The Good Wolf Brewing Company in Lake Tahoe visited the Boca ghost town to find clues to remake California's first-ever lager.
“We put up a Facebook post just kind of sharing information about Boca Brewing Company,” says Good Wolf owner and brewer Matt Petyo. “And a customer brought in a photo album from his grandfather or great-grandfather who had worked there, and he had bottles from the brewery and everything.”
Of course, it helps that beer has only four ingredients: water, grain, hops and yeast. Since Boca lager was brewed in 1876, the list of potential ingredients would have been short and locally sourced. It was those clues, says Petyo, that made piecing together the recipe seem like a historical puzzle — one he wanted to solve.
In their initial research, Petyo and his team made several trips to the former Boca town site, now abandoned save for a few historical signs and restored grave sites. They searched the small area, looking for clues near the footprint of the dead-and-gone brewery that may lead them in the right direction. After hours of searching, they found what they were looking for: 150-year-old nonnative hop plants, indicating they were planted intentionally.
From there, Petyo's team had all they needed to recreate California's first lager: water from the Truckee River, locally grown barley malts sourced from northern Nevada, the original hops from the ghost town, and German Augustiner lager yeast."That yeast has been around for a very long time and predates Boca lager," says Petyo."So there's a very good chance that strain would be used.
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