That's right. Here in this part of Idaho, there is a small group of hop growers. They have several rail-served warehousing points where the hops are shipped out in boxcars. And yes, the hops are shipped in mylar (plastic) bags.
The large brewery complex on my layout has a separate building that receives all the non-grain ingredients. The hops are received in boxcars, mainly designated as "food service only", or "XF" instead of the common boxcar "XM" designation. The grain shipped in, as well as the brewer's grains shipped out are handled in covered hoppers, as the era modeled is the 1970's. This is a very busy brewery as far as switching is concerned. It also ships out its finished product in insulated boxcars and reefers; it is served by three tracks.
My dad worked at a large brewery and although I am not sure about the other grains, the hops were sealed in mylar bags into the 1970's. I remember he had a few of those bags that he repurposed. I am sure the hops were brought in by box car or truck.
There was a thread here a couple months ago about building the Coors Mansion at the brewery. There were lots of links and photos of the brewery in that thread.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Hello all,
I Google Mapped Golden, Colorado, where the Coors brewery is located.
Along the tracks, to the East of the brewery, there is a silo complex with covered hoppers entering from the East and exiting to the West. These covered hoppers are carying grain to be used in the brewing process.
There is no date related to the building of this complex but it could be a basis for a brewery grain storage complex in the '60's.
Hope this helps.
"Uhh...I didn’t know it was 'impossible' I just made it work...sorry"
Mike is right. Boxcars were still priarily used to haul grain. In fact, there was a feed mill in the small village I grew up in that still unloaded boxcars of grain well into the 60's, although there was another feed mill in a neighboring town that was unloading covered hoppers as early as the late '50's.
That same feed mill in my home village stored grain in bins inside the building. Then, about 1968 they went to unloading covered hoppers and when they did that they mounted a square "silo" on top of the structure, at the bottom of the grain leg, likely a temporary storage for mixing grains to feed as concentrates to livestock (mainly dairy cows in my area of the country back then).
I just did one quick search on Google for "railroad grain cars in the 50's", and found lots of results, and quite a few threads from this forum.
Box cars were the rule, and unloading varied from men with scoop shovels, and the more elaberate method of tipping the car. If you are modeling a big brewery, they probably had silos for the grain, and the car was unloaded by hand, the grain being shoveled out, into a conveyor.
I'm sure there will be many others chimming in on your question with more experience from the time period with more details.
Mike.
My You Tube
I'm looking for information and pictures for unloading and storage of grain for a brewery in the early 50s. I've tried searching the Web but haven't had a lot of luck.
Thanks