Things to know

• Oregon has a "Brewshed Alliance," which is an outreach initiative of Oregon Wild. It is a coalition of Oregon brewers, brewing community partners, and conservationists who understand the value of clean water and protected forest watersheds. The 4 areas are: 
  • Bear Creek/Nicolai-Wickiup Watershed – Astoria
  • Bull Run/ Little Sandy Watershed – Portland 
  • McKenzie River Watershed – Eugene
  • Upper Deschutes Watershed – Bend

Recommended Archival Collection 

• Abram Goldman-Armstrong Papers, 1980-2018 has information about environmental sustainability.

Recommended Websites

• State of Oregon Food Product Environmental Footprint Literature Summary: Beer
• Fat Tire: sustainability plan
• Anheuser-Busch 2025 U.S. Sustainability Goals

Recommended Publications

• Casler, Angela, Michael J. Gundlach, Bonnie Persons, and Suzanne Zivnuska. "Sierra Nevada Brewing Company's thirty-year journey toward sustainability." People and Strategy 33, no. 1 (2010): 44.
• Cimini, Alessio, and Moresi, Mauro (2016). "Carbon Footprint of a Pale Lager Packed in Different Formats: Assessment and Sensitivity Analysis Based on Transparent Data." Journal of Cleaner Production 112, 4196-213.
• Edmonds, D. (2016). "Before the Taps Run Dry: Incentivizing Water Sustainability in America's Craft Breweries." George Washington Journal of Energy and Environmental Law, 7(2), 164–176.
• Garavaglia, Christian, and Johan Swinnen, eds. Economic perspectives on craft beer: a revolution in the global beer industry. Springer, 2017.
• Gatrell, Jay, Reid, Neil, and Steiger, Thomas L. "Branding Spaces: Place, Region, Sustainability and the American Craft Beer Industry." Applied Geography (Sevenoaks) 90 (2018): 360-70.
• Griffin, Jennifer J., and James Weber. "Industry social analysis: examining the beer industry." Business & Society 45, no. 4 (2006): 413-440.
• Heller, Martin, University of Michigan. Center for Sustainable Systems, Author, and Oregon. Department of Environmental Quality, Issuing Body. Food Product Environmental Footprint Literature Summary. Beer. Portland, Oregon]: State of Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, 2017.
• Higgins, Kevin T. "Crafting a Smaller Carbon Footprint." Beverage Industry 101, no. 3 (2010): 28.
• Jones, Ellis, and Diana Harvey. "Ethical brews: New England, networked ecologies, and a new craft beer movement." Chapter in Chapman, NG, Lellock, JS and Lippard, CD (2017).
• Kim, Eun-Hee, and Thomas P. Lyon. "Greenwash vs. brownwash: Exaggeration and undue modesty in corporate sustainability disclosure." Organization Science 26, no. 3 (2015): 705-723.
• Kleine, Alexandro, and Michael Von Hauff. "Sustainability-driven implementation of corporate social responsibility: Application of the integrative sustainability triangle." Journal of Business Ethics 85, no. 3 (2009): 517.
• Martin-Rios, Carlos, and Niclas Erhardt. "Servitization and sustainability in dynamic business contexts: The case of craft breweries." In ISPIM Conference Proceedings, pp. 1-12. The International Society for Professional Innovation Management (ISPIM), 2019.
• Muster-Slawitsch, Bettina, Weiss, Werner, Schnitzer, Hans, and Brunner, Christoph. "The Green Brewery Concept – Energy Efficiency and the Use of Renewable Energy Sources in Breweries." Applied Thermal Engineering 31, no. 13 (2011): 2123-134.
• Ness, Barry. "Beyond the Pale (Ale): An Exploration of the Sustainability Priorities and Innovative Measures in the Craft Beer Sector." Sustainability (Basel, Switzerland) 10, no. 11 (2018): 4108.
• Patterson, Mark, and Hoalst-Pullen, Nancy. The Geography of Beer: Regions, Environment, and Societies. Dordrecht ; New York: Springer, 2014.
• Reid, Neil, and Gatrell, Jay D. "Creativity, Community, & Growth: A Social Geography of Urban Craft Beer." Region (Louvain-la-Neuve) 4, no. 1 (2017): 31.
• Reid, Neil, and Jay D. Gatrell. "Craft breweries and economic development: Local geographies of beer." Polymath: An Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Journal 7, no. 2 (2017): 90-110.
• Shin, Rachel, and Cory Searcy. "Evaluating the Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the Craft Beer Industry: An Assessment of Challenges and Benefits of Greenhouse Gas Accounting." Sustainability 10, no. 11 (2018): 4191.
• Sloane, Timothy R. "Green Beer: Incentivizing Sustainability in California's Brewing Industry." Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal 5, no. 2 (2012): 481.
• Staples, Aaron J., Carson J. Reeling, Nicole J. Olynk Widmar, and Jayson L. Lusk. "Consumer willingness to pay for sustainability attributes in beer: A choice experiment using eco‐labels." Agribusiness 36, no. 4 (2020): 591-612.
• Wells, Peter. "Economies of Scale Versus Small Is Beautiful." Organization & Environment 29, no. 1 (2016): 36-52.

Some beer was brewed and served, but as beer was sold to larger markets the need for robust transportation systems arose to meet the needs of customers. 

Things to think about when researching transportation:

• Roads, shipping routes, and railroads
  • Early American Railroads from USHistory.org 
  • Rise of Industrial America Railroads in the late 19th Century from the Library of Congress
• Distribution and the distributors who control it 
• Refrigeration 
• Beer as commerce 
• Breweries as tourist destinations
• Industrial brewing

Google Scholar: links to search results pages

• transportation beer history - Google Scholar
• railroads beer history - Google Scholar
• distributors beer history - Google Scholar​
• refrigeration beer history - Google Scholar​

Things to Know:

Beer has been held, stored, and delivered in a multitude of containers and vessels across history and geographic regions. Liquid-tight containers would have been necessary for the production, storage, and transportation of beer and other fermented beverages. These have been made from treated wood, ceramics, and more, depending on local practices and the availability of materials. More recently, glass and metal bottles and cans have become the dominant beer containers globally. 

Recommended Publications:

The following articles range from regional studies of beer containers to examinations of the impact and influence of beverage industrial interests on the environment and recycling programs.

• Bartow, Elmore J. “The American Beverage Industry and the Development of Curbside Recycling Programs, 1950-2000.” Business History Review 86, no. 3 (Autumn 2012): 477-501.

• Beatty, Edward. “Bottles for Beer: The Business of Technological Innovation in Mexico, 1890-1920.” Business History Review 83, no. 2 (Summer 2009): 317-348.

• Friedel, Robert. “American Bottles: The Road to No Return.” Environmental History 19, no. 3 (July 2014): 505-527. 

• Hayden, Brian, Neil Canuel, and Jennifer Shanse. "What Was Brewing in the Natufian? An Archaeological Assessment of Brewing Technology in the Epipaleolithic." Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 20, no. 1 (March 2013): 102-150.

• Levinsohn, Rhoda. "Amacunu Beverage Containers." African Arts 16, no. 3 (May 1983): 53-55, 80. 

Google Scholar: links to search results pages

• beer container history - Google Scholar
• beer bottle history - Google Scholar
• brewing packaging history - Google Scholar​

Brewing technology developed alongside other industrial and scientific developments and saw significant changes in the 19th and 20th centuries. Technological advances were used to improve, expedite, or expand the harvesting of ingredients, brewing, storage/cooling, and distribution of beer. 

Things to think about when researching technology and material culture:

• 1Search@OSU - brewing technology

Herman Ronnenberg's 2011 book Material Culture of Breweries. Guides to Historical Artifacts is an excellent resource. 

The Sanborn Fire Insurance Map Collection (from 1879-1956) at Oregon State's Special Collections and Archives contain detailed maps of Oregon towns and cities, highlighting structures and notable equipment for insurance valuation. When breweries were noted (as in Astoria, Portland, and more) the maps usually describe the building type, production and storage equipment and space, as well as other notable equipment (such as ice machines and more). 

Do you want to do some patent searches? You can directly search Google Patents or use Google Scholar by combining your search term/phrase and the word “patent." When using Google Scholar you can narrow by date, but if you sort by date results disappear from your list. Try it with these searches: 

• ice works patent - Google Scholar
• hop harvest machines patent - Google Scholar
• beer bottle patent - Google Scholar
• beer coolers patent - Google Scholar
• beer container patent - Google Scholar

Things to Know:

Ice-making and refrigeration emerged and became increasingly popular by the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many breweries between the 1880s and 1930s adopted early forms of these technologies, which often were run by condensing ammonia. Refrigeration and cooling of beer was required in the production of some styles, a luxury to consumers, and a requisite to transport beyond local spheres. Many breweries adopted or developed ice-making and storage systems, which some relied on when trying to fiscally survive Prohibition.

Recommended Publications:

 The following articles discuss the history of ice-making and refrigeration industries, and their regulation.

• Lawrence, Lee E. "The Wisconsin Ice Trade." The Wisconsin Magazine of History 48, no. 4 (Summer 1965): 257-267. 

• Rees, Jonathan. “’I Did Not know…Any Danger Was Attached:’ Safety Consciousness in the Early American Ice and Refrigeration Industries.” Technology and Culture 46, no. 3 (July 2005): 541-560.

• Rees, Jonathan. Refrigeration Nation: A History of Ice, Appliances, and Enterprise in America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016. 

Google Scholar: links to search results pages

• brewing refrigeration history - Google Scholar
• beer refrigeration history - Google Scholar
• brewing ice works history - Google Scholar​