Object Details
- Creator
- Brewers Association
- Interviewer
- Harry, John
- Johnson, Paula, Curator
- McCulla, Theresa
- Creator
- National Museum of American History (U.S.)
- Interviewee
- Ammendolia, Anthony "Tony", 1970-
- Ansari, Omar, 1970-
- Ashburn, Leah Wong, 1970-
- Avery, Adam, 1966-
- Bailey, Edward, 1986-
- Baskerville, Marcus, 1985-
- Bates, David, 1973-
- Benner, Paul, 1982-
- Benson, Brad, 1968-
- Blodger, John Kevin "Kevin", 1976-
- Botham, Mills, 1997-
- Bouckaert, Peter, 1965-
- Bracey, Day, 1982-
- Bruno, Emily, 1982-
- Bui, An, 1974-
- Burkhart, David Aaron, 1954-
- Cadwell, Brian, 1981-
- Calagione, Mariah
- Calagione, Sam, 1969-
- Callahan, Brian, 1965-
- Carey, Daniel "Dan", 1960-
- Carey, Deborah "Deb", 1960-
- Cilurzo, Vincenzo
- Cilurzo, Natalie, 1968-
- Clark, Frank, 1964-
- Conway, Patrick, 1948-
- DeLuca, Renée, 1964-
- DeVries, Andrea, 1961-
- Denison, Suzanne "Suzy", 1933-
- Dooley, Jaime, 1989-
- Doore, Richard "Dick", 1962-
- Draeger, Jim
- Dresler, Steven L. "Steve", 1957-
- Duncan, Brady, 1982-
- Dupee, David
- Egelston, Peter, 1958-
- Faivre, Brian, 1976-
- Finkel, Charles
- Finkel, Rose Ann, 1946-2020
- Forhan, Kevin, 1957-
- Francis, Joanne, 1959-
- Garibay, Liz, 1973-
- Gentry, Peter, 1979-
- Gouwens, Matthew, 1979-
- Grossman, Ken, 1954-
- Hall, Linus
- Hampton, Steven "Steve", 1975-
- Hardman, Gregory
- Henion, Mark, 1972-
- Hunter, Teo LaVelle, 1976-
- Jendron, Claudia, 1983-
- Johnson, Annie, 1965-
- Jordan, Kim, 1958-
- Kiser, Michael
- Krueger, Cole, 1985-
- Lawrence, Anthony "Tony", 1967-
- Lewis, Michael, 1936-
- Lightner, Robert "Rob", 1965-
- Mares, Bill
- Marti, Jace, 1983-
- Maytag, Fritz, 1937-
- McAuliffe, John R. "Jack", 1945-
- McCrae, L.A., 1986-
- McKay, Eric, 1980-
- McNulty, Samuel "Sam", 1974-
- Murtagh, Patrick, 1979-
- Odell, Corkie, 1950-
- Odell, Doug, 1952-
- Odell, Wynne, 1958-
- Oliver, Garrett, 1962-
- Papazian, Charlie
- Parker, Andy, (Brewer)
- Phillips, Steven "Steve", 1989-
- Piening, John, 1957-
- Ramirez, Jeff
- Rizzo, Frederick "Fred"
- Robbings, Adam, 1974-
- Robinson, Benyvette (Beny Ashburn), 1978-
- Rommel, Chris, 1985-
- Rupp, Travis, 1980-
- Short, David, 1982-
- Smith, Benjamin "Ben", 1981-
- Soles, Twila, 1986-
- Spaulding, Bailey, 1981-
- Steinhardt, Mark
- Stokes, Jr., Sterling M., 1977-
- Stoudt, Carol, 1949-
- Sullivan, Thomas "Tom", 1975-
- Sultan, Nassim, 1981-
- Verratti, Julie, 1979-
- Volek, Dane C., 1986-
- Wallace, John Eric "Eric", 1961-
- West, Kevin, 1961-
- Wiegand, David, 1961-
- Wong, Oscar P., 1940-
- Wright, Steve, 1981-
- Zahaba, Lara, 1969-
- Zirngible, Robert "Bob"
- Zuckerman, David, 1964-
- Topic
- Beer
- Beer festivals
- Beer History
- Beverages
- Brewing
- Brewing for profit on a small scale
- COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-
- Entrepreneurship
- Home brewing
- LGBTQ+
- Microbreweries
- Wine and wine making
- Provenance
- Made for the National Museum of American History by the American Brewing History Initiative between 2017 and 2023.
- Creator
- Brewers Association
- Interviewer
- Harry, John
- Johnson, Paula, Curator
- McCulla, Theresa
- Creator
- National Museum of American History (U.S.)
- Culture
- Asian American
- Black American
- Latinos
- See more items in
- American Beer Brewing Oral History Collection
- Sponsor
- These oral histories were conducted for the American Brewing History Initiative at the National Museum of American History. The Initiative was funded with support from the Brewers Association, a not-for-profit organization of small and independent American brewers.
- Summary
- Collection documents the history of beer brewing in the United States through born-digital oral histories with brewers, homebrewers, brewing historians, and other figures in the brewing industry.
- Biographical / Historical
- Beer is the most consumed alcohol beverage in the United States and has been for much of our nation's history. Indigenous Americans were the first to make fermented beverages in North America, using corn, agave, fruits, and plants. Spanish, English, and Dutch colonists who arrived in the continent in the 1500s and 1600s brought European techniques for brewing ale styles of beer, combining malted grains (traditionally, barley), water, yeast, and hops. During the colonial and Early Republic eras of American history, beer was valued as a healthful part of the diet—a nutritious staple rather than an intoxicating drink. Men, women, and children all drank low-alcohol beer. Brewing beer was a domestic chore. Most often, enslaved people, women, and other laborers did this work. In the mid-1800s, immigrants to the United States from central and eastern Europe brought the techniques and ingredients to make lager-style beers. With the arrival of expert European brewers, brewing transitioned out of the home and into modern, sophisticated breweries. Beer became big business: a profitable profession done by European- and American-born men in factory-like settings. Then, in 1920, Prohibition outlawed the production, transportation, and sale of intoxicating beverages in the United States for more than a decade. Many breweries closed. Following Prohibition's repeal in 1933, the businesses left standing were mostly big breweries, with regional or national reach. In ensuing years, through the 1970s, the American brewing industry consolidated further. Fewer breweries made increasingly similar beer—a light lager style—in order to compete with each other. Adventurous homebrewers brought the first hints of change in the 1960s. Most of these homebrewers were men who had traveled abroad for military service or study. They had encountered a whole world of beer styles in places like Germany, Belgium, England, Scotland, and Japan. These men brought homebrewing manuals and equipment home with them to the U.S., and, relying on rudimentary ingredients stocked by home winemaking shops, they began to tinker in their kitchens and basements, seeking to make these more flavorful beers themselves. In 1965, Frederick Louis "Fritz" Maytag III, a member of the Iowa-based washing machine-making family, as well as the producers of Maytag Blue Cheese, bought a controlling stake in Anchor Brewing Company, a historic brewery in San Francisco, California. Maytag envisioned a brewery very different from the large corporations that supplied American consumers. He remade Anchor into a brewery that produced beer in small batches using artisan ingredients, traditional techniques, and European recipes that had not been brewed in the United States for more than a century, if ever. Admirers, journalists, and consumers lauded Maytag as the nation's first "microbrewer" of modern times. Microbrewing started slowly in the 1970s, with the first generation of microbreweries and brewpubs sprinkled throughout California, Colorado, the Pacific Northwest, New England, and the Chesapeake region. Many early microbrewers scrounged for used dairy and winemaking equipment and taught themselves how to weld and sheetrock. Cascade hops, an American-bred aroma hop developed by the United States Department of Agriculture and Oregon State University and released in 1971, gave many American microbrewed beers a unique flavor profile, with aromas described as floral and citrusy, with notes of grapefruit and pine. Media and consumer enthusiasm for microbrewed beer grew. In 1985, for the first time, the U.S. counted more microbreweries than large-scale breweries. By the early 2000s, the number of breweries exploded. As this segment of the industry grew, the term "craft" became more relevant than "micro," conveying the artisanal aspirations of brewers who strove to remain independently owned and brew with artisan ingredients and traditional processes. The "craft beer revolution" would reshape the global beer industry and consumers' palates alike, changing what beer tasted like, where people drank it, and who enjoyed it. The histories of beer and brewing offer an engaging and useful lens through which to explore many of the nation's most important stories. Beer sheds light on histories of immigration, gender, urbanization, transportation, advertising, agriculture, labor, social life, popular culture, food and flavor, consumer preferences, and much more.
- Extent
- 39.4 Gigabytes (70 .wav files, 70 .pdf files)
- Date
- 2017-2023
- Archival Repository
- Archives Center, National Museum of American History
- Identifier
- NMAH.AC.1595
- Type
- Collection descriptions
- Archival materials
- Gigabytes
- Born digital
- Oral history
- Transcripts
- Citation
- American Beer Brewing Oral History Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
- Arrangement
- The collection is arranged into two series, alphabetical by last name of interviewee. Series 1: Born Digital Interviews, 2017-2023 Series 2: Transcripts, 2017-2023
- Processing Information
- Collection processed by Leigh Gialanella, digital archivist, 2024.
- Rights
- Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
- Genre/Form
- Born digital
- Oral history
- Transcripts
- Content Description
- 70 oral history interview files (WAV), 99 release forms (PDF), 70 transcripts (PDF)
- History of the Collecting Process
- The American Brewing History Initiative, sponsored by the Brewers Association, Kim Jordan, and Ken Grossman and Katie Gonser, was a multi-year effort (2017-2023) at the National Museum of American History to document and collect the stories of beer and brewing in the United States. The Initiative enriched the Museum's collections through the acquisition of objects and archival materials relating to the histories of homebrewing and microbrewed, or "craft," beer. The Initiative was the first national-scale, scholarly research and collecting project focused on the history of American craft beer. Theresa McCulla, Curator of the American Brewing History Initiative, led the Initiative in collecting objects, archival materials, and oral histories. Between 2017 and 2023, McCulla interviewed ninety-nine brewers, writers, instructors, historians, and other figures in the industry (including a maltster, a tap handle designer, podcast hosts, etc.) from more than fifty breweries and cultural heritage institutions across the United States. She was joined at times by colleagues Paula Johnson (Curator of the American Food History Project), Steve Velasquez (Curator of the Division of Home and Community Life), and intern John Harry. Prior to its completion in 2023, the American Brewing History Initiative also convened numerous talks and public programs about beer culture and history, including at the annual Smithsonian Food History Weekend, and contributed to the National Museum of American History exhibit Food: Transforming the American Table. The American Brewing History oral history project ended in November 2023.
- Scope and Contents
- This collection contains oral history interviews and transcripts documenting the lives and experiences of American brewers, homebrewers, and other figures in the industry. The interviews shed light on processes of homebrewing, recipe development, and marketing, as well as aspects of brewery operations, American and global beer culture, and many other subjects. They also touch on more complex topics such as race, gender, and sexual orientation. Many of the interviews in this collection were conducted in person at the narrator's brewery or affiliated institution. Others were conducted over Zoom due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In some cases, family members or partners attended the oral history interview and contributed to the conversation, often in very minor ways. These individuals are not considered narrators, nor did the Initiative collect release forms from them. Researchers may not use or quote contributions from interview participants other than the narrators.
- Restrictions
- Collection is open for research. Access and use of born-digital audio materials available in the Archives Center reading room or by requesting copies of materials at RightsReproductions@si.edu.
- Record ID
- ebl-1731507900741-1731507901246-0
