Beer Birthday: Dave Alexander

May 8, 2026 By Jay Brooks 4 Comments

Today would have been Dave Alexander’s 63rd birthday, but unfortunately he passed away in November two years ago after a protracted battle with cancer. Before that, Dave was the co-owner, along with his wife Dianne, of the world famous Brickskeller beer bar in Washington, DC. They later another beer bar: RFD, and he retired to Tennessee, leaving his son to run RFD, although that was later sold , too. Dave was also a crack lead guitarist who often played with the Rolling Boil Blues Band. A few years ago at CBC Dave and Dianne received the Brewers Association Recognition Award. After retiring, Dave moved to Nashville, so it was great seeing him at CBC when it was there the first time. Join me in drinking a beery toast in remembrance to Dave today.

Celebrator publisher Tom Dalldorf, a young Vinnie Cilurzo and Dave at a Brickskeller fresh hop event several years ago.

Tom Dalldorf again, with the Beer Fox Carolyn Smagalski, and Dave and Dianne Alexander, at the Brewer’s Reception at Wynkoop at the start of GABF in 2007.

P1000010 — Bob Pease, from the Brewers Association, and Dave at the Brickskeller before SAVOR back in the day.

Just before taking the stage during GABF 2007, from left, Glenn Payne (of Meantime Brewing), Charlie Papazian, Mark Dorber (formerly of the White Horse on Parson’s Green but now at the Anchor Pub), Garrett Oliver, and Steve Hindy (both from Brooklyn Brewing), Dave Alexander (from the Brickskeller), and Tom Dalldorf (from the Celebrator Beer News).

Historic Beer Birthday: Emil Christian Hansen

May 8, 2026 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Emil Christian Hansen (May 8, 1842-August 27, 1909). Hansen was a “Danish botanist who revolutionized beer-making through development of new ways to culture yeast. Born poor in Ribe, Denmark, he financed his education by writing novels. Though he never reached an M.Sc., in 1876, he received a gold medal for an essay on fungi, entitled “De danske Gjødningssvampe.” In 1879, he became superintendent of the Carlsberg breweries. In 1883, he successfully developed a cultivated yeast that revolutionized beer-making around the world, because Hansen by refusing to patent his method made it freely available to other brewers. He also proved there are different species of yeast. Hansen separated two species: Saccharomyces cerevisiae, an over-yeast (floating on the surface of the fermenting beer) and Saccharomyces carlsbergensis, an under-yeast (laying on the bottom of the liquid).

Here’s his entry from Encyclopedia Britannica:

Danish botanist who revolutionized the brewing industry by his discovery of a new method of cultivating pure strains of yeast.
Hansen, who began his working life as a journeyman house painter, received a Ph.D. in 1877 from the University of Copenhagen. Two years later he was appointed head of the physiology department at the Carlsberg Laboratory in Copenhagen, where he remained until his death. His research was concerned mainly with yeasts that convert carbohydrates to alcohol, and in 1888 he published an article that described his method for obtaining pure cultures of yeast. The yeast grown from these single strains was widely adopted in the bottom-fermentation brewing industries. Further investigations led him to the discovery of a number of species of yeast. He defined the characters of the different species and devised a system of classification. After further study he devised additional methods for the culture and isolation of certain species.

emil-hansen-young — Emil Hansen as a young man.

This is how Carlsberg describes Hansen’s breakthrough in 1883:

The Carlsberg Laboratory made its first major scientific breakthrough when Dr. Emil Chr. Hansen developed a method for propagating pure yeast.
Fluctuations in the beer quality were not unknown at the time, but had until then been solved by thorough cleaning of all installations after suspension of production. If a brew failed, there was no use in pasteurising it; it had to be destroyed.
In 1883, the Old Carlsberg beer got infected with the beer disease and all efforts were made to find a solution to the problem.
Dr. Emil Chr. Hansen who joined the Carlsberg Laboratory in 1878 was examining the beer, and he found that it contained wild yeast. Through his studies and analyses, he discovered that only a few types of yeast (the pure yeast) are suitable for brewing, and he developed a technique to separate the pure yeast from the wild yeast cells. The problem had been solved, and the new Carlsberg yeast – Saccharomyces Carlsbergensis – was applied in the brewing process.
The propagating method revolutionised the brewing industry. Rather than to patent the process, Carlsberg published it with a detailed explanation so that anyone could build propagation equipment and use the method. Samples of the yeast – Saccharomyces Carlsbergensis – were sent to breweries around the world by request and young brewers came to Carlsberg to learn the skills.

carlsberg-heritage-the_tough_get_going_960x960

This is the entry from Wikipedia on the history of Saccharomyces Carlsbergensis:

So-called bottom fermenting strains of brewing yeast were described as early as the 14th century in Nuremberg and have remained an indispensable part of both Franconian and Bavarian brewing culture in southern Germany through modern times. During the explosion of scientific mycological studies in the 19th century, the yeast responsible for producing these so-called “bottom fermentations” was finally given a taxonomical classification, Saccharomyces pastorianus, by the German Max Reess in 1870.
In 1883 the Dane Emil Hansen published the findings of his research at the Carlsberg brewery in Copenhagen and described the isolation of a favourable pure yeast culture that he labeled “Unterhefe Nr. I” (bottom-fermenting yeast no. 1), a culture that he identified as identical to the sample originally donated to Carlsberg in 1845 by the Spaten Brewery of Munich. This yeast soon went into industrial production in Copenhagen in 1884 as Carlberg yeast no. 1.
In 1904 Hansen published an important body of work where he reclassified the separate yeasts he worked with in terms of species, rather than as races or strains of the same species as he had previously done. Here Hansen classified a separate species of yeast isolated from the Carlsberg brewery as S. pastorianus, a name derived from and attributed to Reess 1870. This strain was admitted to the Centraalbureau voor Schimmelcultures (CBS) in 1935 as strain CBS 1538, Saccharomyces pastorianus Reess ex Hansen 1904. In a further publication in 1908, Hansen reclassified the original “Unterhefe Nr. I” as the new species Saccharomyces carlsbergensis and another yeast “Unterhefe Nr. II” as the new species Saccharomyces monacensis. The taxonomy was attributed to Hansen 1908 and the yeasts entered into the Centraalbureau voor Schimmelcultures in 1947 as CBS 1513 and CBS 1503 respectively.
Since the early 1900s, bottom-fermenting strains of brewery yeast have been typically classified as S. carlbergensis in scientific literature, and the earlier valid name assigned to a bottom-fermenting yeast by Reess in 1870 was rejected without merit. This situation was rectified using DNA-DNA reallocation techniques in 1985 when Vaughan-Martini & Kurtzman returned the species name to S. pastorianus under the type strain CBS 1538 and relegated the two former species assigned by Hansen in 1908, S. carlsbergensis CBS 1513 and S. monacensis CBS 1503, to the status of synonyms. These experiments also clearly revealed the hybrid nature of the lager brewing yeast species for the first time, even though one of the parental species was incorrectly classified in retrospect. Nonetheless, over the last decades of the 20th century, debate continued in scientific literature regarding the correct taxon, with authors using both names interchangeably to describe lager yeast.

Although most accounts mention that he wrote novels to put himself through school, one has a slightly different take, though I’m not sure how true it is. “Emil earned his bread and butter as a painter but he yearned for another life and left Ribe so he could study. He graduated from High School relatively late – he was 29 years old.”

Emil Christian Hansen, taken in 1908, a year before his death.

Beer In Ads #5244: Southern Brewing Bock Beer

May 7, 2026 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Two years ago I decided to concentrate on Bock ads for awhile. Bock, of course, may have originated in Germany, in the town of Einbeck. Because many 19th century American breweries were founded by German immigrants, they offered a bock at certain times of the year, be it Spring, Easter, Lent, Christmas, or what have you. In a sense they were some of the first seasonal beers. “The style was later adopted in Bavaria by Munich brewers in the 17th century. Due to their Bavarian accent, citizens of Munich pronounced ‘Einbeck’ as ‘ein Bock’ (a billy goat), and thus the beer became known as ‘Bock.’ A goat often appears on bottle labels.” And presumably because they were special releases, many breweries went all out promoting them with beautiful artwork on posters and other advertising. With Spring approaching, there are so many great examples that I’m going to post two a day for a few months.

Thursday’s two almost identical ads are for Southern Brewing’s Bock Beer, which was published on May 7, 1885. This ad was for the Southern Brewing Co. of New Orleans, Louisiana, which was originally founded in 1856 by George Merz (or Mertz). This ad ran in two papers, in English in The Evening Chronicle, of New Orleans, Louisiana, and the second, in French, in L’abeille De La Nouvelle-Orléans, also of New Orleans, Louisiana.

Historic Beer Birthday: Anton Dreher

May 7, 2026 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Anton Dreher (May 7, 1810-December 27, 1863). He “was an Austrian brewer who was an important figure in the development of pale lager. In 1840, he introduced a beer that combined the crispness of lager with the paler hues of the English ale; this new style of beer became known as the Viennese style and was called Schwechater Lagerbier.” Today we call it Vienna Lager.

Here’s his biography from Dreher’s Wikipedia page:

When Franz Anton Dreher (the younger) died of marasmus in 1820, his ten-year-old son was too young to manage the brewing business. Dreher was apprenticed to the brewer Michael, in Simmering and later undertook a study tour, a journeyman’s tour, through Germany, where he studied at the Sedlmayr brewery in Munich, England, where he studied at Barclay and Perkins in London, and Scotland. In 1836, he partnered with his mother, and with the help of his wife’s marriage portion, he experimented with the English malting process, which produced a caramelized, crystal malt; he was able to buy his mother out by 1839.[5] Here he was the first brewer in the European continent to use the English malting process. He owned acres of land throughout Austria and Bohemia, and grew his own hops and barley, which allowed him to save on costs. When he died suddenly in 1863, he was worth 10 million guilden.
Starting in 1836, Anton Dreher took over the brewery and developed the bottom-fermented beer — Schwechater Lagerbier — which he presented in 1840/1841. It was a new style of beer, methodically bottom fermented to produce a brew that was coppery reddish-brown in color. It required steady, cool temperature for maturation and storage, and this requirement gives the beer its name: lager (in German, Lager means storehouse or warehouse). Originally, he called the beer Märtzen, or March beer, because it was brewed in March, when the water was cold, and ice was still available. Eventually the name lager became the accepted name; it was also called Vienna Typ, or Vienna Style beer. In 1858, Dreher’s lager won the gold medal for excellence at the Beer Exhibit in Vienna. The greater honor occurred on 26 November 1861 when Emperor Franz Joseph I visited the brewery and awarded Dreher with the Knight’s Cross of the Franz Joseph Order. In 1862, he received the Gold medal with Diploma from the World Exhibition in Paris. In 1869, his Lager beer won the High First Prize.
The Danube river provided the water needed for unlimited beer and malt making. The attention turned to Kőbánya because of a beer made by Peter Schmidt, a brewer master from Pest who studied in Munich. Schmidt stored beer in his rock cellar in Kőbánya. The water in the wells, made by deep drilling technology, is perfectly suited for beer making; the cellars of Schmidt’s brewery provided the steady cool temperature needed for maturation and storage. It was the ideal warehouse, or, in German Lager, for storing the beer.
The surge of the Kőbánya beer production attracted Dreher’s attention, in part because Schmidt’s beer was competition for him. He visited Pest-Buda on several occasions between 1856 and 1860; by 1862 he was able to buy the Kőbánya Brewery Company. He purchased further plots of land and prepared for expansion, but died suddenly in 1863, leaving his 14-year-old son to implement the plans.

And this is from the German Wikipedia page on Dreher:

Anton Dreher was born as the son of the brewer Franz Anton Dreher and his second wife Katharina Widter. He first visited a Piarist convent and then went to the Simmering Brewery Meichl. In 1836, he bought the small Schwechat (today Schwechat brewery ) from his mother, who had been widowed since 1820. He was able to buy it in 1839 with the money of his wife Anna Herrfeldt.
At a young age he went on study trips to Germany, met in Munich Gabriel Sedlmayr, the son of Spatenbräubesitzers, and traveled with him in 1837 to Barclay and Perkins to England, which at that time “beer technically” leading enterprises. After his return, he was the first European brewer to take over the English malting process. He realized that for refrigerated beers, a technique that came from Bavaria, appropriate cooling and storage were crucial. Anton Dreher laid large cellars, filled with natural ice, to cool his beer. Until 1841, Anton Dreher brewed top-fermented imperial beer in Schwechat until, in 1840/41, he had a bright, lower-fermented lager, Schwechater Lagerbier, Which he first described as a marching beer. This type of beer soon became popular in Vienna and later also worldwide.
The strong demand for lager beer led to Anton Dreher using a steam machine for beer brewing in 1850 as the second beer brewer of the monarchy after Mautner Markhof. This steam engine, built by the kk country-owned metal-machinery factory of Vinzenz Prick, can now be viewed at the Technical Museum in Vienna.
In the course of the 1850s, the brewery Schwechat became the largest of the European mainland, and the consignments of Klein Schwechat stockpiles went far beyond the borders of the Austrian empire.
Anton Dreher bought smaller breweries:
1859 the Michelob brewery near Saaz in Bohemia,
1862 the brewery Steinbruch in Budapest;
His son Anton Dreher junior acquired the brewery of Trieste in 1869.
The Hungarian Dreher beer and the Italian Birra Dreher still exist today.
Anton Dreher was 1861-1863 and parliament – and the Reichsrat and one of the largest taxpayers of the monarchy.
In 1863, shortly before his death, he entrusted to Viennese lawyer and mayor deputy Cajetan Felder the guardianship over his 14-year-old son Anton Dreher jun. (1849-1921) and the management of the breweries. His son took over the father’s company in 1870, continued to expand the brewery chamber, and began exporting the lager beer all over the world. His half brother was the writer Anton Breitner.

Here the official story of the brewery picks up when Anton Dreher Sr. begins:

In 1810 Anton Dreher, the son of Franz Anton Dreher, was born. He also follows the old practice of brewing and practiced at a foreign brewery in Simmering.
Through travels to Munich and England, he is preparing for his future Braumeister existence by gathering extensive knowledge of the art of bravura!
In 1836, Anton Dreher took the Klein-Schwechat brewer first in lease. In 1839 he bought them from his mother.
In 1841, Dreher imported light-bodied beer for the first time in the hotel “Zur Kohlenkreunze” and in Dreher’s Haus in Kledering, and brought it to Vienna after a complete deposit under the brand “Klein-Schwechater Lagerbier”.
Here it was so enthusiastically received that the Viennese wanted to drink only Schwechater. This was the birthdays of the “Lagerbier”, which is now represented all over the world!
The great onslaught on the lager beer, however, brought with it the use of machinery. In 1848, Dreher became the first brewer of Austria to use a steam engine for beer brewing. This is now exhibited at the Technical Museum in Vienna!
In 1841, Dreher imported light-bodied beer for the first time in the hotel “Zur Kohlenkreunze” and in Dreher’s Haus in Kledering, and brought it to Vienna after a complete deposit under the brand “Klein-Schwechater Lagerbier”.
Here it was so enthusiastically received that the Viennese wanted to drink only Schwechater. This was the birthdays of the “Lagerbier”, which is now represented all over the world!
The great onslaught on the lager beer, however, brought with it the use of machinery. In 1848, Dreher became the first brewer of Austria to use a steam engine for beer brewing. This is now exhibited at the Technical Museum in Vienna!

And this is the portion of the brewery’s Wikipedia page that discusses Anton Drehrer Sr.:

The Schwechater Brauhaus was founded in 1632 by Peter Descrolier, the “Camerdiener and Cameradienmeister of the Archduke Matthias” in the Frauenfeld of Schwechat. The Klein Schwechat brewery was destroyed several times and changed its owner still often until until 22 October 1796 Franz Anton Dreher, Bräumeister of the k.k.
In 1837, his son, Anton Dreher, took over the company from his mother and inaugurated a new era in the brewery’s history. In 1839 he turned to Untergärung, which marked the beginning of the lager beer. The breakthrough was made by Dreher in 1841, when he realized that for his under-fermented beer, the “lager” or “Viennese type”, one thing was decisive: the cooling. Dreher laid huge cellars and stored ice.
As a result, the brewery’s brewery expanded through the acquisition of existing breweries to the entire Austro-Hungarian monarchy . These included the brewery Michelob near Saaz, acquired in 1859, the brewery quarry (founded 1854) in Budapest, acquired in 1862, as well as the brewery of Trieste, acquired in 1869.
In 1848, Dreher introduced a steam machine to the Bierbrauen, he was supposed to be the first brewer in Austria. The steam engine is now exhibited at the Technical Museum in Vienna. The first cooling machine, which was also the second machine from Linde AG, was installed in the brewery in Trieste in 1877. After the death of Anton Dreher in 1863, his son Anton Dreher junior took over the company of the brewery Schwechat in 1870 and converted it in 1905 into the Anton Drehers brewery stock company .

Beer In Ads #5243: Union Brewery Bock Beer!

May 6, 2026 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Wednesday’s ad is for Union Bock Beer, which was published on May 6, 1903. This ad was for the Union Brewing Co. of Iowa City, Iowa, which was also known as Graf Bros. Brewery. It was originally founded in 1857 by Simeon Hotz & Louis Englert, but at least one Graf was involved as early as 1876. This ad ran in The Iowa City Press Citizen, also of Iowa City, Iowa.

Historic Beer Birthday: Bernard “Toots” Shor

May 6, 2026 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Bernard “Toots” Shor (May 6, 1903–January 23, 1977). He “was best known as the proprietor of a legendary saloon and restaurant, Toots Shor’s Restaurant, in Manhattan. He ran three different establishments under that name, but his first – and most renowned – was located at 51 West 51st Street. He was known as a saloonkeeper, friend, and confidant to some of New York’s biggest celebrities during that era.”

This is his biography from his Wikipedia page:

Shor was born in Philadelphia to Orthodox Jewish parents – his father of Austrian descent from Germany and his mother from Russia. He and his two older sisters were raised in a home above the family candy store in South Philadelphia. When Shor was 15 years old, his mother was killed by an automobile while she sat on the stoop outside their home. His father committed suicide five years later. Shor attended the Drexel Institute of Technology and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania before working as a traveling shirt-and-underwear salesman.

Here’s a short biography from Find–Grave:

Restaurateur. He was the owner and colorful host of Toots Shor’s Restaurant, a New York City landmark for over 30 years. Born in Philadelphia, he moved to New York as a teenager during the Prohibition era and gained a reputation as a speakeasy bouncer, guardian, and manager. In 1940 he opened his own restaurant and lounge at 51 West 51st Street in Manhattan; although the food was mediocre, its strong drinks and oversized circular bar quickly drew the crowds. The greats of the sports world, stage, screen and politics all hung out here. In one famous anecdote, mob boss Frank Costello and Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren politely raised glasses to each other across the dining room. Shor was gruffly friendly to everybody from shoeshine boy to newsstand guy, to Joe DiMaggio, Frank Sinatra, and Jackie Gleason (who always ate there for free). Being called a “crumb-bum” by Toots meant you’d earned his praise; in contrast, his most bitter insult was to call someone “just a piece of raisin cake”. His personal motto was “I don’t care if I’m a millionaire, as long as I can live like one”, and his spendthrift ways and generosity to his regulars often left him in debt. The original Toots Shor’s closed in 1959 and reopened two years later at 33 West 52nd Street; this location was abruptly shut down in 1971 for income tax evasion. Toots’ last business ventures were failures and he died broke, but not before leaving a legendary mark on New York nightlife.

Wikipedia continues with the story of Shor’s restaurants:

Shor went to New York City in 1930 and found employment as a bouncer at the Five O’Clock Club, which served as his introduction to celebrities. He later worked at several other nightspots: The Napoleon Club, Lahiff’s Tavern, the Ball & Chain, the Madison Royale, and Leon & Eddie’s. He became a man about town in Manhattan after opening his own restaurant, Toots Shor’s, at 51 West 51st Street. While the food there was known to be “nuttin’ fancy” – standard American, sports-bar fare such as shrimp cocktail, steak, baked potato – the establishment became well known for who frequented there and the manner in which Shor interacted with them.
Shor was a raconteur and a master of the “needle,” jibes or quips directed at the famous. Celebrity alone was not enough to receive first-class service in Shor’s restaurant. According to David Halberstam in his book The Summer of ’49, guests had to observe the unwritten “code” which prevailed in Shor’s establishment. Charlie Chaplin, who was not privy to that code, was made to wait in line. When Chaplin complained, Shor told him to entertain the others who were waiting in line. One day, Hollywood boss Louis B. Mayer complained about waiting twenty minutes for a table and said, “I trust the food will be worth all that waiting.” Shor replied: “It’ll be better’n some of your crummy pictures I stood in line for.” Once while standing outside his restaurant with Frank Sinatra and a crowd of screaming fans being held back by police, Toots pulled out a dollar bill out of his pocket and said to Frank, “Here, kid, go across the street and buy me a paper.” At the Opera with friends during the intermission Toots declared, “I bet I’m the only bum in this joint that doesn’t know how this thing ends.”
In one incident, Shor outdrank comedian Jackie Gleason, famously leaving Gleason on the floor to prove the point. (At Toots’ funeral, the coffin had a spray of red roses with a card which read, “Save a Table for 2,” signed: Jackie Gleason.)

Shor cultivated his celebrity following by giving them unqualified admiration, loyal friendship, and a kind of happy, boozy, old-fashioned male privacy. Those whom Shor really liked were called “crum-bums”. Shor reputedly said that he didn’t care if he was a millionaire – so long as he could live like one.
In 1959, Shor sold the lease for his 51st Street restaurant for $1.5 million to William Zeckendorf.[2] The following year, he opened at a new location at 33 West 52nd Street and tried to emulate the decor and atmosphere of the original. The then–Chief Justice, Earl Warren, considered Toots one of his closest friends. “The Chief” showed up to be photographed with a shovel full of dirt when Toots broke ground on Toots’ 52nd street “joint”.
In 1971, authorities padlocked the doors of the 52nd Street restaurant for nonpayment of federal, state, and local taxes totaling $269,516. He vowed to open again in three weeks, but 18 months passed before his restaurant at 5 East 54th Street opened. For a variety of reasons, however, his famous clientele never returned with their former regularity.

Hank Sanicola, Toots Shor and Frank Sinatra 1947 — Music manager Hank Sanicola, Toots Shor, and Frank Sinatra in 1947.

And this is from the Wikipedia page for Toots Shor’s Restaurant:

Toots Shor’s Restaurant was a restaurant and lounge owned and operated by Bernard “Toots” Shor at 51 West 51st Street in Manhattan during the 1940s and 1950s. Its oversized circular bar was a New York landmark. It was frequented by celebrities, and together with the 21 Club, the Stork Club, and El Morocco was one of the places to see and be seen. Joe DiMaggio often went there to eat, and that helped make it famous. Toots was said to do personal favors for Joe as well, at no cost.
Jackie Gleason always ate there for free. Other notable guests included Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, Orson Welles, Yogi Berra, and Ernest Hemingway (Berra and Hemingway allegedly met there).

While the food at Toots Shor’s Restaurant was known to be “nuttin’ fancy” — standard American, sports-bar fare such as shrimp cocktail, steak, baked potato — the establishment became well known for who frequented there and how Shor interacted with them. Shor was a raconteur and a master of the “needle,” jibes or quips directed at the famous. Celebrity alone was not enough to receive first-class service in Shor’s restaurant. According to David Halberstam in his book The Summer of ’49, guests had to observe the unwritten “code” which prevailed in Shor’s establishment. Charlie Chaplin, who was not privy to that code, was made to wait in line. When Chaplin complained, Shor told him to entertain the others who were waiting in line. One day, MGM head Louis B. Mayer complained about waiting twenty minutes for a table and said, “I trust the food will be worth all that waiting.” Shor replied: “It’ll be better’n some of your crummy pictures I stood in line for.”
In a famous incident, Shor outdrank Jackie Gleason and left him on the floor to prove the point. Somewhat notoriously, wives were not welcome in Toots’s saloon; it was known, in the argot of the day, as a place of “booze and broads,” where ballplayers, actors and politicians mixed. Baseball players were especially welcomed; in particular, Shor admired Mickey Mantle; he also adored Joe DiMaggio. Shor always ensured that DiMaggio got first-rate service without being hassled or asked for autographs by restaurant staff, other patrons, or fans. Another prominent figure who frequented Shor’s restaurant was famed trial attorney Edward Bennett Williams.
Toots Shor cultivated his celebrity following by giving them unqualified admiration, loyal friendship, and a kind of happy, boozy, old-fashioned male privacy. Those whom Shor really liked were called “crum-bums”. Shor reputedly said that he didn’t care if he was a millionaire—so long as he could live like one. Shor was rewarded after a fashion with a mention in the 1954 Bing Crosby film, “White Christmas.” Bing comments to Rosemary Clooney, while both are raiding the restaurant refrigerator of the Vermont inn where they are staying, that the food is not as fancy as Toots Shor’s.
In 1959, Shor sold the lease for his 51st Street restaurant for $1.5 million. The following year he opened at a new location at 33 West 52nd Street and tried to emulate the decor and atmosphere of the original. The then-Chief Justice, Earl Warren, considered Toots one of his closest friends, and “The Chief” showed up to be photographed with a shovel full of dirt when Toots broke ground on his 52nd street “joint.”

MCDTOOT EC004 — The round bar at Toot’s Shor’s place.

Historic Beer Birthday: Jacob F. Kuhn

May 6, 2026 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Jacob Friedrich Kuhn (May 6, 1830-April 15, 1915). He was born in Eschelbach, Germany, but when he was fourteen, in 1845, he emigrated with his family to the U.S., settling in Buffalo, New York. Most of his life, at least until age 40, he worked as a tax assessor. But one of the businesses he was assigned to assess was a brewery, the Messner & Shamel Brewery owned by Anthony Messner and Michael Schamel. But Messner was leaving the brewery and so they were in need of a new partner, so at the age of 40, in 1870, Kuhn bought into what they now called the Shamel & Kuhn Brewery, at least until 1874, when Schamel departed and now it was called simply the Jacob F. Kuhn Brewery.

But Kuhn had also been. very busy person when it came to his family. When he was 21, he married Elizabeth Rudolf and they reportedly had a staggering twenty-five children, some of whom came to work at his brewery and so by 1884 they name of the brewery changed again, this time to Jacob F. Kuhn & Sons, though how many sons is unknown. In 1891, the name was changed one last time, to the Gambrinus Brewing Co., which it remained until it closed for good in 1904. Eleven years later, Jacob Kohn passed at age 84.

And here’s his obituary from the Buffalo Time on April 16, 1915:

And here’s one more obituary, though it’s a little harder to read:

The brewery around 1900, after they’d changed its name to Gambrinus Brewing.

Beer In Ads #5242: Tell Your Paw To Ask Hochgreves To Send A Case Of Their Bock Beer

May 5, 2026 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Tuesday’s very odd ad is for Hochgreves Bock Beer, which was published on May 5, 1905. This ad was for the Hochgreve Brewing Co. of Green Bay, Wisconsin, which was originally founded in 1857 as the Bellevue Brewery by August Hochgreve and Henry Rahr. This ad ran in The Green Bay Press Gazette, also of Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Historic Beer Birthday: Louis von Schwanenfluegel

May 5, 2026 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Louis von Schwanenfluegel (May 6, 1848-?). He was trained as a brewer at his father’s brewery, worked at a malt house, and became the manager of Schmitt & Schwanenfluegel Brewery, which was in New York City, near Central Park at 1065 Avenue A, between 56th & 57th.

This account is from “100 Years of Brewing:”

The brewery was originally known as the Henry Elias Brewery, who founded it near 15th Street & Broadway in 1855. Elias, in 1865, partnered with George Schmitt, this George’s father, and became known as Henry Elias & George Schmitt Brewery, a.k.a. the Central Park Brewery (and was readdressed to 1065 Avenue A, between 56th & 57th). In 1868, Schmitt partnered with Christian Koehne to keep it going and it became the Schmitt & Christian Koehne Brewery. Then in 1885, Koehne left and Louis Von Schwanenfluegel came to the business and it became known as Schmitt & Schwanenfluegel Brewery, which it remained until it closed in 1906. During that time it was also known as Consumers Park Brewing Co. and also Central Park Brewery.

According to 100 Years of Brewing, the chronology is slightly different:

Extra-Bohemian-Beer-Foam-Scrapers-Schmitt-and-Schwanenfluegel

Beer Birthday: Bill Covaleski

May 5, 2026 By Jay Brooks 2 Comments

Today is the 63rd birthday of Bill Covaleski, a co-founder of Victory Brewing Co., along with his childhood friend Ron Barchet. I first met Bill at the brewery doing an article on Pennsylvania breweries for the Celebrator over a decade ago. It’s been great seeing his brewery rack up victory after victory as they’ve grown and become one of Pennsylvania’s best, biggest and brightest. Join me in wishing Bill a very happy birthday.