‘Brewing Arizona’ serves up history
It seems everywhere you turn, there’s a new brewery popping up around the corner.
It’s no mystery that the craft-beer explosion has taken over the state in the past decade, with about 50 breweries open and many more in the works.
But brewing suds in Arizona is nothing new. The state’s first commercial brewery, Pioneer Brewery in Tucson, was founded by Alexander Levin in 1864, when water quality and refrigeration were poor and brewing techniques were crude. That beer was a far cry from what beer lovers enjoy today.
Many more followed over the years, leading up to Arizona’s longest-running lager, A-1, from Arizona Brewing Co. It began in 1943 and at one point was the state’s best-selling beer. A-1 persevered until 1985 under various ownerships, brought back again in 1996 and 2010, and finally discontinued in 2011.
All of this is documented in detail in the first comprehensive book about the state’s beer industry, “Brewing Arizona.” Written by Ed Sipos, a past president of the A-1 Chapter of the Brewery Collectibles Club of America and a jeweler in his day job, the coffee-table book is the effort of more than 15 years of research and a thirst for knowledge.
“Brewing Arizona” moves through the history chronologically, explaining the stories of all the breweries that existed in the state and putting those stories into context so readers know what was going on at the time. The book also includes a detailed timeline of Arizona breweries.
A release party for the book, which is available now, will be held Tuesday, Oct. 29, at Four Peaks Brewery in Tempe. Sipos will talk about his research process, findings that surprised him and what he sees as the future of beer in the Grand Canyon State.
Question: What got you interested in Arizona’s beer industry?
Answer: While in grade school, I started collecting beer cans, which was a more common thing to do back then. During college, I started to specialize in Arizona-related beer items. I’ve always been a history buff and loved Arizona’s history. Arizona’s craft-beer industry was just starting to develop, and when I became president and editor of the A-1 Chapter, I began to gather information and write about the state’s breweries. Q: What inspired you to write a book? A: I was looking for stories to put in the club’s newsletter and came across a lot of files and history on the Arizona Brewing Company collected by (former A-1 member Charlie Harvey). I looked through those, and curiosity just grew from there. Later, at an estate sale (for a brewer of the G. Heileman Brewing Co. in Phoenix), I spoke with the owner’s wife about the possibility of writing a book. She gave me phone numbers of former employees she still had contact with. From that point, I started contacting people, making cold calls, just trying to get information.
Q: What was your information-gathering process?
A: I would go to the libraries and have to sort through microfiche, which was a pain and difficult. I would do whatever I could in my spare time, find a little story here and story there. I tapped Southwest Brewing
News as a great resource for microbreweries, and the Arizona Beverage Journal was a significant source of finding information from the 1930s to 1980s. The Internet was indispensable. ... The book really came together during the last three years, when I changed its structure to make it flow better.
Q: What would a brewery have been like back in the 1860s?
A: I chatted with Dennis Arnold (of Barrio Brewing in Tucson) about what the beer might have been like, and we surmised that the quality wouldn’t fit today’s standards. It was before artificial refrigeration came into play. Arizona’s water is high in alkaline, and it was difficult to find a good source of water for brewing beer. Consequently, beers were inconsistent in quality. Because brewers did not have a full understanding of what role yeast played in brewing beer prior to the 1890s, wild yeast and bacteria could have infected the beer from time to time. Once the railroads were completed and artificial refrigeration and pasteurization developed, beers started to get shipped in from out of state, which was cheaper and better quality.
Q: Why isn’t there a major beer brand distributed out of Arizona?
A: Not every brewery strives to become the biggest brewery, and growth has to be controlled. Beer has a limited shelf life. The further you ship beer from the source, the more difficult it is to control its quality. But it is just a matter of time before Arizona breweries expand out of state.
Q: What do you see as the future for brewing in Arizona?
A: Arizona has a lot of room for growth, and I think each and every brewery can help each other to make the industry stronger. It’s a matter of a putting out a good product and having a good business plan. Four Peaks, SanTan and Grand Canyon are just a few of Arizona’s breweries leading the way in terms of growth. There are approximately 50 breweries in the state, with many more readying to open.