Boca’s Beer Returns and the other “Healthful Fermented” Liquors at the Mechanics’ Institute’s Industrial Exhibitions
It was fun to read this article by Suzie Dundas about the revival of an historic lager style beer from the Truckee area by contemporary brewing Good Wolf Brewing Company. The original brewer, Boca Brewing Company, had a brief connection to the Mechanics’ Institute back in the 19th century.
Boca started out with promise, bottling its first beer in 1876. At its height, it claimed to employ 80 men and produce 80,000 barrels a year. Perhaps it grew too quickly because in 1893 it perished in a suspicious fire in 1893. Rumor has it that the owners were involved.
During Boca’s early years the company smartly decided to exhibit their beer at the Mechanics’ Institute’s industrial fairs of 1877 and 1878, perhaps as a means for breaking into the thirsty market of San Francisco. More detail about Boca Brewing Company can be found in this older article.
View of the exhibit of the Fredericksburg Bottling Company at the Mechanics’ Institute’s Industrial Exhibition of 1895 as photographed by Isaiah West Taber. Courtesy California State Library.
The MI fairs typically hosted exhibits of all kinds of products, specializing in “home industry” (the 19th century phrase for “locally made”). As you might guess, the products that were consumable were the most favorite for the judges and the public to encounter, especially if they were alcoholic! The fairs always saw heavy participation from the local beer and wine industries.
The first fair in 1857 featured 650 exhibits, seven of which were breweries. Eureka Brewery offered up samples of porter “equal to the finest scotch” and won a diploma, Empire brought their Cream Ale, and Philadelphia brought some “splendid samples” although the variety is not described.
The 1864 Exposition was the next notable one for beer. This building was erected at Union Square. The Fair was to be one of the first large “civic” events since the outbreak of the Civil War. The structure featured 55,000 square feet of exhibit space and had plenty of room for a small skating pond, a hedge labyrinth, a 40-foot tower of flowers and the West’s greatest display of quartz crushers, loaves of sugar, mounds of apples, shoes, saddles, and the thirst-quenching fruit of eight breweries.
New York Brewery won a premium for “best Lager Beer,” Empire Brewery won a Diploma for their two barrels of submitted Ale – after the judges tasted them they were declared superior to any presented. Eureka won a Bronze Medal for a “deserving barrel of Ale”, and Philadelphia won a Bronze for the “best Lager”. At this time the Empire and Philadelphia were by far the largest breweries – at least they would pay the most taxes on their production a few years later.
The Eighth Fair (1871) had an international flavor featuring exhibits from Australia, China, Japan, and Hawaii. It was nearly double the size of the first with 1100 different exhibits. Australian beer featured heavily at this fair and was eagerly sampled by all. By this time there were 35 breweries according to the San Francisco Municipal Reports, producing 160,000 barrels of beer.
Boca Brewing Company’s exhibits in 1877 and 1878 were not notable – at least the judges didn’t comment. But the 1877 fair was one at which seven thousand people attended on a typical day and Boca’s Lager must have been impressive because it was described as the “best beer” in the fair’s report and won a bronze medal - the highest honor and award of that fair.
The later fairs, beer wise, were characterized by a large amount of imported (meaning non-West coast) beer that was on display. These beers often exhibited by agents or suppliers (rather than the beer makers themselves) exploring the market for potential import. The first Silver Medal to any beer product was unfortunately awarded to one of these “imports” in 1880 to Franz Falk of the Bavaria Brewing Company in Milwaukee for “best bottled beer.”
1887 for example, would be a watershed year for beer manufacturers at the MI fairs, bringing home an unprecedented four medals. At that fair, Albion Brewery would get a Silver Medal for their California Ale and Porter; Fredericksburg Brewery of San Jose would earn a Gold Medal for their Draught Lager; and National Brewing Company would be awarded the Gold for its “first class lager.” The municipal reports support my supposition that 1887 was a good year for beer. The number of breweries for the past several years had held steady at 34 but production jumped almost three-fold to 611,850 barrels with an aggregate value of $4,575,000.
The winning of accolades at the MI fairs was something to brag about and several brewing companies would mention this in their advertising to encourage local consumption of their beer. The encouragement of buying “home industry” or local products was as essential to the economy then as it is today. The transcontinental railroads were bringing in products from the East that competed with local production in all industries, but the beer world was particularly affected – cheaper Eastern barley, malt, and hops were flooding the market and so was beer from St. Louis and Milwaukee.
The fairs of the 1880’s and 1890’s would be characterized by more “imported” beers from the eastern United States. Some were new companies looking for investors, some were old and testing the market’s palate for new varietals, and some were agents exploring the markets for potential import. One also began to see the presence of some of the most famous beers today, that by Budweiser (1880), Anheuser-Busch (1885), Schlitz (1881), Falk’s Milwaukee Bottled Beer (1880), Valentine Blatz Milwaukee Beer – (1885 and now produced by Pabst).
I am delighted to hear that Boca’s award winning Lager is being replicated by the pioneering Good Wolf Brewing Company who, because they are located in the Tahoe National Forest, specialize in hop forward and “forest beers.” I love that they represent the taste of the land and have an interest in replicating, in one small way, the taste of the 19th century. I’m thirsty already!
This essay is adapted from my short presentation Lager, Ale, Porter, and Steam: “Healthful fermented liquors” at the Mechanics’ Institute’s Industrial Expositions 1857-1899 (2014).
