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Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Historic Beer Birthday: Elmer Hemrich

September 18, 2023 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

hemrich-gold-seal
Today is the birthday of Elmer E.L. Hemrich (September 18, 1890-January 20, 1937). He was raised in the Seattle, Washington area, and was the son of Alvin Hemrich, a prominent businessman and brewery owner in Seattle. His son worked for several of his businesses, before strking out on his own and founding Elmer E. Hemrich’s Brewery in 1935. Unfortunately, an unexpected heart attack killed him two years later, in 1937, and his brother Walter took over his brewery.

Here’s his father’s business history. In 1891, he moved to the Seattle, Washington area, and began working for breweries there and in Canada, including the Seattle Brewing & Malting Co. His brother Andrew (Elmer’s uncle) bought the Bay View Brewery in Seattle, and later Alvin bought the North Pacific Brewery (also known as the old Slorah brewery), and renamed it the Alvin Hemrich Brewing Co. in 1897. Two of his brothers soon joined him in the enterprise, and it was renamed again, this time to Hemrich Brothers Brewing Company. They did well enough that he began buying out other area breweries. When prohibition closed the brewery, they were ready, having retooled their plants for near-beer and also having divested into some other businesses. They reopened when prohibition was repealed, and two of Alvin’s sons went into the family business, too, including Elmer, but their father died just two years later.

There’s also a photograph of Alvin M. Hemrich and his son, Elmer E. Hemrich, taken around 1910 that can be seen at Brewery Gems’ biography of Alvin Hemrich, shared with him by the Hemrich family. As is typical for Pacific Northwest breweries, Gary Flynn has a thorough composite biography culled from numerous sources at his Brewery Gems website.

Filed Under: Birthdays, Just For Fun Tagged With: History, Washington

Beer Birthday: Will Kemper

September 15, 2023 By Jay Brooks 1 Comment

chuckanut
Today is the 74th birthday of Will Kemper, who’s the brewmaster of Chuckanut Brewery & Kitchen in Bellingham, Washington. Will was the “Kemper” in the brewery “Thomas Kemper,” which was an early lager brewery first in Poulsbo, and later nearby on Bainbridge Island in Washington. I first visited the brewery on my honeymoon in 1996, after it had been sold to Pyramid (then Hart Brewery) in 1992. After Thomas Kemper, Will became a brewery consultant, helping launch such breweries as Philadelphia’s Dock Street, Seattle’s Aviator Ales, Capital City Brewing in D.C. and Denver’s Mile High Brewing. Later, he and his wife Mari moved to Turkey, building a brewery in Istanbul called Taps. After the Taps project was completed they returned to their home in Bellingham, Washington and opened Chuckanut Brewery & Kitchen. Within a year of opening, Chuckanut and Kemper were named small brewery and brewmaster of the year at GABF in 2009. Needless to say, Will’s a terrific brewer. I reconnected with Will when CBC was in Chicago when I ran into Will and Mari, along with Charles and Rose Ann Finkel, and ended up spending the evening bar hopping with them. Join me in wishing Will a very happy birthday.

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Will accepting a medal at the 2011 GABF awards.

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Mari (next to Charlie on the left) and Will (far right) with the Chuckanut crew winning small brewery of the year in 2009.

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Thomas and Sabine from Weyerman’s with Will and Mari during a visit to Chuckanut.

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Matt Brynildson and Will at GABF in 2011.

[Note: last two photos purloined from Facebook.]

Filed Under: Birthdays Tagged With: Washington

Historic Beer Birthday: Julius Zupansky

September 9, 2023 By Jay Brooks

salem-brewery
Today is the birthday of Julius Zupansky (September 9, 1850-September 6, 1919). He was born in Bohemia, and came to the U.S. when he was 35, in 1885. He appears to have worked as a brewer throughout Europe before coming to the States, where he secured a job at the Salem Brewery Association. He worked there for a quarter-century, likely retiring when he was sixty. But what position he held there is unclear, which is curious given that he’s referred to as a “pioneer brewer of the Pacific Coast.” Even Gary Flynn’s Brewery Gems doesn’t mention him on his page on the History of the Salem Brewery Association, and his site is easily the most comprehensive on breweries in that part of the U.S.

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The Salem Brewery Association around 1939.

The Salem Brewery Association was originally founded in 1866 as the Pacific Brewery, but three years later, in 1869 the name was changed to the Salem Brewery. Then in 1885, when Zupansky arrived in America, it was called the Capitol Brewery. In 1903, it again changed its name, this time to the Salem Brewery Association. It stayed with that name until 1943, when another local brewery, Sicks’ Brewing, bought it and operated it for another ten years, closing for good in 1953.

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Zupansky’s name is mentioned several times in the American Brewers’ Review, but the most information is contained in his obituary from American Brewers’ Review, Volume 23:

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Full size picture of salem beer on trade street
And this is the brewery from down the street.

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Filed Under: Birthdays, Breweries, Just For Fun Tagged With: Bohemia, History, Washington

Historic Beer Birthday: Samuel Simon Loeb

September 4, 2023 By Jay Brooks

milwaukee-tacoma independent-wash
Today is the birthday of Samuel Simon Loeb (September 4, 1862-January 22, 1947). He was born in Indiana, but settled in Tacoma, Washington as a young man, and was involved in several area breweries there, first the Milwaukee Brewery (which merged to form the Pacific Brewing & Malting Company) and then the Independent Brewery, before being bought by the Seattle Brewing & Malting Co. After his brewery was acquired, Loeb remained in charge, and after retiring, he and his wife moved to Los Angeles.

 

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This short description of Loeb is from Brewing in Seattle, by Kurt Stream:

 

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Here’s an account of Loeb from “An Illustrated History of the State of Washington” by H. K. Hines, published in 1893

S. S. Loeb is president of the Milwaukee Brewing Company of Tacoma, incorporated with a capital stock of $35,000, all paid up. The present officers of the company are S. S. Loeb, president, and A. Weinberg, secretary and treasurer. The brewery was formerly called the United States Brewery, and was organized by D. Stegman and M. Karcsecte. The latter sold out to John Frazier, who continued in the business till May, 1891, when the present firm bought out the concern, reincorporated and formed the Milwaukee Brewing Company. The plant was a small one when they first bought it, the output being only forty-two barrels per day. The capacity has been increased until it is now 125 barrels per day. Their trade extends throughout the Sound country.

Mr. Loeb, the president, was born in Ligonier, Indiana, on the 4th of September, 1862. He was the son of Simon Loeb, who was a prominent brewer. The subject of this sketch was reared in Chicago, where he went when a child. He became concerned in the cigar business with Ruhe Bros. (Allentown, Pennsylvania, and Chicago), and later traveled for the same firm, with whom he continued for four years. He then worked four years for Schloss, Ochs & Co., wholesale gentlemen’s furnishers. In 1889 he came to Tacoma and engaged in the wholesale liquor business, which he continued for three years, when he closed out that business, and has since given his attention to the brewing business.

Mr. Loeb was married November 18, 1890, to Miss Blanch Moses, a native of Gallipolis, Ohio. They have one child, Sidney.

 

Sam-S-Loeb-cartoon

 

Garry Flynn, on his Brewery Gems website, picks up the story of Loeb after the “Illustrated History of the State of Washington:”

In 1897, four years after the foregoing was written, Samuel sold the Milwaukee Brewery and merged it with the Anton Huth’s Puget Sound Brewery, forming a new enterprise – the Pacific Brewing & Malting Company.

In 1899, Pacific purchased the Donau Brewery and closed the Milwaukee plant. Loeb continued with his other business interests in Tacoma, as well as holding a minority interest in Pacific. As late as 1901 he was still secretary of the company. But by 1902 he and his partners from the Milwaukee Brewery decided to actively re-enter the brewing business.

You can pick up the rest of his story at Brewery Gems.

Filed Under: Birthdays, Just For Fun Tagged With: History, Washington

Beer Birthday: Alan Moen

June 26, 2023 By Jay Brooks

alan-moen.jpg
Today is the birthday of Alan Moen, who used to be the editor-in-chief of the Northwest Brewing News, and also did drawings for them and others, before he retired from that gig that a few years ago, although he still writes for American Brewer, Market Watch, The New Brewer, and other beer publications. He also owns and operates the Snowgrass Winery in Entiat, Washington. RealBeer.com still has an amusing biography of Alan from who knows how many years ago. Join me in wishing Alan a very happy birthday.

alan-moen-oktoberfest.jpgAlan at Oktoberfest, in the Paulaner tent.

alan-moen-nwbn.jpgBill Metzger, Alan and John Norton in 2013.

alan-moen-dba.jpgAt dba in NYC.

alan-moen-1995.jpgAlan in 1995.
[Note: all photos purloined from Facebook.]

Filed Under: Birthdays, Just For Fun Tagged With: Washington

Beer Birthday: John Bryant

June 14, 2023 By Jay Brooks

no-li-red
Today is my friend John Bryant’s 56th birthday. I first met John when he was with Deschutes Brewery in Bend, Oregon. Several years ago he migrated to Odell Brewing in Fort Collins to work his magic on them, and then a few years ago he joined Dale at Oskar Blues. He then left Oskar Blues and disappeared for a time, finally re-emerging in Spokane, Washington with the then-newly rebranded No-Li Brewing. Join me in wishing John a very happy birthday.

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At the Brewer’s Reception before GABF in 2006. From left: Bob Pease (Brewers Association), Vinnie Cilurzo (Russian River Brewing), John and his wife Cindy, Banjo (Real Beer) and Tom McCormick (California Craft Brewers Association).

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John, with Ray Daniels of the Brewers Association, who celebrated his own birthday last week.

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John and me during a visit to the brewery several summers ago, when we were in Colorado for my cousin’s wedding.

Filed Under: Birthdays Tagged With: Colorado, Washington

Historic Beer Birthday: John Hemrich

June 12, 2023 By Jay Brooks

Bay-View

Today is the birthday of John Hemrich (June 12, 1823-August 24, 1896). He was born in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, trained as a brewer, and came to America when he was 25, and had breweries in New York, Iowa, Wisconsin, but eventually ended up in Washington state, where he founded the Bay View Brewery, which eventually merged with two other Seattle breweries to become the Seattle Brewing and Malting Co.

He’s also the father of Andrew Henrich, Alvin Hemrich, and Louis Hemrich, all of whom worked with other family members on a variety of brewery projects over the years. It’s a complicated story, but Gary Flynn at Brewery Gems is your best bet for understanding it all, and I recommend starting with his biography of John Hemrich.

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Bay-View-ad

Filed Under: Birthdays, Breweries, Just For Fun Tagged With: Germany, Washington

Historic Beer Birthday: Emil G. Sick

June 3, 2023 By Jay Brooks

emil-sick
Today is the birthday of Emil George Sick (June 3, 1894-November 10, 1964). Sick was the “son of Canadian brewer Fritz Sick, who built Sick’s Lethbridge Brewery.”

“He was a brewing worker and industrialist in Canada and later the US. He is well known for his involvement as owner of baseball teams and stadiums in Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia from the 1930s until 1960.

He was chairman of the board of Sick’s Rainier Brewing Company and president of Sicks’ Brewery Enterprises, Inc., both of Seattle, and a director of three other firms, Molson’s Brewery, Ltd., and Sicks’ Breweries, Ltd., both of Canada, and the Peoples National Bank of Washington. He also was a director of the Seattle World’s Fair.”

emil-sick-cigar

Here’s a short biography from Find a Grave:

Sportsman. Northwest baseball pioneer. Former owner of the Pacific Coast League’s Seattle Rainiers. He constructed Sick’s Seattle Stadium which opened in June 1938 and served as home to the Seattle Rainiers, Seattle Angels and the 1969 major league Seattle Pilots. He rose to prominence in the brewing industry along with his father Fritz, operating breweries in Vancouver, Edmonton, Regina, Great Falls, Spokane and the Rainier Brewery in Seattle. Active in civic affairs, he served as president of both the Seattle Historical Society and Seattle Chamber of Commerce. He was also instrumental in the founding of the King County Blood Bank and as chairman of the Washington State March of Dimes.

“In 1934 the Sicks made their most important transaction. It would transform Emil Sick into one of Seattle’s most significant citizens and impact the game of baseball in the state for decades. They acquired exclusive rights to sell the Rainier brand in Washington and Alaska from the Rainier Brewing Company of San Francisco.”

Rainier-Special-Export-Beer-Labels-Sicks-Spokane-Brewery-Inc

And this is his obituary from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on November 11, 1964, as posted on the Brewery Gems page about Emil.

Emil G. Sick, 70, long-time Seattle civic and business leader, died early yesterday morning in Swedish Hospital of a stroke following an operation. Mr. Sick had been in failing health recently but had continued to take an active part in his numerous and varied business interests in, the United States and Canada.

He was chairman of the board of Sick’s Rainier Brewing Co. and president of Sicks’ Brewery Enterprises, Inc., both of Seattle, and a director of three other firms, Molson’s Brewery, Ltd., and Sicks’ Breweries, Ltd., both of Canada, and the Peoples National Bank of Washington. He also was a director of the Seattle World’s Fair.

Mr. Sick was equally well known for his leadership in civic activities. He led two successful $100,000 fund raising drives. One played a leading role in saving St. Mark’s Cathedral. As chairman of the non – denominational committee, he saw $100,000 collected to wipe out the church’s debts and beautify the picturesque building.

As president of the Seattle Historical Society, Mr. Sick led the drive which collected $100,000 for construction of the Museum of History and Industry.

Mr. Sick was a long-time leader of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, serving as its president in 1941. Thirteen, years later he was elected an honorary life-time member.

Mr. Sick entered the brewery business as a shipping clerk with Lethbridge Breweries, Ltd., in Alberta, Canada, which was founded and owned by his father.

In the following years he headed numerous corporations which operated breweries in Spokane; Salem, Ore.; Missoula and Great Falls, Mont.; Vancouver, B.C.; Edmonton and Lethbridge, Alta., and Prince Albert and Regina, Sask. Some of these later were closed or sold.

In 1937, Mr. Sick purchased the Seattle Rainier baseball club and a year later built the stadium which bears his name. The club was sold in 1960. He also was past state chairman of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis and was a founder of the King County Central Blood Bank.

In 1949, Mr. Sick became the first Washingtonian to be named for the Disabled American’s Veteran’s award for outstanding civic leadership. And he was named Greater Seattle’s First Citizen in Sports for 1963.

Mr. Sick was born June 3, 1894, in Tacoma. He attended Western Canada College, Calgary, and Stanford University. He resided at 260-39th Ave. E.

He married Kathleen Thelma McPhee in 1918. She died in 1962, and last December he married Mrs. Martha Gardner, widow of a Seattle business leader.

Survivors include his wife, Martha; sister, Mrs. J. A. Blair, Vancouver, B.C.; three daughters, Mrs. Chandler Thomas, Guatemala City, Guatemala; Mrs. Robert Minton, Concord, Mass.; and Mrs. Winston Ingman, Mercer Island; a son, Timothy Sick, London, England; an adopted son, Alan Ferguson, Seattle, and 16 grandchildren.”

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Filed Under: Birthdays, Just For Fun Tagged With: Canada, History, Seattle, Washington

Historic Beer Birthday: Frederick Kirschner

May 21, 2023 By Jay Brooks

seattle-brewing-malting
Today is the birthday of Frederick Kirschner (May 21, 1856-June 29, 1897). Kirschner Frederick Kirschner, Jr., son of Frederick Kirschner and Maria Wick, joined his father-in-law, Andrew Hemrich in Seattle, Washington to work at the Hemrich brewery. He continued working for family, and later himself, in several brewing enterprises in the Seattle area throughout his life.

portrait-Fred-Kirschner

According to “An Illustrated History of the State of Washington,” by Rev. H.K. Hines, published in 1893, as posted on the Brewery Gems page on Frederick Kirschner:

FRED KIRSCHNER, treasurer of the Seattle Brewing & Malting Company, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, May 21, 1856. His parents, Frederick and Mary (Weicke) Kirschner, were natives of Germany, but emigrated to America in the early ’50s and located in Cincinnati, where Mr. Kirschner followed his trade of molder in an iron foundry. In 1856 he removed to Buffalo City, Wisconsin, and engaged in the draying business up to 1888, then in farming until 1888, when he removed to Seattle, where he now resides. Our subject was educated in the schools of Wisconsin, and remaining at home followed the avocations of the farm until April, 1878, when he was married at Alma, Wisconsin, to Miss Emma Hemrich.

He then located in Alma and was connected with the brewery of Mr. Hemrich for one year, then for three years was proprietor of the Union House. He then purchased a plant and engaged in the manufacture of soda water, which enterprise be continued until 1885, when he came to Seattle and purchased an interest in the Bay View brewery, assuming the duties of secretary and continuing in such capacity until April, 1892, when, upon the incorporation of the Bay View Brewing Company, he was made secretary and treasure, and so continued up to the spring of 1893, when the Bay View consolidated with the Albert Braun Brewing Company and the Claussen-Sweeney Brewing Company, under the incorporate name of the Seattle Brewing & Malting Company, and Mr. Kirschner was elected treasurer of the new organization. He is also interested in valuable mining interests in the Cascade mountains, and now owns real estate in the city of Seattle.

Mr. and Mrs. Kirschner have three children: William, Andrew and Emily. Socially, Mr. Kirschner affiliates with the social and benevolent German societies of Seattle.

Hemrichs-Select-Beer-Labels-Hemrich-Brewing-Company

Brewery Gems continues with additional information obtained from Frederick’s great-grandson, Bradley W. Kirschner. In addition, in “A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of the City of Seattle and County of King, Washington,” and in a biography of Andrew Hemrich, there is also mention of Frederick’s role in the brewery businesses.

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Filed Under: Birthdays, Breweries, Just For Fun Tagged With: History, Washington

Historic Beer Birthday: Bert Grant

May 17, 2023 By Jay Brooks

bert-grants-real-ales

Today would have been Bert Grant’s 95th birthday, and he is still definitely missed. Bert opened the country’s first brewpub in 1982 in Yakima, Washington and was a fixture in the industry until his death in late July of 2001. Join me tonight in lifting a pint to Bert’s memory.

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Here’s his obituary from Real Beer:

Craft brewing pioneer Bert Grant, who founded the first modern day brewpub in the United States, is dead at 73.

Grant had been ill for two years and died Tuesday at the University of British Columbia Hospital in Vancouver. He had moved to that city a year ago to be close to his children.

When Grant founded his brewpub in Yakima, Wash., in 1982 there were fewer than 50 individual brewing operations in the U.S. Today there are more than 1,500. That brewpub expanded to become a bottling microbrewery, selling about 10,000 barrels of Bert Grant’s Ales in 2001. He sold the brewery to Chateau Ste. Michelle wines in 1995, but Grant remained an active spokesman until being slowed by illness.

He’d sometimes wear a kilt at his pub in Yakima and occasionally dance on the bar. He kept a claymore — a double-bladed broadsword — just in case he had to enforce his ban on smoking.

He was born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1928. He moved to Toronto, where he grew up and got his first job in a brewery … at 16, he became a beer taster. He remained in the beer business all his life. He moved to Yakima in 1967, where he helped build and operate two plants that processed hops. His patented processing of hops is still in use today.

Bert Grant Bert was one of a kind,” said Paul Shipman, who founded Red Hook Brewery around the time Grant began Yakima Brewing and Malting Co. “He was a scientist, a brewer, and I don’t think he even graduated high school.”

He remained dedicated to assertive beer and carried a vial of hop oil in his pocket to boost the flavor of a bland domestic beer. His first priority was to brew beer he liked. “It may not be your favorite beer,” Grant’s son Peter said. “But it was his.”

Bert-Grant-GABF
Bert at GABF in the 1990s.

And here is his obituary from the New York Times:

Bert Grant, a veteran brew master who in 1982 opened the granddaddy of all the good, bad and so-so brew pubs slaking thirsts across the country today, died on July 31 at a hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he had recently made his home. He was 73 and a longtime resident of Yakima, Wash.

The cause was a bowel rupture, his family said.

Mr. Grant’s experience in brewing stretched back to his teenage years in Canada. He worked at big brewing companies and later as an international consultant to them before settling in Yakima, the center of American hops country.

Mr. Grant started the Yakima Brewing and Malting Company in the 19th-century former home of the Yakima Opera, using plenty of the flavorful hops he thought other beers lacked. At first he brewed just eight kegs at a time.

Friends who sampled his recipe liked it and spread the word. It caught on with Yakima beer lovers, who welcomed it as an alternative to national brands and expensive imports. Mr. Grant got some chairs to sit on in the lobby and convinced skeptical licensing officials that Washington State law permitted each brewer to operate one pub.

This gave birth in the summer of 1982 to Grant’s Brewery Pub, the first such establishment in the United States since Prohibition. Food and tables were added, and a growing clientele prompted Mr. Grant to move his pub across the street into what used to be Yakima’s downtown railroad station. He liked to greet customers personally and, as a native of Scotland, often did so wearing a plaid kilt with a clan pin.

His brewing company, meanwhile, came to offer an assortment of beers and ales, including seasonal brews that varied with the harvest of the region’s distinctive types of hops. Mr. Grant built the company into one of the Northwest’s leading microbreweries and started bottling his brands, like Grant’s Scottish Ale, Imperial Stout and HefeWeizen. Last year, Yakima Brewing and Malting brewed 10,000 barrels and shipped bottles to distributors in 20 states, from Alaska to Connecticut to Florida.

Herbert Lewis Grant was born in Dundee but immigrated to Canada with his parents as a toddler. With World War II draining his adopted country of manpower, he left school at 16 to work at Canadian Breweries (now Carling).

He moved on to the United States to develop a pilot brewing program for Stroh and, as his reputation grew, became an independent consultant for makers like Anheuser-Busch and the Australian brewer Foster’s.
Also working for hops companies, he became well acquainted with Yakima and moved there when he decided to brew to his own taste. He sold his business in 1995 to Stimson Lane Ltd., a long-established winery, but remained a consultant to it until recently.

Mr. Grant is survived by two sons, David H., of Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Peter A., of Vancouver; three daughters, Shannon D. Grant and Melanie Bond of Vancouver, and Wendy Cundall of Calgary, Alberta; and five grandchildren. Also surviving is his former wife, Daphne Grant of Vancouver.

According to family lore, the Scottish doctor who delivered little Herbert lifted him by the heels and, slapping breath into him, said, ”Bottoms up.” His first cradle, the lore goes, was an oaken barrel sawed in half — possibly apocryphal, Mr. Grant allowed.

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And finally, here’s a great retrospective written by Ryan Messer for the Yakima Herald in 2017, entitled “Bert Grant: The Godfather of Craft Brewing.”

He’s been called the “Dean of America’s craft brewers” and the Wall Street Journal called him “The Patriarch of the micro movement.” Personally, I prefer Bert Grant as the “Neil Young of Microbrews.” Neil didn’t invent Rock ’n Roll, but he was the Godfather of Grunge. Likewise, Bert didn’t invent beer but what he did to change it made an indelible mark.

Most people know Bert Grant as the man who gave us Yakima brewing and Malting Co., or Grant’s Ales. While he launched that business in 1982, his passion for beer, and hops in general, started decades before.

Bert was born in 1928 in Dundee, Scotland. Before he reached the age of 10, the Grant family moved to Toronto, and Bert had consumed his first beer. I should say his first of many beers. I don’t even know if it’s possible to quantify what Bert consumed over his lifetime. As a child, Bert’s father let him drink opened beers left behind, and his first job at age 16 was to taste beer; 50-100 per day — you do the math.

The thing about beer drinking for Bert was that he truly enjoyed it. It wasn’t about the feeling, it was about the flavor. And, it was about the science behind the flavor. Bert was a chemist and loved studying why one beer could taste remarkable, and another could ruin your evening.

Part of his career included working for Canadian Breweries (parent company of Carling) and Stroh Brewing Company, doing experimental brewing. He had the freedom to try new things, but sadly neither company utilized his research or expertise. Finally, Bert realized consulting was the best direction for him. He eventually worked with large breweries spanning the globe such as Guinness, Coors, Foster’s, Anheuser-Busch and Yakima hop company, S.S. Steiner.

Steiner was the business that really changed Bert’s world, and ours as a collective of beer drinkers. They convinced him to move to Yakima and redesign a hop extract plant. After great success, Bert and Steiner changed gears — literally. Under Bert’s supervision, Steiner built the first hop pellet plant in the United States. This was a game changer for the beer industry. It took the varying aroma of a whole hop cone (based on time from harvest) and replaced it with exacting smell and bitterness. It was similar in nature to the extract, but far easier and more precise for the brewer to use.

With over 40 years of beer tasting and testing under his belt, Bert wanted to share his knowledge with the world, or at least the people of the Yakima Valley. It would be a daunting task because at the time, no one even knew what a microbrew was. In the early ‘80s, there were two little known breweries in California, Sierra Nevada and Anchor Brewing, that were making something entirely different than the “King of Beers.” In 1982, when Bert was ready to start brewing professionally, his only competition in the state was Redhook. On July 1st that year, Yakima Brewing and Malting Co. poured its first Grant’s Scottish Ale in the old Opera House on Yakima’s Front Street.

Bert was at the helm as one of the chief investors and brewmaster, and the recipes and ideas all stemmed from him. He started with his son-in-law and a few others to round out the investment team and hired Rick Desmarais (who he had worked with at Steiner) as his first head brewer and Dan Boutillier as production manager. Within the first few years the Scottish Ale shared tap space with an Imperial Stout and an India Pale Ale (IPA). A few years beyond that, a low calorie “Celtic Ale”, Weis (white beer), “Spiced Ale” (winter beer) and Yakima Cider (a hard cider made exclusively from apple concentrate) were added to the lineup.

The unique thing about Yakima Brewing and Malting is that it started without a bottling line. It was only available in plastic bottles that the consumer could bring or purchase like a crude precursor to today’s growler. It was also available for consumption on premises. This is what really stood out because it was the first time anyone had an establishment of that nature in the United States since before prohibition. Yakima, Washington was the home of the first “brewpub” in America in over 60 years.

In 1984, Bert hired Darren Waytuck who eventually became head brewer. Waytuck said it was a tremendous learning experience working for someone like Bert. “He wasn’t only into the chemistry of the beer and that process, but in hops as well. That was really his forte. But he also had incredible experience. Someone new might know if a beer was flawed but wouldn’t know why. It was Bert’s job to understand why and how to correct it.”

As brew master, Bert was still in charge of all things happening with his beer. All ideas would come from him on the brewing process and ingredients. When asked about what hops they used to brew with, Waytuck said, “I preferred the whole hop cone and didn’t care for the smell of a hop pellet, but Bert insisted. When I still didn’t use them, Bert ran us out of whole hops so I had to use the pellets.”

Bert was a risk taker though, and had no problem with pushing the envelope for something he was passionate about. “No one was out there getting their beer in front of people like Bert did, it just didn’t happen before his time.” Waytuck said. With that success they had to build a bottling line directly behind the brewery in the Opera House. They also expanded into a space to the north for a larger pub which my mother, Jana Johnson, ran for the better part of two decades. When that wasn’t enough, the brewery expanded to a 20,000 square foot building off Washington Avenue and the pub moved across the street to the old train depot.

Waytuck and the crew enjoyed their craft, but he said, “it was a lot more fun at the Opera House. It became more corporate at the new brewery and was more of a task.”

Shortly after the locations changed, Bert continued to push the envelope, but this time with an organization that no one beats — the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, (ATF). Bert had done some testing on his beers and found that a 12 ounce bottle of Scottish Ale contained beneficial vitamins and nutrients, including 170 percent of the U.S. RDA of Vitamin B-12. He had table tents printed, added it to his 6-pack cartons and even made shirts advertising the news (although a bit tattered, I’m happy to say I still have mine).

Of course the ATF wouldn’t allow someone to suggest that beer was actually healthy for you and ordered him to stop. At the same time, the Bureau looked into his cider making process which was not technically a beer, but considered by them as a wine. Not only did they prevent him from continuing to make the cider, they required he pay back taxes for the years he paid too little. Waytuck said, “It was tough for Bert. He didn’t like the confrontation, but he was going to push as far as he could.”

After achieving a greater success than I believe Bert imagined he could, Yakima Brewing and Malting was sold to Stimson Lane, the parent company of Chateau Ste. Michelle, Columbia Crest and other wineries in Washington and California, in 1995. While his role changed, Bert stayed on with the company until he passed away in July of 2001. Stimson Lane sold the company only a few months later. Waytuck stayed committed to the brand and eventually became brewmaster, before the company closed in 2004. “I promised Bert I would see it through and make the best beer as long as we were open,” Waytuck said.

two-bert-grants
Me and the two Berts at OBF.

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