All in the service of #beerhistory

Fred Eckhardt collection at OHBAA box of Fred Eckhardt’s papers at the Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives.

I would not know Tumblr still exists if it weren’t home to the Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives blog. It seems that’s just one more way it is a link to the past.

As Tiah Edmunson-Morton wrote in her tweet this past weekend, the #beerhistory field has grown impressively since she started OHBA seven years ago.

I wrote about her and the archives for DRAFT magazine two years into the run. (You can find the story here, but be aware the site is no longer secure.)

Edmunson-Morton has been running ahead of the crowd from the start, already practicing what Paul Eisloeffel of the Nebraska State Historical Society called holistic collecting, “thinking outside of the archives box” and gathering artifacts as well as historical documents. This doesn’t necessarily come naturally.

“Dealing with artifacts has always been a problem for standalone archives,” he said. He’s a proponent of the sort of proactive collecting Edmunson-Morton undertook. “It is important for archivists to be able to look at what’s happening in a culture and start collecting now. I really applaud her.”

In “But What If We’re Wrong” author Chuck Klosterman writes, “It’s impossible to understand the world of today until today has become tomorrow.” It’s also impossible if somebody is not saving the important stuff to begin with.

That’s place with a capital P

Lilly Pad Hopyard BreweryThe hummingbirds were an unexpected bonus.

There was a time, 25 years ago when we were researching our “Beer Travelers Guide,” we would driven many miles out of our way if we heard about a brewery with a campground and a hopyard. (Sometime, when we can sit down together in a beer garden somewhere, I’ll tell you the story about Gillette, Wyoming, in 1995.)

There are too many breweries to keep track of these days, and we’re out of the guide writing business. We were just citizens on the way to a weekend in and around Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area in northern Tennessee who learned about Lilly Pad Hopyard Brewery because one of the previous guests at the Airbnb where we were staying mentioned it in a review.

It was on the way, and we could grab dinner and beers for later (we were staying about an hour to the north).

Lilly Pad Hopyard Brewery entrance

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Defining farmhouse ale; reconsidering history

Lars Garshol, author of “Historical Brewing Techniques: The Lost Art of Farmhouse Brewing,” writes about “What counts as a farmhouse ale?”

It’s simple, but . . . “Farmhouse brewing is about the tradition, not the source of the ingredients.” He explains.

He also weighs in on the matter of whether saison was really a farmhouse product. Roel Mulder has suggested otherwise. Cutting a long story short, Garshol concludes saison is a style that belongs in the farmhouse family. But first, he makes two important points.

– “Farmers who grow grain will brew beer as long as it makes economic sense for them, and whether there is industry nearby won’t necessarily affect the economic logic at all.”

– Some facts can neither be proved as undeniable nor disproved.

This is as true of American brewing history as it is of farmers in the Hainaut region of Belgium making beer in spring for the harvest work. The history in the centuries after, or perhaps even before, the time Thomas Hariot describes brewing on Roanoke Island between 1584 and 1586 is incomplete.

Start with the thought there were a lot of farmers growing grain. Accept that there’s more about brewing in the Americas than has already been documented. Go.

Black is Beautiful beer: Where might it lead?

One down, 1,036 (as of Friday morning) to go. I hope they are as good as Arches Brewing version of the Black is Beautiful beer.

I will spare you a photo of my hand holding a can, perhaps pouring the beer into a glass. Instead, take a look at two tableaus posted on Instagram to appreciate the joy the beer has inspired.

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Quality of bitterness: as easy as ABC?

Agreeing on a definition for “quality of bitterness” is almost as hard as agreeing on a definition of “craft beer.” But understanding quality of bitterness is essential, and a reason why I like the way Polish homebrewers tweaked their scoresheet for their competitions, awarding six points for bitterness.

The International Bitterness Unit formula was established in the 1960s at a time the composition of hop cones was different than today. And because isomerized alpha acids are primarily responsible for the bitterness in beer, “many brewers consider iso-a-acids to be the only relevant bitter compounds in beer.” Scientists in Germany believe otherwise, maintaining that the majority of what they call “auxiliary bitter compounds” are desirable from a sensory perspective. Sensory panels reported that the harmonious aspect of bitterness increased with the quantity of ABC.1

Basically, “auxiliary bitter compounds” encompass all bitter compounds in hop resins which are transferred into beer and which are not iso-alpha acids. Few of the 8,000-plus brewers in the United States have the equipment needed to measure ABC.

If a brewer does not have that equipment what should they do? A few rules of thumb:

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