Throwback Thursday: Beer, Rainier and a Redhook scavenger hunt

Some things never change… like Seattle’s love of beer!

Beer has been apart of Seattle’s history far before Washington statehood even was history.

Hop growing has brought great prosperity to western Washington state since the beginning of the 1880s. In 1888 alone, over three quarters of a million pounds of hops were harvested in the area.

As pictured below, in western Washington, hop vines were grown on tall poles. At harvest time, workers lowered the vines and picked the hops into wooden boxes. The boxes were a standard size with handles; pickers were paid by the box or pound .

After harvest, the flowers of the hop plant were dried in a heated kiln. They were then baled and sold to brewers for making beer and yeast.

Tonight, Seattle original Redhook Brewery is also celebrating a Throwback Thursday back in its hometown of Ballard, and hosting a social media scavenger hunt in celebration of its retro-style ESB cans.

Prizes (including a pair of Sounders tickets) will be hidden in around Ballard in the afternoon and then the brewery will take to tweeting/instagramming clues on where to find them. If you’d like to follow along, keep track of the hashtag #ThrowbackESB. Check out @Redhook_Brewery (Twitter) and @Redhook_Brewery (Instagram) for more information.

Bottom photo: Original Redhook brewery in Ballard (NW 47th & Leary Way)
Photo Redhook Brewing