If you love the beers of Rogue Ales, take a moment to thank the inhospitable environment of Los Angeles. If John Maier had not found the sprawling city unbearable, he might not have left a lucrative job in the aerospace industry, might not have gravitated to brewing, and might not have made Rogue the innovative brewery it is today, under Maier’s stewardship as head brewer.
It’s the middle of the nineteenth century, give or take a decade or two. You are an ambitious young man.
James Watt’s steam engine and other inventions have already revolutionized the textile and ceramics industries. Industrialization has opened the door for ambitious young men like you to advance in the world without the traditional leverage of inherited wealth.
The anniversaries have started to come fast and furious. It’s been 40 years since Fritz Maytag tasted Anchor Steam for the first time. The Cartwright Brewery began its short life 25 years ago in Portland, OR, and it will be 20 years come April since the considerably more successful Widmer Brothers sold their first keg of beer.
When the Soviet Union collapsed and Winston Churchill’s famous Iron Curtain opened, observers of the brewing scene discovered that Russians drink beer as well as vodka. The country has a fascinating brewing tradition that was hidden from view for most of the 20th century.
To those of us in the rest of the country, “ the West Coast” is a world apart. Despite the vast geographical spread from California to Alaska, despite a cultural spread that brought us both the Grateful Dead and Ronald Reagan, viewed from the outside, the West is one strange singularity. It is Hollywood glitz, Haight Ashbury, Microsoft, and the ANWAR; the acceptable face of hedonism and the last outpost of the renegade.
Dan Carey knew early on that he wanted to be a professional brewer when he grew up. He remembers family car camping trips from their San Francisco home north to Victoria, BC. They would stop at the Olympia Brewery in Tumwater, WA, an expansive lakeside red brick brewery with church-like windows. Inside, the glistening equipment, particularly the giant copper kettles, made a lasting impression on Carey.
