PITTSFIELD, Mass. — On March 23 at 5:30 pm, the Berkshire County Historical Society (BCHS) explores the city's brewing history as well as contemporary Berkshire brewing with a lecture by Cynthia Brown, historian and BCHS President.

 

The presentation will be followed by a tasting from Berkshire Brewing Co., Hot Plate Brewing Co., and Shire Breu-Haus at Berkshire Theatre Festival's "The Garage" at 111 South Street. 

 

Additional flights and full pours will also be available for purchase.

 

Tickets are $25 for BCHS, $30 for non-members and can be purchased in advance at https://berkshire-county-historical-society.square.site/events; you must be 21 years of age to participate in the tasting, but the lecture is open to all ages.

 

Brown's talk, Beer for Their Refreshment: Brewing in Pittsfield from the 18th Century to Prohibition, will present original research and images that will illuminate this part of Pittsfield's history and culture. 

 

Gimlich of Pittsfield brewery firm in 1886 employed over 100 workers and manufactured tens of thousands of barrels a year at its peak. Later known as the Berkshire Brewing Association, this long-time Pittsfield business was the apogee of a series of commercial brewing concerns that supplied Pittsfield taverns, inns, families, and individuals with their beer, starting before 1800 and lasting into the first years of Prohibition.

 

More recently, Pittsfield as well as Berkshire County have seen the rise and success of several new breweries, growing out of the microbrewery movement that took hold in the 1990s.