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Olympia Brewing Company Library Collection, 1936-2008

Overview of the Collection

Creator
Olympia Brewing Company
Title
Olympia Brewing Company Library Collection
Dates
1936-2008 (inclusive)
1955-1995 (bulk)
Quantity
30.00 cubic feet, (90 boxes)
Collection Number
MSS OBCL
Summary
In 1896, Leopold Schmidt founded the Olympia Brewing Company in Tumwater, Washington, under the name of the Capital Brewing Company. After a series of buy-outs, operations closed in 2003. The Olympia Brewing Company Library Collection contains the publications collected by the Olympia Brewery including magazines, journals, and laboratory communications.
Repository
Oregon State University Libraries, Special Collections and Archives Research Center
Special Collections and Archives Research Center
121 The Valley Library
Oregon State University
Corvallis OR
97331-4501
Telephone: 5417372075
Fax: 5417378674
scarc@oregonstate.edu
Access Restrictions

Collection is open for research.

Languages
Danish, German, English
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Historical Note

Leopold Schmidt (1846-1914) founded the Olympia Brewing Company in 1896 under the name of the Capital Brewing Company. Schmidt chose the base of the Tumwater Falls as the location for his brewery due to the purity of the artesian wells in the area. This water became an integral part of the brewing company’s advertisements.

The first beer brewed there in 1896—called Olympia Pale Export—went on the market on October 1st. In 1902, Capital Brewing changed its name to Olympia Brewing Company, and in 1905, a new brew house was constructed to replace to original wooden one. The Olympia Brewing Company fostered a close-knit employee culture, and the beer was sold at higher than normal price in order to pay the employees well.

Olympia continued to make and sell beer until Washington passed Prohibition laws in 1916. The brewery tried to stay in business by switching production to fruit juice and jams, but the sugar shortage of WWI ended those hopes and it closed. However, when Prohibition laws were lifted in 1934, rather than undertake costly renovations on the original brewing facility, the Schmidt family built a new brew house. After a series of buy-outs, this facility closed in 2003 and Full Sail Brewing took possession of the library materials.

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Content Description

The Olympia Brewing Company Library Collection contains the publications collected by the Olympia Brewing Company. It includes magazines, journals, and laboratory communications.

Notable items in this collection are annotations on many journals from brewery staff, English editions of the magazine Brauwelt, a 35-year run of the Wallerstein Laboratory Communication starting with the first issue from 1937 and ending in 1972, and a run of the Danish language journal Brygmesteren: The Scandinavian Brewers’ Review. The collection includes the American Brewer magazine (1957-1958, 1962-1969), the Master Brewers Association of the Americas Technical Quarterly (1964-2008), Brewers Digest (1961-1998), Beverage World (1975-1996), Wallerstein Laboratory Communications (1937-1972), Journal of the Institute of Brewing (1948-2002), Journal of the American Society of Brewing Chemists (1975-2002), American Society of Brewing Chemists Proceedings (1940-1974), Brygmesteren (1972-1978), Brewers Almanac (1955-1996), Modern Brewery Age (1968-1995, 2006), American Breweriana (1990, 1992-1996), Beer Cans and Brewery Collectables (1996-1998), Beer Can Collectors News Report (1981-1995), Brauwelt (1984-2007), Brewing and Distilling International (1969-1983).

Also included are single issues of publications dating from 1942 to 1992, with the bulk from the 1960s to 1980s.

Some additional materials were added to the collections by Full Sail staff after they aquired the collection in 2003.

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Administrative Information

Arrangement

The Olympia Brewing Company Library Collection has one series, Publications: 1936-2008, and titles are arranged alphabetically and then chonologically.

Acquisition Information

This collection was donated in 2017 by the Full Sail Brewing in Hood River. The library materials were acquired by Full Sail Brewing when the Olympia Brewing Company closed in 2003.

Related Materials

The Brewing and Fermentation Collection consists of materials collected by the OSU Special Collections and Archives Research Center pertaining to the history, growth, and culture of the Pacific Northwest brewing industry. A large component of the collection are the periodicals, which complements the Olympia Brewing Company Library Collection.

Additional materials related to Oregon State University research and manuscript collections are described on the Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives library research guide. More information pertaining to the history of hop growing and brewing in Oregon can be found on the Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives website.

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Detailed Description of the Collection

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Corporate Names

  • Olympia Brewing Company

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Subject Terms

  • Brewing--Periodicals.
  • Brewing.
  • Hops and Brewing

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Finding Aid Authors: Jalen Todd and Tiah Edmunson-Morton.
2025

CC Attribution
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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