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Beer Beer is a beverage many people enjoy. A hot summer day is a very good time to have a cold beer. Shovel Town Brewery at 50 Oliver Street is a lovely place to experiment with various brews. A particular favorite of mine is called Flyaway, engendering memories (for oldies) of a long ‘disappeared’ pond off Lincoln Street. To keep it all local, some of the hops used in Shovel Town beer are grown at nearby Langwater Farm and the building Shovel Town Brewery occupies was once part of the Ames Shovel Factory. Easton has a history of beer making going back to colonial times. Once hops grew in a field located approximately where the Southeastern Regional School sits on Foundry Street today. An 1871 map shows a “hop kiln” located there.  Hop kiln. Source: Easton Historical Society. Hops are the flower of a vining plant. They add flavor to beer, keep it fresher and help it retain its head of foam. Initially beer was imported from Europe, but early on out of necessity, Americans began brewing their own beer. Wheat, barley and hops were the best ingredients, though other foodstuffs like corn, molasses, spruce or boxberry were sometimes used. “Beer– Beer is a good family drink. A handful of hops, to a pailful of water, and a half-pint of molasses, makes good hop beer. Spruce mixed with hops is pleasanter than hops alone. Boxberry, fever-bush, sweet fern, and horseradish make a good and healthy diet-drink……If your family be large, and the beer will be drank rapidly, it may as well remain in the barrel; but if your family be small, fill what bottles you have with it; it keeps better bottled. A raw potato or two, cut up and thrown in, while the ingredients are boiling, is said to make beer spirited.” (The Frugal Housewife, 1835) Easton resident Captain George Washington Hayward, who lived in the Red House at 227 Foundry Street (across from the Southeastern Regional School), made hop growing the chief industry on his farm about the time of the Civil War. The picture above is of his kiln. So, beer-making has a documented history in Easton. If you wish, after pulling weeds in your garden or going for a run on a hot summer day, get yourself a cold beer and enjoy!  1871 map shows a “hop kiln” location  Hayward House at 227 Foundry Street (exact date unknown) Anne Wooster Drury [email protected] Links for more information: Hayward - Pool Neighborhood (published in 1993 by EHS&M) Comments are closed.
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