[3] He was in a children's home from ages 10-15 and enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps when he was 17, where he worked as a radio operator in Okinawa during WWII and the South Pacific during the Korean War.

[2] Eckhardt was first exposed to the homebrewing of beer by his stepfather, who produced his own low quality beverage during the years of Prohibition in the United States.

[1] Eckhardt never developed a taste for the brew, however, recalling many decades later that it and the other home-made beers of the Great Depression years "earned an honest reputation as abysmal".

[1] He served as a mentor for people who made beer, wine, and sake at home, including customers and staff at F.H.

[18] The increase in American production for domestic consumption and export has been, in part, affected by the lower cost of rice compared with Japan; but other more difficult-to-analyze factors are important.

His optimism is informed in part by the unanticipated expansion of micro-breweries in Oregon since the state law prohibiting them was repealed in 1985.

[17] Fred Eckhardt died August 10, 2015, of congestive heart failure at his home in Portland, Oregon.

[19] His partner of 62 years James Itsuo (Jimmy) Takita, retired science reference librarian of the Multnomah County Library, died three months earlier.