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Hops 'guru' Francis Lloyd Rigby dies at 89 in Yakima
He was an idea man, an inventor, a hops "guru" who never stopped exploring alternative uses for the bitter herb that flavors beer.Hops chemist Francis Lloyd Rigby, a pioneer in the hop industry, died Saturday at his Yakima home. He was 89. "The contributions he made to this industry were very instrumental to the way we do things now," said Ann George, administrator of the Washington Hop Commission in Moxee. "He developed some of the things that are really the basics of what we do." Rigby's career at Yakima's John I. Haas Inc. spanned 30 years. He started there in 1966, helping oversee the construction of the company's hop-extraction plant. Later, he developed commercial processes to turn hop extract into refined hop products that increased the efficiency of hops in beer. Rigby, who went by Lloyd, his middle name, ultimately became the technical director at Haas. He traveled extensively throughout Europe and Asia, visiting breweries, and worked as an independent researcher in the hop industry long after his retirement in 1996 at age 77. In fact, he was working as recently as a month ago, researching new uses for hops right up until nearly the end of his life, said Jim Stoffer, a retired executive vice president for Haas. "He was definitely a pioneer in hops processing and new uses for hops," Stoffer said. "He was always inventing something to further hops." Posted by: Anonymoose 2008-06-11 |
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