YVC’s Faculty Lecture Series Returns

Yakima, WA – Yakima Valley College’s Faculty Lecture Series returns on February 19, 2020 with YVC Instructor and local historian John T. Menard who will speak on Bert Grant and the Rise of Craft Brewing. The free event will be held in Kendall Hall, Building 12, Auditorium. Menard will present a second event on the Grandview Campus on March 2, 2020 at 6:30pm in Workforce Education Center, Building 51, Room 199.

The U.S.’s first post-prohibition brewpub opened in Yakima in 1982 under the ownership of Bert Grant. Yakima Brewing & Malting Company, originally known as Grant’s Brewery Pup, operated from 1982 until 2005 and played a significant role in the development of the American craft beer industry. This lecture takes a critical look into Grant’s company, Yakima Brewing & Malting Co., and its place in the larger story of the rise of craft beer. Additionally, the lecture will address oft-told myth and legends surrounding Grant and the company.

J. T. Menard is an instructor at Yakima Valley College, where he teaches courses in history, geography, and politics. His current project is a history of the Washington craft Beer industry. Previously, he published a biography of Washington State University (WSU) President W. Glenn Terrell with WSU Press in May, 2019. His other work has appeared in Columbia Magazine, and the blog of the Oxford Oral History Association. In 2015 he was awarded a prestigious National History Scholar Award from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

The event is sponsored by YVC’s Arts and Sciences Division and Phi Theta Kappa Student Club. For more information: 509.574.4809 / tjeske@yvcc.edu.

Press Release Contacts:
Jay Frank / 509.574.6870 / jfrank@yvcc.edu
Stefanie Menard / 509.574.4646 / smenard@yvcc.edu