When we started the Oregon Hops & Brewing Archives I knew it would be different than
a more traditional archive, but would still be a place where we would save and provide
access to materials.
But quickly I realized that it was an opportunity to have new and unique conversations with
the community, to talk to them about their stories and their own history and these are
some of the stories that we heard that we really think are worth saving.
It’s amazing how a small industry, a few growers in Oregon can influence the world
with what we grow.
It’s cultural here as you know, starting a brewery I feel like we’ve just woven ourselves
into the fabric of our local culture of Corvallis and Oregon and the Northwest.
The USDA has had a footprint here on campus since the 30’s so if you are going to use
hops research, hop breeding as a kind of connection to brewing then we’ve had brewing research
going on for 80 years.
We have a pretty long history at OSU of doing research related to hops and brewing, so our
mission both as land-grant universities is to share that and as a library is to help
people have materials that support their research both OSU materials and outside materials.
You know the broad idea here is that we give the craft-brewers a bigger palette of paint
to play with in the terms of new hops to brew with.
You look at breweries, you talk to them about yeast: yeah they’re kind of excited.
You talk about malt: they’re kind of excited.
You talk about hops and they just light up.
They just think it’s really cool.
It also connects us to place, so thinking about where our food comes from, thinking
about where ingredients come from, thinking about how we can do things ourselves.
A big aspect of that is growing as much as we can to go into the beer.
Growing our ingredients that go into the beer really connects us directly to the whole process
of brewing.
Hops are a food product so knowing where your food comes from is important to all of us.
There may be a brewer who is not close to a hop brewing area and just knows hops that
come in a corrugated cardboard box and a foil pouch, it’s vacuum sealed and that’s the
extent of what they see of hops and from there they don’t know, you know, those foil bags
don’t grow in our field, that’s not what happens, you know?
There’s a whole process and story, family stories, that lead up to that box landing
on the doorstep of the breweries.
When I was casting about trying to figure out how to build a brewery, I could walk into
any brewery and explain what I was up to and I would immediately be welcomed back, they
would pour me a pint and they would throw open the brewery and say “what do you want
to see, what questions do you want answered?”
They were excited for me.
When Bridgeport and Widmer Brothers Brewing started in 1984 craft brewing was really in
it’s infancy in Oregon, with the only brewing that we would consider craft today being done
by home brewers like those in the Oregon Brew Crew Club and by Chuck Coury who was a vintner
that started the short-lived Cartwright Brewing Company in Portland.
We’re great grandsons and granddaughters of pioneers who were willing to try everything.
You know they don’t need to see it on TV to validate it and there’s no better place
on the face of the earth than Portland, Oregon for doing what we did.
It didn’t really need the 30th anniversary to kind of start reflecting a bit, for me
it would be on weekends when it’s kind of quiet and I’m walking through and kind of
looking at things and it’s like “wow, this is pretty awesome.”
We’ve come a long way in the last 30 years.
What’s fun for me is the emergence of the 30 beers, because they are the actual beers
that we did in that year, like 27 years ago.
When we nail it, even though I haven’t had that beer in like 25 years it’s like “oh
my God that is so exactly what we did 25 years ago!”
I can remember that year, those times and so it’s fun, it’s really fun.
This archive isn’t just about hop brewing or beer brewing, but it’s really about the
culture of the whole industry, so you’ll find stories about everything from labor practices,
to history, to agriculture, to economics, to gender dynamics represented in our collections.
Rubber boots are the ubiquitous piece of brewing equipment, every brewer wears rubber boots
of some kind or another and I had chosen pink because it’s the girl color and you know
I walk into a brewery and I start talking the beer lingo and the next thing you know
I’m just one of the guys, but I was keenly aware that I was representing my gender and
so I wanted to remind, let’s say the whole world, that yeah I’m one of the boys, I’m
one of the brewers, I am a brewer, but I’m also a woman too.
And they say you shouldn’t attach yourself to your career, but it’s not just a job,
it’s not just a career, it’s a calling and its part of who I am.
As every generation goes along, we’re losing just a little bit more of that.
It takes someone from outside of our industry to be able to come and understand the importance
in capture it for us, because it again, it influences so many people in so many parts
of the world.
I think it’s good to have that information archived so that we can always pull from it
and know where we were and where we are and hopefully be able to tell a story about where
we might be going.