New exhibit tells the story of ‘Napa Valley of beer’
By Steve Graham
When Thomas Cauvin wanted to teach his graduate students how to create and curate a museum exhibit, he chose a subject with plenty of artifacts close at hand.
To build the new “Brewing History” exhibit, the students had the enviable task of collecting pint glasses, bottle caps and other artifacts from more than 20 breweries in Fort Collins, which is sometimes called the Napa Valley of beer.
“Public history is a way of doing history that engages with people, and beer became a natural topic,” said Cauvin, a history professor from Normandy, France, who has been teaching at Colorado State University for three years.
His exhibit includes a pint glass from every Colorado brewery, as well as more unique artifacts, including a specialty barrel on loan from Peter Bouckaert at Purpose Brewing and Cellars (and formerly of New Belgium Brewing), and a brewing paddle from McClellan’s Brewing Company.
While these funky items might be the main draw for craft beer nerds, the exhibit also offers plenty of educational history far beyond northern Colorado.
The first room in the four-gallery exhibit will focus on the ancient roots of beer in Mesopotamia, and the Hymn to Ninkasi, an ode to the Sumerian goddess of beer that also serves as an early recipe for beer.
“That’s the long history of beer that connects to Fort Collins,” Cauvin said.
The museum also explains the beer-making process and ingredients before diving into the history of prohibition in Fort Collins, which was a dry town until 1969.
The second half of the exhibit opens with home brewing. Charlie Papazian, “the father of home brewing” provided tools and will speak in April as part of the exhibit.
The history of craft beer, and the history of specific brewing styles, will also be presented, along with the environmental and social impacts of craft beer.
“You can actually tell a lot of history with beer,” Cauvin said.
Elizabeth Norris is one of nine graduate students who worked closely with Cauvin to create the exhibit. She is also working on a documentary about beer in Fort Collins between 1969 and 1989.
“It’s to kind of look at the 20 years before craft beer and how that laid the foundation for where Fort Collins is today,” she said.
Though the exhibit is focused on history, the students are also looking toward the future.
“With the sale of New Belgium and the sale a few years ago of Fort Collins Brewery, what happens when craft breweries grow too fast and get too big?” “What are breweries now doing to prevent the corporate threat of buyout?”
She predicts successful craft breweries will stay small and local, becoming neighborhood pubs, like one of her local favorites.
“Equinox is a good example of that,” she said. “They distribute, but only to where they can literally ride their keg trike to, so they are really staying small on purpose.”
The exhibit opens Friday, March 6, at Global Village Museum, 200 W. Mountain Ave., Fort Collins. It will be on display until May 20. Click here for more information, and for details on several special events during the exhibit.