Read Online The Audacity of Hops: The History of America's Craft Beer Revolution by Tom Acitelli - Free Book Online
Authors: Tom Acitelli
Tags: History, Non-Fiction
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was, of course, a pre-web era of three networks and only nascent cable television). This Everyman pitch was cemented when Rodney Dangerfield, Mister âI Donât Get No Respect,â began appearing in Miller commercials in the 1980s along with retired pro athletes. In well under ten years, Miller had, through the aggressive marketing of an acquired product, elbowed its way into the number-two spot behind Anheuser-Busch, leapfrogging five other breweries. Its annual sales crested $4.6 billion. Weissmanâs chance order in Munich had worked; all it took was some titanic marketing. The brewing was the easy part.
âBREWED THROUGH A HORSEâ
Los Angeles; Chicago | 1973-1978
I n January 1978, Merlin Elhardt, who had for years been homebrewing the delicate German lagers he had encountered while a US soldier in Europe, pecked out the following as part of a newsletter for his fellow enthusiasts:
Have you ever made a keg of beer and then couldnât figure out how to get the beer out of the keg? I wasnât aware there was a problem. I thought you just held your glass under a faucet and turned it on. Well, Louis Leblanc (like in Mel Leblanc), one of our newest members, tells me that, if not done properly, the keg could blow up and level a three block area and deposit a fine, white foam thereupon. Maybe a little radioactivity, too. Whatâs needed to crack and vent a keg, is a $27 tool that one can make for almost naught. Louis willing, and anxious, to demonstrate the manufacture and use of this tool at the March meeting (March 5rd
[sic]).
Got an excellent assortment of information, last month, on beer tasting procedures from Fred Eckhardt, including a beer evaluation sheet, a booklet on beer tasting (available thru John), and other information on the same. Some notes he sent contained so much valuable information that I retyped them and have copied them for any one who is interested.
Elhardtâs newsletter was for the Maltose Falcons, the homebrewing club he had founded in 1974 in suburban Los Angeles. It was the first homebrewing club in the nation, and it sought to reconnect enthusiasts with a hobby whose high-water mark had been mothered by necessity during Prohibition. People like Fred Eckhardtâs father, with his ten-gallon recipes of sugar, syrup, and water, had created strictly utilitarian brews of strong strength but dubious taste. Elhardt, however, was using all-grain recipes fermented with yeast that he actually cultured at home (he was said to have smuggled some yeast strands out of the Tuborg brewery in Denmark). Such a transition from utilitarian home-brewing was no accidentâand no easy, inevitable feat. But it would prove incalculably beneficial to the larger craft beer movement as both a training ground for future commercial brewers and a testing ground for the American palate.
The excerpt from the Maltose Falcons newsletter tells us just about everything we need to know about homebrewing in the mid-1970s, as well as a lot about the would-be American craft beer consumer (âwould-beâ in the sense that at the founding of the Maltose Falcons, Fritz Maytagâs Anchor was the only commercial option).
First, it was a newsletter. That is, it was a typed-out, black-and-white memo to a group of like-minded people, and the group was small enough that Elhardt could reasonably expect to be able to circulate it to enough individuals and still make it worth his while. The world of homebrewingâand craft beerâwas then a small one that commanded and demanded the attention of its inhabitants.
Second, the reputation of Fred Eckhardt, 950 miles north in Portland, preceded him. Elhardt gives him no introduction in the newsletter becausenone was apparently needed. Therefore, while craft beer was a small worldâor
because
it was a small worldâexpertise traveled and experts were emerging.
Third, the expertise of Eckhardt and of Maltose Falcons member Louis Leblanc was
âBREWED THROUGH A HORSEâ
Los Angeles; Chicago | 1973-1978
I n January 1978, Merlin Elhardt, who had for years been homebrewing the delicate German lagers he had encountered while a US soldier in Europe, pecked out the following as part of a newsletter for his fellow enthusiasts:
Have you ever made a keg of beer and then couldnât figure out how to get the beer out of the keg? I wasnât aware there was a problem. I thought you just held your glass under a faucet and turned it on. Well, Louis Leblanc (like in Mel Leblanc), one of our newest members, tells me that, if not done properly, the keg could blow up and level a three block area and deposit a fine, white foam thereupon. Maybe a little radioactivity, too. Whatâs needed to crack and vent a keg, is a $27 tool that one can make for almost naught. Louis willing, and anxious, to demonstrate the manufacture and use of this tool at the March meeting (March 5rd
[sic]).
Got an excellent assortment of information, last month, on beer tasting procedures from Fred Eckhardt, including a beer evaluation sheet, a booklet on beer tasting (available thru John), and other information on the same. Some notes he sent contained so much valuable information that I retyped them and have copied them for any one who is interested.
Elhardtâs newsletter was for the Maltose Falcons, the homebrewing club he had founded in 1974 in suburban Los Angeles. It was the first homebrewing club in the nation, and it sought to reconnect enthusiasts with a hobby whose high-water mark had been mothered by necessity during Prohibition. People like Fred Eckhardtâs father, with his ten-gallon recipes of sugar, syrup, and water, had created strictly utilitarian brews of strong strength but dubious taste. Elhardt, however, was using all-grain recipes fermented with yeast that he actually cultured at home (he was said to have smuggled some yeast strands out of the Tuborg brewery in Denmark). Such a transition from utilitarian home-brewing was no accidentâand no easy, inevitable feat. But it would prove incalculably beneficial to the larger craft beer movement as both a training ground for future commercial brewers and a testing ground for the American palate.
The excerpt from the Maltose Falcons newsletter tells us just about everything we need to know about homebrewing in the mid-1970s, as well as a lot about the would-be American craft beer consumer (âwould-beâ in the sense that at the founding of the Maltose Falcons, Fritz Maytagâs Anchor was the only commercial option).
First, it was a newsletter. That is, it was a typed-out, black-and-white memo to a group of like-minded people, and the group was small enough that Elhardt could reasonably expect to be able to circulate it to enough individuals and still make it worth his while. The world of homebrewingâand craft beerâwas then a small one that commanded and demanded the attention of its inhabitants.
Second, the reputation of Fred Eckhardt, 950 miles north in Portland, preceded him. Elhardt gives him no introduction in the newsletter becausenone was apparently needed. Therefore, while craft beer was a small worldâor
because
it was a small worldâexpertise traveled and experts were emerging.
Third, the expertise of Eckhardt and of Maltose Falcons member Louis Leblanc was
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