CORVALLIS, Ore. — A new project at Oregon State University is aiming to create a definitive historical archive of craft beer’s history and impact in Oregon.
The university has launched the Oregon Hops & Brewing Archives. The organizers behind it plan on building the archives as a destination repository for researchers in hops and brewing. In fact, the Oregon Hops & Brewing Archives is the first of its kind in the United States, The Eugene Register-Guard reported.
“We live in an important moment historically that is reclaiming craft beer heritage and culture,” said Peter Kopp, an agricultural historian at New Mexico State University and an unofficial adviser to the OSU project. “People are going to stay interested (in beer) for a long time. That’s what we’re trying to document, this historical shift during the late 20th and early 21st centuries.”
Organizers say people in 100 years may find in the archives the answer to why Americans drank pale, mass-produced beer for so long in the 20th century — and then switched rapidly to craft brews.