The amazing Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives at OSU are expanding (check these photos)

Dig this hop yard (Kuhlman) shown during growing season circa the 1930s.

The Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives at Oregon State University’s Valley Library is celebrating its third anniversary with expanded collecting areas. To meet the needs of researchers, the Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives is broadening its reach to include the history of homebrewing, cider, mead, barley farming and research and the pre-Prohibition eras. In August 2013, the library’s Special Collections and Archives Research Center established the first archives in the country dedicated to collecting materials related to the history of hops and craft brewing.

“We are so proud of the support we’ve gotten over the past three years and are excited to broaden our collecting areas to cover more topics, more time periods, and more territories,” said Tiah Edmunson-Morton, an archivist at Oregon State’s Valley Library and the curator for the library’s Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives.

Spraying hops for red spiders circa 1924.

The archives include the papers of world-renowned beer historian Fred Eckhardt; oral histories with growers, brewers and scientists; the records of the Oregon Hop Growers Association; extensive industry periodicals and book collections; homebrew club newsletters; photographs; memorabilia and advertising materials from Oregon breweries; and OSU research on plant disease, breeding and processing that dates to the 1890s.

“OBHA is an archive unlike any other, one that allows scholars to research seriously the craft beer revolution and the rich agricultural history of hops upon which good beer rests,” said Peter A. Kopp, author of “Hoptopia: A World of Agriculture and Beer in Oregon’s Willamette Valley.”

To celebrate the expansion of the collecting areas and the three-year anniversary, the archives is releasing a photo per day for three months beginning on Aug. 1. Enjoy some examples!

Norman Goetze, OSU; Wilson Foote, OSU; Warren Kronstad, OSU; Scotty Coleader, Amity
Date. Circa 1976.

This photo is apaptly named guys on car. Note the Rainier Beer and Ale ad in the background. This is circa the 1930s.

Daniel Moret is a communications specialist with OSU Libraries and Press. He coordinates a wide range of marketing and public relations projects, including The Messenger magazine, and oversees the library’s graphic designers.