BridgePort
Brewing Company
1313 NW Marshall St., 241-7179
When Dick and Nancy Ponzi took out a 20-year lease on a corner
of an old industrial building on Northwest Marshall Street
in 1984, they weren't thinking about the possible cachet of
exposed brick walls and wandering gallerygoers. Nor were they
thinking of the history of those nearby blocks where Henry
Saxer, Louis Feurer and Henry Weinhard had founded breweries
in the mid-1800s. They had only one thing on their minds:
cheap rent. They were hoping that with a little luck, the
brewery they were patching together from converted dairy equipment
would one day produce a malty alternative to tin-can lagers.
Now BridgePort Brewing Company is celebrating its 15th
anniversary. Much has changed, including the owners and
the name (it was originally Columbia River Brewery), but
much has remained the same. The old building is still there,
now a model for the industrial chic that defines the Pearl
District, and so is the founding brewer, Karl Ockert, whom
I sat down with recently to discuss BridgePort's journey.
Though microbreweries had already opened in California
and Washington, the notion of "craft-brewing" beer in small
batches was mostly an untested one in 1984. Oregon's only
previous attempt, the Cartwright Brewery, opened for business
in 1979 but closed two years later. Ockert, who had just
returned from studying brewing at the University of California
at Davis, ran into Dick Ponzi, and the two began discussing
opening a brewery. Despite the failure of Cartwright, they
still thought it could be a viable business. "We were both
drinking McEwan's [a malty Scottish ale] at the time, and
we thought it would work great in Portland," Ockert says.
They leased the old warehouse on Marshall Street in April,
then set about installing equipment and making test batches.
In November the brewery released its first beer, BridgePort
Ale, what would become the BridgePort hallmark. It was a
true English-style ale, malty-sweet, slightly toffeeish
and well-balanced.
But the big test wasn't brewing a great beer as much as
selling it to bars that were used to serving only
ice-cold macropilsners. "You got this skinny kid trying
to go into a pub with a keg of beer, and he wants twice
as much money for it, and the beer tastes strong, and he's
trying to convince you that maybe you want to serve it a
little warmer than other beers," Ockert recalls. "They didn't
know what to make of it. I mean, these are guys who believe
the only way to serve beer is in a glass that has been frosted
and has a layer of ice on it."
Fortunately, there was a small core of people like Don
Younger at the Horse Brass and Carl Simpson at the Dublin
Pub who supported the idea of microbrewing and put BridgePort
Ale on tap. Just months behind BridgePort, Widmer and Portland
Brewing opened, creating a buzz of interest in the city.
Buoyed by local media, Portlanders felt they were witnessing
the birth of an industry, and people started drinking the
new "microbrew." About that time, the Ponzis changed the
name from Columbia River Brewery to that of their signature
beer, BridgePort.
Then in 1987, Mike Houck, an urban naturalist, inspired
BridgePort's most famous local beer. The blue heron had
just been named the official city bird; Houck, a regular
at the brewery, suggested they celebrate the designation.
They did, adopting the name for their new bitter (and raising
money for the Portland chapter of the Audubon Society in
the process). It didn't take long for Blue Heron Ale to
become the emblem of Portland, and the city quickly became
the star of craft brewing.
Blue Heron's reputation as the city beer was tested in
1995, when the Ponzis sold BridgePort to San Antonio-based
Gambrinus, an importer of Corona beer. Far from abandoning
the brewery's mission, however, new owner Carlos Alvarez
immediately invested in the brewery's future by refocusing
the line of beers and spending $3.8 million on new equipment.
He capitalized on BridgePort's reputation for cask-conditioning,
introducing a new line of beers with the "Firkin" tag (in
England, a firkin is a size of keg--not an expletive). With
the success of BridgePort IPA, a beer introduced in '96,
the brewery is once again experiencing remarkable growth
and is hopeful about the future. "We're not a fly-by-night
anymore," Ockert says, with equal parts pride and amusement.
"We're older than Microsoft."
When the Henry Weinhard plant closes up later this summer,
BridgePort will become Oregon's oldest brewery. With its
old brick walls, enormous timber support beams, tall windows
and wooden bar, the building fills the role of Oregon's
elder brewery nicely. One could easily imagine that BridgePort
is turning 100 instead of 15. For those close to the brewery,
a lot has changed since 1984. For those of us who've stopped
by in the years since to sip a pint on the loading dock,
though, much is comfortingly the same.
Previous
Mash columns:
KÖLSCH
Me Again
Big
In Belgium
Spring
Beer Fest
Trappist Ales Await
Prohibition
Sneaks Back?
Bock
Is Back
Goodbye Blitz-Weinhard
McBeer
Beyond the Pint Glass
A Bounty of Barley Wine
Look Into My Crystal Ball
Rising with the Tide
The Benefits of Age
Winter Brews
Potpourri
Great American Beer Festival
Bizarre Brews
Oktoberfest
Hop Harvest
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Willamette Week | originally
published June 16, 1999
|
