New Albion Brewing Co.
date: label: date made
content: 1976-1982
label: date made
content: 1976 - 1982
notes: label: Description
content: Tap handle created at New Albion Brewing Company, the nation's first post-Prohibition microbrewery built from the ground up, which opened in 1976 and closed in 1982, in Sonoma, California. This tap handle was never used; New Albion brewers bottled their beer but did not sell it on draught before the brewery's closure in 1982. The handle was most likely repurposed from another brewery. The sticker on the handle - "Contains less than four percent alcohol by weight" - did not describe New Albion's beers and was likely a remnant of the brewery that had previously used the handle.
label: Description
content: New Albion was distinctive, in part, for being one of the first breweries to use Cascade hops in its beers. Cascade hops were a cultivar developed at Oregon State University and released in 1971. Taking their name from the Cascade mountain range in the Pacific Northwest, Cascade hops give floral, citrus, spice, and pine characteristics to beers, especially pale ales and India Pale Ales (IPAs). Cascade hops defined post-Prohibition microbrewed American beers as different from anything else in the world.
label: Description
content: New Albion Brewing Co. was co-founded by Jack McAuliffe, Suzy Denison, and Jane Zimmerman. At the time of New Albion's founding, Denison was 43, divorced, and a mother of three children. Previously, she had worked as a bilingual secretary at the United Nations in New York City and studied music and composing. Denison moved to Sonoma when her eldest child was accepted to Stanford University. Denison and her friend Jane Zimmerman met Jack McAuliffe through an acquaintance. McAuliffe described his idea to build a brewery that would use traditional ingredients and artisan techniques to brew European-style beers in small batches--plans he had formed while serving in the U.S. Navy in Scotland in the 1960s. The two women supplied funding to open the brewery that McAuliffe envisoned. Denison and Zimmerman brewed and delivered New Albion's beer, using Denison's van. Zimmerman left the brewery less than a year after it opened but Denison stayed, working alongside McAuliffe and others, until the business closed in the fall of 1982.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: California, Sonoma
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Food Technology
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Suzy Denison
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2022.0128.1
label: accession number
content: 2022.0128
label: catalog number
content: 2022.0128.1
objectType: label: Object Name
content: tap handle
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 19.5 cm x 9.3 cm x 2.5 cm; 7 11/16 in x 3 21/32 in x 31/32 in