40,000 barrels from
just 2,000 when he re-acquired his brewery.
The Bonnet Brigade: Pre-prohibition
While Weinhard was busy making the Pacific Northwest hospitable
for beer drinkers, women with resolve in their bonnets were plotting
countermeasures. In an 1883 meeting at Portland’s First M.E.
Church, just blocks away from Weinhard’s
brewing empire on Burnside Avenue, pious
prohibitionists-to-be were organizing
what would become the Oregon Woman’s
Christian Temperance Union. They took
heart in the words of the guest speaker,
Frances E. Willard, the president of the
national chapter of the Woman’s Christian
Temperance Union:
Years from now, when your conventions
shall be deemed great
events, and your anniversaries shall
bring together its hundreds of thousands,
you will look back to these
words and thoughts and say, `those
women struck the keynote of success.’
(Twenty Eventful Years of the Oregon’s
Woman’s Christian Temperance Union;
Gotshall Printing Company, 1904)
If brewers, contemporary and past,
could wipe any day from history, it would
undoubtedly be this one. That day, motivated by vocation and now
strengthened by organization, women from all parts of the state
rushed forth from the pews of the Taylor Street church under the banner
of the Oregon Woman’s Christian Temperance Union—a crack
outfit that would soon deliver alcohol’s kill-vehicle: Prohibition.
The Temperance Union’s self-described state song, sent its soldiers
across the state with this tender tune:
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