Although it amounts to heresy in this wine country we call home, I am proud to say it: I like beer more than wine. Sure, wine is nice for dinner, but nothing quite quenches the thirst after a long day’s work like a cold beer. Lake County’s history backs me up on this score, too. Long before the wine grape spread across the rolling hills of the county, hops were king.
The father of the hops industry in our area was John J. O’Brien who, in 1872, traveled on horseback to Ukiah to buy the hop roots for his venture. That year he planted 24 acres of hops at his ranch in Big Valley. Cultivation of the fields began in the early spring, with poles set for the hops vines to root, and then climb. The crop required laborers the entire season to train the vines to follow the poles and strings until the plant was mature and harvest began.
By late August and early September labor intensified while workers picked the harvest and then began the drying process. An average worker was typically able to harvest 100 pounds of hops per day, more if the hops were a lower quality and did not need the same care and attention. At the height of production, farmers could earn 50 cents per pound of hops, while workers earned 75 cents per 100 pounds of clean hops picked.
Over the next 10 years other farmers took to growing the bitter plant and by 1885 the Pacific Rural Press estimated that Lake County was producing 1,000-2,000 bales of hops (roughly 480,000 lbs.) each year. Beer experts from Chicago agreed that the best variety of hops came from the “Russian River” section and surrounding area of the state.
This booming industry was part of a larger state-wide trend that saw California become a significant source of hops, with much of the industry focused in the northern portion of the state. Sacramento hosted the largest hops drying yard in the country, and breweries in San Francisco were producing new types of ales that showcased the California hop.
Unlike the conundrum of the chicken or the egg, we know that beer came first, not hops — at least for Lake County. I was reminded of this fact when the Historic Courthouse Museum in Lakeport received a piece of Lake County’s early brewing history — a history that pre-dates Mr. O’Brian and his hops by nearly a decade. Not a farming implement or brewing apparatus, the museum’s new object doesn’t have any obvious connection to brewing.
It is a sausage stuffer.
You’ve probably seen hundreds of these sorts of sausage stuffers in antique stores across the country. This particular model was patented in 1859. Given the thriftiness of Lake County’s citizens, it could have been used for decades after that patent date — so that in itself is not much of a clue as to when it was used and who used it. Thankfully, the owner of the grinder had his name branded onto the wood panel. The brand reads: R.O. Smith, Lakeport Cal.
Robert O. Smith was born in Indiana around 1832 and made his way to California in the early-mid 1850s. First stopping in Yolo County to marry a young Missouri native named Caroline, he eventually made his way into Lake County in the early 1860s. Shortly thereafter, in 1863, Robert opened Lake Brewery — Lake County’s first brewery.
Built on the gentle slope of what would become known as “Brewery Hill”, his property was located on 11th Street close to where Safeway now sits. The brewery had an initial production capacity of 12 barrels of frothy delight. A jack of all trades, Mr. Smith also built and operated a brick kiln in conjunction with a Mr. Ingram. Less than a decade later when the county looked to build a stately courthouse, they hired the brewer-brick maker duo to supply the material. You can see the finished building to this day — it is the Historic Courthouse Museum.
That’s right; this beer lover works in a building built by beer!
Unfortunately the reign of hops was not to last and by the 1880s the wine grape began to supersede it. Our area’s brief beer-boom fizzled out. It’s not certain how far into the 1880s Mr. Smith continued to operate Lake Brewery. When a company out of Oakland published a publicity book advertising the benefits of living in Lake County in 1885 there was no mention of the brewery — even though the book went to great lengths to touch upon every beneficial detail of the county, including its abundant production of wine. By 1896 when he registered to vote, Mr. Smith indicated his occupation was a simple farmer — not a brewer as he identified himself in the 1880 census.
There were some setbacks in the hops industry in the 1880s and 1890s that might have precipitated the closing of the brewery. In 1887, there was an outbreak of “hops lice” (common aphids) which halted production and caused the fields to be abandoned for the season. Far more voracious than aphids — but just as pesky — the temperance movement and their anti-alcohol agenda appeared early in Lake County. The benefit society of the Order of Good Templars — an organization that had as their chief concern restricting the production, sale and consumption of alcohol — had chapters in the area as early as the late 1860s.
In 1894, county-wide liquor laws were finally passed, prohibiting the sale of “spirituous, vinous, malt or maized liquors”. Shortly after this, the San Francisco Brewer’s Protective Association blasted the law in the San Francisco Call, stating that it was “against the best interest of the State.” In a response akin to cutting off their nose to spite their face, the association resolved not to buy any hops grown within Lake County’s limits until the law was repealed. That, of course, hardly made matters better for the local hops farmers and brewers. For the next 20 years, Lake County often made and redacted prohibition laws, restricting the buying and selling of both hops and alcohol.
The rest of the story is known. More resilient than hops, the wine grape found fertile ground in post-prohibition Lake County. Perhaps we would be a beer county if it weren’t for the quirks of history. We beer lovers will have to settle with mementoes like the sausage stuffer to remind ourselves of what could have been.
Tony Pierucci is Curator of Lake County Museums
