Deerfield

A

couple hours north of Deerfield, Mass.

Yeah.

They've got to be, right? Damn.

You're in

rural Massachusetts.

Yeah, Deerfield is right there.

Oh, my God.

And today, we're going to dive deep into the state's rich brewing history with a series of stories on the Massachusetts beer industry, where it began, how it's transformed over the past couple decades, and where it's headed right now.

NEPM's Karen Brown kicks things off with a look at a museum exhibit on display through next month in historic Deerfield.

It covers centuries of beer brewing and makes the case that the Commonwealth's character and economy owe a great deal to the fermentation process.

All right, so welcome to our colonial tavern.

Ray Radigan holds up a beer stein at a reconstructed tavern at the Indian House Memorial, one of the only buildings to survive the 1704 raid in Deerfield.

It's been renovated for a very different historical purpose.

So we're looking at 425 years of beer in Massachusetts.

Although the beer exhibit is sponsored by the State Office of Travel and Tourism, Radigan says it's not all about promotion.

[laughs] You know, the, uh, someone else says, uh, "I, I thought, uh, Greenfield was a gritty, uh, biker, uh, railroad town." Well, you know, I was thinking about this.

I was, uh, you know, when my father retired from Deerfield, he used to drive into Greenfield every day or so, and he, one of the places he hung out was Central Auto Body.

And, uh, it was owned by a guy named Joe, this old-timer, and, you know, he was just, he was just an easy guy to get along with, and he just would hang out.

My father liked garages and, you know, clothing stores.

But I, I don't know what, uh, I don't know what the hell's going on with the people.

People, again, people used to have factory jobs or, or they, or they worked in banks or Wilson's Department Store or they, uh, you know...

And then they, they, uh, you know, you go out into Deerfield and that, go further down, they had dairy farms.

They grew, they grew Uh, feed corn.

Pink and blue, he'll catch you.

Deerfield, Massachusetts.

Pink and blue, he'll be true, Deerfield, Massachusetts.

Black and white, hold him tight, Pennsylvania.

An old superstition which still survives among children is that if they crawl over an older person and do not crawl back, they will never grow again.

Friends, foes, money, bows.

Begin with the first nail spotted, and the noun falling to the last nail thus marked gives the sign.

Deerfield, Massachusetts.

Absolutely.

The first giant account I ever unearthed was in the town history of Deerfield, Massachusetts.

I live in Western Mass now.

Page 85 in George Sheldon's town history of Deerfield.

Now, Deerfield Academy is where all the prep school elites go and they go on to corporate heads and work for the CIA and stuff.

It's a very well-regarded institution.

My brother went there and played football as a PG years ago.

And I open it up and it is lidded with giant skeleton accounts from all around the country.

This all occurred February 1978, so you know, you're looking at about 15 months later.

Steven says he woke up in a field on a Saturday night, 40 miles from his father's house in Deerfield, Massachusetts.

John Kubacki was his dad.

53-year-old father told in interviews, he goes, "I thought my son was dead." And he said that he walked up to the door and said that he doesn't remember a lot.

But in June 1675, some of his young men attacked the village of Swansea and started the desperate struggle known as King Philip's War.

For months the Indians ravaged the frontier, and on September 18th, all but annihilated a picked force of eighty men, the flower of Essex, under Captain Thomas Lathrop, which had been sent to Deerfield to save a quantity of grain which had been abandoned there.

Only nine of the eighty survived.

The Lamentable Ballad of the Bloody Brook, September 18th, 1675.

Come listen to the story of brave Lathrop and his men, how they fought, how they died, when they marched against the redskins in the autumn days, and then, how they fell in their pride by Pocumtuck's side.

Who will go to Deerfield Meadows and bring the ripened grain, said old Moseley to his men in array? Take the wagons and the horses and bring it back again, and be sure that no man stray all the day on the way.

Then the flower of Essex started with Lathrop at their head, wise and brave, bold and true.

He had fought the Pequots long ago, and now to Moseley said, Be there many, be there few, I will bring the grain to you.