The tricky biochemistry of beer brewing led to small tragedy at Portland's Widmer Brewing today: thanks to a major power outage, the brewing brothers have had to dump 7,750 gallons of un-finished beer.

Don't grab the growler and run to North Portland just yet. The roughly 62,000 pints of beer were supposed to become a new brew called Dead Lips IPA (slated for release Feb. 1) but according to Kurt Widmer, the ruined beer will instead be shipped off to cattle farms to be used as either feed or fertilizer. As Kurt explains, Widmer turns most of its beer by-products into cattle feed. After the sugar is extracted from barley malts and wheat malts, the grains apparently make pretty nutritious non-alcoholic cow food.

This is only the second time Kurt can recall having to dump a batch of beer due to a power outage in its twenty-year history. Luckily, Kurt says the company's business insurance should cover most of the financial impact and Widmer will still meet its February first deadline for releasing Dead Lips IPA.

H/T to The Square