History of the Week

Alcohol History Links September 9 - 16
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Malting History

Write up on a recent malt & malting seminar out in Orkney.

"The ancient and traditional way of harvesting grain by hand was extremely hard work, it was a time when the whole community worked together to bring the harvest home. On Orkney, where I live, grain was harvested by hand and stacked in stooks in the field until as recently as the 1950s."
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Willkommen in Cincinnati

Brewed Culture visits Rhinegeist Brewery, which is housed in the old bottling plant for Moerlein Brewing Company from the 1800s.

"​American craft beer is great, but it has really big shoes to fill. Rhinegeist is pretty large as far as craft breweries go, producing about 30k barrels when I visited but on the cusp of an impressive expansion. Yet despite being a major regional player on the craft scene today, they still struggle to fill the space of one single part of the brewing complex of a major regional player a hundred years ago. Craft beer today is re-inventing, not creating, the local focus and diversity that once characterized American beer."
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Lentil Beer Round 2

Tasting notes for Brewing Classical's second rendition of the Armenian lentil beer.
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Budweiser Powerhouse

Personal opinions aside, AB does play an interesting role in US history. 
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"1970s beer books, written at the dawn of the craft revival, are respectful and sometimes admiring of its [Anheuser-Busch] beers even as they were then."
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Scottish Beer History Podcast

Ron Pattinson sits down for a chat about Scottish brewing heritage with the BeerSmith podcast.
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Kupiškio

Lithuanian brewery tour #7. Not quite historical but this brewery still makes traditional beers.

"Vidmantas explained that this was a WW I army ammunition store, built into the ground to minimize the damage from any explosions. That's perfect for a brewery, because it provides partly natural cooling for the maturation room. The actual brewkit is in the same building as the shop, but the fermenters, maturation tanks, and bottling plant are in the bunker. It's very clearly a modern brewery, and the batch size is the same as at Davra, 2000 liters."
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Burnt Cheese in Archaeology

Not about beer, but it highlights the general process behind residue analysis.
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Beer beginnings in Indianapolis

A chronicling of beer in Indiana.

"​The first brewery in the city of Indianapolis came in 1834 with the opening of Wernweg & Young. Wernweg & Young, sometimes called “The Indianapolis Brewery”, was established in 1834 at Maryland and West Streets. Partners William Wernweg and John L. Young set the footprint for Indianapolis’ brewing story. The National Road, a.k.a. Washington Street or U.S. 40, was and is the spur toward the current craft brewery boon around Greater Indianapolis. Modern day breweries cluster along and nearby Washington Street."