Beer History Week is a celebration beginning with the Beer Culture Summit, continuing with daily programming from colleagues around the country, and concluding with Ales Through The Ages, presented by our friends at Colonial Williamsburg.

BEER HISTORY WEEK: DAY 1

California once played a far more dominant role in hop-growing than it does today. In the second half of the 19th century and the early years of the 20th century, California farmers sought to fit hops into a diverse array of ecosystems and farms--from the small river valley along the Russian River in Sonoma County to the vast alluvial plains around Sacramento, and even in arid Orange County, not far from where Disneyland is today.

The labor force was as varied as the types of farms--depending on the time and place. Chinese men, Japanese men, Filipino men, single white women, white families, and Native American families all engaged in hop-picking, often paid vastly different wages based on racist hierarchies and stereotypes. Hop-picking could be idyllic and meaningful, a place for scattered families to come together after months apart, or for young hop pickers to dance into the night and meet a sweetheart or future spouse. But the hop harvest could also be deadly and violent, whether due to heatstroke, disease, or events like the Wheatland Hop Riot.

Most of this once thriving industry has completely disappeared, leaving just a few traces behind--old hop houses converted to wineries, and old hop plants twining around the edges of vineyards and housing developments.

Jennifer Jordan guides us through the history of hop growing in Pre-Prohibition California.

This free virtual program takes place via Zoom. Times listed are Central Standard Time.

Dr. Jennifer A. Jordan is Professor of Sociology and Urban Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and is the Chair of the Department of Sociology. She is the author of Structures of Memory: Understanding Urban Change in Berlin and Beyond (Stanford, 2006) and Edible Memory: The Lure of Heirloom Tomatoes and Other Forgotten Foods (Chicago, 2015), and is completing a new book, Before Craft Beer: Lost Landscapes of Forgotten Hops (Chicago). She has been a Fulbright scholar and a fellow at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, among many other fellowships, and teaches on social theory, culture, cities, and beer. She serves on the Chicago Brewseum’s League of Historians.