Posted on 06/12/2021 6:40:29 AM PDT by mylife
Countless new beer releases flood the United States each year, from craft IPAs to macro lagers. But small-batch to mass-produced brews alike owe a debt of gratitude to the establishments that paved the way long ago — or, in some cases, less than two decades ago.
With nearly 9,000 breweries operating in the U.S. today, we ventured to independently verify each state’s longest-operating brewery. Exploring this data reveals Prohibition’s wide-ranging and inconsistent impact on American beer.
Pennsylvania’s Yuengling, established in 1829, takes the crown for the oldest brewery in the U.S., while North Dakota’s Fargo Brewing Co., founded in 2010, is the youngest state representative on the list. A craft beer renaissance in the 1990s is evident, with 21 of the states’ oldest breweries originating in the decade.
(Excerpt) Read more at vinepair.com ...
As far as I can tell, yes.
I was surprised by the numbers that survived Prohibition.
Coors stayed operating by making malted milk.
The family only gave its applejack recipe to one person outside the family - George Washington, who asked for it. Pretty cool history:
and Washington started a whiskey rebellion with his tax
They show up on my 15 inch chrome book.
<P
Thanks for posting. Should make for some fun road trips considering my tour of MLB ballparks is on indefinite hold.
nowadays you cant find a decent chocolate malt
it is obvious where the grain belt is.
Transportation of the grain crop to a brewery got more expensive per mile from the fields.
How about The Oldest living drunk in each state? Or maybe the oldest living or dead.?
I was in Missouri for high school and college, so it was Anheuser-Busch for us. Bud and Busch with an occasional Coors when somebody took a driving trip to Colorado. We never really thought much about beer taste or quality then.
Then, in 1973, I moved to San Francisco after graduating from college and discovered Anchor Steam Beer in the local saloons. It was only 25¢ on Friday afternoon happy hours (which was cheap even then). I switched to good beer than (later called “craft” and “micro-brew”) and never looked back.
Even though the Anchor Brewing Company started in 1896, it traces its roots to German brewer Gottlieb Brekle who arrived in San Francisco with his family in 1849. He bought an old beer-and-billiards saloon on Pacific Street near Russian Hill for $3,500, transforming it into the American brewery that, twenty-five years later, would be renamed Anchor. The company suffered numerous fires at its breweries, deaths of owners and brewmasters, prohibition, and changing beer tastes. late 1959, America’s—even San Francisco’s—new-found “taste” for mass-produced, heavily marketed lighter beers had taken its toll on Anchor’s already declining sales. In July of that year, at the age of 71, Joe Allen shut Anchor down.
It got a new owner and opened a few months later, but he struggled to keep the company going and had a hard time convincing local accounts to keep the beer.
In 1965, young Stanford grad named Fritz Maytag bought 51% of the historic little San Francisco craft brewery —for a few thousand dollars—rescuing Anchor from imminent bankruptcy.
In 1971, just before I moved to SF, they started bottling Anchor.
It is still my favorite bottled craft beer, probably out of nostalgia and loyalty. That and Ghiradelli Chocolate, another historic San Francisco gem.
https://vinepair.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/oldestbreweries_map3.jpg
Click this link and see if it is better......
https://vinepair.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/oldestbreweries_map3.jpg
Click this link and see if it is better......
If you add the Caribbean to the mix it would go back to the 1600s with Rum distillery's. Some of them are still around.
With each new president, with two notable exceptions, Jimmy Carter looks better and better.
- Legalization of home brewing and craft brewing
- Air deregulation
- Trucking deregulation
- Rail deregulation
- Natural gas deregulation
- Appointment of Paul Volker and Alfred Kahn
- No new wars or entangling alliances
Of course, there was much to criticize. That list would be much, much longer.
I first found out about steam beer from a Jack London story set in San Francisco. It was available at a restaurant I was in in Delaware so I thought I would give it a try. I had two with dinner —it went well with pork chops and sweet potatoes and squash soup —and it has been on my beer rotation ever since.
Interesting - I’d also like to see a much longer list that would include all the runners up, and those that disappeared since my childhood.
I’m from PA and I remember so many that didn’t make this list, because Yeungling is older or because they closed down.
I can’t stand Yeungling - and it makes me a bit sad that all none of the hugely popular beers my dad and my uncles drank (and me too sometimes) are being lost down the memory hole. Schmits, Schlitz, Ballentine, etc..
I know Ballentine has been revived by Pabst or someone as the original craft beer. I don’t even want to try it though because it will probably taste like all the disgusting fruity modern craft beers.
I know all the young craft beer lovers think I’m wrong - but none of it tastes anything close to normal beer to me (and many others my age).
Here is how I try to explain it to my children who will drink only the modern craft beers, using the coffee analogy:
In the world of coffee, there used to be good coffee (ground from high quality whole beans and brewed fresh) and bad coffee (low quality beans, brewed from grounds, brewed but not fresh, “instant”, etc.). Yes, there were different varieties, blends, darker roasts - and brewing methods, but in general, good coffee was good coffee, and connoisseurs generally agreed what it should taste like.
Along came flavored coffee at places like Starbucks, and there was suddenly huge variety - just like there now is with all the thousands of microbreweries. But there is a difference:
With coffee, I can still go into a Starbucks and order a plain coffee that tastes like the coffee I grew up with, and everyone knows what I mean when I say “plain”. Importantly, no one is offended when I ask for it plain without any extra flavors, and no one argues with me that there is a base line “plain” coffee, from which the other flavor options are a departure.
Not so with micro breweries. I can’t go into any of them and get a “plain” beer that just tastes like all beer used to taste. Moreover, they get offended when I try - even if I am very careful to avoid the words that trigger them like “normal”.
Disclaimer: I do understand it’s a different process - with coffee, there is plain coffee, to which flavors and toppings are added - so the possibility of offering a plain coffee is preserved - whereas with beer, the flavors and other departures are built into the brewing process early on - so “plain” isn’t an option.
I guess I wonder why the conversations about beer between young and old can’t be more respectful of tradition.
Young people like different music and clothing as well - and because of that we might shop in different stores, or different sections of a department store, and even make fun of each other’s style choices or taste, but I don’t feel like there is a battle over what is “normal” or “traditional” the way there is with beer.
Some of my grandchildren occasionally dye their hair weird colors - no tattoos and piercings (yet) - but so far, when they do something weird, at least they aren’t claiming it’s normal..
Craft beer just doesn’t taste like normal beer. There, I said it.
“Craft beer just doesn’t taste like normal beer.”
You just aren’t looking around enough. You can find good basic beers and ales everywhere made from the four basics: malted barley, hops, yeast, and water.
But I’m with you...fruit and other flavors should be kept a million miles away from beer. Blech!! Nothing worse than a “fruity” beer.
MOST brews, coffee, and music made after 1990 are awful, but you can find excellent versions of each if you keep looking and sift the wheat from the chaff.
You really have to hand it to entrepreneurs and investors, though. There are lots of hard cider startup companies around as well as new, innovative distilleries. Clever people are always out there looking to serve market needs and make money. There is NOTHING like capitalism to find those market needs and fill them.
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