The session for April is hosted by the The Tale of Ale. And it means getting into a TARDIS or a Wayback Machine or a DeLorean. Here is the writing challenge…..
“In Session 87, I want you to give your readers a history lesson about a local brewery. That’s a physical brewery and not brewing company by the way. The brewery doesn’t need to still exist today, perhaps you had a local brewery that closed down before you were even born. Or you could pick one that has been producing beer on the same site for centuries.
Stipulations?
The only thing I ask is that the brewery existed for at least 20 years so don’t pick the local craft brewery that opened two or three years ago. This will exclude most small craft breweries but not all. The reason? There’s not much history in a brewery that has only existed for a few years.
Also, when I say local, I mean within about 8 hours’ drive from where you live. That should cover most bases for the average blogger and in many, allow you to pick one further away if you don’t want to talk about a closer one. “
Craft beer in the City of Angels has a small history. We have Craftsman and Mark Jilg but the latest change started with Eagle Rock Brewery a mere 4 years ago and as interesting as both of those stories are, I still think of them in the present tense since they are still creatively brewing and affecting the local scene.
So I am taking a different tack and it may get my craft beer card revoked but the history of beer in Los Angeles has one place that really intrigues me more than Brew 102 or Pabst. It is the Busch Gardens in the tourist mecca known as Van Nuys. Which I read about in a post on LAistory a few years ago if memory serves.
That is no knock on Van Nuys by the way. There are more places in Los Angeles that are not tourist areas then ones that are. If you come here (and please do), you will probably see Pasadena and Disneyland for starters. Both of which figure into this narrative.
To begin, Adolphus Busch had a home in Pasadena with luxuriant gardens. So palatial that people would visit and the King of Beers allowed it! When Budweiser built it’s monstrous brewing plant up the freeway in Van Nuys they decided to move the birds and foliage and added a Busch Gardens to a then modern brewery. Reports on admission prices are are varied but there was a boat ride. Loads of birds. To the point where they had over a 1,000 with bird education classes. There were lagoons and waterfalls and a monorail that swung by the brewing facility so you could see the beer being brewed and bottled. Imagine taking the bird section of the San Diego Zoo and attaching it to a section of Disneyland then welding on a massive brewery. That was the park. And it was right off the 405 freeway!
And of course you could get beer there. You could get a 10 ounce cup in each of the five pavilions around the gardens. There was a Busch German Pavilion. A Michelob Terrace and of course a Budweiser Pavilion. And employees could imbibe as well up into the 1980’s when due to an accident that was halted.
Eventually they needed more room for the brewing and the park became less financially viable so it was torn down and the birds were shipped off to zoos. But I am amazed at how a major company could have water attractions and beer and kids and birds and not get hit with a million and one lawsuits. If you wanted to do that today, you would be under the scrutiny of so many different agencies that you would need a full time legal staff and make everyone wear protective clothing when entering the garden.
When I think of our major film and TV industry and our nascent craft beer now, I can’t help but think about what could come in our future. An animatronic Lincoln extolling craft beer? Star Tours with Alderaan Ale served at the end. Samichlaus and the Matterhorn? I’ll stop before Disney’s lawyers come a calling.