Tuesday’s ad is for “Rheingold Beer,” from 1956. This ad was made for the Rheingold Brewery, which was founded by the Liebmann family in 1883 in New York, New York. At its peak, it sold 35% of all the beer in New York state. In 1963, the family sold the brewery and in was shut down in 1976. In 1940, Philip Liebmann, great-grandson of the founder, Samuel Liebmann, started the “Miss Rheingold” pageant as the centerpiece of its marketing campaign. Beer drinkers voted each year on the young lady who would be featured as Miss Rheingold in advertisements. In the 1940s and 1950s in New York, “the selection of Miss Rheingold was as highly anticipated as the race for the White House.” The winning model was then featured in at least twelve monthly advertisements for the brewery, beginning in 1940 and ending in 1965. Beginning in 1941, the selection of next year’s Miss Rheingold was instituted and became wildly popular in the New York Area. Hillie Merritt was elected as Miss Rheingold 1955. Not to take anything away from the other Miss Rheingolds, but her story is pretty amazing. She was born Hildegarde Ercklentz in Hamburg, Germany in 1934 but she moved to New York when her father was given a position there with the German bank he worked for. In 1941, they had to flee the United States and lived for a time in Japan, before finally making it back to Hamburg after the war and then by 1950 was living once again in New York City. The story of that journey was written by her and published as “Journey Interrupted” in 2016. By 1955, she was Mrs. Hillie Merritt (although it may actually have been Merrill), with a one-year old son, and decided on a lark to enter the contest. Soon after the year she divorced and then married corporate executive David Mahoney, and they became a prominent couple in the NY social scene and in philanthropic circles. In 1990, they founded the Harvard Mahoney Neuroscience Institute, which Hildegarde Mahoney took charge of after her husband’s death in 2000 and she’s still running the charity today. In this ad, from November, Miss Rheingold 1956, Hillie Merritt, is getting ready to go hunting with her dog, and has definitely dressed for the part.

Below is a clearer, higher resolution version of the image from the same ad:

Today is the birthday of Anthony J. McGowan (March 14, 1869-1932). McGowan was born in Ireland but came to America as a teenager, settling in Buffalo. New York, where he worked for and then owned his own tavern. He married Delia Maloney, and they together they had ten children, four sons and six daughters.

The Life History of A.J. McGowan

Born on the 14th of March- 1869- of Irish parents, at a little town called Grey Grove in the parish of Kilmihil County Clare Ireland.

Immigrated from that dear little country at the age of sixteen years and one month. and set sail for my adopted country on the good ship named the City of Chicago on the 19th day of May-1886-arrived at the harbor of NY several days later and was taken into old Castle Garden and remained there for a few hours until a friend called and took me out of there, and what a relief. He was in the liquor business in Brooklyn and naturally the first thing he done was take me in to a restaurant for a good dinner on the N. end of the Brooklyn Bridge… So we arrived at his place of business and stayed there for about one hour… he took me back to the saloon with him. He kept introducing me to all his customers as they came in… Near here (Buffalo) is where life started after a few days in NY I decided to make the trip to Buffalo, the grandest city in the world and after a few days I arrived at the old Erie Rail Road at Exchange and Michigan St. and was met at the station by a policeman named John Pyne who was known by all the tuff characters from Buffalo to San Francisco and he took me to my brothers home at Fulton and Chicago St. and after 2 weeks rest I applied for a job to Mr. Cunningham as a scooper better known now as grain forwarding.

I appealed to Mr. Kennedy for a job who at that time had charge of all the freight coming into the Port of Buffalo. Worked at that line for a few months and things started to get quiet on the water front and one afternoon we were sitting on a tow board at the end of the in Bound freight house and in a general conversation he asked me how I’d like a job bartending. I said anything would be better than what we were doing at the present time. With the result I started the next morning tending bar at-19-Main St. which at that time was one of the most prominent parts of Buffalo. [end of excerpt]

Later, Anthony J. McGowan was to become the manager of James Kennedy’s Seabreaze Hotel on “The Island” off the foot of Main St. In 1897, he opened his own tavern at 206 Elk Street near the corner of Smith St. Mr. McGowan quickly became involved in local politics, becoming Democratic General Committeeman in the First Ward shortly after his arrival Buffalo. His rise into local politics continued in 1908, when he was appointed to the Department of Markets by then Mayor J.N. Adam and served as assistant superintendent in charge of the Elk Street market for 31 years. He later worked in the same capacity at the Black Rock Market after the Elk St. market closed in 1939. McGowan’s life in Buffalo shows us a personal side of one of Buffalo’s most diverse industries.”

McGowan, who was presumably a prominent member of Buffalo society, at least in Irish quarters, marched in the city’s St. Patrick’s Day parades. In this photo, from the 1915 parade, he’s marked as #1. There’s more about the parade at the Buffalo News.

While unrelated, a book that was recommended to me by beer writer Michael Jackson was The Last Fine Time, by Verlyn Klinkenborg. It’s a fictional account of a family in the restaurant and bar business over several generations in Buffalo, New York.

Monday’s ad is for “Rheingold Beer,” from 1956. This ad was made for the Rheingold Brewery, which was founded by the Liebmann family in 1883 in New York, New York. At its peak, it sold 35% of all the beer in New York state. In 1963, the family sold the brewery and in was shut down in 1976. In 1940, Philip Liebmann, great-grandson of the founder, Samuel Liebmann, started the “Miss Rheingold” pageant as the centerpiece of its marketing campaign. Beer drinkers voted each year on the young lady who would be featured as Miss Rheingold in advertisements. In the 1940s and 1950s in New York, “the selection of Miss Rheingold was as highly anticipated as the race for the White House.” The winning model was then featured in at least twelve monthly advertisements for the brewery, beginning in 1940 and ending in 1965. Beginning in 1941, the selection of next year’s Miss Rheingold was instituted and became wildly popular in the New York Area. Hillie Merritt was elected as Miss Rheingold 1955. Not to take anything away from the other Miss Rheingolds, but her story is pretty amazing. She was born Hildegarde Ercklentz in Hamburg, Germany in 1934 but she moved to New York when her father was given a position there with the German bank he worked for. In 1941, they had to flee the United States and lived for a time in Japan, before finally making it back to Hamburg after the war and then by 1950 was living once again in New York City. The story of that journey was written by her and published as “Journey Interrupted” in 2016. By 1955, she was Mrs. Hillie Merritt (although it may actually have been Merrill), with a one-year old son, and decided on a lark to enter the contest. Soon after the year she divorced and then married corporate executive David Mahoney, and they became a prominent couple in the NY social scene and in philanthropic circles. In 1990, they founded the Harvard Mahoney Neuroscience Institute, which Hildegarde Mahoney took charge of after her husband’s death in 2000 and she’s still running the charity today. In this ad, from November, Miss Rheingold 1956, Hillie Merritt, is dressed to go hunting and has with her, a floppy-eared friend, who seems more interested in being friends than going hunting.

And here’s the same ad in the half-page layout:

Today is the 55th birthday of Joe Tucker, the Executive Director at Rate Beer. He used to run the website from his Vineyard bunker in Sonoma, California, although a couple of years ago he relocated to the Rose city of Portland. Because I’m in the Bay Area, I used to run into Joe from time to time, and usually at the annual hop picking day at Moonlight Brewing, though we flew to San Diego together a few Decembers ago to visit Stone Brewing, too. More recently, he asked me to be the Emcee for the Rate Beer Best awards held in late January in Santa Rosa, which was great fun. Join me in wishing Joe a very happy birthday.

Vinnie Cilurzo, me and Joe at the Pliny the Elder release a few years ago at Russian River Brewing.

Joe with some of the Hop Press staff — Ken, Ashley, Mario and Mark — at Triple Rock’s Sour Fest 2010.

At Fred Abercrombie’s Craft Beerd’s book launch party at Taps. Left to right; Fred Abercrombie, Ken Weaver, Anneliese Schmidt, Joe and Ron Lindenbusch, from Lagunitas.

The day after we tried all of Stone’s Vertical Epic’s in San Diego; with Steve Wagner, me, Joe, Jason and Todd Alstrom and Greg Koch.

Joe and me at the RateBeer Best festival in Santa Rosa a few years ago.

Today is the birthday of John Taylor (March 13, 1790-September 13, 1863). He was born in England, but came to American with his family when he was just three years old, settling eventually in Albany, New York. He initially went into the candle-making business with his father, but in 1822 switched to brewing and opened the Lancelot Fiddler Brewery, renaming the John Taylor Brewery a few years later, and adding “and Sons” around 1844, before closing for good in 1905.

Here’s a short biography from the History of the county of Albany, N. Y., published in 1886:

John Taylor, Mayor 1848-49, was born in Durham, England, March 1790 and died in Albany September 31, 1863. He migrated to Brooklyn with his father when a mere infant, and to Albany in 1793. He engaged in the business of a tallow-chandler with his father when he was seventeen years old, and before he was twenty-three he had been burned out four times. Then his fortunes changed. He began to make money about 1813 as an army contractor. In 1822 he became a brewer, and from this business realized an ample fortune. He had branches in Boston and New York later, conducted by his sons. He gave freely of his wealth to the poor, and to all objects that promised to benefit the city. He became a great reader, and accumulated a larger larger and more valuable than any in the city in his time. He gained great popularity and wealth at the same time by a steady course of industry, enterprise, integrity, philanthropy and virtue. Taylor’s Brewery is still occupied [1886] at 133 Broadway.

And this portion of What Was Albany Ale? from the Albany Ale Project, by Alan McLeod and Craig Gravina, discussed John Taylor and his brewery:

Albany’s 150 years of Dutch family breweries established the city as a well-known brewing center. At this time, the first advertisements for “Albany Ale” began to appear as a euphemistic term for the best beer—of any kind—brewed in Albany. The completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 and an Albany brewer named John Taylor would soon change that perception.

John Taylor & Sons’ Taylor opened his first brewery in the early 1820s and second larger one in 1831. A savvy businessman, Taylor saw the opportunity to exploit New York’s new water highway. Albany’s access to the Hudson River and position at the terminus of the Erie Canal afforded it a monopoly on the distribution of beer. Raw materials for beer making could be brought east to Albany via the Canal, and Taylor, in-turn could export his beer south, down the Hudson River to the port of New York. From there the beer could shipped anywhere in the world. By the 1850s Taylor had built the largest brewery in the country in Albany, capable of producing 200,000 barrels of beer a year. Taylor began advertising a double X ale, which would become his flagship beer, that he dubbed “Imperial Albany XX Ale.” As the demand for this double X strength ale grew, so did the number of breweries in the city—seventeen by the mid-1860s—almost all of them producing some kind of XX strength Albany Ale. No longer was Albany Ale a euphemism; it had become a specific thing.

And Craig, for Session 56, wrote Thanks to John Taylor – the Original American Big Boy, which goes into more detail.

Today is the birthday of Charles Joseph Liebmann (March 13, 1877-September 15, 1957). He was born in New York. He was the son of Henry Liebmann. His grandfather owned the Castle Schmiedelfeld, in Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany, but when his father was young, the family moved to Ludwigsburg and operated the Zum Stern Inn there, which also included a brewery. For political reasons, some of the family moved to America around 1850 to build a home, and the rest followed in 1854. Initially Henry Liebmann ran the old Maasche Brewery, but later built a new brewery in Bushwick. Originally, it was called the Samuel Liebmann Brewery, but when his sons joined the brewery, it was called the S. Liebmann’s Sons Brewery. When Charles’ grandfather died in 1872, his sons took over the family brewery, and Charles’ father Henry became brewmaster. After prohibition ended, the brothers’ six sons, including Charles, re-opened the brewery as the simpler Liebmann Breweries, but in 1964 they changed the name again to Rheingold Breweries, after their most popular beer. The brewery closed in 1976.

This is from Schlegel’s German-American Families in the United States:

This is from “The Originators of Rheingold Beer: From Ludwigsburg to Brooklyn – A Dynasty of German-Jewish Brewers,” by Rolf Hofmann, originally published in Aufbau, June 21, 2001:

New Yorkers over the age of fifty will remember the brand name Rheingold Beer and the company’s brilliant publicity stunt in which a bevy of attractive young women competed annually for the privilege of being elected that year’s Miss Rheingold and appearing in ads on billboards and in the subways throughout the New York area.

The beer’s evocative name with its allusion to Germany’s great river, was the culmination of a German-Jewish family enterprise that had its beginnings in 1840 in the town of Ludwigsburg, north of Stuttgart, in what was then the Kingdom of Württemberg. One Samuel Liebmann, a member of a prominent Jewish family in the region, settled there and bought the inn and brewery “Zum Stern.” A liberal and staunch supporter of Republican ideals, Liebmann encouraged other like-minded citizens, including some soldiers from the garrison, to meet in his hospitable surroundings. The ideas fomented there contributed to the local revolution of 1848. It brought the opprobrium of the King down upon Liebmann’s enterprise, and “Zum Stern” was declared off limits to the soldiers. Soon thereafter, in 1850, Samuel Liebmann emigrated to the U.S.

The family settled in Brooklyn and Samuel, together with his three sons, Joseph, Henry, and Charles, opened a brewery once again at the corner of Forest and Bremen Streets. With the responsibilities divided among the family – Henry became the brewing expert, Charles. the engineer and architect, Joseph, finance manager – the company was already flourishing by the time of Samuel’s death in 1872. Success also led to a concern for the company’s Brooklyn surroundings, and the Liebmanns became involved in local welfare – focusing on housing and drainage systems.

Each of the three brothers had two sons, and when the older Liebmanns retired in 1903, the six members of the third generation took over. Other members of the family also contributed to the gradual expansion of the company. In 1895 Sadie Liebmann (Joseph’s daughter), married Samuel Simon Steiner, a trader in high quality hop, an essential ingredient for good beer. Steiner’s father had begun merchandising hop in Laupheim in 1845 and still today, S.S. Steiner, with its headquarters in New York, is one of the leading hop merchants. Under these fortuitous family circumstances, beer production grew constantly. In the early years, the brewery had produced 1000 barrels per year, by 1914 its output stood at 700,000 barrels.

The Liebmann family.

Unfortunately, political developments in the U.S. between 1914 and 1933 were extremely disadvantageous for the Liebmann brewery. The resentment against Germany and anything German during World War I led to an informal boycott of German beers. Following close upon the lean wartime years, was the implementation of Prohibition in 1920 forbidding the manufacturing and trading of alcohol. The Liebmann enterprise managed to survive by producing lemonade and a product they called “Near Beer.”

With the reinstatement of legal alcohol production under President Roosevelt in 1933, opportunities for the brewery opened up, abetted by the anti-Semitic policies of Hitler’s Germany. The pressures on Jewish businessmen there, brought Dr. Hermann Schülein, general manager of the world-renowned LšwenbrŠu brewery, to America. Schulein’s father, Joseph, had acquired two of Munich’s leading breweries at the end of the nineteenth century–Union and Münchner Kindl–and his son had managed the 1920 merger with Löwenbrau. Arriving in New York with this experience behind him, Hermann Schülein became one of the top managers of the Liebmann brewery and was instrumental in its spectacular growth after World War II.

Working with Philip Liebmann (great-grandson of Samuel), Schülein developed a dry lager beer with a European character to be marketed under the brand name “Rheingold.” According to company legend, the name was created in 1883 at a brewery dinner following a performance at the Metropolitan Opera. When the conductor took up his glass, he was so taken with the shade of the beer, that he declared it to be the color of “Rheingold.” For New Yorkers, however, the name Rheingold did not bring to mind the Nibelungen fables, but the pretty young ladies who participated in Schülein’s most brilliant marketing strategy – the selection of each year’s Miss Rheingold by the beer-drinking public of greater New York

At the height of the campaign’s success in the 1950’s and 60’s, the Liebmann Brewery had an output of beer ten times that of Löwenbrau at the same time in Munich.

For thirty years, Rheingold Beer reigned supreme in the New York area, but by 1976, as a local brewery, it could no longer compete with nationwide companies such as Anheuser & Busch, Miller, and Schlitz, and its doors were closed. Only recently, using the same brewmaster, Rheingold is once again being sold in the tri-state area.

Here’s an “Origin of Liebmann Brewery” posted by a relative on Ancestry.com:

On May 12 1833 (Sulzbach-Laufen Archive) Samuel and his older brother Heinrich bought a castle/inn Schmiedelfeld, Sulzbach-Laufen, Schwaebisch Hall District that dated from 1739. They renovated the place and created a prosperous farm/estate and in 1837 began a brewery in the cellar. In 1840, he moved to Ludwigsburg, near Stuttgart and purchased the gasthaus [guest house or inn] “Zum Stern” on Seestrasse 9 (later Zum Rebstock) which included a brewery. (source: Translation extract from Dr. Joacim Hahn’s book, History of the Jewish Community of Ludwigsburg)

After supporting a movement to oust King William I of Wurttemberg, and sensing the wavering tolerance of Jewish businessmen, Samuel sent his eldest son Joseph to the US in 1854 to scout out a location to establish a brewery.

Samuel retired in 1868 and turned the family business over to his sons Joseph, Charles, and Henry under the name S. Liebmann’s Sons Brewery.

Today is the birthday of William Lindsay Everard (March 13, 1891-March 11, 1949). Known as Lindsay, or Sir Lindsay, William Lindsay Everard was the grandson of William Everard, who in 1849, along with Thomas Hull founded the Everard Brewery in Leicester, England. He took over the family brewery in 1925 and ran it for 25 years. He was also a politician (as a member of parliament), philanthropist and a founder and supporter of the Ratcliffe Aerodrome. Sir Lindsay was a pioneer aviator, knighted for his crucial efforts in World War II with the Air Transport Auxiliary.

1951 photo of Sir (William) Lindsay Everard by Elliott & Fry, from the National Portrait Gallery.

William Lindsay Everard was 34 years old when his father died and control of the company was passed to him. During World War 1 he served in the Leicestershire Yeomanry from 1914 to 1917, rising to be adjutant. He saw active service in France with the 1st Life Guards until the end of hostilities in 1919.

William Lindsay married Cornelia Ione Kathleen Armstrong on the 28th of September 1917. They had two children, Bettyne Ione in 1919 and Patrick Anthony William Beresford in 1922. The family moved into Ratcliffe Hall, Leicestershire the same year and after the war, Sir Lindsay followed the family tradition and was active in local public life.

He became a J.P in 1923, Deputy Lieutenant of the County in 1924 and High Sheriff in 1924. He followed his grandfather’s long service in local politics and came as no surprise when he took to national politics and to Westminster. In 1924 he stood as the Conservative Party candidate for the Melton constituency in the General Election. Using Ratcliffe Hall as his headquarters, he campaigned using the slogan, “If you work hard for Everard, he’ll work hard for you.” Stanley Baldwin’s Conservatives won with an overall majority of more than 200 seats, one of whom was Melton’s new Member of Parliament, Lindsay Everard.

He took his seat in Westminster for the first time in November 1924 and served his constituency for over twenty years. In 1939 he received a knighthood from King George VI for his services to commerce and aviation.

Sir Lindsay had a lifelong interest in aviation, gaining his private pilot’s license in the 1920s. He became president of the Royal Aero Club, the County Flying Club, and the Leicester Aero Club.

While he was running the brewery, his interest was actually elsewhere; on aviation. He legacy is considered first and foremost as a pioneer of British aviation.

Wartime aviation has changed the course of history and Sir Lindsay Everard is an important contributor to its development. In 1930, Sir Lindsay opened Ratcliffe Aerodrome on 45 acres (180,000 m2) near his estate and Ratcliffe College. He had become President of the Leicester Aeroclub in 1928, purchasing the club a de Havilland Gipsy Moth in 1929. Named “The Quorn”, the club used Carts Field at Desford. A large air show brought 30,000 spectators to the site. Sir Lindsay purchased a de Havilland Puss Moth that he named “The Leicestershire”, and sold in July 1932. He also favoured the Percival Gull Four P.1.B Mk. IIa

Ratcliffe Aerodrome opened with a ‘Grand Air Pageant’ on 6 September 1930. Famed aviator Amy Johnson made an unexpected trip from London to participate with Sir Sefton Brancker, Director of Civil Aviation. Some 5000 spectators were treated to a show with 100 planes and staged bombings of Chinese pirates. There was one crash, but no one was killed. Ratcliffe Aerodrome was one of the finest in civil aviation with a comfortable clubhouse and an outdoor pool. The hangars were first class and the many air shows and displays had the atmosphere of a garden party.

Sir Lindsay was not a pilot himself, but hired personal pilots to travel throughout the world and participate in air racing events. He owned a de Havilland Dragon, an 8-seat aircraft, with which they won the Oasis Trophy in Cairo. With pilot Lt. Com. Phillips he won the Grosvenor Cup air race. Among his personal pilots were Winifred Spooner, a celebrated woman aviator, and Albert Codling, Sir Lindsay’s Chief Inspector responsible for the maintenance of all his aircraft. Sir Lindsay was supportive of every aspect of aviation, including gliders. He was the first president of the Model Aero Club. His airmail postage stamp collection was sold by H.R. Harmer of London on 19 and 20 October 1953 in 530 lots.

The County Flying Club was formed at Ratcliffe and in 1938 moved to a field at Rearsby on land owned by Sir Lindsay. Another member of the County Flying Club, Alexander Lance Wykes, was the managing director of Crowthers Limited, a Thurmaston company, that manufactured textile machinery. In 1938, Wykes negotiated a license agreement with American manufacturer Taylorcraft to build a light aeroplane in England. It was designated the Taylorcraft “Plus C” model and the first one built was brought by road to Sir Lindsay’s Aerodrome where it made its maiden flight on 3 May 1939. This aircraft became an important part of the war effort in World War II and a production order of 100 aircraft designated the Taylorcraft-Auster Mk 1 was placed in 1942. The Auster continued to be an important and popular plane long after the war.

With the onset of World War II, civil flying was suspended on 31 August 1939. Ratcliffe Aerodrome had a central location that made it an important field for the ATA, a network of civilian pilots that ferried new aircraft from the factories and those that needed repair. Ratcliffe Aerodrome was ferry pool no. 6 of the original 14 started in 1942. The Aerodrome grew larger during the war, adding new facilities. Some 50,000 ferry flights passed through this ideal staging ground.

When the ATA was disbanded, the event was commemorated by an air show on 6 October 1945 that included Geoffrey de Havilland. Sir Lindsay was knighted during the war for services to aviation and commerce. The Leicester Aeroclub reformed in 1947 and drew a crowd of 10,000 for an event in 1949. Sir Lindsay died that year and his estate was sold to non-flyers. Ratcliffe Aerodrome closed on 25 March 1950. It fell into disrepair with some of the buildings being used as barns for the surrounding farms.

Sir Lindsay with his wife Cornelia Ione Kathleen, taken in 1939,
and now also in the National Portrait Gallery.

And here’s a short history of the brewery from the beginning until Sir Lindsay took control, from Wikipedia:

The company began as Hull and Everard in 1849 when William Everard, a farmer from Narborough Wood House and brewer Thomas Hull leased the Southgate Street Brewery of Wilmot and Co from the retiring proprietors. Although Hull continued as a maltster, Everard was the driving force behind the business which he managed until his death in 1892.

The business expanded as the company progressively acquired outlets, with over 100 pubs by the late 1880s. In 1875 the company moved to a new state of the art tower brewery designed by Thomas’s nephew architect John Everard. The brewery, on the corner of Southgate st and Castle St extracted very pure water from wells 300 feet deep beneath the premises and steam engines played a significant part in the mechanisation.

After the death of William, control passed to his son Thomas. The historic centre of the UK brewing industry remained some 40 miles away at Burton-upon-Trent, which by the 1890s produced one tenth of Britain’s beer. Everard’s leased the Bridge Brewery on Umplett Green island in 1895 but its 10,000 barrels per year capacity proved insufficient. It was replaced with the newer Trent brewery in Dale St which became available after going into liquidation in 1898. The Southgate brewery remained the distribution centre to the Leicestershire pubs with beer arriving by rail from Burton. The Trent brewery was purchased outright in 1901.(sources differ)[5] It was renamed the Tiger Brewery around 1970. Beer production was seriously affected by World War I, both due to recruitment and the Defence of the Realm Act 1914 which required beer to be diluted, restricted opening times and rationed raw materials. In 1920,(sources differ) Everards bought wine and spirit merchants John Sarsons & Son of Hotel St Leicester, a major supplier to wealthy homes.

Thomas moved his family from Narborough Wood House to Nanpantan Hall. In 1909 he opened a cattle trough in Groby on behalf of the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association. and in 1921, a year which saw beer production peak at 55,000 barrels, the company acquired the Stamford arms in Groby, the former home of both Thomas’s grandfather, Richard Everard a yeoman tenant farmer of the Grey estate and his great grandfather.

In 1924, the company completed its move away from rail transport to steam powered drays which continued in use until replaced by petrol lorries in 1946.

Thomas died in 1925 and was succeeded by his son William Lindsay Everard who lived in Ratcliffe Hall. The Great Depression saw a penny tax on beer.

The then-new Everards brewery on the corner of Southgate Street and Castle Street in Leicester, showing steam traction engines in 1875.

Today is the birthday of British beer writer Tim Webb, who along with Stephen Beaumont published the World Atlas of Beer and the Pocket Beer Guide, and also the Good Beer Guide to Belgium, with Joe Stange. I love Tim’s dry wit and his unabashed disdain for America(ns). I like to think I’m tolerated because I know, and like, Canadians and the British. Then again, who knows? Join me in wishing Tim a very happy birthday.

Me and Tim at the Falling Rock during an SF Beer Week promotional event during GABF in 2009.

Tim with Stephen Beaumont and Michelle Wang, showing off the 2nd edition of the Pocket Beer Guide in Leuven.

The British contingency, Adrian Tierney-Jones, Tim Hampson, Tim and Pete Brown.

Stephen Beaumont and I, looking perfectly pleased, while Tim displays a distinct lack of enthusiasm at Brouwerij de Kroon.

Today is the birthday of Conrad George Oland (March 13, 1851-December 12, 1917). He was born in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England, and was the son of Susannah Oland, who founded what today is Moosehead Breweries. It was known by several names before 1947, such as S. Oland & Sons Brewery, the Turtle Grove Brewery, and the Army & Navy Brewery. His mother trained both him and his younger brother to brew beer, but after her death it was his younger brother that took over the brewery. In 1917, their brewery was near the famous Halifax Explosion, and windows were shattered and walls collapsed, and Conrad died from shock during the explosion, along with six additional employees.

And this account of his parents Susannah and John is from the Canadian Encyclopedia:

By 1867, the Oland family had moved to Dartmouth. Struggling financially, Susannah supplemented what little money John earned by making beer in the shed at the back of their Dartmouth property, using an old family recipe. Her October brown ale proved to be so popular with the local inhabitants that a family friend, Captain Francis Walter DeWinton (1835–1901), suggested brewing on a larger scale. DeWinton, along with two other investors, provided the funds to start a commercial brewery. Because they began the business in the Turtle Grove area of Dartmouth — a Mi’kmaq community — the brewery was named Turtle Grove Brewery.The company was incorporated on 1 October 1867. On paper, John Oland was manager of the business, but in reality, Susannah oversaw virtually every aspect of its day-to-day operations. By many accounts, she supervised the brewing process, which was undertaken with the help of her three sons.

The new commercial brewery was situated on a 12.5-acre plot with 300 feet of frontage on Halifax Harbour. Halifax was ideal for a budding brewer because of the pronounced military and naval presence. Beer had long been part of the life in the armed forces. During the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), the Duke of Marlborough, commander of the British forces, proclaimed: “No soldier can fight unless he is properly fed on beef and beer.” British authorities accepted Marlborough’s statement as gospel, and in the years that followed, British soldiers were given enough “beer money” to purchase five pints of beer a day. This, along with the fact that the overwhelming majority of the civilian population in Dartmouth and Halifax could trace its ancestry to the beer-drinking cultures of England, Scotland, and Ireland, gave an immediate incentive to anyone like Susannah Oland looking to capitalize on their knowledge of the art of brewing.

Taking advantage of DeWinton’s connections (he was military secretary to the Marquess of Lorne, the governor general of Canada), the brewery quickly grew to be the third-largest business operating in Dartmouth. Tragedy struck in October 1870, however, when John died in a riding accident. To make matters worse, DeWinton was transferred to Gibraltar and the other two partners sold their interests to a manager, George Fraser, who had formerly been employed at a competing brewery. Undaunted, Susannah Oland and her sons continued working at the brewery, which had been renamed the Army and Navy Brewery in honor of its principal patrons.

In 1877, after receiving an inheritance from a relative in England, Susannah Oland bought out Fraser and dissolved the partnership. She began operating the brewery under the name S. Oland, Sons and Company and trained her sons to be brewmasters. She worked at the brewery for the remainder of her life

Today is the birthday of English scientist Joseph Priestley (March 13, 1733-February 6, 1804). While he was also a “clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and Liberal political theorist,” he’s perhaps best known for discovering oxygen (even though a few others lay claim to that honor). According to Wikipedia, “his early scientific interest was electricity, but he is remembered for his later work in chemistry, especially gases. He investigated the ‘fixed air’ (carbon dioxide) found in a layer above the liquid in beer brewery fermentation vats. Although known by different names at the time, he also discovered sulphur dioxide, ammonia, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and silicon fluoride. Priestley is remembered for his invention of a way of making soda-water (1772), the pneumatic trough, and recognising that green plants in light released oxygen. His political opinions and support of the French Revolution, were unpopular. After his home and laboratory were set afire (1791), he sailed for America, arriving at New York on 4 Jun 1794

In the biography of Priestley at the American Chemistry Society has a sidebar about his work with fermentation:

Bubbling Beverages

In 1767, Priestley was offered a ministry in Leeds, Englane, located near a brewery. This abundant and convenient source of “fixed air” — what we now know as carbon dioxide — from fermentation sparked his lifetime investigation into the chemistry of gases. He found a way to produce artificially what occurred naturally in beer and champagne: water containing the effervescence of carbon dioxide. The method earned the Royal Society’s coveted Copley Prize and was the precursor of the modern soft-drink industry.

Even Michael Jackson, in 1994, wrote about Priestley connection to the brewing industry.

“It has been suggested that the Yorkshire square system was developed with the help of Joseph Priestley who, in 1722, delivered a paper to the Royal Society on the absorption of gases in liquids. In addition to being a scientist, and later a political dissident, he was for a time the minister of a Unitarian church in Leeds. During that period he lived next to a brewery on a site that is now Tetley’s.”

In the New World Encyclopedia, during his time in Leeds, it explains his work on carbonation.

Priestley’s house was next to a brewery, and he became fascinated with the layer of dense gas that hung over the giant vats of fermenting beer. His first experiments showed that the gas would extinguish lighted wood chips. He then noticed that the gas appeared to be heavier than normal air, as it remained in the vats and did not mix with the air in the room. The distinctive gas, which Priestley called “fixed air,” had already been discovered and named “mephitic air” by Joseph Black. It was, in fact, carbon dioxide. Priestley discovered a method of impregnating water with the carbon dioxide by placing a bowl of water above a vat of fermenting beer. The carbon dioxide soon became dissolved in the water to produce soda water, and Priestley found that the impregnated water developed a pleasant acidic taste. In 1773, he published an article on the carbonation of water (soda water), which won him the Royal Society’s Copley Medal and brought much attention to his scientific work.

He began to offer the treated water to friends as a refreshing drink. In 1772, Priestley published a paper entitled Impregnating Water with Fixed Air, in which he described a process of dripping sulfuric acid (or oil of vitriol as Priestley knew it) onto chalk to produce carbon dioxide and forcing the gas to dissolve by agitating a bowl of water in contact with the gas.

And here’s More About Priestley from the Birmingham Jewellry Quarter, whatever that is:

But his most important work was to be in the field of gases, which he called ‘airs’ (he would later chide James Keir for giving himself airs (oh dear!) by adopting the term ‘gases’ in his Dictionary of Chemistry, saying ‘I cannot help smiling at his new phraseology’). Living, as he did at the time, next to a brewery, he noticed that the gas given off from the fermenting vats drifted to the ground, implying that it was heavier than air. Moreover, he discovered that it extinguished lighted wood chips. He had discovered carbon dioxide, which he called ‘fixed air’. Devising a method of making the gas at home without brewing beer, he discovered that it produced a pleasant tangy taste when dissolved in water. By this invention of carbonated water, he had become the father of fizzy drinks!

But perhaps my favorite retelling comes from the riveting History of Industrial Gases:

The relevant findings were published in 1772, in Impregnating Water with Fixed Air

20. By this process may fixed air be given to wine, beer, and almost any liquor whatever: and when beer is become flat or dead, it will be revived by this means; but the delicate agreeable flavour, or acidulous taste communicated by the fixed air, and which is manifest in water, will hardly be perceived in wine, or other liquors which have much taste of their own.

Priestley’s apparatus for experimenting with ‘airs.’

Today is the birthday of Emil Resch (February 15, 1860-April 17, 1930). He was the youngest brother of Edmund and Richard Resch, who founded the Lion Brewery in Australia, although it was later known as Resch’s Brewery. The brewery was taken over by Tooth and Co. in 1929, but today is owned by Carlton and United Breweries.

This biography is from the Australian Dictionary of Biography:

Emil was born on 15 February 1860 at Aalen, Württemberg, and after serving his apprenticeship in the brewing and malting trade arrived in Australia on 28 September 1882. After a short time in Melbourne he joined his brothers at Wilcannia, and in 1885 took over their Lion Brewery on Umberumberka Creek, Silverton. In 1888, when the brewery had an annual output of over 90,000 gallons (409,148 L), he opened a cordial factory in Argent Lane, Broken Hill. He became an original trustee of the German Club at Broken Hill in 1892 and next year returned to Germany where at Aalen he married Emma Schwartz (d.1945) on 15 August.

Retaining his brewing interests at Broken Hill, in 1898 Resch went to Melbourne and became general manager of Melbourne Brewery and Distillery Ltd (Victoria Brewery). He was naturalized in December 1899. In 1905 Emil, William Baillieu and Carl Pinschof, representing the Victoria and Carlton breweries, began discussions with Nicholas Fitzgerald, Montague Cohenand others which led to the formation of Carlton & United Breweries Pty Ltd on 8 May 1907. Emil, who with Baillieu had bought the Victoria Brewery and incorporated it in the merger in exchange for shares in the new company, was general manager of Carlton and United in 1907-14.

Emil Resch died on 17 April 1930 at his Kew home, survived by his wife, one of his two sons, Carl, and five daughters. He was buried in the Presbyterian section of Boroondara cemetery. 

Because his career is so intertwined with his brothers, this is his older brother Edmund’s biography, also from the Australian Dictionary of Biography:

Edmund Resch (1847-1923) and Emil Karl Resch (1860-1930), brewers, were the sons of Johann Nicolaus Resch, ironmaster, and his wife Julia Bernhardine Louise Wilhelmine, née Heitmann, both of Saxony. Edmund was born on 9 June 1847 at Hörde, Westphalia, and arrived in Australia in 1863. In 1871, after mining in Victoria, he moved to New South Wales where he and his mate were the first to strike copper at the Cobar South mine. After prospecting for a year between Cobar, Louth, Bourke and Gilgandra he went to Charters Towers, Queensland, where he built, then operated a hotel for four years. He sold out because of ill health and about 1877 bought with a younger brother Richard Frederick Edward Nicolas (1851-1912) a cordial and aerated water factory at Wilcannia, New South Wales. Next year he visited Germany, where at Munich, on 17 October 1878, he married Carolina Rach (1855-1927).
Business flourished, for Wilcannia was a busy river port and centre of a vast pastoral district. In September 1879 Edmund and Richard opened the Lion Brewery and in 1883 purchased a brewery at Cootamundra, renaming it the Lion Brewery; by 1885 they had branches at Silverton, west of Broken Hill, and Tibooburra on the Mount Browne goldfield. On 11 August 1885, however, the partnership was dissolved by mutual consent, Richard carrying on at Cootamundra and Tibooburra and Edmund at Wilcannia, where he built up an enviable reputation as a skilful brewer.
In 1892 Edmund Resch installed a manager and retired to live in Melbourne. In 1895, however, he moved to Sydney to manage Allt’s Brewing & Wine and Spirit Co. Ltd for a banker who had assisted him in his early business career. In 1897 he purchased the brewery for about £67,000 and in 1900 also acquired the business and plant of the New South Wales Lager Bier Brewing Co. Ltd. Assisted by John Herbert Alvarez (d.1913), his able accountant and manager, and his sons Edmund (1879-1963) and Arnold Gottfried (1881-1942), who had both studied modern brewing methods in Europe and the United States of America, Resch embarked on a large building programme, centralizing his combined interests in Dowling Street, Redfern. In July 1906 Resch’s Ltd was incorporated with an authorized capital of £150,000.
Resch’s second business career was even more successful than his first. In 1901 he told a Legislative Assembly select committee on tied houses, where he was reprimanded by the chairman Richard Meagher for answering ‘in an acrimonious way’, that he was the only brewer in New South Wales who did not use ‘salicylic acid and other antiseptics’ in his beer, and, not surprisingly, that he was against tied houses. He successfully advertised in 1904-14 as ‘brewer by appointment to His Excellency the Governor-General’: his ales, beers and stout captured much of the State’s market. From 1903 to October 1913 he was consul in Sydney for the Netherlands government and on his retirement he was appointed knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau. Wealthy, but uncultivated, he lived in great style at Swifts, a Gothic mansion on Darling Point built by (Sir) Robert Lucas-Tooth; sailing on Sydney Harbour was his chief recreation. During World War I Resch contributed generously to the war effort and made up the difference in pay for about sixty employees who had enlisted, but in November 1917, following an indiscretion, he was arrested and interned in Holsworthy camp.
Edmund Resch died at Swifts on 22 May 1923, survived by his wife and sons, and was buried in the Anglican section of Waverley cemetery. Probate of his estate was sworn at £316,828. In 1929 Resch’s Waverley Brewery was taken over by Tooth & Co. Ltd in exchange for shares issued to the Resch family.

This story about the brothers is from a breweriana collector in Australia:

Edmund Resch arrived in Australia from Germany in 1863, probably with his younger brother Richard, and after spending time on Victorian and New South Wales mine fields and as an hotelier in Queensland, he and Richard bought a cordial and aerated water factory in bustling Wilcannia in 1877. Business flourished and in 1879 the pair opened the Lion Brewery in the township.

Four years later, the brothers expanded their activities by taking over Cootamundra’s Burton Brewery. Originally established by Mary Jane Rochester, Henry Morton and Frederick Henry Jackson in 1881, the new owners renamed it the Lion Brewery in line with their earlier establishment and in December 1883 advertised that “…for cleanliness, condition, fullness of the palate, great keeping qualities and mellow vinous flavour, our ales cannot be surpassed.”

In 1882, a third brother Emil arrived in Australia after serving a brewing and malting apprenticeship in Germany and following a short stint in Melbourne, moved to Wilcannia to join his siblings. By 1885, their expanding business empire also boasted branches at Silverton and Tibooburra, but in August that year, the partnership was amicably dissolved, with the various holdings split up between the brothers.

Richard continued the Cootamundra and Tibooburra businesses, and after trying unsuccessfully in 1888 to sell the former brewery, carried on until 1903, when he relocated to the Clarence River Brewery at Maclean. Operations ceased around 1915.

Edmund carried on at Wilcannia until 1892 when, after installing a manager to oversee operations, he moved to Melbourne intending to retire. This was short lived, however, and three years later he relocated to Sydney to take over management of Allt’s, a brewing, wine and spirit company, on behalf of a banker who had supported him in his early business activities.

After purchasing Allt’s Brewery in 1897 for more than £65,000, Edmund went on to acquire the New South Wales Lager Bier Brewing Company Ltd’s Waverley Brewery business and plant in Redfern three years later. Together with his sons Edmund and Arnold and his accountant/manager John Alvarez, he embarked on major construction works to centralise activities on the Dowling Street, Redfern site. Directories show that he also continued to operate his Wilcannia business until at least 1909.

Promoting himself between 1904 and 1914 as “brewer by appointment to His Excellency the Governor-General”, Edmund became so successful that his brewery’s output secured much of the State’s market. In 1906, Resch’s Ltd was incorporated with a capital of £150,000.

Today is the birthday of Philip Zang (February 15, 1826-February 18, 1899) who’s most remembered for his brewery in Denver, Colorado, although he also founded a brewery in Louisville, Kentucky, before moving west in 1869. He was born in Bavaria, Germany, but came to the U.S. in 1853.

Here’s a short biography from Find a Grave:

Brewing Magnate in Denver. Owner of first brewery in Denver, Rocky Mountain Brewery, which was also the largest west of the Mississippi from 1880 to the start of prohibition. Arrived in the USA in 1853; initially settled in Louisville, Kentucky where he owned Phoenix Brewery (later Zang Brewing Co.), the largest in Kentucky, for 16 years; relocated to Denver in September 1869; acquired Rocky Mountain Brewery in 1871 and changed its name to Philip Zang Brewing Co.; increased production over the years to achieve over 65,000 barrels per year while surviving a couple of destructive fires; sold Philip Zang Brewing Co. in 1888 to British investors; retired from brewing in 1889 and listed the same year as one of 33 millionaires living in Denver. Was involved in mining holding interests in a number of gold and silver mines in Silverton, Cripple Creek and Eagle County. A prominent Denver citizen, he was also elected as a democrat to a term as city alderman.

PHILIP ZANG, founder of the Ph. Zang Brewing Company, of Denver, was a native of Bavaria, Germany, immigrated to United States in by ship in 1853. Married Elizabeth Hurlebaus, who died in Chicago, leaving an only child, Adolph J. Zang.

• Founded Phoenix brewery in Louisville (1859-1869) then moved to Denver
• Bought Rocky Mountain Brewing Co. from John Good (1871)
• Changed name to Philip Zang & Co. (7/1880)
• Sold to UK syndicate-chg. name to PH. Zang Brewing Co. (1889)
• Son; Adolf J. Zang took over management (General Manager)
• Second Marriage (10/1870) to Mrs. Anna Barbara Buck, nee Kalberer, (b.1836)(d.4/1896)
• Previously widowed from marriage to Jacob Buck (b.1832) m(1857-xxxx)
• The family residence, built in 1887, was at 2342 Seventh street, Denver, CO

ROOTS

Philip Zang, founder of the PH. Zang Brewing Company, of Denver, was a native of Bavaria, Germany, and next to the oldest among the six sons and two daughters of John and Fredericka (Kaufman) Zang. His father, who was a member of an old Bavarian family, engaged in farming and the milling business, and took part in the Napoleonic wars, accompanying the illustrious general on his march to Moscow. He (John) died in 1849, at the age of sixty-two. Two of John and Fredericka’s sons, Alexander and Philip, immigrated to America. During the Civil War Alexander served in the Thirty-ninth New York Infantry; he died in Denver in 1892.

BOUND FOR AMERICA

Philip was a brewer’s apprentice for two and one-half years, after which he traveled around Germany, working at his trade. In 1853 he came to America, going from Rotterdam to Hull, then to Liverpool, and from there on the “City of Glasgow,” which landed him in Philadelphia after a voyage of eighteen days.

LEAPING FORWARD

Ignorant of the English language, his first endeavor was to gain sufficient knowledge to converse with the people here, and during the first six months in this country, while working as a railroad hand, he was storing in his mind a knowledge of our customs and language. In Philadelphia Mr. P. Zang married Miss Elizabeth Hurlebaus, who died in Chicago, leaving an only child, Adolph J. Zang. In January 1854, he went to Louisville, Ky., where he worked at his trade for one year. Later, desiring to learn engineering, he secured employment in a woolen mill, and remained there until January 1859, meantime becoming familiar with the engineer’s occupation.

THE BREWERY BUSINESS

Mr. P. Zang built a brewery in Louisville and this he conducted alone until 1865, when he erected a large brewery, which was carried on under the firm name of Zang & Co. Selling this in February 1869; he decided to locate in the growing town of Denver.

Here he was engaged as superintendent of the brewery owned by John Good until July 1871, when he bought out his employer and continued the business alone. Mr. Good had started the business in 1859 on the same spot, under the title of the Rocky Mountain Brewery, which continued to be its name for some years. In July 1871, Mr. Zang enlarged the brewery, which then had a capacity of one hundred and fifty thousand barrels per annum, and is the largest between St. Louis and San Francisco. There was also a malt house, with modern equipments; an ice plant, lager beer vaults, boiler house, brewery stables, and a switch from the railroad connecting with the main lines, in order to facilitate the work of shipment. In 1880 the name was changed to Philip Zang & Co., and in July 1889, the business was sold to an English syndicate, who changed the name to the Ph. Zang Brewing Company.

LOCAL AFFAIRS

In Denver, October 18, 1870, he was united in marriage with Mrs. Anna B. Buck, nee Kalberer, an estimable lady and one who has many friends in this city. The family residence, built in 1887, stood at 2342 Seventh street. For one term Mr. Zang served as an alderman of the sixth ward, to which position he was elected on the Democratic ticket, but he himself is independent in politics. While in Louisville he was made a Mason and an Odd Fellow, and he belonged to Schiller Lodge No. 41, A. F. & A. M., and Germania Lodge No. 14, I. O.O. F., of Denver, of both of which he was a charter member. He was also connected with the Turn Verein, Krieger Verein and Bavarian Verein, and took a prominent part in all local affairs.

And in this short account, it is suggested it was gold fever that enticed Zang west, and when that didn’t pan out, he returned to what he knew: brewing beer.

“Zang came to Denver in 1870 – a few years after the Civil War – having run the Phoenix Brewery in Louisville Kentucky for 16 years. Even though his brewery had thrived through the turmoil of the war, he caught gold fever, sold that brewery and headed west. His gold mining career in Leadville lasted about a month. Soon he found himself back in the more palatable environment of Denver, running the Rocky Mountain Brewery for a “Capitalist” (his official title) called John Good. Within a couple years, Zang bought the brewery from Good and soon increased its capacity ten-fold. From then until the complication of Prohibition in 1920, Zang Brewing Company was the largest beer producer west of the Missouri.”

The wonderful book 100 Years of Brewing, published in 1901, also has a short account of Zang’s brewery:

They’ve been working behind the scenes for some time now, but as of today most of the details have been worked out, so they’re making it official. Rich Norgrove, along with his wife Tami Norgrove, owners of Bear Republic Brewing of Cloverdale are partnering with John Martin and Roy Kirkorian of Drake’s Brewing, headquartered in San Leandro, to effectively merge the two breweries. In official terms, today they “jointly announced the sale and purchase of certain assets of Bear Republic to Artisan Brewers LLC” (which is Drake’s Brewing’s official business name).

What that means in practical terms is that “Racer 5 is shifting gears once again, beginning a new collaborative partnership with The Drake’s Brewing Co. The iconic West Coast IPA, once at the forefront of the California craft beer boom, is merging lanes to accommodate industry-wide challenges, while keeping a firm ‘pedal to the metal,’ moving forward.” The deal means Drake’s will acquire “all of Bear Republic Brewing Company’s recipes, formulas, and intellectual property, and will allow The Drake’s Brewing Company to continue producing the Bear Republic lineup of beers, including its Racer 5 IPA, as well as their other brands, plus new beers in the coming months. The long-time industry friends are aligned in their vision, bringing Bear Republic Brewing Company into new markets, new communities and new opportunities moving forward.

“We have always admired Drake’s Brewing Company’s passion for craft beer, their community as well as their commitment to quality,” said Bear Republic Brewing Company’s CEO Richard Norgrove. “Joining forces with Drake’s will allow us to bring our beers to even more customers, and we’re excited to be a part of the Drake’s family.” Throughout the merger, Norgrove will continue to be a shepherd of the brand, helping to represent the family-owned brewery in the manufacturing, production and sales of BRBC’s recipes.

So it’s not a straight sale, as is often the case, but instead, as Norgrove explains it, it’s more like “not coming in and buying the car, but buying the engine and driver.” Norgrove, as well as his longtime brewmaster, Peter Kruger, will continue to work with the Bear Republic brand. It will continue to be brewed in Cloverdale, but brewing will be transitioning over the coming months to San Leandro.

I spoke to both Martin and Norgrove this afternoon, and they stressed that this deal “makes them both stronger.” Bear Republic’s best-selling beer, accounting for 92-percent of sales, is Racer 5, so that, along with new favorite, Racer 7 (a 7-percent hazy IPA), will be the primary focus during the transition period. Naturally, the two have known one another for decades in the Bay Area brewing community and have even shared some of the same brewers who have worked for both companies. So as Martin described it, there are “so many cool things from a synergistic point of view.” They also share distributors in some key markets, which will help make the transition smoother. The good news here for beer overs is that Bear Republic beer will continue to be brewed in the Bay Area and may lead to it being even easier to find. The two have already started talking about future satellite locations, starting in Sonoma County, similar to Drake’s Dealership in Oakland and The Barn in West Sacramento.

About the two companies.

Drake’s originally was founded as Lind Brewing in 1989 by Roger Lind. He sold the brewery to a local coffee company in 1998 and they changed the name to Drake’s, which had been a name used for many of the beers. In 2008, John Martin and Roy Kirkorian bought the brewery. Martin, along with his brother Reid Martin, also started Triple Rock Brewery in Berkeley, one of the earliest brewpubs in the country when it opened in 1986. After taking the reins, Martin and Kirkorian opened Drake’s Barrel House in 2011, its brewery tasting room and a few years later, in 2016, opened Drake’s Dealership, a beer garden and restaurant in downtown Oakland at the site of a former Dodge automobile dealership. In 2018, they opened another satellite location in West Sacramento known as The Barn.

Bear Republic Brewing was founded in 1995 by Ricardo and Tami Norgrove, along with his parents, Richard and Sandy Norgrove. By 1999, they’d won a gold medal at GABF for their Racer 5 IPA, one of the first popular West Coast-style IPAs. The original brewpub was located in downtown Healdsburg, but in 2005 they built a much larger production brewery in Cloverdale. In 2006, they won big at GABF, winning Small Brewing Company and Small Brewing Company Brewer of the Year. In 2017, they opened a second brewpub in Rohnert Park, and in 2019 due to issues with the landlord closed the Healdsburg location. But Covid hit them hard, as it did most breweries, and this led to them closing the Rohnert Park location, as well, focusing instead on their package beer and distribution.

Today is the 47th birthday of Daniel Satterthwaite, who’s been brewing in the Bay Area since the 1990s. After graduating from UC Santa Cruz, he learned brewing at the Siebel Institute in Chicago and worked for a time in the Black Forest of Germany at a small, family-owned brewery that’s over one hundred years old. Returning home, he worked for years at Gordon Biersch and Trumer Brauerei, and he also helped co-found the Seven Bridges Cooperative home brew supply store in Santa Cruz, was Executive Director of the South Bay Brewer’s Guild. More recently, he co-founded his own place, New Bohemia Brewing in Santa Cruz, and is making great beer there. Join me in wishing Daniel a very happy birthday.

Me and Daniel at New Bohemia last March.

Dan, in the middle, picking up his first medal for New Bohemia at GABF in 2015.

And waiting in line to go up on stage to pick up his medal.

On the new brewhouse.

Note: Last two photos purloined from Facebook.

Today is the birthday of August Schell (February 15, 1828-September 20, 1891). He was born in Durbach, Germany, in the Black Forest, but when he was twenty booked passage to New Orleans. He then made his way to Cincinnati, where he married, and when he was 28, in 1856, he moved his family to New Ulm, Minnesota. In 1860, Schell formed a partnership with brewer Jacob Bernhardt, and they founded the August Schell Brewing Co. Schell’s Brewery is still in business today, and is still owned by the family who started it. “It is the second oldest family-owned brewery in America (after D. G. Yuengling & Son) and became the oldest and largest brewery in Minnesota when the company bought the Grain Belt rights in 2002.”

Here’s a biography from Find-a-Grave, which they state was taken “from the Schells Brewery site,” but it must have been from a previous version of the company website:

August Schell was born in 1828 in Durbach, Germany, located in the heart of the famous German “Schwarzwald,” otherwise known as the Black Forest region. August received an early education as a machinist/engineer but after a short time, became intrigued by the opportunities overseas. In 1848, August bid farewell to his mother and father, leaving his homeland in search of success in the United States.

August arrived in New Orleans and continued up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers to Cincinnati where he worked as a machinist in a locomotive factory. It was here that he met the love of his life, Theresa Hermann. Theresa, also a German immigrant, and August wed in 1853.

In 1856, August, Theresa and their two baby daughters headed to Minnesota along with a group of fellow Germans known as the Cincinnati Turner Society. The Turner Society had heard from a group of German settlers in Southern Minnesota that their settlement was struggling to succeed. The two groups merged and formed the town of New Ulm.

Once in New Ulm, August found a job as a machinist in a flour mill. But as the years passed, August realized that good German beer was difficult to find in such a small, rural area. In the fall of 1860, August partnered up with Jacob Bernhardt, a former brewmaster at the Benzberg Brewery in St. Paul, MN (what today was known as the Minnesota Brewing Company). They erected a small brewery just two miles from town along the banks of the Cottonwood River. During their first year of operation they produced 200 barrels of beer, a very small amount based on today’s standards.

The location of the brewery was ideal. Aside from the beauty of its natural surroundings (August was especially fond of his hikes into the woods), the brewery was located next to an artesian spring, providing exceptionally pure water for brewing. Its proximity to the Cottonwood River gave the brewery a means of transporting beer and supplies, and the river also became essential to the refrigeration process. Each winter, large blocks of ice would be harvested and hauled up the hill where they would be stored in underground caves. The ice would keep the caves cool throughout the spring and early summer in order to allow proper aging and fermentation of the beer.

But along with the rewards also came the risks. New Ulm, as many settlers back then realized, was located in the heart of Dakota Indian country. In the early days of the brewery, many of the Dakota Sioux Tribe visited the brewery where Mrs. Schell often provided them with food. This goodwill proved to be a blessing for the brewery. In 1862, southern Minnesota was the focal point of the “Sioux Uprising,” otherwise known as the “Dakota Conflict.” While buildings were burned and ransacked in New Ulm and other towns in the region, the brewery remained untouched due to the kindness of the Schell family.

In 1866, Jacob Bernhardt became ill and decided to sell his share of the brewery. In order to command as high a price as possible August agreed to place the entire brewery up for sale to the highest bidder. August’s bid of $12,000 won out and he became the sole owner of the business.

The early years were good for the Schell family. August and Theresa raised six children: two sons; Adolph and Otto; and four daughters; Emma, Emelia, Anna and Augusta. The brewery flourished as additions were built to the existing brewery, many of which continue to grace the brewery grounds, a testament to the enduring legacy of Schell.

At the age of 50, August became stricken with severe arthritis which greatly affected his activities within the brewery. While still maintaining an executive role with the brewery, August handed over the management responsibilities to his eldest son Adolph and the brewing responsibilities to his youngest son Otto, who studied brewing in Germany. Soon after, Adolph moved his family to California leaving Otto and his brother-in-law George Marti to run the brewery.

In 1885, August and Theresa built the exquisite Schell Mansion on the brewery grounds, complete with formal gardens and deer park, all of which are listed on the National Register of Historic Sites. As August’s arthritis worsened, he would enjoy spending his days in the solitude of the gardens watching the constant hum and activity at the brewery.

August died on September 20, 1891 at the age of 63, leaving the brewery to Theresa with Otto as manager. While the brewery mourned the loss of its founder, Otto became its driving force. In 1902 the brewery was incorporated and Otto was elected president, his mother Theresa was elected vice-president, and his brother-in-law George became secretary-treasurer.

The 1860’s

Once in New Ulm, August found a job as a machinist in a flour mill. But as the years passed, August realized that good German beer was difficult to find in such a small, rural area. In the fall of 1860, August partnered up with Jacob Bernhardt, a former brewmaster at the Benzberg Brewery in St. Paul, MN (what today was known as the Minnesota Brewing Company). They erected a small brewery just two miles from town along the banks of the Cottonwood River. During their first year of operation they produced 200 barrels of beer, a very small amount based on today’s standards.

The location of the brewery was ideal. Aside from the beauty of its natural surroundings (August was especially fond of his hikes into the woods), the brewery was located next to an artesian spring, providing exceptionally pure water for brewing. Its proximity to the Cottonwood River gave the brewery a means of transporting beer and supplies, and the river also became essential to the refrigeration process. Each winter, large blocks of ice would be harvested and hauled up the hill where they would be stored in underground caves. The ice would keep the caves cool throughout the spring and early summer in order to allow proper aging and fermentation of the beer.

But along with the rewards also came the risks. New Ulm, as many settlers back then realized, was located in the heart of Dakota Indian country. In the early days of the brewery, many of the Dakota Sioux Tribe visited the brewery where Mrs. Schell often provided them with food. This goodwill proved to be a blessing for the brewery. In 1862, southern Minnesota was the focal point of the “Sioux Uprising,” otherwise known as the “Dakota Conflict.” While buildings were burned and ransacked in New Ulm and other towns in the region, the brewery remained untouched due to the kindness of the Schell family.

The original Schell brewery.

The 1870’s

In 1866, Jacob Bernhardt became ill and decided to sell his share of the brewery. In order to command as high a price as possible August agreed to place the entire brewery up for sale to the highest bidder. August’s bid of $12,000 won out and he became the sole owner of the business.
The early years were good for the Schell family. August and Theresa raised six children: two sons; Adolph and Otto; and four daughters; Emma, Emelia, Anna and Augusta. The brewery flourished as additions were built to the existing brewery, many of which continue to grace the brewery grounds, a testament to the enduring legacy of Schell.

At the age of 50, August became stricken with severe arthritis which greatly affected his activities within the brewery. While still maintaining an executive role with the brewery, August handed over the management responsibilities to his eldest son Adolph and the brewing responsibilities to his youngest son Otto, who studied brewing in Germany. Soon after, Adolph moved his family to California leaving Otto and his brother-in-law George Marti to run the brewery.

Employees of the brewery around 1866.

The 1880’s

In 1885, August and Theresa built the exquisite Schell Mansion on the brewery grounds, complete with formal gardens and deer park, all of which are listed on the National Register of Historic Sites. As August’s arthritis worsened, he would enjoy spending his days in the solitude of the gardens watching the constant hum and activity at the brewery.

August died on September 20, 1891 at the age of 63, leaving the brewery to Theresa with Otto as manager. While the brewery mourned the loss of its founder, Otto became its driving force. In 1902 the brewery was incorporated and Otto was elected president, his mother Theresa was elected vice-president, and his brother-in-law George became secretary-treasurer.

The Schell brewery seen from a distance.

And here’s an even more thorough biography from Immigrant Entrepreneurship:

Introduction

The history of August Schell (born February 15, 1828, in Durbach, Grand Duchy of Baden; died September 20, 1891, in New Ulm, Minnesota) and the brewery that he founded in 1860 highlight several key aspects of German-American business and entrepreneurship in the nineteenth century. First, it highlights the role of the Turnverein and other non-religious societies as a means of networking and organizing co-ethnic immigrants (as well as a source of potential friction within the community). Secondly, August Schell’s experiences in New Ulm, Minnesota, highlight the development of German-American entrepreneurship in small town, rural, and frontier societies. Although many German-Americans founded businesses in urban settings, others found their avenues of opportunity in the more ethnically and linguistically homogeneous communities of rural America. The rural, frontier setting of New Ulm presented Schell with different challenges than he had faced in Cincinnati, including the Dakota Uprising of 1861, drought, and tornadoes. The tight-knit community provided for a stable family network, as well as a loyal and supportive customer base. In this context and through the work of his son, Otto Schell (1862-1911), and son-in-law, George Marti (1856-1834), the August Schell Brewing Company of New Ulm, Minnesota, was able to persist through hard times (like Prohibition) to become the second-oldest family-owned brewery in the United States (second to D.G. Yuengling and Son of Potsville, Pennsylvania).

August and his wife, Theresa.

Family, Ethnic, and Turnverein Background

August Schell was born February 15, 1828, in the town of Durbach in the Grand Duchy of Baden. Situated in the rural, southwestern corner of Baden, the community was located in the foothills at the edge of the Rhine Valley and the Black Forest. Little is known about Schell’s family in the German lands outside of family stories and histories. Schell’s father, Carl Schell, who was born in 1769, was from Kippenheimweiler, Baden, a community near Durbach. According to family accounts, Schell’s family had an artistic bent having been involved in the stained-glass industry for years. But it was through a profitable marriage dowry that Carl Schell could afford to build a four-story brick house in the center of Durbach. Carl also held the position of Oberförster (head forester) in the region of the Black Forest near Durbach. As a result, Schell grew up in a world surrounded by trees and animals. The family coat-of-arms, carved into the archway of the Schell house’s caller in Durbach, depicts a jumping buck with “C Sch” inscribed above it. A love for the outdoor beauty of the Black Forest remained with August Schell and impacted how he designed his brewery, his house, and his property in order to recapture the land of his childhood. The family coat-of-arms eventually became the symbol of Schell Brewing Company.

Relatively little is known about Schell’s activities prior to immigrating to the United States. His father, Carl, died in 1839 and sometime after this he was apprenticed as a machinist prior to his decision to immigrate to the United States. Schell family remembrances indicate that he immigrated to New Orleans in 1849 but soon left for Cincinnati because the language barrier hindered his job search. With a large and growing German-speaking population in Cincinnati, Schell quickly found work as a machinist at the Cincinnati Locomotive Works. Four years after arriving in the United States, he married Theresa Hermann (born October 16, 1829; died May 21, 1911) who had emigrated from Rottweil in the Kingdom of Württemberg in 1849. After moving to New Ulm, they had five children, including the two boys who would play a role in the operation of the family brewery, Adolph (1858-1938) and Otto (1862-1911).

Although religious organizations tended to be among the strongest institutions around which German immigrants congregated, Schell did not follow this path. Schell, like many other German emigrants in the wake of the Revolutions of 1848, turned to the local Cincinnati Turnverein, founded in 1848 as the first Turner society in the United States. Although it is not known whether Schell participated in the Revolutions of 1848, he associated with the uprising’s sympathizers and refugees. More than any other network or ethnic association, Schell’s growing involvement and eventual leadership role with this German-American Turner network would have a large impact on his career and his business decisions in Cincinnati and in New Ulm, Minnesota.

The Turnverein was a liberal, gymnastic society founded amid the Napoleonic Wars. Turners believed that their countrymen needed to become stronger and more physically fit in order to unite and defend their homeland. Under Napoleon, French forces had overwhelmed the divided German states, which had been brought within the French political orbit. Despite being opposed to the French, the Turners embraced many of the liberal, Enlightenment-based notions at the root of the French Revolution. Turners were in the front ranks of the so-called Revolutions of 1848 that swept across Europe. These revolutions were fueled by the ideologies of liberalism (e.g. a constitutional monarchy or a republic with a written constitution and an elected legislature) and nationalism (combining the many Germanic kingdoms and principalities so that all Germans would live within a united nation-state). However, despite initial successes by the Turners and other revolutionaries, the conservative monarchs eventually reasserted control and turned against the liberals.

Most of these “Forty-Eighters,” as the political refugees to the United States came to be known, retained their radically liberal philosophy and put it into action when replanting the Turnverein movement in the United States. Reflecting their close connections to Freethinker societies, the Turners emphasized that moral instruction should not come from churches but from science and history. Turners were students of the Enlightenment and rationalism. Over the next several decades, the Turner societies maintained their emphasis on physical education but also began emphasizing the strengthening of the mind. They did not trust organized religion. The majority of these transplanted Turners were not latter-day Puritans who hoped to establish a “city on the hill” and eventually return to their homeland once their countrymen had seen the light. After the Forty-Eighters immigrated to the United States, the Turners became fiercely loyal to their adopted country and focused on its improvement. They strongly advocated integration into the American political and social spheres. The Turners soon thrived in the United States and, along with other exiled liberals, became leaders in many of the German communities across the United States.

Although there is no evidence that August Schell participated in the Revolutions of 1848, it is known that he closely followed the emigrant route of other political refugees and soon settled in Cincinnati, Ohio. Whether or not he was a Turner in Germany, Schell became an early member of the Cincinnati Turnverein. The majority of the founders were Forty-Eighters, many of whom were from Württemberg (the same region that Schell’s wife had emigrated from). William Pfaender was the first speaker of the Cincinnati Turnverein and would become the key figure in the founding of New Ulm, Minnesota. Schell would follow his fellow Cincinnati Turner into the territory of Minnesota to establish a safe haven to develop German culture in a more protected American context.

Relocating to safer environs became increasingly desirable for German-Americans as nativism flourished in the early 1850s. In Cincinnati, for example, the increasing numbers of German-speaking immigrants threatened to challenge the political authority of native-born Americans and their culture. As early as 1838, German citizens unsuccessfully petitioned the Cincinnati school board to adopt a German language program in its schools. German-speaking taxpayers, proclaimed German-language newspaper editorials, were paying for a public school education that offered little benefit to their own children. Couched in terms of constitutional rights, German Americans proposed that taxes from German residents should be earmarked for the instruction of German in the public schools. The German Americans successfully elected their own representatives to advocate their causes. The eventual creation of a bilingual German-English public school system illustrates the Cincinnati Germans’ growing confidence and political awareness amid the growing nativism.

In 1855, Pfaender wrote an article for the Turnverein’s national newspaper entitled “Practical Turnerism” that called for Turners across the country to pool their resources to create a joint-stock company that would buy land on the frontier and found a city to allow Turner ideas to flourish without impediment. For ten dollars a share, each stockholder would have a lot in the new city with other land being sold to establish “…mills, factories, and other nonprofit enterprises, which would accrue to the advantage of the whole….” Gaining the support of the national Turnverein organization, the Cincinnati Turners took charge of making this dream a reality.

With funding of $100,000 (roughly $2.68 million in 2011 dollars), Pfaender bought land on the banks of the Minnesota River in south-central Minnesota Territory from the Chicago Land Verein (Chicago Land Association). The Verein had originally bought the land and had given the tiny settlement its name of New Ulm. Facing financial ruin, the Chicago Land Verein agreed to be bought out by the Cincinnati Turnverein for $6,000 (roughly $161,000 in 2011 dollars). The two groups consolidated into a new joint-stock company known as the German Land Association of Minnesota. The executive committee of this association was based in Cincinnati where the bulk of the funds were located. Even before Pfaender set out by steamboat from Cincinnati to St. Paul, Minnesota, with the main group of initial Cincinnati Turners settlers in September 1856, August Schell and a few others had already made their way to the new German-American settlement on the frontier.

By the fall of 1856, several log houses, a post office, and two shops had been built around the town square. The Turners soon formed their own Turnverein chapter with August Schell elected as inaugural vice president of the society while William Pfaender became the corresponding secretary. Within the next year, this group erected their own Turner Hall that served as a community center, theater, and a space for gymnastics. Schell also served as one of the inaugural members of the New Ulm public school board. During his term of service, the school board erected a public school where subjects were taught in English and German. Schell found himself among the core leadership group of Turners on the Minnesota frontier. In this position, he had access to people and information, and played an important decision-making role that would prove crucial to his entrepreneurial success in the first decades of his business career.

Business Development

August Schell spent his first four years in New Ulm involved in the milling industry. A viable milling industry was crucial for sustaining most any community, since flour and lumber were in universal demand. Schell’s years of service as a machinist made the industry a natural fit and an avenue of opportunity. Within a year of Schell’s arrival, the German Land Association had financed the construction of the Cincinnati Globe Mill Company. The building not only had the milling stones and other equipment necessary to process grain but was also equipped with saws, lathes, and a steam engine to run them. Though the company found it hard to recoup its costs, the mill helped make New Ulm a regional center by processing hundreds of bushels of wheat, corn, and buckwheat during its first year. However, as the Cincinnati Globe Mill looked forward to its second year of operation, the firm was struggling financially. On May 27, 1858, the Globe Mill Company increased its shares by 700 in order to raise money to cover a $4,000 (roughly $113,000 in 2011 dollars) deficit for construction costs as well as to provide money to continue operations. The mill also decided to cut its prices for lumber and the cost of cutting logs in order to increase revenues. In spite of this measure, the executive committee based in Cincinnati decided it could no longer pay the millers and machinists until the mill showed a profit. Frustration against the far removed executive committee led to protests including a mock funeral for a key member of the committee.

In August 1858, the mill was reorganized in order to continue operating and satisfy the stockholders back in Cincinnati. August Schell, along with group of fifteen other prominent settlers in New Ulm, signed articles of incorporation for a new Globe Mills Company, incorporated on August 6, 1858. According to the document, “The Business and object of the Company is to manufacture Lumber and flour. The Capital Stock of the Company is thirty seven thousand five hundred dollars, the number of shares is fifteen hundred. The Capital Stock actually paid in is two hundred and sixty dollars.” This reorganization transferred the office of operation to New Ulm with a board of directors located locally instead of in distant Cincinnati. Schell invested twenty dollars for two shares in order to be one of the stockholders signing for the new company. All but two of the stockholders noted in the document were from New Ulm with the remaining two located in Cincinnati.

Despite the new arrangement, the mill, like the German Land Company, still struggled to break even. By December 1858, the German Land Company had only $7,400 remaining (out of $100,000 that it began with) and its debts continued increasing. Realizing that the Turner’s planned community in south-central Minnesota was unsustainable, the German Land Company dissolved itself in May 1859 only two years after it was created. Before disbanding, the original stockholders ceded much of their land-holdings to the city for future schools, hospitals, and other public facilities in order to ensure that the city survived.

The Land Company formed a committee to sell the Globe Mill Company, Inc. on the open market to recoup its costs. The asking price was $6,000 (roughly $167,000 in 2011 dollars) with an estimated value at between $10,000 to $20,000 dollars. Throughout the summer of 1859, the committee tried to sell the mill but finally decided to lease it until a buyer could be found. August Schell saw an opportunity. While the mill was unprofitable to own since it was burdened by outstanding debts for materials and equipment, Schell must have believed that profits could be made if he was only required to cover rent on the facility. Schell partnered with John Bellm and leased the mill at a cost of $1,540 per year for two years. Although no records exist to gauge how much money Schell made during this period, he netted enough profit to build a new house in 1859 on the corner of Minnesota and Fifth Street, just south of town. It was a one-and-a-half-story frame house with a stone foundation and plastered walls. It had six rooms and a basement and was valued at $1,200 in 1860 (approximately $33,500 in 2011 dollars).

Though he had been a machinist from his youth in Europe through his employment in the Cincinnati Locomotive Works and his later work at the Globe Mill in New Ulm, Schell saw brewing as a more profitable line of work than milling. This is not surprising considering that German-Americans were greatly overrepresented in the brewing industry during the late nineteenth century. Schell was not the first to build a brewery in the region, which was increasingly dominated by German immigrants. The first two breweries had been established in 1858. The Koke and Heyrich Brewery, established a mile-and-a-half west of New Ulm across the Minnesota River, only lasted slightly over a year. In the same year, the first brewery within New Ulm itself was established by Andrew Betz and August Frinton near German Park in the center of town. In addition, north of downtown, Henry A. Subilia, an Italian immigrant, was building the Waraju Steam Distillery, which cost approximately $10,000 to build. It opened for business on April 6, 1861. In a cash-poor economy, Subilia, like others in the region, bartered with customers and extended credit to expand business. The Waraju distillery traded whiskey for rye, barley, corn and wood. Nevertheless, Schell knew his local market and believed that the market could support another brewery.

Schell’s first order of business was to secure land for his brewery. He purchased a large lot one-and-a-half miles south of New Ulm in the Cottonwood Valley. It was located on the bluffs above the Cottonwood River in a heavily wooded area. The Cottonwood River connected to the Minnesota River, which, in turn, provided access to the Mississippi River. According to the purchase contract, “August Schell doth hereby agree to pay the said John Fried. Ring the sum of $208, the consideration for the said premises, in the manner following: $100 in lumber and sawing at the usual prices, $75 in goods (cash articles), $25 in cash; the whole at any time before the first day of September, in the year 1861, when requested by the said John Fr. Ring, and $8 on the first day of September, 1861, in plaster laths.” With little cash money in circulation on the frontier, Schell purchased the lot with a mixture of cash and the bartering of services and materials.

The New Ulm Pioneer, a local German-language newspaper, announced in its January 16, 1861, edition that August Schell had begun construction of the brewery and anticipated that it would be finished by the fall. Through October, Schell continued leasing the Globe Mill with Bellm to help finance his new brewery. Schell intended to live at the brewery and constructed a house next to it. By August 1861, Schell had moved his family out to the brewery site and was allowing relatives, including his sister-in-law, to stay at his house in town.

At the end of October 1861, the New Ulm Pioneer announced the opening of the new brewery owned by Schell and his partner, Jacob Bernhardt. Though he understood business and machinery, Schell had no expertise as a brewer. In order to compete with the other brewery in town, he partnered with Bernhardt, a master brewer who had been employed at a brewery in St. Paul, Minnesota. Construction not yet been entirely completed on the brewery structure, but it was ready enough to begin brewing beer. Schell had opted to create a sizable brewery with a cellar large enough for future needs. Over the next year, the Schell and Bernhardt Brewery expanded its customer base at least as far as Fort Ridgley, some 20 miles away.

Graced by a thriving farming economy in the surrounding countryside, as well as streams of chain migration by German-language immigrants, the city of New Ulm grew from 800 inhabitants in 1859 to 5,403 in 1890. New Ulm’s access to the most modern transportation systems available was instrumental to the city’s growth. Early in its history, New Ulm relied upon steamboats that plied up and down the Minnesota River. This river system connected New Ulm to the Twin Cities and, by way of the Mississippi River, to the rest of the nation. Prior to the coming of the railroads, the river was the key component in the rise of New Ulm and the spread of Schell’s product.

Business came to a halt in August 1861, however, as violence engulfed New Ulm. Native Americans on the nearby Dakota reservations struck back against encroaching white settlements after Union Army troops were shifted east to fight Confederate forces in the Civil War. Moving from north to south along the Minnesota River, waves of Dakota warriors advanced on white settlements with New Ulm being a primary target. Warned of the encroaching danger, New Ulm fortified the center of town. Schell was mustered into emergency service as a fifth sergeant in the Minnesota militia. After several sorties, the Dakota warriors moved on after failing to break the German-American defenses. The parts of town not fortified and held by the New Ulm defenders, however, were burned and destroyed. The Globe Mill, Betz & Frinton Brewery, Waraju Steam Distillery, and many of the other businesses in town were burned to the ground. Schell’s frame home where his sister-in-law and other relatives were living in town was also destroyed in the fighting. Fourteen days later, August Schell, Bernhardt, and nine or ten other men returned to the brewery to find, “…the door to the brewery broken open, the window knocked in, trunks and chests open and most empty and the best article of a pair of Sioux breech cloths outside the brewery.” Another witness noted that the Dakota had, “…killed and carried off a number of chickens [105 chickens] and burned and totally destroyed other articles of personal property,” belonging to Schell and Bernhardt. In addition to the barrels of beer that were taken from the brewery during the Sioux occupation, many other barrels were destroyed at Fort Ridgley, and in private homes and saloons within the city of New Ulm that had been burned down. In all, over 104 beer barrels had been burned. Despite the destruction, it could have been worse as the main structure of the brewery remained standing.

All settlers and businesses in the area soon applied to the federal government for reimbursement. Schell and Bernhardt, too, filed depredation claims for their losses. Money that normally would have been distributed to the Native-American residents of the Dakota reservations was instead diverted to the Minnesota settlers. This was the result of a clause typical to many of the treaties written with Native Americans who had agreed to go onto reservations in the event that they broke the agreement. As a result, Schell not only received cash compensation for his loses at the brewery but also for the loss of his home in town and family possessions including shoes, socks, quilts, and so forth. Interestingly, though valued at $1,200 in 1860, Schell claimed that the loss of the house in town two years later in 1862 would require reimbursement of $2,300 in cash (approximately $53,000 in 2011 dollars). In contrast to the owners of the distillery and the other brewery in the New Ulm area that had been completely destroyed, Schell restarted his business in relatively short order with an infusion of cash from the federal government that covered not only his losses at the brewery but also provided funds for expansion. With cash reserves on hand and a largely undamaged brewery building, Schell used this competitive advantage to increase the presence of Schell beer in the regional market while his competition had to rebuild from scratch.

In 1866, Jacob Bernhardt decided to leave the partnership due to failing health. As a result, the two men decided to put the brewery up for auction as a means to dissolve the partnership. On August 3, 1866, the New Ulm Pioneer announced the auction. In the advertisement, the brewery was described in detail. By 1866, the brick brewery building dominated the property and outbuildings for other aspects of beer production were also found there. The advert noted that the brewery had a pristine water source, a large cellar with stone vaults, a copper brewing vessel, and a twenty-horsepower mill for crushing grain. As Schell’s family had been living at the brewery since before the Dakota uprising, the sale also included the family house, horse stables, and garden. The brewery’s location near the Cottonwood River was also advantageous, as the proprietors could obtain ice from the river during the winter months for use in cooling beer in the brewery cellar during the summer months. August Schell won the auction with a bid of $12,000 ($175,000 in 2011 dollars). Although it is not known how much money Schell had to pay Bernhardt as a part of the settlement, legal notice was soon published that formally dissolved the partnership between Schell and Bernhardt and the newspaper was soon carrying advertisements for “August Schell’s Beer Brewery”.

Though now in control of his own company, Schell faced new and growing competition from fellow German immigrants as new breweries formed in the wake of the Civil War. Almost two years after Frinton and Betz’s brewery had burned down during the Dakota uprising, August Frinton rebuilt the facility under his sole ownership. He completed the reconstruction process and renamed it the City Brewery (1858-1917, closed at start of Prohibition). Jacob Bender founded a brewery bearing his name near the rebuilt Globe Mill (it would remain in operation until 1911). Also in 1866, the Carl Brewery opened but only lasted a short time from 1866 until 1871. Schell’s primary competition came from John Hauenstein Brewery which opened in 1864 in partnership with Andreas Betz (who had previously been a partner with Frinton). By the 1870s, Hauenstein owned the brewery outright and the company remained in operation over one hundred years until 1969.

As no business records remain for any of these breweries, the 1870 U.S. Census’ Industrial and Manufacturing Schedule offers a rough estimate to compare the breweries’ costs and sales. Schell and Hauenstein were able to sell their barrels of beer for an average of 9 dollars per barrel. Schell and Hauenstein’s larger production capabilities and greater capital investments gave them economies of scale that were crucial for competing against other breweries. Schell was able to produce a barrel of beer at a lower cost than any other brewery in New Ulm and thus achieve a wider profit margin that his competitors. Only Hauenstein came close. These numbers clarify why Hauenstein remained Schell’s major source of competition in New Ulm and why the other breweries had a harder time competing. Schell continued to invest in larger and more efficient production processes, thus making it more difficult for these smaller breweries to make money by competing on price.

Schell and his competitors faced concerns typical for businesses of the era, but life on the edge of the prairie presented its own unique problems in the late nineteenth century. Although Schell had emerged from the Dakota War of 1862 with a competitive advantage because the other breweries in the region had been destroyed, he faced frontier hardships as his company grew. Beginning in 1873 and lasting through 1878, massive swarms of grasshoppers plagued farmers throughout the Great Plains including south-central Minnesota where New Ulm is located. While this had some impact on grain supplies needed by brewers like Schell, the swarms devastated regional farms, which lowered purchasing power within the local agricultural economy. The Minnesota state legislature created its own grasshopper committee and provided various means of relief to the farmers of the state. There is little evidence, however, that beer consumption slowed enough to significantly harm Schell Brewing Company.

Severe weather, tornadoes in particular, threatened businesses on the frontier. In the middle of July 1881, a massive tornado tore apart much of New Ulm with over $250,000 in damage ($5,670,000 in 2011 dollars). Although Schell emerged with no damage, a relatively short distance away, Hauenstein Brewery, Schell’s main competition, took a direct hit from the tornado. The tornado tore apart the large brick structure leaving it, “…a shapeless mass of ruins, nothing remaining uninjured except the cellar vaults.” The brewery’s losses totaled over $40,000 ($908,000 in 2011 dollars) including nearly all equipment and over 2,000 bushels of malt. Fortunately for John Hauenstein, over four hundred barrels of beer remained untouched in the cellar allowing him to sell his product while rebuilding. Unlike the Dakota uprising where Schell and others were able to secure generous money from the government, Hauenstein had no insurance and could not recoup any of these losses. In fact, he began brewing new beer in covered shacks. Remarkably, Hauenstein was able to recover from this devastation. He built a new plant and incorporated his business in 1900 with a capitalization of $200,000 (5.53 million dollars in 2011 dollars). Nevertheless, the tornado hampered Hauenstein’s ability to compete with Schell.

Although rivers had played a key role in the early success of New Ulm and the August Schell Brewery, in the decades after the Civil War it became apparent that railroads were going to be crucial for continued growth. By 1872, the Winona and St. Peter Railroad (later part of the Chicago and Northwestern system) established a branch line to New Ulm. This railroad tied New Ulm closer to the rest of Minnesota and the United States. The line, however, was not a direct route, by any means, to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. In addition, without competition, the railroad charged very high rates for the branch lines. By 1897, New Ulm became part of the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railroad which eliminated nearly 90 miles of extra rail travel from the trip to the Twin Cities and tied New Ulm industry to St. Louis and other southern markets as well. Although some business leaders were not persuaded that extra taxation to raise money for the railroad connection was worth the cost, Schell unequivocally favored the development. These railroads further cemented the importance of New Ulm as the regional market center for surrounding farms.

August Schell navigated the challenges of developing a rural business by strengthening family ties in the brewery’s operation. Like many small business founded by immigrants, family dynamics played a large role in the company as the children grew older. They would play a more crucial role in brewery operations as August Schell became increasingly unable to walk due to steadily worsening rheumatoid arthritis. He turned over day-to-day operations to his family in the late 1870s. The first family member to emerge within the company was Schell’s oldest son, Adolph. Adolph traveled to Chicago to learn brewing techniques and train at another brewery before coming back to New Ulm. By 1879, Adolph was directly involved in managing the company. Though August Schell initially appointed his younger son, Otto, as master brewer for the firm, by the mid-1880s he had decided that Otto was better suited than Adolph to take the reins of the company.

After attending public school in New Ulm, Otto attended business college in St. Paul and completed a business education degree at nearby Mankato Normal College. When he was nineteen years old, Otto lived for a year in his father’s German hometown while studying brewing. After returning to the U.S., he began working in the brewery’s business office. The exact reasons behind August Schell’s decision to groom his younger son as his successor are no longer known, but soon after Adolph’s brief period as brewmaster and Otto’s return to New Ulm, Adolph was shifted out of key leadership roles in the company and given a variety of other jobs. Adolph then established his own business distributing Schell beer in areas a few hours west of New Ulm, and later moved to California in 1889 to start a fruit and chicken ranch. Though newspaper reports highlighted Adolph’s desire for a better climate as the deciding factor in his move, family reports emphasized the growing enmity between the brothers. By the early 1880s, Otto Schell had taken control of the brewery’s operations. When August Schell died after becoming increasingly weakened by arthritis at the age of 63 in 1891, he had ensured that his company would continue to prosper while still remaining in family hands.

Such family politics along with the frontier challenges and his growing competition spurred August Schell and his son, Otto, to expand and innovate. By 1879, August Schell’s continuous expansion had created a massive brick brewery with several outbuildings on the bluffs of the Cottonwood River. The main brewery was 150 feet long and from 30 to 80 feet in depth. Two main copper brew kettles dominated the brewery – one with a 25-barrel capacity and the other with a 12-barrel capacity. Underneath the main floor of the brewery were seven separate stone cellars for lagering beer and malting barley. There were four ice houses capable of storing 700 tons of ice. The ice was harvested from the Cottonwood River which ran 100 feet below the brewery at the bottom of the cliff. Each block of ice would be attached to tongs and hauled by a team of horses to the cellars via a rope and pulley system.

Schell Brewing Company’s physical plant grew even more once Otto Schell took over daily operation of the company and initiated a major renovation of the brewery. In 1887, the company installed bottling equipment in order to reach broader regional markets and appeal to retailers and consumers who did not wish to purchase an entire barrel of beer at one time. The brewery kept expanding the market for its beer as railroads made transporting beer into new regions easier. For example, in 1890, the company built an ice house in St. James, Minnesota, (about 30 miles south of New Ulm) as a distribution point. In the fall of 1890, Schell erected a new two-story brick building to house beer and ice, as well as a barley storage house to take the place of an older framed building, at a cost of $7,000 for both ($179,000 in 2011 dollars). By 1891, Schell’s produced nearly 9,000 barrels of beer a year. Otto Schell proposed to more than double the brewery’s capacity so that it could produce over 20,000 barrels a year. The expansion would take the company to a production level that only a few other breweries in the state could match, even in the Twin Cities. With plenty of cash netted from doing a brisk business over the previous several years, Schell plowed the money back into the physical plant. He hired a Chicago architect to design the changes. Throughout much of the fall and winter of 1892-1893, the brewery shut down in order to complete the rebuilding effort. For approximately six weeks, new roads were built around the facility. Shell spent almost $20,000 ($510,000 in 2011 dollars) on constructing this modernized and expanded brewery. Most of the new expansion was completed just as the Panic of 1893 derailed the United States’ economic engine. Without having to rely upon loans or banks to stay solvent, however, the Schell Brewing Company weathered the Panic of 1893 remarkably well.

Otto Schell both expanded the brewery’s physical plant and invested heavily in new, expensive machinery to stay at the head of the crowded brewing industry in New Ulm. In 1895, the company again expanded by building a four-story malting house adjacent to the brewery with the intent of manufacturing malt on a commission basis. In the mid-1890s, the brewery upgraded its machinery including a new copper kettle able to produce 125 barrels of beer at a time, steel mash tubs and tanks, and other up-to-date equipment. In 1897, Otto Schell traveled to St. Louis, a city with a sizeable German-American community, to buy ice machines for better refrigeration of beer and improved ventilation. Otto Schell invented and patented a new machine and a new method for separating hops from beer in 1902. This innovation cut the costs associated with filtering the beer in half, which further increased revenue in the long term.

When Otto Schell incorporated the August Schell Brewing Company in October of 1902 at $300,000 ($8,090,000 in 2011 dollars), he established a tradition of appointing only family members to the board of directors. The original board of directors listed Otto Schell as president, Theresa Schell, his mother and the wife of founder August Schell, as vice-president, and George Marti as secretary and treasurer. When Otto Schell died at the age of 48 in 1911, George Marti, August Schell’s son-in-law, took over as president of the August Schell Brewing Company. Operation of the company has remained within the Marti family ever since.

Though August Schell Brewing Company remained a relatively small regional brewery (one among many prior to Prohibition) compared to giants such as Anheuser-Busch and Schlitz, the close ethnic ties cultivated by German immigrants and organizations in New Ulm helped the firm to maintain a distinct identity and regional appeal. Continued family connections also played a role in sustaining the August Schell Brewing Company during Prohibition when it produced root beer (1919 Root Beer) and candy to stay afloat. Considering how few breweries remained viable outside of the large corporate breweries in post-Prohibition and post-World War II America, the fact that New Ulm boasted two breweries into the 1960s is noteworthy but also reflects the regional support for local brewing operations. After over 100 years in business, Hauenstein Brewing Company, Schell’s closest and most direct competition in its marketplace, closed its doors permanently in 1969. Such persistence proved stronger in rural ethnic communities like New Ulm where linguistic ties held people closer to others like them compared to similar sized ethnic communities in larger cities.

Social Status, Networks, and Public Life

Although the Turnverein organization aided August Schell’s initial rise in Cincinnati and later New Ulm society, Schell’s growing wealth and regional prominence soon made him a respected public figure beyond his status as a Turner. By the late 1870s, August Schell could indulge in developing his interests outside of business. He spent considerable wealth to design and create a new family mansion and elaborate gardens in the 1870s. Acting the part of a respected member of society, August Schell became a patron of the arts by hiring a young, and eventually notable, artist, Anton Gag, to help in the creation of his mansion. Like his father, Schell delighted in the outdoors and everything associated with it. He continually added to his deer park, the symbol of his brewery, which eventually grew to include sixteen deer by the time of his death in 1891. Every time an animal was added to his menagerie, the newspapers reported it. For example, while there were plenty of native deer in the area, Schell imported a tame fawn from Wisconsin to inhabit his backyard. Numerous wild animals from the Upper Midwest increasingly called the Schell deer park home, including wild geese, cranes, and pheasants. Schell’s tastes in animals ran to the exotic as he got older. In 1890, the newspaper reported that Schell’s pet monkey had escaped from its cage and was only captured five days later.

As August Schell rose in public prominence, he gradually separated himself from the local Turnverein. Schell remained a member of the Turners until his mid-fifties in 1884. Neither of his sons became members of the New Ulm Turnverein (though his son-in-law, George Marti, who eventually took over the family business in the early twentieth century became a member in 1879). Even prior to 1884, though Schell may have remained a member of the Turners, he became less prominently involved in the organization. Due to rising tensions between Turners and non-Turners in the region, Schell’s actions are not surprising. Small-town, frontier societies, in particular, breed familiarity and close ties but also sharp resentments among a population where everyone was a known quantity. The stark differences in worldviews of the Catholic German-Bohemians (who formed the bulk of the working class in New Ulm) and the liberal Turners like Schell who disdained organized religion bred underlying tensions within the community. Schell and his fellow Turners dominated the public life of New Ulm for decades. Even into the 1890s, the Turners still controlled the six-member school board that set the curriculum, hired teachers, managed the land owned by the school district, and planned construction of new schools. The total removal of religion from the schools, enforced by Turner school board members, angered many citizens of New Ulm. The Turners’ outright opposition to religion was anathema to religious parents at time when elsewhere in the United States the separation of church and state was much more loosely interpreted by school boards. This strong conviction flowed naturally out of their freethinking, liberal philosophy. Education, they believed, was the best means to combat the mysticism and superstitions bred by organized religion. Controlling the public school board, the Turners stamped their liberal philosophy upon the schools’ curriculum. For example, they used German-language textbooks published by the Turners. The public schools closed for Turner holidays as well. Furthermore, the school board held their meetings at Turner Hall. Though the Turners themselves continued using German as their primary language for years to come, they insisted that English receive primary consideration in the public schools. Their children would be raised as Americans who would be comfortable in an English-speaking world. This sentiment was not embraced by all within the borders of New Ulm. The 1892 annual New Ulm school meeting during which new school board member would be elected became a referendum on Turner influence in New Ulm in all areas of public life. One of the candidates that won a seat on the board in this election was a prominent businessman, Charles Silverson, owner of the Eagle Roller Mill in New Ulm and an immigrant from Baden as well. Silverson and his allies now openly charged the Turners with manipulating the public school system and the city’s politics.

Whether intentional or not, Schell and his family were conspicuously absent among the business leaders who participated the fight over control of the public school system of New Ulm. For immigrant entrepreneurs like Schell, getting caught up in such social and political divisiveness could have had clear financial repercussions among a knowledgeable customer base with alternate choices. Although Schell held a strong market presence in south-central Minnesota, he still faced competition not just from other breweries in New Ulm but from even more distant breweries, especially with the advent of the railroad. Seeking to maintain the widest customer base, Schell likely knew he would lose market share if he, his family, or his company were perceived as part of the simmering social crisis in the region. The Schell Brewing Company, like nearly all small-town businesses, had to negotiate intensely personal tensions within the local community in order to thrive. Market share and financial success were often impacted not simply by their product alone but by public perceptions of the company and its leaders.

Although factions within New Ulm hardened their animosity towards each other, the Schell Brewing Company remained above the fray. These examples of opposition to the Turners provide a valuable window into the community during the crucial period in Schell’s company history when control was passing from August Schell to his son, Otto. Well before the conflict of the 1890s, the Schells’ had become regarded as major public figures in New Ulm and the surrounding region not because of their status as Turners but because of their beer. Without alienating their old Turner allies and connections, the Schell family withdrew from membership in the Turners just as the non-Turner population increased dramatically, which proved to be a wise business move for the firm (perhaps as forward-looking as any other decision in the company’s history). The conflict could have led to the family being branded as elitist Turners. Instead, the Schell family retained their long-developed status as widely respected businessmen.

Conclusion

In many ways, August Schell followed a path that was typical of numerous first-generation German-Americans. As a young man, Schell immigrated to the United States amid a rush of other Germans in the aftermath of the failed Revolutions of 1848. Like many of his fellow immigrants, he initially established himself in an urban American setting (Cincinnati) among fellow German immigrants. Schell took advantage immigrant organizations to ease his transition into American society, as did many others. But whereas German-Americans often found such aid within church-related organizations (Lutheran, Roman Catholic, and others), August Schell was part of a sizeable and influential minority of German-Americans who eschewed churches and found an American home within the Turner Society. It was through his association with the Turner society and its networks that Schell became one of the respected founding fathers of the city of New Ulm, Minnesota. With such connections and advantages, Schell founded the August Schell Brewing Company just years after the city itself was founded and quickly grew it into a major business in the region. Like other brewers of his era, August Schell’s entrepreneurial activity was linked to German immigrants’ overrepresentation within the American brewing industry. He produced beer for a largely German-American consumer base, especially within the largely German-speaking New Ulm region. Through his Turner connections and his civic leadership in the region, Schell and his company overcame challenges due to war, plagues, and tornadoes that undermined many of his competitors. Whereas numerous firms founded by German-American that have survived into the twenty-first century had urban roots, August Schell’s business enterprises on the Minnesota frontier provide a valuable case study regarding the long-term impact of German-American entrepreneurship prevalent in rural, nineteenth-century America.

Tuesday’s ad is for “Rheingold Beer,” from 1955. This ad was made for the Rheingold Brewery, which was founded by the Liebmann family in 1883 in New York, New York. At its peak, it sold 35% of all the beer in New York state. In 1963, the family sold the brewery and in was shut down in 1976. In 1940, Philip Liebmann, great-grandson of the founder, Samuel Liebmann, started the “Miss Rheingold” pageant as the centerpiece of its marketing campaign. Beer drinkers voted each year on the young lady who would be featured as Miss Rheingold in advertisements. In the 1940s and 1950s in New York, “the selection of Miss Rheingold was as highly anticipated as the race for the White House.” The winning model was then featured in at least twelve monthly advertisements for the brewery, beginning in 1940 and ending in 1965. Beginning in 1941, the selection of next year’s Miss Rheingold was instituted and became wildly popular in the New York Area. In this ad, from the Fall of 1955, the voting has opened to choose the next Miss Rheingold for 1956 and features the six finalists: Carol Toby, Hillie Merritt, Myrna Fahey, Maggie Pierce, Jeryl Johnson, and Gretchen Foster. And voting will remain open until September 30.

And below is the same ad in black and white as it ran in the newspaper:

And here’s a slightly different version of the ad, laid out for a half-page.

Today is the birthday of Benedict Frank Haberle (February 14, 1888-January 9, 1938). He was the grandson of Benedict Haberle, who founded the Benedict Haberle Brewing Co. in 1857. When he died in 1881, it was incorporated as the Haberle Brewing Co. and eventually Benedict Frank Haberle became president of the brewery. After merging with the Crystal Spring Brewing Co. in 1892, the name was again changed to the Haberle-Crystal Spring Brewing Co. (and also the Haberle Brewery) until 1920, when it was closed by prohibition. It reopened in 1933 as the Haberle Congress Brewing Co., and it remained in business until 1961, when it closed for good.

This is his obituary, from the The Syracuse Journal on January 10, 1938:

Benedict Haberle Dies on Auto Ride

President of Brewing Company Succumbs To Heart Attack; Funeral to Take Place Tuesday Afternoon. 

Victim of a fatal heart attack early Sunday morning, Benedict F. Haberle, 49, president of Haberle Congress Brewing Company, Inc., will be interred in Woodlawn cemetery tomorrow afternoon. The funeral will be at the home at 2 p.m. He died while riding in an automobile with his wife toward their home in Maple dr. They had gone out for “some fresh air” after he had complained of feeling ill. According to Mrs. Haberle, the couple left in their automobile from their home about 45 minutes before her husband succumbed. She said he was driving at first, but when they reached downtown Syracuse he was feeling worse, and asked her to drive home. 

SLUMPS IN SEAT.

When the car reached Erie blvd. and Thompson rd. Mrs. Haberle noticed her husband had slumped in his seat and was quiet. She then drove to a nearby inn and summoned a St. Joseph Hospital ambulance and deputy sheriffs. The interne who responded to the call pronounced him dead. Coroner Winne later said that death was due to a heart attack, and permitted the body to be removed to the Haberle home by deputy sheriffs. According to Coroner Winne’s report, Mrs. Haberle told him that her husband had been trap shooting Saturday afternoon, and on Saturday night had complained of indigestion.

ACTIVE IN BUSINESS.

Mr. Haberle was long associated with the local brewing company, which are the Turnverein, the father, Benedict F. Haberle in 1857. It was then known as the Benedict-Haberle & Son Brewery. He was also vice president of the Arctic Ice Company and a member of many organizations, among which are the Turn Verein, the Liederkranz, the Syracuse Lodge of Elks and the DeWitt Fish and Game Club. Members of the DeWitt Fish and Game Club today announced that in respect to Mr. Haberle their banquet scheduled for Jan. 11, at the Yates hotel, will be postponed until Jan. 18. Surviving are his widow, Mrs. Edith Smith Haberle; a son, Benedict Jr.; three daughters, Mrs. Peter Caragol, Mrs. Richard Wegener and Miss Elizabeth L. Haberle; his mother, Mrs. Charles Haberle, and a brother, Warren J. Haberle. The funeral, at the home at 2 p.m. Tuesday, will be conducted by Rev. W. J. Woesner of Fayetteville Trinity Church.

And this account is about the brewery, from 100 Years of Brewing:

Today is also the birthday of Chuck Silva, former brewmaster at Green Flash Brewing in San Diego. His West Coast IPA has taken the world by storm, and personally, I loved his Tripel and Le Freak. The big, shiny new brewery they recently built is also pretty amazing. But eventually Chuck wanted to create something of his own, and so he opened Silva Brewing Company in the Central Coast of California, around his native San Luis Obispo area in Paso Robles. Join me in wishing Chuck a very happy birthday.

Chuck at GABF two years ago.

The beer chef, Bruce Paton, with Chuck at one his beer dinners.

Chuck at Mammoth Lakes Bluesapalooza in 2007.

Chuck serving the symposium beer at Stone Brewing during Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego in 2008.

Today is my good friend and fellow beer writer Lew Bryson’s 64th birthday. You used to be able read his writings at his website, lewbryson.com, Seen Through a Glass, and his Session Beer Project, and for a while there was less there because he became the managing editor of Whiskey Advocate and wasn’t writing about beer, although he’s still kept up with his political Why the PLCB Should Be Abolished. His latest book is also about Tasting Whiskey. But he’s back, baby, and is once again also writing about beer at his websites and other places. Lew is my favorite big galoot and the brother I never had. Join me is raising a glass of beer or whiskey and wishing Lew a very happy birthday.

Monday’s ad is for “Rheingold Beer,” from 1955. This ad was made for the Rheingold Brewery, which was founded by the Liebmann family in 1883 in New York, New York. At its peak, it sold 35% of all the beer in New York state. In 1963, the family sold the brewery and in was shut down in 1976. In 1940, Philip Liebmann, great-grandson of the founder, Samuel Liebmann, started the “Miss Rheingold” pageant as the centerpiece of its marketing campaign. Beer drinkers voted each year on the young lady who would be featured as Miss Rheingold in advertisements. In the 1940s and 1950s in New York, “the selection of Miss Rheingold was as highly anticipated as the race for the White House.” The winning model was then featured in at least twelve monthly advertisements for the brewery, beginning in 1940 and ending in 1965. Beginning in 1941, the selection of next year’s Miss Rheingold was instituted and became wildly popular in the New York Area. In this newspaper item, from May of 1955, Rheingold is announcing that “Soon, you can vote for Miss Rheingold 1956” and showing the previous sixteen Miss Rheingold winners.