2007 Was Banner Beer Year for Oregon

The Oregon Brewers Guild today put out 2007 information on Oregon beer production. Suffice to say it was a good year for the industry in this state as production grew at 8.1 percent over 2006. Putting it another way, there were about 860,000 barrels of beer made last year, compared to 796,000 the year prior. That's a lot of beer.

We here in Oregon are consuming a good amount of that. The Guild said 308,000 barrels was purchased and consumed somewhere in our borders. Draft beer was reportedly even higher, with 42 percent of what got consumed being produced locally. This is said to be the highest local craft draft beer consumption nationally.

It was noted Portland has 32 microbreweries in the city limits, said to be more than any other city in the world. 64 exist statewide - the largest being Widmer at 283,000 barrels and one of the smallest being Heater-Allen in McMinnville, producing just 36 barrels of the good stuff.