Author: Tom Acitelli
-
Acitelli on History - Blogs - Web Only -
Acitelli on History - Blogs - Web OnlyThe Brits Rip a Beer Tax Page from the Yanks
August 15, 2014 - Tom Acitelli Thirty-eight years ago next month, Congress passed a deep tax cut that helped spur growth in the number of smaller breweries in the United States. A similarly tax-spurred phenomenon is under way in the United Kingdom. In the U.S., the September 1976 congressional legislation chopped the federal excise tax on beer from $9 to $7... View Article -
Acitelli on History - Blogs - Web OnlyWhen Beer Really Took Off
August 5, 2014 - Tom Acitelli In the fall of 2002, the five-year-old Oskar Blues Brewery out of tiny Lyons, CO, decided to can rather than bottle its beers for retail sale. It became, then, America’s first independently owned, smaller-scale brewery to can its beers in-house. (Others had done it under contract at other breweries, starting as far back as the... View Article -
Acitelli on History - Blogs - Web OnlyThe Early Days of Maine’s Biggest Brewer: Shipyard Brewing Co.
July 15, 2014 - Tom Acitelli The Shipyard Brewing Co., Maine’s largest brewer, is marking its 20th anniversary now with various events. The company’s origins stretch further back than 1994, however, to a couple of years before. In 1992, Fred Forsley, a Gray, ME, native and real estate entrepreneur, opened the Kennebunkport Brewing Co. and the Federal Jack’s brewpub above it... View Article -
Acitelli on History - Blogs - Web OnlyOnce Upon a Time, Beer in Oregon ‘Wasn’t Great’
July 14, 2014 - Tom Acitelli It’s Craft Beer Month in Oregon. With 214 breweries and brewpubs for a state of about 3.8 million people, Oregon remains undoubtedly one of the nation’s, if not the world’s, most enviable spots for beer variety. It was not always like that. In fact, Oregon as a Valhalla of independently owned breweries making small batches... View Article -
Acitelli on History - Blogs - Web OnlyFred Eckhardt’s First Beer Column
July 9, 2014 - Tom Acitelli On April 25, 1984, a Friday, the Portland Oregonian tucked two brief stories and a small photograph onto a page with ads for Atta Boy dog food and Diet 7-Up as well as an article about a rice-cooking competition. “Beer Expert Writes Column,” ran the headline over the shorter of the two stories. It, along with the... View Article -
Acitelli on History - Blogs - Web OnlyDrinking the History of American Beer
July 2, 2014 - Tom Acitelli What better way to imbibe the legacy of American beer—and what better time to do it, over the Fourth of July—than to drink the five beers that evoke that history? These particular beers from particular breweries collectively represent the march of American beer over the last century and a half or so. Again, they are... View Article -
Acitelli on History - Blogs - Web OnlyHow World War I Affected Beer
June 30, 2014 - Tom Acitelli In July 1914, construction commenced on Adolphus Busch Hall on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. It could not have picked a worst moment to consummate years of enthusiastic planning. Shortly before, on June 28, a Serbian terrorist had assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, sparking a chain of events that led... View Article -
Acitelli on History - Blogs - Web OnlyA Bitter Beginning: The First Anchor Liberty Ale Bottles
June 26, 2014 - Tom Acitelli On June 26, 1975, Anchor Brewing Co. in San Francisco bottled 530 cases of what its owner, Fritz Maytag, called Liberty Ale. It had been released in draft in April to mark the 200th anniversary of Paul Revere’s ride through Greater Boston. Ironically enough, given its commemoration of the start of the American Revolution, complete... View Article