When Widmer Brothers and Deschutes first started brewing in the mid- to late-1980s, craft beer didn’t exist, never mind a community built around it.
The term “craft beer†didn’t show up until Vince Cottone put it in his book “Good Beer Guide: Breweries and Pubs of the Pacific Northwest†in 1986. That was about two years after Kurt and Rob Widmer began setting up their Portland, Ore., brewery. Even when Gary Fish opened Deschutes Brewing Co. as a brewpub in Bend, Ore., in 1988, what is now known as craft beer was still being referred to as “specialty beer†or “microbrew.â€
Want to read more? Please click…