The Erie Canal: The Golden Age of Hops and Albany, the Forgotten Beer City
The Erie Canal: The Golden Age of Hops and Albany, the Forgotten Beer City by: J. Gostling When James D. Collidge of Bouckville, in Madison County NY, planted the first hops field in 1808, he could scarcely have known that 50 years later NY would be supplying 87% of all the hops used in the United States. Nor could he have imagined that New York’s capital region would support over 20 breweries by the mid-19 th century. In fact, that first field, aided by cost-effective transportation on the Erie Canal, plus an influx of immigrants from beer drinking cultures, gave rise to a booming beer culture in America. Central to the success of the beer industry was the Erie Canal, bringing barley and hops from western and central NY to breweries in and around Albany and allowing access to the Hudson River. From 1815 to 1825, the price to ship grain from Buffalo to NYC, dropped from $100 to $10 per ton. This was a huge assist to brewers like Mathew Vassar. Vassar’s brewery in Poughkeepsi...
