| The Collaborator Project is a collaboration between home brewers in the Oregon Brew Crew and Rob and
Kurt Widmer of
Widmer Brewing. It all started when the Widmers and fellow
Oregon Brew Crew members were talking about
how few craft beer styles were available. At the time, craft brewing was holding to the popular styles. If
you lived in America and wanted a Belgian Wit or Schwarzbier, you had to depend on beers from Europe. The fact
was that these esoteric styles would never be profitable for commercial breweries in the US.
Kurt and Rob looked at that as an opportunity and challenged the Oregon Brew Crew to have an annual competition where the best of the club's beers, regardless of style, would be brewed and served by Widmer Brewing. In the spring of 1998, the first beer chosen was Scott Sanders' English Brown Ale but for whatever reasons, the Milk Stout was the first to be brewed by Widmer Brewing and was served in the summer of 1998. This Stout became known as the Collaborator Stout and was an instant success. Over the years, this Collaborator beer has probably been brewed more often than all of the subsequent Collaborator beers combined. Its popularity was further boosted when it became the AHA's Big Brew recipe for National Homebrew Day in 1999. That was surpassed when Widmer tweaked the original recipe and introduced the Collaborator Milk Stout as Snow Plow Stout in 2004 as their annual winter seasonal and won a GABF gold medal. Snow Plow Stout is Widmer's best selling seasonal beer. Rob and Kurt honored the Brew Crew by including a short history of the Collaborator project and a Brew Crew Logo on the six pack holders. All of this is not even the best part of the Collaborator Project. With every barrel of Collaborator beer that Widmer sells, they donate $1 to the Bob McCracken Scholarship Fund which supports students at the Oregon State University Fermentation Science program under the direction of Dr. Thomas Shellhammer. To date, Widmer Brewing has donated over $5,000. Walk in to the Widmer Gasthaus any time of the year and you'll find a Collaborator beer or two on tap. If you can't make it out to Portland, the Snow Plow Stout shows up on your grocer's shelves in October. Every year, more Collaborator beers are chosen during the annual competition held in July for Brew Crew members. Will your beer be the next Collaborator beer? |
| Beer | Brewer(s) | Date |
| Milk Stout - Now known as Snow Plow Stout | Ken Bietschek, Jeff Brinlee and Jeff Langley | Summer, 1998 |
| Belgian Dubbel | Committee | Fall 1998 |
| English Brown | Scott Sanders | Spring 1999 |
| Belgian-style Witbier | Noel Blake and Martin Wilde | Summer 1999 |
| Belgian Pale Ale | Martin Wilde | Winter 2000 |
| Bermuda Schwarzbier | Eric Dana | Spring 2000 |
| Pre-Prohibition Lager | Curt Hausam | Summer 2000 |
| Hallucinator English Old Ale | Gary Corbin, Michael Rasmussen | Fall 2000 |
| Steel Bridge Porter | Noel Blake | Winter 2001 |
| Hop Nation IPA | Matt Hollingsworth | Spring 2001 |
| HB 25 Dunkles Bock | Mitch Scheele | Fall 2001 |
| Sled Crasher Winter Warmer | Noel Blake | Winter 2001 |
| Scotch Ale | Ken Johnson | Spring 2002 |
| Maibock | Ken Johnson and Preston Weesner | Spring 2003 |
| Dry Stout | Ingmar Saul | Summer 2003 |
| Saison | Chris Johnson and Bill Schneller | 2004 |
| Alpenhorn Vienna Lager | Mitch Scheele | February 2005 |
| Pilsner | Chris Johnson and Bill Schneller | 2005 |
| Hopnosis IPA | Brian Butenschoen | Spring 2005 |
| Zephyr Kölsch | Dan Schultz | Summer 2005 |
| American Stout | Craig Edwards | Spring 2006 |
| Ember Ale Smoked Porter | Jamie Dull | Fall 2006 |
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